[6] In November 1964 France, Fenwick Tyne & Wear disposed of their last paddle tugs, Houghton (built in 1904, also by Hepple, for the Lambton Collieries, and which was scrapped) and Eppleton Hall.

[6] News of the sale of the last steam paddle tug still in service anywhere in the world, the Reliant, reached Karl Kortum, then director of the San Francisco Maritime Museum.

[6] Rebuilt at Bill Quay, near Hebburn on the river Tyne,[3] during 1969, the tug was modified to enable her to cross the Atlantic Ocean under her own steam, requiring the fitting of modern navigational aids, radio, an enclosed wheelhouse and conversion from coal to diesel oil firing.

Newhall subsequently wrote the book The Eppleton Hall which tells the story of the discovery and restoration of the ship, the events surrounding Reliant, and the eleven thousand mile journey from the Tyne to San Francisco.

She has been restored to resemble her condition post-War 1946, when refurbished for France Fenwick, Tyne and Wear Ltd. Not eligible for grants reserved for US built vessels, the ship is visible from and moored to Hyde Street Pier but is not open to the public for boarding.

Despite this it is in a superior condition to John H Amos, a similar paddle tug built in Scotland in 1931, currently lying at Chatham awaiting funds for restoration, having been sunk in 1994 and then salvaged some years later.

The tug was then controversially removed and scrapped as a cost reduction exercise, with only a single engine and a sectioned representation of one paddle wheel remaining on display (as had been originally intended back in 1969).