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This rare promotional film for the RMS Transvaal Castle dates to the 1960s, and shows the ship on its way to South Africa from Southampton. RMS Transvaal Castle was a British ocean liner built by John Brown & Company at Clydebank for the UnionCastle Line for their mail service between Southampton and Durban. In 1966 she was sold to the South Africabased Safmarine and renamed S.A. Vaal for further service on the same route. Following cessation of the service between the UK and South Africa in 1977 the ship was sold to Carnival Cruise Lines and rebuilt in Japan as the cruise ship SS Festivale, reentering service in 1978. In 1996 she was sold to Dolphin Cruise Line and renamed IslandBreeze. The vessel spent some of her time under Dolphin Cruise Line ownership on charter to Thomson Cruises. In 1998 the ship was sold to Premier Cruise Line and renamed SS Big Red Boat III. Following the bankruptcy of Premier Cruise Line 2000, Big Red Boat III was laid up until 2003 when she was sold to the scrappers in Alang, India. The ship became The Big Red Boat for her final voyage to the scrapyard.

RMS Transvaal Castle was the last in a series of three ships planned by the UnionCastle Line in the 1950s as replacements for the company's oldest ships RMS Arundel Castle, RMS Carnarvon Castle and RMS Winchester Castle. Transvaal Castle was similar to but smaller than Windsor Castle, built by Cammell, Laird & Co. the previous year. At 32,697 GRT, she was the company's secondlargest ship.

Transvaal Castle was launched at Clydebank on 17 January 1961 by Lady Cayzer, wife of the chairman of British & Commonwealth Shipping, and delivered to UnionCastle on 16 December 1961. Like Windsor Castle, she was fully air conditioned and was one of the first British built passenger ships to have a bulbous bow. However, the major difference between the new ship and her fleetmates was that she was conceived as an experimental "hotel" ship, with all passenger accommodation in one class rather than the first and tourist split of the other mail ships. A further innovation was the use of female waiting staff, known as "stewardettes". These were later to be a feature of the other ships in the mail fleet, but the one class concept was restricted to this one ship, the others remaining two class to the end of their service.

Transvaal Castle set out on her maiden voyage from Southampton to Durban on 18 January 1962. In July 1965, the mail service was accelerated with the SouthamptonCape Town voyage cut from 13½ days to 11½ days. The previous departure from Southampton at 4 PM on Thursday, every week was altered to 1 PM every Friday.

The UnionCastle/Safmarine joint mailship service declined heavily during the 1970s. This was due to a combination of adverse economic factors including the loss of earnings from high value cargoes, which were increasingly being carried in the more efficient, revolutionary new container ships. With the large increase in oil prices in 1973, the mail ship schedule was extended by one day to allow more economical steaming. After Pendennis Castle was withdrawn in June 1976 just two mailships remained on the route UnionCastle's Windsor Castle and Safmarine's S.A. Vaal in addition to UnionCastle's last cargo/passenger vessels RMMV Good Hope Castle and RMMV Southampton Castle (carrying just 12 passengers each) and other chartered cargoonly tonnage. The jointly owned passenger liner service ceased completely in October 1977, with the S.A. Vaal being the last to arrive in Southampton on 10 October 1977.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com