Titanic II: A High Priced Nightmare?

RMS Titanic departing Southampton on April 10, 1912.
RMS Titanic departing Southampton on April 10, 1912.
Photo: Public domain

Michael Madigan writing for Australia’s Courier Mail wonders whether Titanic II will be a luxury cruise or a high priced nightmare. As currently planned, Titanic II will (except for modern safety features and other things)be faithful to the design of the original ship. That means first, second, and third class will be fitted out as they were on the original Titanic. Madigan notes that means being accurate for the wealthy and poor. It also means an opulence no longer seen on modern day cruise ships.

Can mahogany lined ships make money? Likewise will people want to pay money to sleep in cramped third class quarters as they did back in 1912 with sharing bathrooms with fellow third class travelers? Apparently Palmer is so intent on creating the Titanic experience that they are using training manuals from the period to train silver service waiters. It likely means that men and women will have to dress up for dinners as they did back in 1912 and retire afterwards to separate areas. Third class passengers probably do not have to dress up but will get more simple fare. Even breakfast on Titanic was grand by today’s standards.

Madigan really has no idea, and really no one does, whether or not Titanic II will make money. It will certainly draw a lot of wealth for its initial voyage but since money has shifted away from London and New York since 1912, I speculate Titanic II will be marketed to Chinese, wealthy Arabs, Hollywood and political celebrities. Ordinary folks will likely have to stick with cruise ship trips to Mexico, Hawaii, or Alaska.

Source: Will Clive Palmer’s Titanic Ii Be A Luxury Cruise Or Titanic-Sized Nightmare?(13 Jan 2014, The Courier Mail)

Albion House Update:Construction Begins On Rooftop Bar Named For Titanic Rescue Ship

Photo:public domain
Photo:public domain

The Liverpool Echo reports that construction has begun on the rooftop champagne bar on top of the former Liverpool home of White Star Line. The bar will be called Carpathia Champagne Bar & Restaurant. According to the Echo “guests will have breath-taking views along The Strand, overlooking Albert Dock , Canning Dock and the Pier Head’s Three Graces.” Albion House is undergoing a major transformation of the structure that had been derelict for a decade. This transformation includes turning it into a apartment-hotel but the crown jewel will be the Carpathia bar.

Aimed at the weddings market, the first two floors will have a specific Titanic theme including the First Class Lounge. Other floors will be decorated with White Star Line motifs and names. The lower ground floor rooms will be styled as cabins. A swimming pool is being inserted into the basement and the building’s original water tank will be converted into a whirlpool bath. The boardroom in which many White Star ships were conceived, including Titanic, will become a suite’s sitting room.

Sounds great but better bring a credit card with a large credit line. I doubt this place will come cheap for weddings-or for eating at the restaurant.

Source: Liverpool’s First Rooftop Champagne Bar Set To Offer Breathtaking Views Over City(10 Jan 2014,Liverpool Echo)

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Titanic News: Exhibits Coming To Toledo & Israel;Titanic II Update;Faulty Rivets and a Kosher Butcher

1. The Blade reports that Titanic:The Artifact Exhibition will be coming to Imagination Station on 15 Feb and runs till 15 June 2014. A number of special events are planned including a visit by Molly Brown’s great-grandaughter Helen Benziger. For information and tickets, go to imaginationstationtoledo.org.
Source: Titanic Display To Dock In Downtown Toledo(7 Jan 2014,The Blade)

2. Shalom Life reports a deal has been struck to bring Titanic artifacts to Israel Trade Fairs Center in Tel Aviv for about three months. Further details as to the date of the exhibition has not yet been disclosed.
Source:The Titanic Sets Sail for Tel Aviv(27 Dec 2013,Shalom Life)

3. Cruise Ship News reports that if all goes on schedule, the keel will be laid for Titanic II in March. So far it has all been model testing and using various companies that will contribute to its construction and outfitting.
Source: Titanic 2 Ship Progress Leap In March(6 Jan 2014,Cruise Ship News)

4. Willamette Week has an interview with Jennifer Hooper McCarty, a metallurgist who helped study 48 rivets pulled from Titanic. In her book What Really Sank the Titanic, her findings were that some rivets contained poor quality iron. These rivets in the bow and stern had excessive slag contributing to weak regions. However this was not detectable during normal safety checks but later resulted in rivet failure.
Source:Voices 2014: Faulty Rivets Sunk the Titanic:Jennifer Hooper McCarty, metallurgist
(31 Dec 2013,Willamette Week)

5. The Coventry Telegraph reports that the last living contact with J. Bruce Ismay passed away at age 100. Agnes Thwaite worked as a cook and kitchen maid at the household of Bruce Ismay in London. Despite the public perception of Ismay, she recalled he was kind and generous to his staff.
Coventry Woman Who Worked For Builder Of The Titanic Dies (31 Dec 2013,Coventry Telegraph)

6.Haaretz reports that the Kosher butcher shop that supplied Titanic will be preserved thanks to funding from late Jewish philanthropist Sir Isaac Wolfson. The iconic green-tiled Galkoff’s had been designated for demolition and building a new research wing for Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
Source: Iconic Kosher Butcher Shop That Supplied Titanic To Be Preserved(30 Dec 2013,Haaretz)

An interview with Rob Galkoff about the history of the butcher shop can be viewed at YouTube.

Update:SamTrans Changes To 140,141 and Others Coming 26 Jan

[Off topic but important info for those who live in, near, or around San Bruno,CA]

Well it is a New Year and time for SamTrans to implement changes to routes on 26 Jan. Some changes are going to be major while others are tweaks to service.

140
Sam Trans busThe 140 will begin servicing the AirTrain station (near the car rental area) at SFO and it means altering the entire schedule to make this possible. Just about the entire schedule has been changed except for the school bus trips in the morning and afternoon to Parkside Intermediate. However to make the route streamlined for the airport run, service on San Bruno Avenue between Huntington and El Camino Real is being dropped. That means the eastbound stop by the Wash N’Dry and the westbound stop by the Green Valley Market are going away. The 140 will turn left on El Camino after the stop on San Bruno (west side) and El Camino. There is an ECR stop on El Camino at the gas station which the 140 will stop for people wanting to get off there. The 140 will turn right at Sneath and El Camino to San Bruno BART and after dropping off passengers there, heads off to the AirTrain station. For those wanting to use Caltrain when that station opens, both eastbound and westbound buses to/from AirTrain stop nearby. Eastbound the closest stop is at Chuy’s deli. Hopefully they will move this further south since you nearly always get off right in front of parked cars. The westbound stop does not have that problem but could be moved further south to be closer to the station (not that far away right now but pulling it back would make it more convenient)

A major change is also the start times of most routes. Currently westbound buses from San Bruno BART leave at 20 after the hour outside of commute hours. That changes to 41 minutes after the hour for most runs since the run starts earlier at AirTrain. Most eastbound runs will start earlier with some exceptions so check the schedule because it is likely your favorite bus time has changed. On weekends both east and westbound runs start on the hour from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The last bus in both directions on weekdays is 11:00 p.m.

You can view the new schedule here.

141
I think they cannot make up their mind about this route at SamTrans. First they wanted to eliminate San Mateo Ave and 3rd Street along with dropping most of Jenevein and running the bus more on San Bruno Ave. Then that changed and then they were going to keep San Mateo Ave (going all the way to BART) and Jenevein and drop the crossover to Angus & Third except for school runs. The current description of the change is “Realign route via San Bruno Avenue to improve direct service to San Bruno BART; only serve San Mateo Avenue on select trips. ” However the map you bring up for the new schedule shows something different. What is dropped is the Angus crossover and the bus will go to San Bruno BART via San Mateo Avenue to Huntington. Unless there is a correction made, this is the final schedule for the 141 beginning 26 Jan. If you take this frequently, be sure to check the schedule as many times of bus runs have changed.

ECR
Once again San Bruno BART is being serviced by an El Camino bus. Previously the 391 had done this but was discontinued when the ECR was implemented for weekday runs. Beginning 26 Jan, the ECR now will go into San Bruno BART. Because the ECR consolidated two bus routes, it now runs more frequently than either the old 390/391. You can view the new ECR schedule here. The downside is that Millbrae BART has been downgraded to stops on El Camino rather than going into the transit area.

398
This limited route will run between Redwood City Transit Center (where Caltrain stops) and San Bruno BART via SFO daily and on weekends. You can view the schedule here.

Other important route changes/modifications:

123-Eliminated. This route went from Colma BART to Skyline. The 121 services Colma BART so students and others going to Skyline can catch it. Eliminated because it was redundant.

133-As of 26 Jan, this route will no longer serve Serramonte and drops service on Huntington between Spruce and Sneath. This bus will run from San Bruno BART via El Camino Real and Spruce to Airport/Linden. People wanting to go to Serramonte from San Bruno BART can transfer to 131 at Airport/Linden.

Source:SamTrans

Epiphany Sunday

Wise Men Adoration(Bartolomé Esteban Murillo) Photo: Public Domain (This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1923.)
Wise Men Adoration(Bartolomé Esteban Murillo)
Photo: Public Domain

Epiphany Day occurs on 6 January and marks the end of the Christmas season except for Orthodox Christians who follow the Julian calendar. In England it is celebrated as the Twelfth Night (remember the song the Twelve Days of Christmas?). Many cultures celebrate it with special foods and it is considered unlucky by many to leave Christmas decorations up after the Epiphany. The Roman Catholic Church celebrates it on 6 Jan but not as a day of obligation. Usually it is celebrated in a Sunday mass that falls before or just after the date (2-8 January).

The Titanic Mystery Files: The Case of Loraine Allison/Helen Loriane Kramer

MysteryLoraine Allison was the only first class child to perish when Titanic sank in 1912. Her parents, Hudson and Bessie, died in the frantic search for baby Trevor. Trevor had been taken by the maid, Alice Cleaver, and both her and the baby survived the sinking. That normally would end the tale except that in 1940 a woman by the name of Mrs. Lawrence Kramer of Berkley, Michigan claimed to be Loraine Allison. Needless to say, this caused a stir in the Allison family who long thought she was dead.

According to the Chicago Tribune (5 Sep 1940), Mrs. Kramer notified the U.S. Department of Justice that she had just learned her real name was Loraine Allison and had been rescued by an Englishman named Hyde. Supposedly this Hyde sent her a letter detailing that he had gotten her from the arms of her father that fateful night. Hyde recounted her father said his wife and baby were on another lifeboat. He then went on to say later he learned neither of her parents survived and so raised as his own daughter in England. Mrs. Kramer would also make the claim that while aboard the rescue ship Carpathia she shared a room with Titanic designer Thomas Andrews.

Kramer hired a lawyer to investigate her claim, obtain her birth certificate, and other needed papers. Members of the Allison family were soon in contact with her. Sadly young Trevor, who had survived Titanic, died in 1929 of ptomaine poisoning. Then her attorney suddenly died and when asked about the papers that proved her claim, Kramer said they had been destroyed in a fire. Her claim ended and Kramer was not heard from again. Then her granddaughter alleged she had found a suitcase full of documents that supported the original claim. This suitcase allegedly contains all the documents her grandmother had amassed thanks to her attorney and others. This is apparently to be revealed in an upcoming book.

Kramer’s claim back in 1940 was sensational. And like an extraordinary claims, you need extraordinary proof. We know that Trevor survived because Alice Cleaver took him and got on a lifeboat. The Allisons would not leave Titanic until they found the baby. Mrs. Allison did get on a lifeboat with Loraine at one point but got off to race to the other side because she was told her husband was seen there. All three perished when Titanic sank. Only the body of the father, Hudson Allison, was found and buried at the family plot in Canada. Even more sensational was the claim Thomas Andrews survived and returned to England managing to avoid detection by anyone, and becoming Loraine’s adopted father of sorts by bringing her back with him.

A description of Loraine Kramer says she was “a 31 year old woman, former registered nurse and married with 5 children, living in a nice suburb of Detroit, Michigan as Evangeline Kramer, who wanted to go across the river to Windsor, Ontario, Canada to shop.” This would imply someone stable and not prone to fantasy. A high school friend said that in their teens they formed a sunshine club. The Milwaukee Journal (6 Sep 1940) had some interesting information about Hyde. Hyde had brought his 3 year old daughter and lost her in the confusion (she perished) and ended up caring for Lorraine in the end never informing proper authorities he had Loraine Allison. The paper also relates that Lorraine would also be in line for a considerable sum of money from the Allison fortune.

That would be a motive for trying to make such a fantastical claim. However those trying to make such claims generally try to keep it simple and with just enough proof to make it plausible. No doubt the Allisons, if they had good sense, hired their own attorneys to verify her claim. Kramer just had to prove she was Bessie and Hudson Allison’s daughter by producing proof from this Mr. Hyde who raised her about the story she related to the justice department and press. I suspect both the Allison’s and energetic journalists on both sides of the pond tried to locate this Mr. Hyde, who apparently was alive in 1940. Of course Britain was at war with Germany at the time making things more difficult due to wartime restrictions. According to a recent news article in the Chesterville Record (2 May 2012), he is identified as James Hyde and a traveling geologist. He put her in British boarding schools and rarely visited the girl.

The other possibility is that Kramer made it all up as part of a fantasy. It would not be the first or last time someone has believed they are someone they are not. Consider the case of Anastasia, the daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. The Soviets had the family killed in 1918. Stories of her possible survival circulated and several women claimed to be Anastasia, the most famous of which was Anna Anderson. However the remains of the executed royal family was revealed in 1991 which had the remains of the Tsar, wife and three daughters. In 2007 the body of the son and a daughter (either Anastasia or Maria) were found. DNA testing on Anderson’s remaining tissue (she had been cremated) concluded she was not related to Tsar Nicholas or his family.

DNA has now become an important forensic tool to clear up a lot of unsolved crimes and determine paternity in custody suits. And apparently the Allison family decided to do just that using Mitochondrial DNA. Since the main principals are dead, you look for the DNA that is passed down by female line but only the female children pass on this DNA. So one has to look for the proper descendants to test. Once done, you then take a sample of the same DNA passed down through the Kramer line as well. It is somewhat complicated having to determine who is the best candidate but once you have it, you send the DNA samples off to a lab to determine if they are related. And according to the blog Loraine Allison Identification Project the test proved negative. That means Mrs. Lawrence Kramer was not related to the Allisons nor their daughter Loraine.

However this is disputed over at her granddaughters site:
We have also completed our own mtDNA and other separate DNA TESTINGS,
that included much “CLOSER genetic participants” than the
aforementioned opposition complied “TEAM”.

Furthermore, we have always maintained that it is suspiciously, convenient
to many of those on this opposing team’s best interests,TO HAVE
A DETERMINATION of this nature “announced” at this time
in THEIR (so called) FAVOR ….

and we still stand STEADFAST, in our quest and determination to
present the TRUTH to all, disclosed in the volume of documentation
we have so very carefully dedicated ourselves
to compiling, these past two years.

Unfortunately such DNA evidence is very compelling unless you can prove the testing was wrong or the samples used improper. Setting that aside, you have to prove she actually survived the sinking. Checking the list of Titanic survivors is easier these days and can be viewed at places like Encyclopedia Titanica. There is no James Hyde on the list but there is a Leo James Hyland, age 19, who was a steward. Even if James Hyde used an alias and saved Loraine that night, why did he not turn her over to proper authorities? She had family in Canada and a brother (Trevor) who survived. It would have been the right thing to do. Otherwise what he did can be construed as kidnapping since he unlawfully took a child into his custody without any legal right to do so. If the story is true, he dumped her in British boarding schools for most of her young life. Hardly a kind thing to do.

And then there is the Thomas Andrews angle. Kramer claimed he was aboard Carpathia and in her cabin no less. With newspaper reporters swarming the Carpathia in New York, he would be hard to hide. Or did Andrews become James Hyde? Kramer’s fantasy, if that is what it was, was really soaring on this. Again this is just sheer nonsense. No one believes Thomas Andrews survived and became James Hyde. His body was never found and no witnesses in any of the lifeboats state he was there.

What we are left with is this: DNA that says Helen Loriane Kramer was not related to Bessie Allison and thus not her daughter. There is little documentary evidence that has been provided to substantiate Kramer’s claim put in the public record and the DNA results makes the claim unproven.

Hat tip and thanks to Paul Lee.

Sources:
1. Loraine Allison(Encyclopedia Titanica)
2. The Last Titanic Mystery-The True Story of the Helen Loriane Allison
A website run by Kramer’s granddaughter that supports her grandmother’s claim.
3. thingsthatannoymethescum
A blog that looked into some aspects of Kramer’s claims
4. Loraine Allison Identification Project
A rival site of the granddaughter and disclosed the DNA information that testing was negative.
5. Kramer Claim Discussion on Encyclopedia Titanica
Debrina Woods,the granddaughter of Helen Kramer,started a discussion about her grandmother being Lorraine Allison. Some interesting bits of information that cut Kramer’s story to shreds are to be found there.