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Built for a purpose
- Builder / location
- Harland & Wolff, Belfast
- Original role
- White Star Line transatlantic passenger service
- Power and propulsion
- Two triple-expansion steam engines and one low-pressure turbine
Why it was built
Titanic was built for White Star Line’s Southampton–New York passenger service. The British inquiry identifies that intended route. Its accommodation and scale belonged to a competitive Atlantic liner market, with passengers travelling for many different reasons rather than taking a modern resort cruise.
Construction and machinery
Harland & Wolff laid down the ship in March 1909, launched it in May 1911 and handed it over in April 1912. Titanic Belfast lists two triple-expansion reciprocating engines and a low-pressure turbine. The machinery combined different ways of extracting work from steam; it was not a diesel-powered ship.
The voyage and the measurement caution
Titanic sailed from Southampton in April 1912 and departed Queenstown, now Cobh, on 11 April bound for New York. The voyage ended in the North Atlantic disaster. Its historic gross register tonnage belongs to an older measurement system. Leaving the modern GT field empty is more accurate than creating an apparently comparable value by changing the unit label.
British inquiry: service and maiden voyage ↗Titanic Belfast: ship fact file ↗
Historical information reviewed 9 September 2026. Documented journeys are not live vessel positions.