Alphabet Fleet

The Alphabet Fleet was a fleet of vessels owned and operated by the Reid Newfoundland Company as part of the provisioning of the 1898 Railway contract between the Dominion of Newfoundland and the Reid Newfoundland Company. The vessels were named after places in Scotland, the native homeland of Sir Robert Gillespie Reid, founder of the Reid Newfoundland Railway Company.

The ships were employed as coastal vessels to service the remote communities of the Newfoundland and the coast of Labrador to operate a mail and passenger service to those communities. These vessels became the lifeline to these communities and were depicted in many paintings and folk songs of the country, even long after it became a province of Canada.

A
The first of the vessels acquired by the Reid Newfoundland Company was SS Argyle, built in Glasgow, Scotland in 1900; she was 155 feet (47 m) long and 439 tonnes. This vessel mainly visited communities in the Placentia Bay area. She was sold in 1941 and was eventually lost near Cuba on July 14, 1946.Argyle takes her name from the Scottish region of Argyll.

B
SS Bruce built in 1897 in Glasgow, Scotland was 237 feet (72 m) long and 1,154 tonnes. This vessel was lost on March 24, 1911, near Louisburg, Nova Scotia. SS Bruce II was used as a connector vessel between the Island and Nova Scotia. A second vessel commissioned under the name Bruce was built in 1912 in Glasgow, was 240 feet (73 m) long and 1,553 tonnes. She was sold to the Russian government in 1916.

C
SS Clyde was built in 1900 at Glasgow, Scotland and was 155 feet (47 m) long; 439 tonnes. She had plied the waters of Notre Dame Bay delivering passengers and mail to the various communities from that area. In 1948 she was sold to Crosbie and Company and lost at sea near Williamsport on December 17, 1951.

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