The Container that Changed the World

[Anonymous]

In today's New York Times:

"THE political showdown over a Dubai company's plan to operate terminals at six American ports briefly focused public attention on one of the most significant, yet least noticed, economic developments of the last few decades: the transformation of international shipping.

"Just as the computer revolutionized the flow of information, the shipping container revolutionized the flow of goods. As generic as the 1's and 0's of computer code, a container can hold just about anything, from coffee beans to cellphone components. By sharply cutting costs and enhancing reliability, container-based shipping enormously increased the volume of international trade and made complex supply chains possible."

"Low transport costs help make it economically sensible for a factory in China to produce Barbie dolls with Japanese hair, Taiwanese plastics and American colorants, and ship them off to eager girls all over the world," writes Marc Levinson in the new book "The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger" (Princeton University Press)."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/business/23scene.html

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=82514

Dave

[vsmith]

Yeap, look at the impact on railroads and trucking, let alone shipping.

I was watching "Cinderella Man" last weekend which parts take place in the 30's on a wharf where ships were unloaded BY HAND virtualy and was amazed to see how labor intensive this was. Cranes unloaded boats ONE pallet at a time which was then transfered BY HAND by longshoremen who shift the laod to another one using a handtruck to move each bag into a warehouse, like ants moving a pile of suger one grain at a time. Speed was of the essence at it was hard-backbreaking labor!

Somewhere during WW2 the self-contained cargo container was invented or discovered, to allow rapid unloading of Victory ships, they were small by todays standard (20' I beleive) and didn't find acceptance due to the mostly older ships and traditional shibuilding standards in usage by wars end, but the seed was planted slowly more and more specially built equipemnt was built to load and unload the containers onto specially modified ships, often these were loaded on the decks on top of traditionally loaded cargo holds. But soon purpose build cargo ships appeared, allowing containers to be loaded into the hold and stacked up like cordwood, By the late 50's these were finally becoming accepted a by shippers around the world, however the containers rarely left the ports and again were often transfered at terminals by hand to more traditional tranport modes like trucks and train cars. The real revoltion started in the 70's with container trailers for trucks that allowed the truck to be loaded at the port, then driven direclty to the customer, emptied, loaded, then delivered back to the terminal for shipping without the transfer warehouse middleman, this carried over to new specially constructed train cars when some smart cookie realized they could ship to a port, unload the entire ship load of Chinese plastic dog poop directly onto a train and ship it en-mass to Kansas, or straight thru to NY load it back onto a ship and sent it Europe, cutting days off the sea voyage. Much of what we see on the rails never stays here, its going from one ocean to the other with a boat waiting for it.

Conway's History of the Ship series has a book series on maritime history that covers the "Containerized Revolution" facinating stuff seeing those small first built container boats compared to todays mega-buckets!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1557507651/qid=1143155342/sr=1-13/ref=sr_1_13/002-4156276-3994403?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Mr. Smith!

I have added the book to my Amazon Wish list.

Dave

[greyhounds]

QUOTE: Originally posted by vsmith


Somewhere during WW2 the self-contained cargo container was invented or discovered...

'Fraid Not!. The New York Central started using intermodal containers riding on friction bearing equiped flatcars pulled by steam locomotives in the 1920's.

Then the government regulators got involved, screwed everything up as usual, and put domestic containerization on hold for 50 years. Of course, the New York Times would never tell us that, but then there's been a lot that they haven't told us, or told us wrong as it were, or wasn't , depending on their point of view.

[vsmith]

Well I read that the first appearances at sea were during WW2, I suppose their are several earlier examples elsewhere if one looks.[;)]

[eastside]

That review in the NY Times really doesn't give a quantitative idea of the effect of the container. In 1956 a typical cargo ship cost $5.83 ($42.59 in 2006 dollars) a ton to load a loose ton. Loading the Ideal-X cost less than $0.10 a ton. Not surprisingly, NY longshoremen fought tooth-and-nail to preserve this labor-intensive process. As a result, the container terminals were built in Newark, New Jersey (just across the Hudson from Manhattan Island) and the berths and warehouses in New York went idle. The jobs, of course, went to New Jersey.

What was unique about Malcolm McLean’s idea was to standardize the container and convert the Ideal-X, a WWII oil tanker, specifically to carry containers. He realized that the container was a transportation concept not just a tin box.

Without the container international trade would be a fraction of what it is now and there would be no “globalization”.

[jeaton]

When I was at Cam Rahn Bay, Viet Nam in the fall of 1965, there was a day when I counted a dozen break bulk cargo ships waiting for a berth. These were all "modern" 5 or 6 hatch ships. We had crews working around the clock to off load the freight, and the operation was certainly considered a bottleneck. The military did make some use of an 8' square "conex" box, but it was far from being a major tool in the movement of military freight.

As I understand it, Malcom McLean's first big chunk of business was from a military contract. By the end of the Viet Nam conflict, anything that fit moved in 20 or 40 foot boxes. It might be said that the rest is history.

[Anonymous]

Interestingly enough the GWR had a form of container dating back to the 1930s or possibly earlier. This wasn't anything like the modern ISO box, but instead was designed to fit on a standard 10ft wheelbase flatbed 4-wheel wagon. They could be unloaded by crane and complete their journey by road. They were very popular for removals services (long before people could hire a van to move house) and some specials also existed - insulated examples for perishable goods and a type for cement transport to name but two. I think the last of them were probably retired around the 1950s, I know they lasted into early BR days but not precisely when they were retired.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Most of the early intermodal containers were aimed at the LCL market and were definitely a lot smaller than truck trailers and not standardized. It would have reduced a lot of the transloading that was part of the LCL business.
In a similar vein, TOFC also goes back to prior to WW2, (the Insull interurbans come to mind), but the traffic and equipment was pretty specialized.

At any rate, they laid a lot of the groundwork for the growth of intermodal traffic once a standard for containers was established.

[Modelcar]

Whenever and wherever, the container as we know them today certainly has transformed the system, and don't we believe for the better....From ship to dock, to trucks, and or to trains...Completely fluid. It can continue on it's way ever so quickly. Perhaps it has really helped resurrect many RR's back to health.

Looks to me like the container is the modern "boxcar", only much, much more versatile.

[Anonymous]

Will this be the next advancement in global freight transportation?

http://www.fastshipatlantic.com/index.htm

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

QUOTE: Originally posted by tomtrain

Will this be the next advancement in global freight transportation?

http://www.fastshipatlantic.com/index.htm

Faster, faster, faster, and don't worry about the costs! This is a design that looks good on paper, but is going to be a real glutton for fuel. If the shipper wants that kind of speed, he's going to have to pay big for it.

[Anonymous]

This container has also led to the demise of many,many,many jobs here in the U.thereby destroying the middle class. i guess it is a mixed blessing

[spbed]

I worked in the steamship industry from the 50s so I saw it 1st hand it go from breakbulk to containers. The container terminals were built in NJ due to the access of land to build large staging areas & the direct access to the RRs & interstate highway system which NYC could not & did offer. The movement of containers which was termed "mini land bridge" did not start until the 70s with the containers terminating on the USEC. A complete "land bridge" as it was know at that time was load a container in the Far East destined to the US west coast then "land bridge" via RR to the east coast then reload it on a vessel destined to Europe. Back then you could see some very, very exotic rail routings like UPRR (Fre)-CNW (Chic)-NW (Bflo)-DHRR (NJ) for NY/NJ destined containers & for Boston DHRR would change to (Bing) then BM (Boston) [:)]

QUOTE: Originally posted by eastside

That review in the NY Times really doesn't give a quantitative idea of the effect of the container. In 1956 a typical cargo ship cost $5.83 ($42.59 in 2006 dollars) a ton to load a loose ton. Loading the Ideal-X cost less than $0.10 a ton. Not surprisingly, NY longshoremen fought tooth-and-nail to preserve this labor-intensive process. As a result, the container terminals were built in Newark, New Jersey (just across the Hudson from Manhattan Island) and the berths and warehouses in New York went idle. The jobs, of course, went to New Jersey.

What was unique about Malcolm McLean’s idea was to standardize the container and convert the Ideal-X, a WWII oil tanker, specifically to carry containers. He realized that the container was a transportation concept not just a tin box.

Without the container international trade would be a fraction of what it is now and there would be no “globalization”.