page_title: RMS Olympic
section_title: Post-war
hierarchical_section_title: RMS Olympic / Career / Post-war
caption_attribution_description: Cover of Passenger List (First Class) for the White Star Line steamer RMS "Olympic" for April 28, 1923 voyage from New York to Southampton.
context_page_description: RMS Olympic was a British ocean liner and the lead ship of the White Star Line's trio of Olympic-class liners. Unlike the other ships in the class, Olympic had a long career spanning 24 years from 1911 to 1935. This included service as a troopship during the First World War, which gained her the nickname "Old Reliable". She returned to civilian service after the war, and served successfully as an ocean liner throughout the 1920s and into the first half of the 1930s, although increased competition, and the slump in trade during the Great Depression after 1930, made her operation increasingly unprofitable.
  Olympic was the largest ocean liner in the world for two periods during 1911–13, interrupted only by the brief tenure of the slightly larger Titanic, before she was then surpassed by SS Imperator. Olympic also retained the title of the largest British-built liner until RMS Queen Mary was launched in 1934, interrupted only by the short careers of her slightly larger sister ships.
  The Olympic was withdrawn from service and sold for scrap in 1935; demolition was completed in 1937.
context_section_description: In August 1919 Olympic returned to Belfast for restoration to civilian service. The interiors were modernised and the boilers were converted to oil firing rather than coal burning. This modification would reduce the refuelling time from days to hours; it also gave a steadier engine R.P.M and allowed the engine room personnel to be reduced from 350 to 60 people. During the conversion work and drydocking, a dent with a crack at the centre was discovered below her waterline which was later concluded to have been caused by a torpedo that had failed to detonate. The historian Mark Chirnside concluded that the faulty torpedo had been fired by the U-boat SM U-53 on 4 September 1918, while the Olympic was in the English Channel.
  Olympic emerged from refit with an increased tonnage of 46,439, allowing her to retain her claim to the title of largest British built liner afloat, although the Cunard Line's Aquitania was slightly longer. In 1920 she returned to passenger service, on one voyage that year carrying 2,249 passengers. Olympic transported a record 38,000 passengers during 1921, which proved to be the peak year of her career. With the loss of the Titanic and Britannic, Olympic initially lacked any suitable running mates for the express service; however, in 1922 White Star obtained two former German liners, Majestic and Homeric, which had been ceded to Britain as war reparations, these joined Olympic as running mates, operating successfully until the Great Depression reduced demand after 1930.
  During the 1920s, Olympic remained a popular and fashionable ship, and often attracted the rich and famous of the day; Marie Curie, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, and Prince Edward, then Prince of Wales, were among the celebrities that she carried. Prince Edward and Captain Howarth were filmed on the bridge of Olympic for Pathé News. According to his autobiography, Cary Grant, then 16 year old Archibald Leach, first set sail to New York on Olympic on 21 July 1920 on the same voyage on which Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were celebrating their honeymoon. One of the attractions of Olympic was the fact that she was nearly identical to Titanic, and many passengers sailed on Olympic as a way of vicariously experiencing the voyage of Olympic's sister ship.
  On 22 March 1924, Olympic was involved in another collision with a ship, this time at New York. As Olympic was reversing from her berth at New York harbour, her stern collided with the smaller liner Fort St George, which had crossed into her path. The collision caused extensive damage to the smaller ship. At first it appeared that Olympic had sustained only minor damage, but it was later revealed that her sternpost had been fractured, necessitating the replacement of her entire stern frame.
  Changes in immigration laws in the United States in the 1920s greatly restricted the number of immigrants allowed to enter. The law limited the number of immigrants to about 160,000 per year in 1924. This led to a major reduction in the immigrant trade for the shipping lines, forcing them to cater to the tourist trade to survive. At the turn of 1927–28, Olympic was converted to carry tourist third cabin passengers as well as first, second and third class. Tourist third cabin was an attempt to attract travellers who desired comfort without the accompanying high ticket price. New public rooms were constructed for this class, although tourist third cabin and second class would merge to become 'tourist' by late 1931.
  A year later, Olympic's first-class cabins were again improved by adding more bathrooms, a dance floor was fitted in the enlarged first-class dining saloon, and a number of new suites with private facilities were installed forward on B deck. More improvements would follow in a later refit, but 1929 saw Olympic's best average passenger lists since 1925.
  On 18 November 1929, as Olympic was travelling westbound near to Titanic's last known position, the ship suddenly started to vibrate violently, and the vibrations continued for two minutes. It was later determined that
caption: RMS Olympic First Class passenger list cover, 1923.
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