paddlesteamers.info : The Internet's leading website for
Side-Wheeled Paddle Steamers
Firth
of Clyde,
Scotland
David
Hutcheson & Co, later David MacBrayne
Ltd
David
Hutcheson had been an employee of the Kidd shipping agents in Glasgow
and moved to J&G Burns when the company closed and the latter
took over its business. Thirty years later, having been manager of
Burns' west highland services, he became owner of this part of
the Burns business when they sold out in 1851.
David
MacBrayne
was one of three partners in David Hutcheson's company and was the owner's nephew. He
eventually
took exclusive control in 1879 after the retirement of David
Hutcheson in 1876 and Alexander Hutcheson in 1878. MacBrayne died in
1907, aged 92, having worked up until the previous year, by which
time the operation had become David MacBrayne Ltd. It was
reconstructed in 1928 as David MacBrayne (1928) Ltd, owned jointly by
Coast Lines Ltd and the LMS railway. As David MacBrayne Ltd from
1934, 50 percent remained with the private Coast Lines Ltd until it
was purchased by the Scottish Transport Group in 1969 and on January
1, 1973 was merged with STG's other subsisiary, the Caledonian Steam
Packet Company to form Caledonian - MacBrayne.
Although
MacBrayne's territory
was the Western Isles with Oban as base, a regular service was
run from Glasgow (later Gourock) to Tarbert and Ardrishaig on Loch
Fyne for delivering mail and passengers for onward connections to the
Western Isles. Marketed since the 19th century as the "Royal Route"
with reference to an earlier visit to the area by Queen Victoria,
MacBraynes ran two well-known, well-loved and long-lived paddle
steamers
(Iona and Columba) on the Clyde until they were replaced by turbine
steamer Saint Columba, the former Clyde excursion steamer Queen
Alexandra, taken over
from Williamson. The service was latterly in the hands of the
diesel-electric vessel Lochfyne and ceased at the end of the 1969 season
Regular Summer
Vessels
PS Iona
PS Columba
Turbine Steamer : Saint Columba
Winter and Main Relief Vessels
PS
Mountaineer
Turbine Steamer : King George V
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Clyde
Clyde Steamers of the 1930s
Hutcheson / MacBrayne -
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Clyde
Turbine Steamers
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