Bearing the name of one of the nine full-rigged sailing ships with which Donald Currie had founded his Castle Line in the 1860s, the order for the new intermediate steamer Arundel Castle went to the Fairfield Ship Building & Engineering Co., the same yard that had built two of her immediate predecessors. Launched at Govan, on the Clyde, on 2nd October 1894, she was constructed of steel throughout and had accommodation for 200 First (amidships), 100 Second and 150 Third class passengers on three decks. Registered upon completion that December at 4,588 tons gross (2,879 net), she measured 415 feet in length with a 46 foot beam, and was designed with four masts and a single funnel. Square-rigged on her foremast, she was driven by a single screw powered by one of her builder's own 568nhp. triple- expansion engines fired from three single-ended boilers. With a cruising speed of 15 knots and with her main dining saloon situated amidships - still a novel feature at that time - she proved a popular ship from the start, with her design so successful that two practically identical sisters (Tintagel Castle and Avondale Castle) followed her in 1896 and 1897 respectively.

Entering service at the turn of 1895, her scheduled run was from Southampton to Capetown, Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban, a route she maintained throughout her career under British registry, first with the Castle Line and then with Union-Castle after the merger with the Union Steam Ship Company in March 1900. Withdrawn in 1905 due to her increasing obsolescence on such a prestigious route, she was sold to the Danish East Asiatic Company who renamed her Birma. In December 1907, after only two years on their Far Eastern service, she was transferred to her owners' subsidiary, the Russian American Line, who rechristened her Mitawa and put her to work as an immigrant ship running between Libau (Lithuania) and New York. Laid up at Kronstadt in August 1914 due to the outbreak of the Great War that same month, she was still lying there in 1918 when she reverted back to her Danish parent company and resumed the name of Birma. Three years later she was sold to the Polish Navigation Company (of New York) who renamed her Jozef Pilsudski and had her extensively overhauled by Howaldtswerke at Kiel. Although her first voyage under new colours was advertised for 6th October 1921, it is unclear whether this took place as the following month she was impounded at Kiel for the non-payment of refitting and repair bills totalling U.S.$200,000. With her owners in liquidation and unable to redeem her, she was bought by a German Company who renamed her Wilbo; by now however, her working life was almost over and she was scrapped in Italy in 1924.