The ocean liner RMS Empress of India arrives in Burrard Inlet from Yokohama, Japan to open regular service to Asia after setting a new speed record for crossing the Pacific by two days. She was one of three steamships dubbed the “white empresses,” including the Empress of China and the Empress of Japan, built in England for the Canadian Pacific Railway. The first CP train had pulled into Vancouver four years earlier, and the railway company had signed an agreement with the British government to deliver mail to Hong Kong via Canada.
The 140-metre-long ship left England on Feb. 8 and sailed to Vancouver via the Suez Canal and Indian Ocean. After departing from Japan, she crossed the ocean in a record time of 11 days, seven hours and 27 minutes.
The Empress of India plied the Pacific for 23 years before being sold to the Maharajah of Gwalior and turned into a hospital ship for Indian troops during the First World War. She was sold for scrap in Bombay in 1923.
