Of all the steam-propelled passenger ships plying the North Atlantic shipping routes from the turn of the century to the jet age, the Queen Mary and her sister ship the Queen Elisabeth were the biggest ever luxury steamships in the world. Due to her tremendous length of 310 m, the model was only constructed on a scale of 1:100; if the usual scale of 1:25 had been taken the Queen Mary would be an incredible 12.40 m long. In 1940 she was reed to be a troop carrier, crossing the Atlantic 86 times with up to 16,000 soldiers on board. All German U-boat captains hunted for the celebrated Queen Mary throughout the war but with a top speed of over 30 knots she was much quicker than any U-Boat and survived the war unscathed. After the Second World War she returned to civilian duty and experienced the great waves of emigration, but overseas maritime travel was replaced by jet planes. Sold in 1967, the “Queen Mary” crossed the Atlantic for the last time and is now a hotel and museum ship in Long Beach.
