Olympic-Titanic Class Ships.

Olympic and Titanic, as seen together in the Belfast Gantry

The RMS Olympic and The RMS Titanic, in the Harland and Wolff gantry in Belfast Ireland.

One night, in the latter part of 1907, two men J Bruce Ismay ( Chairman of Whitestar line ) and Lord Pirie ( Chairman of Harland and Wolff -- ship builders ) got together for dinner and drinks. Their topic of conversation over the course of the evening was to do with the Cunard lines Mauritania and Lucitania's record breaking crossings of the North Atlantic run -- South Hampton to New York.

They talked about building a new class of ship, that would be much bigger, and a lot more luxurious, than what the smaller Cunards were offering. By the end of the night, they had already drawn up plans, for the new class of ship, that was to become, the Olympic Titanic class of ship.

The HMHS Britannic. Hospital ship during WW1.

The Olympic-Titanic class ships, would not be designed for speed. They would be designed for luxery.Third class on these ships, was like nothing a third class passenger had ever experienced. The rooms were a little bigger than the standard size rooms for a third class passage. Of course first class had only finest in everything. Wonderful French restaurants, serving only the finest in French cuisine. Wonderful and much larger first class state rooms. 24k gold linning everywhere, and some of the worlds finest arts.
These ships designed to be just over 46,000 tons gross, would be the largest ever. Whitestar line was looking more at, getting more people to travel with them, rather than speed. This of course worked, later, by the popularity of the RMS Olympic, during her service with the Whitestar line. She would become one of the most popular ships of that era.

The Ships!

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