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R.R.B. or ‘Rotterdamsch Rijnvaart Bedrijf’ (old spelling; Rotterdam Rhine Transportation Co.) plays a role in Nigoco history as recounted by Haalmeijer & Scholten in their 1995 book ‘Van Nievelt, Goudriaan & Co’s Stoomvaart Maatschappij (Nigoco)’.
There are two distinct periods in RRB’s history – today the first one,
before the takeover by Nigoco in 1951. As we will see, this event
led to a change in house flag.
In 1929 the Dutch subsidiary of the German-owned ‘Standaard Transport
Maatschappij’ (i.e. Standard Transportation Co.) became independent.
In 1947, the Rotterdam based ‘NV C.H.W. van Dam & Co.’ (which firm
had a seat in Basel, Switzerland, as well) together with ‘Natural AG’ became
financially linked to the company, naming the new firm ‘Natural Van Dam
AG’. The name ‘R.R.B.’ was adopted after another important
Dutch inland operator, Damco, complained about the similarity of names.
Besides transhipment in Rotterdam a regular service linked this port
to Basel. During the nineteen fifties the fleet, until then consisting
of paddlewheelers and towed vessels, was modernized; the number of ships
was reduced from about fifty to about twenty.
In 1951 Nigoco bought RRB (Natural Van Dam went on and would come to
fly a distinct flag of its own). List of RRB vessels – from Nigoco’s
viewpoint - about end of this
page: Shown as a drawing on this Binnenvaart
page (and – perhaps – on the photo of paddle steamer ‘Utrecht’), the
RRB house flag was horizontally divided orange-white-orange with black
initials ‘RRB’ on the white stripe.
Image based on Martin Heere’s drawing, taken from above book.
I should add that ‘Flaggen auf dem Rhein’ (1952 ed.) shows the initials
with serifs and has the name in modernized spelling (“Rotterdams”).
Jan Mertens, 8 Oct 2008