Atlantic Transport Line

The line was developed with the support of the railway in 1881 as an offshoot of the Baltimore Storage and Lighterage Company , a company of Bernard N. Baker. Being an American property, the Atlantic Transport Line was operated from the UK, and the ships were registered and staffed in the UK, most of which were built in the UK. General cargo, livestock and a small number of passengers were transported to British ports and the line received an excellent reputation for the sea transportation of valuable horses. Full-scale weekly passenger traffic between New York and London began in 1892 and today the line is best remembered for its exclusively first class passenger-cargo service on the direct line London - New York from 1900 to 1915, when its four steams operated in this direction Minne class:

• SS Minneapolis
• SS Minnehaha
• SS "Minnetonka"
• SS "Minnewaska" .

In 1898, the U.S. government bought seven out of ten Lines ships for use as military vehicles in the Spanish-American War (Baker lent another one for use as a hospital court). The line survived this potentially crushing blow because Baker made a sensational deal and bought five brand new ships from his British rivals almost immediately as a replacement. The Atlantic Transport Company in West Virginia was formed at this time to defend American ownership of the Line’s overseas assets. Baker's attempt to sell the line to British owners in the late 1890s triggered a chain of events that led to the formation of the International Mercantile Marine Company .

All the most important ships of the Line were sunk during the First World War . After the war, four major replacements were planned for Minne class ships. However, only two of them were built, and the passenger service, which resumed in 1923, was never able to achieve pre-war successes. With the decline in first-class travel requests, Atlantic Transport Company introduced a tourist third class for ships in 1925 and used the second class for two seasons. But the line became unstable even before the Stock Market crash (Wall Street crash) of 1929 and with the recession of 1931, the last ships were temporarily disabled or transferred to other lines of the International Mercantile Marine Company and this practically ceased the existence of the Atlantic Transport Line. The surviving American holding company lasted until 1936 . SS Minnewaska was the last vessel operated by Atlantic Transport Line.

• The Atlantic Transport Line, 1881-1931
• Passenger Lists of the Atlantic Transport Line