SS Ranchi

SS Ranchi was Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company "R"-class steam ocean liner that was built in 1925 and scrapped in 1953. From 1939 to 1943 she was the Royal Navy armed merchant cruiser HMS Ranchi.

From 1943 to 1947 she was a troop ship for the Ministry of War Transport and post-war Ministry of Transport.

Hawthorn Leslie and Company of Hebburn, County Durham built Ranchi for P&O. Her yard number was 534. She was launched on 24 January 1925 and completed on 29 July. She was 548.5 ft (167.2 m) long and had a beam of 71.3 ft (21.7 m). Her gross register tonnage was 16,738, and as built her net register tonnage was 8,850.

P&O's "R"-Class included Ranchi's sister ships Ranpura, Rajputana and Rawalpindi, all built in 1924 and 1925. Like her sisters Ranchi had quadruple-expansion steam engines, but unlike her sisters she also had low-pressure steam turbines to re-use exhaust steam from her reciprocating engines. The turbines were coupled to her propeller shafts by double reduction gearing. She had twin propellers. The turbines both improved her fuel efficiency and made Ranchi slightly faster than her sisters, with a cruising speed of 17.5 kn (32.4 km/h).

Ranchi had berths for 600 passengers. Lord Inchcape's daughter Elsie Mackay designed much of the interiors of all the R-class ships.

The ship was named after the city of Ranchi, now the capital of Jharkhand state in eastern India. Her UK official number was 148130. Her code letters were KSTQ until 1933, when they were superseded by the call sign GLKW.

Until the Second World War Ranchi was painted in P&O's traditional colours for steamships. Her hull was black with a white band. Her boot-topping was red, her superstructure was stone-coloured, and her funnels and ventilators were black. As built, she had two funnels.

Ranchi sailed on a scheduled route between England and Bombay, India. Later she sailed to the Far East.