1950's USA Era- Were Containers in use then ?

[Sunshine Express]

I am trying to model 1950,s US Steam/Diesel era,and wish to know if Containers were in use then ?

[LensCapOn]

Not as we know them. There was an older form where 4-5 were placed in a gondola but their structure and use were very different. Walthers had a model, for one, in the past. The modern international container started in the 60's. (Short version)

 

Check Wiki. Internaional standards started in 68. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization

[chutton01]

This webpage may be of interest to the OP (and others)

For the period in question (1950s):

Railroad-owned containers were the most common containers seen on the railroads at this time. Almost all railroads were experimenting with some type of containerized system in this era; although few were ever operated on a large scale

Ah, this is what I was looking for - (Military) Conex container shipping in the 1950s & early 1960s, with images

 

[mlehman]

Yeah, dedicated RR-owned containers were around for awhile, were generally loaded into gons.

If you're speaking of the modern container as we think of it now, being used and exchanged between different transportation modes. the White Pass & Yukon is generally considered the first to operate such a system in 1955. The containers weren't like modern ones, but smaller. They didn't travel to other systems, because there really weren't any. But they were carried by ships and trucks, besides on the RR itself, so defintely used intermodally.

Sealand was the first major user of what we now think of containers as in terms of form-factor. They also handled containers between different RRs, aothough this was usually an overseas line, then one here in the US to take a container to its final destination. Prior to roughly 1980, most container use here in the US involved such overseas trade. The domestic container came along in the 1980s and that's when what we know and are familiar with today really came toegther.

[cedarwoodron]

I have been assembling several TOFC flat cars, with semi-trailers, as representative of 1950s transition era "containerized" freight loads. 

Cedarwoodron

[mlehman]

Yep, semitrailers were the "original" intermodal containers with wheels. They eventually figured out they didn't need to tote the wheels and other road-associated parts around, just the box.

[tomikawaTT]

! believe that the patent for the present-day intermodal container (specifically for the corner fittings that allow them to be interlocked) was issued in 1959.

I also remember conex boxes, both as containers holding spare parts arriving by truck or C-130 and as makeshift maintenance shops (an improvement over tents) in SEA.

At about the same time as the first 'transporters' appeared in the Far East, JNR started deploying their standard-size containers, five of which would fit on a 20-meter skeleton-frame car.  Containers could be loaded at the source (often a small factory that would never merit rail service) trucked to the nearest rail yard, loaded up (by oversize fork lifts) and sent to reverse the procedure at their destination.

LCL and reload traffic at regular freight houses dwindled as container use expanded, removing two places where individual boxes would normally be handled (and the freight house workers who did it.)  The same thing happened in the United States, much to the displeasure of the Longshoremen's Union. All those slings full of loose boxes now came off the ship pre-packaged in a truck body, or vice-versa.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with JNR containers)

[DSchmitt]

PRR container car 1928-1950:

https://www.mountvernonshops.com/products/ho-prr-fm-container-flatcar-decals

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1276/9319/products/PRR_473409_FM_containercar_grande.jpg?v=1462294791

New York Central 1921

Business1921 by Donald Schmitt, on Flickr

Canadian Pacific 1950's:1950:

http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/CPR/intermodal/pioneer.htm

 

The New York Central started Flexi-Van service in 1958. Article in the Feb 1992 Model Railroader.

Some other railroads that operated Flexi-Vans: Milwaukee, CB&Q, Illinois Central, Seaboard Air Line, Western Pacific, ATSF. There were still more than 1500 flexi-vans in service in 1972. Most on the Penn Central.

 

LCL Cement Canisters (carried in gondolas) 1940's/50's:

http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=55643&whichpage=2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mlehman]

DSchmitt

Canadian Pacific 1950's: http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/CPR/intermodal/pioneer.htm

Thanks for posting that, D.

A really fascinating read with a lot of what turned out to be deadend ideas, but such is the fits and starts history of intermodal transportation.