ONCE the White Star Dock had opened in 1911, ocean travel between Southampton and North America increased rapidly with Cunard transferring their North Atlantic operations from Liverpool to Southampton. Added to this, German and French transatlantic liners included Southampton as a stop on their sailings from Hamburg and Le Havre for the Americas. The liners became increasingly larger in size and the already lengthened Trafalgar dry dock could not accommodate many of them for repairs. The London and South Western Railway who owned the docks placed an order, on October 13, 1922, for a large floating dry dock with Armstrong and Whitworth of Newcastle upon Tyne, to be delivered ten months later.