ON the day Titanic set sail, access to the dockside was unrestricted.

It was bustling with activity – men hoping to pick up a last-minute job on the mighty ship, passengers rushing to board, families seeing off relatives making the journey across the Atlantic and curious on-lookers, coming to see this mighty and famous ship for themselves.

The Daily Echo reported at the time that “crowds of eager sightseers lined the quays and every point of vantage, and under the bright spring sunshine the stately vessel moved down the river to the accompaniment of cheers and waving of handkerchiefs from ship or shore.”

Today, getting onto the dockside is, understandably, a very different experience, requiring security clearance and an escort in high visibility clothing.

And the scene today at Ocean Dock is, in some ways, very different.

The area that would have been filled with crowds now has rows of pristine white Mercedes lorry cabs standing shoulder-to-shoulder waiting to be exported.

The futuristic dome of Marchwood Incinerator glints in the distance, while just on the other side of the dock is the modern structure of the new Ocean Terminal.

But some things remain unchanged.

South Western House – where many of Titanic’s passengers spent their last night on shore – can still be seen and the bulky metal mooring bollards that the mighty hulk of Titanic was tethered to are still there, as are the railway tracks running parallel to the quayside.

And while the cranes have changed, there are new ones standing in almost identical sites to the ones of 1912.

Probably the biggest difference is the quiet.

The port is the busiest cruise terminal and second largest container port in the country, but it doesn’t have the same dockside bustle that it did in 1912.

The sound of lapping water fills the air, punctuated with an odd plane going overhead and the occasional bleeping from reversing vehicles.

The scene is almost eerily quiet and feels like an appropriate place to remember that despite the huge excitement that Titanic caused – and still does – this was the prelude to a disaster and a massive loss of life, which touched so very many of Southampton’s people.

The fact that this is not a tourist destination, that there is no sign reminding the visitor that this is where Titanic sailed from reflects the way Southampton has responded to the tragedy.