Didn't the British liners of the same area also not have the same reliability? For example some of the Cunard 1950's vessels build during the 50's and served in one way ore another until the end of the decade.
Oriana, and some of the Union Castle ships had Pametrada while the Canberra had AEI turbines whether they were in house or derivatives of US designs seeing AEI had connections to US Westinghouse/GE is another matter.
It was often known that at that time US heavy engineering designs were often simpler and easier to work on than their UK equiv's and the RAN found this out when they purchased the Charles F. Adams Class Guided Missile Destroyer from the US in the 1960's. I remember my brother (who has worked at a Naval dockyard since the early 80's) telling me that the US built/designed ships were a lot simpler mechanically than the UK derived Darling class. But it was a testimony to the quality of the UK industry that a lot of the 1950's liners bar P&O's lasted until the end of the 20th century. A marvellous achievement, and the sign of a quality product. Tell me of any Fincantierri ship that will make 45-50
And in the railway world compare an ALCO DL500/EMD G16 against an English Electric BR 37 class (The only European Diesel other than the Deltic that worked) and their Australian derivatives (They are hood locos than ran in Western Australia). When it came to dieselisation on the railways in Australia came in the 50's British designs were very much in the minority against US.
