IBERIA

Interesting that Iberia is spoken of as 'short lived because of frequent engine problems' but she was built same year as Orsova and scrapped only one year earlier. Declining passenger traffic in the Boeing 707 - 747 era and the arrival of floating apartment blocks was more relevant.

Ian

I think the surprise was that she was the first of P&O-Orient's post war passenger liners to be scrapped, as she was the newest apart from Canberra, Oriana and the ex Belgian twins. After Iberia's demise Orcades, Chusan and Orsova were disposed of at roughly six monthly intervals. True the 747 killed them all off.

The price of bunkers played a substantial part in their demise too, along with many other liners.

she was a lovely looking ship.

P&O archive does record succession of (no doubt expensive) mechanical problems. At a time of competition from airlines and increased running costs not surprising she was first to be let go.
http://www.poheritage.com/Upload/Mimsy/Media/factsheet/93356IBERIA-1954pdf.pdf

Iberia spend a large of the life before being withdrawn on cruising out of Sydney? On one voyage cruise cruise or a liner voyage to the uk she had a fire in the funnel at Pago Pago American Samoa as mentioned above mechanical problems. In my opinion she looked nicer than her near sister Arcadia. I had been on her as visiter many times when she called at Fremantle.