Service
The ship's regular route was between Liverpool and Valparaíso in Chile via Bermuda, the Caribbean and the Panama Canal.[4]
In 1933, the architecture faculty of the Universidad de Chile took a student tour aboard this boat, the trip was to the city in northern Chile, Antofagasta. On that trip, an idea arose among the university students to create a hymn that represented them and that is when Julio Cordero Vallejos began to create a melody on the piano and sang a phrase that would become a legend to this day: "Ser un romántico viajero".[5] It would be just the beginning of what is now the official anthem of the Club Universidad de Chile, an anthem which is sung in the stadiums every time the club plays its soccer matches.
In November 1937 a former UK Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, died aboard her at the age of 71 while on holiday.[6] In 1939, a British expedition to the Central Andes in Peru shipped to South America with the MV Reina del Pacifico.[7]
In the Second World War she was requisitioned to be a troop ship. Many of her passenger fittings were removed and stored in Bootle.
In December 1939 she took 1,455 troops[8] of the First Canadian Division from Halifax, Nova Scotia to the Firth of Clyde. The ship took part in the landings in North Africa, Sicily and Normandy.[6] On 28 January 1945 the ship sailed from Liverpool[9] to Ceylon with Royal Navy personnel destined for the Far East theatre of war. She reached Colombo on 21 February.
In either September 1946 or January 1947[6] the Ministry of Transport returned the ship to her owners, who had Harland and Wolff refit her in Belfast for civilian service. Her original passenger fittings, stored in Bootle, had been destroyed in an air raid. Refitting her with new fittings took a year.
On sea trials on 11 September 1947 she suffered a serious crankcase explosion in her engine room off the Copeland Islands in the North Channel. The explosion caused the death of 28 members of her crew, Harland and Wolff staff and Pacific Steam's technical staff. Repairing the damage and rectifying the problem took a further year. She finally resumed her Liverpool – Valparaíso route in October 1948.[6]
On 8 July 1957 the ship ran aground 5½ miles (9km) north of Ireland Island, Bermuda.[10] She was refloated three days later, on 11 July.[11]
A new Pacific Steam liner for the route, SS Reina del Mar (1955), was launched in 1955 and completed in 1956. On 27 April 1958 Reina del Pacifico reached Liverpool at the end of her final passenger voyage before being withdrawn from service. She was scrapped by John Cashmore Ltd at Newport, Wales, starting on 11 May.[4]
Reina del Pacifico's bell is preserved in the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead. The ornate wood panelling from her Cigar Lounge forms part of the interior of The Cornmarket public house in Liverpool.
