A rare accident for the company occurred when the RMT paddle steamers Princesse Henriette and Comtesse de Flandre collided in heavy fog on 29 March 1889 when both attempt to avoid collision with a fishing smack offshore between Ruytingen and Dunkirk.

Early in the First World War, the turbine steamer Jan Breydel evacuated Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of Belgium and the royal children on 28 August 1914.

The paddle steamer Marie Henriette was wrecked on 24 October 1914 on rocks while attempting to enter Barfleur with 650 wounded military personnel on board.

Owing to its lower speed, the line's oldest vessel at the time, the paddle steamer Belgique (built in 1862) was employed during the war in more militarily protected waters as an ammunition transport between Southampton and Le Havre.

[6] When RMT began transporting automobiles and lorries as well as passengers, cars had to be loaded onto a steamer's aft deck and offloaded again using a quay crane.

Service was greatly improved in 1936 when the turbine steamer Ville de Liège was renovated as a roll on-roll off car ferry and renamed London-Istanbul.

In addition to traditional car ferries, RMT also operated two Boeing Jetfoils (for foot-passengers only) that reduced crossing times from 4 hours to 100 minutes.

At 28,828 gross register tons, the Prins Filip was the largest ferry operating on the short sea routes of the English Channel from 1991 to 2001 (with the introduction in the latter year of the Seafrance Rodin).

Many of the assets were sold to Transeuropa Ferries which revived the route between Ramsgate and Ostend, first as a freight-only service, and subsequently taking passengers and cars.