SS United States headed to junk pile?

Philadelphia Business Journal ^ | February 23, 2009 | Peter Van Allen

[americanophile]

Fastest liner in the world.

[Crazieman]

Interesting metaphor

[americanophile]

sign of the times

[GreyFriar]

We definitely need to require a certain percentage of trans-Atlantic travelers to travel on this vessel. Or to use it as a troop transport to send our soldiers back and forth to posts in Germany, Iraq and Afghanistan.

[rabscuttle385]

ping

[Bahbah]

I sailed to Europe on her in 1968.

[steve86]

Definitely though it was a Social Security thread about which the title is true also.

[Constitution Day]

Ain’t that the truth.

[OB1kNOb]

Ironic coincidence?

[JZelle]

You always go to Windmill Point restaurant in Nags Head, N.C. Some of the furniture and other items from the ship has adorned it for years. I always thought that was all there was to it until I saw your post. Interesting.

[swain_forkbeard]

“...35 knots an hour.”

I hate stuff like that.

[Grut]

It was never more than a footnote to the Age of Liners, though: it came along too late to establish a mystique.

[RetroSexual]

She’d make a nice presidential yacht. Maybe a little small for the current chief executive’s taste, but times are tough.

[Nathan Zachary]

Scrap the bugger. No way should Twice it's original cost (face it, these things NEVER come in on budget) be sucked out of the taxpayers pockets, just so it can be a museum piece.

And who knows, Obama might take it for his own private yacht.

Sell it for 79 million worth of scrap to a US steel mill. At today's prices and with union labor, it should make 100 million worth of new steel.

[Cheetahcat]

I heard there was a lot of Aluminum used in the construction of the superstructure on that ship. I never heard the Falklands thing before the QE2 was used I think.

[americanophile]

haha...no sentimentalist you. I should think a ship that fast would have a perfectly good military application. A great high-speed troop transport.

[Gondring]

Or to use it as a troop transport to send our soldiers back and forth to posts in Germany, Iraq and Afghanistan.

2/3 of the construction cost was borne by the US government to do just that.

Lots of aluminum for scrap. wow.

[San Jacinto]

A last hope may be redirecting some of the $782 billion in federal stimulus funding — perhaps money earmarked for infrastructure.

Oink! Oink! I worked for the money the government takes away from me, and I could give a rat'sass about their stinking ship.

[americanophile]

There was...it was designed to be fire retardant. It didn’t have the sumptuous interiors that British liners had, very functional...but it was fast.

[Gondring]

I should think a ship that fast would have a perfectly good military application. A great high-speed troop transport.

It was originally designed for use as such.