For moving and stowing the bulky, heavy cargo, the Belpamela was also equipped with rails in the hatches and several steam and electric winches on deck.

Typical cargoes consisted of locomotives and railway vehicles, but lightships, lighters and other smaller watercraft, aircraft or industrial plants of all kinds, such as oil rigs, etc.

Notable cargoes include a batch of Vulcan Foundry-built China Railways KF series locomotives (including the preserved KF7) from Birkenhead to Shanghai,[1] as well as a streamlined Coronation Scot train that the Belpamela transported from the Southampton, England to Baltimore, USA in January and February 1939 for exhibition at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

On 2 April 1945, Scottish-based De Havilland Mosquito fighter-bombers attacked ships awaiting repairs at the Framnæs Mekaniske Værksted shipyard in Sandefjord.

The Belpamela was towed to Oslo for repairs, where its completion was delayed until the end of the war due to sabotage by Odd Isøy, a member of the Norwegian resistance.