Builders: Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Co Ltd 1935
Propulsion type: Paddle, triple expansion
Owners: Caledonian Steam Packet Co Ltd
Service dates: 1935 - 1955
Tonnage: Net 146 Gross 427
Comments:
Marchioness of Lorne was the second paddler to bear the name, the former ship being out of commission by 1922. The new steamer was a small paddler, designed to replace the Marchioness of Breadalbane on the all year sailings between Greenock, Gourock, Kilcreggan, Cove, Blairmore and the Holy Loch piers. She was not a fast ship and although she was said to have achieved 15 knots on her trials her service speed was only 12 knots. She was similar in design to Mercury and Caledonia and had concealed paddle boxes (always a shame, to my mind) and no upper deck. During the Second World War she was the only LMS controlled paddler to remain in service. Her colours during her peacetime career were a yellow, black topped funnel, white deckhouses and saloons, silver ventilators (blue inside) and a black hull with two gold lines and a broad white waterline. In 1948 she received an enclosed wooden wheelhouse. She was laid up in 1954, in the Albert Harbour Greenock and was broken up at Smith and Houston's yard in Port Glasgow in 1955, after less than twenty years service.