1,014 grt; 280 dwt; 1,820 passengers.
Operator: Caledonian MacBrayne Holdings Ltd, Glasgow, Scotland.
Built: 1933 by Wm Denny & Bros Ltd, Dumbarton, Scotland. Yard no. 1262.
Propulsion: triple-screw with three, direct-drive, Parsons steam turbines of 3,800 shp (total). Speed: 16 knots.
Built for Williamson Buchanan Steamers Ltd, Glasgow as QUEEN MARY.
1935-ownership of Williamson Buchanan fleet passed to the London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS). Registered owner of QUEEN MARY became Williamson-Buchanan (1936) Ltd.
1935-renamed QUEEN MARY II at the request of Cunard White Star Line, to release the name for the new liner QUEEN MARY building at John Brown’s Clydebank shipyard.
1948-ownership passed to newly nationalised British Railways, under the banner of their Caledonian Steam Packet Company.
1957-reboilered and twin funnels replaced with one larger one.
1970-ownership passed to Scottish Transport Group and in 1973 to Caledonian MacBrayne.
1976-renamed QUEEN MARY
1977-withdrawn from service and sold for conversion to a moored restaurant ship on the Thames in Central London. Propulsion machinery removed.
2009-sold to a French businessman, Samuel Boudon, who hoped to establish her as a hotel and fitness centre La Rochelle, France but the project fell through.
2011-ship auctioned. No buyers.
2015-puchased by charitable organisation the Friends of TS Queen Mary, led by Scottish actor Robbie Coltraine.
2016-(11th May) left Tilbury under tow for Glasgow where the intention is to restore her as a floating tourist and educational attraction next to Glasgow’s Riverside Museum.
Photographed at Rothesay, Isle of Bute, Scotland in July 1976