Canadian Pacific Line Canadian Pacific Railway Co. (Cpr) Canadian Pacific Ocean Services (cpos) Canadian Pacific Railway

In 1884, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) began purchasing sailing ships as part of a railway supply service on the Great Lakes. Over time, CPR became a railroad company with widely organized water transportation auxiliaries including

• 
  the Canadian Pacific Railway Upper Lake Service (Great Lakes)
  
• 
  the Pacific service
  
• 
  the Canadian Pacific Railway Coast Service
  
• 
  the Canadian Pacific Railway Lake and River Service
  
• 
  the Atlantic service
  
• 
  the Ferry service^[
  

In the early 1880s, CPR garnered sufficient encouragement from talks with the British government in London that plans began to be formalized for establishing trans-Pacific steamship routes between Vancouver and the Far East.

The trans-Pacific services of Canadian Pacific were begun by Sir William Cornelius Van Horne, the Dutch-American builder of the railroad network in 1887. In that year, Sir William chartered three vessels—the SS Abyssinia, the SS Parthia, and the SS Batavia—as a beginning of the CP fleet.

In 1891, CPR and the British government reached agreement on a contract for subsidized mail service between Britain and Hong Kong via Canada. The route began to be serviced by three specially designed Empress liners—the RMS Empress of China and the RMS Empress of India. Each of these "Empress" steamships sailed regularly in the period from 1891 through 1912. In that year, the Empress of China struck a reef near Tokyo, and she was subsequently towed to Yokohama where she was scrapped. The Empress of India would continue in service through 1914. The third of the three original empresses, the RMS Empress of Japan, sailed regularly from 1891 through 1922. These three ships and the others which comprised the "Empress fleet" carried mail, passengers, and freight speedily across the Pacific for over half a century.

In 1903 the company began operating ships on the Atlantic between Halifax, Nova Scotia and the United Kingdom. In 1906, two vessels were built in England: the SS Empress of Scotland and SS Empress of Ireland. These two practical vessels would gain quite a lot of fame. They each had a full capacity of 1,530 passengers. There were accommodations for 310 first class passengers and 470 second class passengers for people traveling back and forth between Canada and Europe, along with a large capacity for immigrants. The two sisters each had accommodations for 500 third class passengers berthed in simple four-berth cabins, and 250 steerage passengers berthed in vast dormitories. The Canadian Pacific Line transported many immigrants from Europe to Canada, primarily from Great Britain and Scandinavia. In 1914 the Empress of Ireland sank after a collision with the Norwegian freighter Storstad in the St. Lawrence River. In just 14 minutes after the collision, 1,012 of the 1,477 passengers and crew aboard her drowned as she ship foundered.

In 1915, the business had grown to the point where it was spun off into a separate entity formally known as the Canadian Pacific Steamships Ocean Services Ltd.

The new company acquired the successful Allan Line and expanded to become a major international cargo carrier and operators of luxury passenger liners such as the Empress of Britain and the Empress of Canada

Like other shipping companies, Canadian Pacific provided ships to carry troops in both World Wars. In WWI, some ships were refitted as Armed merchantmen. In WWII, the CP fleet carried over a million tons of cargo and a million troops and civilians during the Second World War.^[5]

In each of the post-war periods, the company sought to compensate for ships lost at sea by expanding its fleet.

Over time, the passenger steamship business changed. By the 1950s, rapidly growing competition from airlines began to cut into the business and the company diversified into tanker fleets and bulk carriers.

The Canadian Pacific fleet expanded in bursts, responding to changed economic conditions and perceived changes in the market for passenger liner travel. The evolution of this fleet mirrors some of those developments. The following table focuses on Canadian Pacific's trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic ocean liners

In 1968 Canadian Pacific Line was renamed CP Ships and the use of its famous red and white checkered flag dating from 1891 was discontinued. In 1970 CP Ships retired from the passenger liner business with the retirement of the last of its famous “Empress” ocean liners. Since then CP Ships has primarily been a container shipping line.

Crecimiento, adquisiciones y el fin de una era.

In 1984, CP Ships entered a joint venture with Compagnie Maritime Belge called Canada Maritime to secure North Atlantic container traffic for its rail facilities in Montreal. This brand became a wholly owned subsidiary of CP Ships in 1993. This "new" company prospered and the fortunes of CP Ships revived in the early 1990s and in 1993 Canadian Pacific bought out its partner in Canada Maritime, and that company was merged in CP Ships reviving the fleet.

On the 21^st August 2005, the German congolomerate TUI AG offered to acquire CP Ships Limited for €1.7 billion (US$2.0 billion) in cash, and merge it with TUI's Hapag-Lloyd division.