Early in this century the P&O line was very interested in obtaining a share of the England-Australia traffic via the Cape of Good Hope. Several vessels had been diverted from the traditional Suez routes but the efforts were erratic, piecemeal and were doomed to failure. In 1910 an opportunity was presented to enter this trade with more prospects of success. One of the established traders, the Lund Blue Anchor Line suffered a tragedy. The Waratah, their newest and largest steamer disappeared without trace on the outbound voyage from Australia. The Lund family lost interest in ship owning and began looking for a buyer. The operation ideally suited P&O's needs. The remaining Blue Anchor fleet was purchased and re-named the P&O Branch Service.

The fleet inherited by P&O was old and run-down and could not effectively compete with White Star and the Aberdeen Line services. P&O decided to construct five new ships, the first, Ballarat (2) was delivered in 1911, all by 1914. The ships offered a one class service and quickly became highly competitive.

In 1914 the British government did not consider the service via the Cape of Good Hope to be essential, thus the Branch Service ships could be requisitioned for war service. The class saw extensive service in WWI. Ballarat was torpedoed and sunk in 1917. Berrima was also torpedoed but was beached and subsequently repaired. In the early post-war years P&O decided to upgrade the Branch Service fleet again and ordered five new ships, two delivered in 1921 and the other three in 1923. Ballarat (3), the subject of this plan, was the first of this new class.

All five ships were externally identical in appearance although there were small differences and the tonnages varied slightly. Ballarat was built by Harland & Wolff, Greenock, Scotland. Power was by Triple expansion steam with twin screws. Her maximum speed was 13.5 knots and she carried 490 third class passengers (alternately 700 in steerage but not done in practice). Third class, also called "cabin" class, was a reasonable level of comfort, not the palatial levels seen on the crack mail liners, but acceptable. This type of vessel was termed "Intermediate" or "mixed" with equal space devoted to passengers and to cargo. Dimensions were L.537' (OA) x W.64.3'(molded).

Unfortunately P&O's optimism was misplaced. The downturn in passenger traffic in the 1920's forced Aberdeen, White Star and the Blue Funnel Line to combine in offering joint services. P&O found it difficult to compete. They carried on at a loss until late 1929 when all five vessels were diverted to the Suez routes. The result was a surplus of tonnage and the Ballarat went to the ship breakers in 1935 after only 13 years of service. By the end of 1936 all five had been scrapped. Three years later all were probably sorely missed as they would have made good troop carriers. Economic hard times had blighted their potential futures.

COLORS: Hull, black with a thin white band the sheer line half way between the two rows of port holes. Red waterline.
Upper works, Brown, (mid-stone color), including ventilators, kingposts, booms and life boats. Life boats had dark brown canvas covers. Ventilator mouths were red. Funnel and masts were black.
Steel decks were dark gray. Wood decks were unpainted.

1/700 Scale Drawings

Side Profile	Deck Plans

Drawings - Not to Scale

Bridge	Boat Davits

This article originally appeared in Plastic Ship Modeler 1994/1 and is reprinted here with the permission of the author and editor.