PS Maid of the Loch is the last paddle steamer built in the United Kingdom. She operated on Loch Lomond for 29 years and is being restored near Balloch pier. While under restoration, The Maid of the Loch is open to the public every Saturday and Sunday Easter to October, and closed throughout the winter. She is presently on the slipway near Balloch Pier undergoing extensive repairs to her hull, complete paddle restoration and will be coated in her original livery of white, green waterline and buff coloured funnel before being launched again into Loch Lomond. Construction Maid of the Loch is the last of a long line of Loch Lomond steamers that began about 1816, within four years of Henry Bell's pioneering passenger steamboat service on the River Clyde. In 1950 the British Transport Commission, owner of the newly nationalised railways, made the decision to replace the Princess May and Prince Edward with a new paddle steamer, to be the largest inland waterway vessel ever in Britain. Maid of the Loch was built by A. & J. Inglis of Glasgow, launched on 5 March 1953, and entered service later that year. She is a "knock down" ship: that is, after assembly at the shipyard she was dismantled, and shipped to the loch by rail to Balloch at the south end of the loch, and there the sections were reassembled on a purpose built slipway. The tonnage measures , and the length is . The two-cylinder compound diagonal steam engine is less advanced than had the more usual type installed on steamers such as the , but was considered suitable for the limited area of operations. Maid of the Loch was painted white with a buff funnel. She was operated by the Caledonian Steam Packet Company. Services Maid of the Loch provided a service from Balloch pier, initially to Ardlui at the north end of the loch, but later her last call was a few miles short of this at Inversnaid and she would cruise to the head of the loch. She was transferred to the Scottish Transport Group in 1969; then in 1973 to Caledonian MacBrayne. As with other steamers, cost pressures led to her being laid up after a last commercial sailing on 31 August 1981. One problem was that some of the piers on the loch would become unusable, either because of poor state of repair, or