Intermodal container
An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, or a freight container, is a large metal crate designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different modes of transport – such as from ships to trains to trucks – without unloading and reloading their cargo. Intermodal containers are primarily used to store and transport materials and products efficiently and securely in the global containerized intermodal freight transport system, but smaller numbers are in regional use as well. It is like a boxcar that does not have wheels. Based on size alone, up to 95% of intermodal containers comply with ISO standards, and can officially be called ISO containers. These containers are known by many names: cargo container, sea container, ocean container, container van or sea van, sea can or C can, or MILVAN, or SEAVAN. The term CONEX is a technically incorrect carry-over usage of the name of an important predecessor of the ISO containers: the much smaller steel CONEX boxes used by the U.S. Army.
Intermodal containers exist in many types and standardized sizes, but 90 percent of the global container fleet are "dry freight" or "general purpose" containers: durable closed rectangular boxes, made of rust-retardant weathering steel; almost all wide, and of either standard length, as defined by International Organization for Standardization standard 668:2020. The worldwide standard heights are and – the latter are known as High Cube or Hi-Cube containers. Depending on the source, these containers may be termed TEUs, reflecting the 20- or 40-foot dimensions.
Invented in the early 20th century, 40-foot intermodal containers proliferated during the 1960s and 1970s under the containerization innovations of the American shipping company SeaLand. Like cardboard boxes and pallets, these containers are a means to bundle cargo and goods into larger, unitized loads that can be easily handled, moved, and stacked, and that will pack tightly in a ship or yard. Intermodal containers share a number of construction features to withstand the stresses of intermodal shipping, to facilitate their handling, and to allow stacking. Each has a unique ISO 6346 reporting mark.
In 2012, there were about 20.5 million intermodal containers in the world of varying types to suit different cargoes. Containers have largely supplanted the traditional break bulk cargo; in 2010, containers accounted for 60% of the world's seaborne trade. The predominant alternative methods of transport carry bulk cargo, whether gaseous, liquid, or solid—e.g., by bulk carrier or tank ship, tank car, or truck. For air freight, the lighter weight IATA-defined unit load devices are used.
History
Origins
Containerization has its origins in early coal mining regions in England beginning in the late 18th century. In 1766 James Brindley designed the box boat 'Starvationer' with ten wooden containers, to transport coal from Worsley Delph to Manchester by Bridgewater Canal. In 1795, Benjamin Outram opened the Little Eaton Gangway, upon which coal was carried in wagons built at his Butterley Ironwork. The horse-drawn wheeled wagons on the gangway took the form of containers, which, loaded with coal, could be transshipped from canal barges on the Derby Canal, which Outram had also promoted.By the 1830s, railways were carrying containers that could be transferred to other modes of transport. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway in the UK was one of these, making use of "simple rectangular timber boxes" to convey coal from Lancashire collieries to Liverpool, where a crane transferred them to horse-drawn carriages. Originally used for moving coal on and off barges, "loose boxes" were used to containerize coal from the late 1780s, at places like the Bridgewater Canal. By the 1840s, iron boxes were in use as well as wooden ones. The early 1900s saw the adoption of closed container boxes designed for movement between road and rail.
Creation of international standards
The first international standard for containers was established by the Bureau International des Containers et du Transport Intermodal in 1933, and a second one in 1935, primarily for transport between European countries. American containers at this time were not standardized, and these early containers were not yet stackable – neither in the U.S. nor Europe. In November 1932, the first container terminal in the world was opened by the Pennsylvania Rail Road Company in Enola, Pennsylvania. Containerization was developed in Europe and the US as a way to revitalize rail companies after the Wall Street crash of 1929, in New York, which resulted in economic collapse and a drop in all modes of transport.Mid 20th century innovations
In April 1951 at Zürich Tiefenbrunnen railway station, the Swiss Museum of Transport and the Bureau International des Containers held demonstrations of container systems for representatives from a number of European countries, and from the United States. A system was selected for Western Europe, based on the Netherlands' system for consumer goods and waste transportation called Laadkisten, in use since 1934. This system used roller containers for transport by rail, truck and ship, in various configurations up to capacity, and up to in size. This became the first post World War II European railway standard of the International Union of Railways – UIC-590, known as "pa-Behälter". It was implemented in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, West Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark.The use of standardized steel shipping containers began during the late 1940s and early 1950s, when commercial shipping operators and the US military started developing such units. In 1948 the U.S. Army Transportation Corps developed the "Transporter", a rigid, corrugated steel container, able to carry. It was long, wide, and high, with double doors on one end, was mounted on skids, and had lifting rings on the top four corners. After proving successful in Korea, the Transporter was developed into the Container Express box system in late 1952. Based on the Transporter, the size and capacity of the Conex were about the same, but the system was made modular, by the addition of a smaller, half-size unit of long, wide and high. Conexes could be stacked three high, and protected their contents from the elements. By 1965 the US military used some 100,000 Conex boxes, and more than 200,000 in 1967, making this the first worldwide application of intermodal containers. Their invention made a major contribution to the globalization of commerce in the second half of the 20th century, dramatically reducing the cost of transporting goods and hence of long-distance trade.
From 1949 onward, engineer Keith Tantlinger repeatedly contributed to the development of containers, as well as their handling and transportation equipment. In 1949, while at Brown Trailers Inc. of Spokane, Washington, he modified the design of their stressed skin aluminum 30-foot trailer, to fulfil an order of two-hundred containers that could be stacked two high, for Alaska-based Ocean Van Lines. Steel castings on the top corners provided lifting and securing points.
In 1955, trucking magnate Malcom McLean bought Pan-Atlantic Steamship Company, to form a container shipping enterprise, later known as Sea-Land. The first containers were supplied by Brown Trailers Inc, where McLean met Keith Tantlinger, and hired him as vice-president of engineering and research. Under the supervision of Tantlinger, a new Sea-Land container was developed, the length determined by the maximum length of trailers then allowed on Pennsylvanian highways. Each container had a frame with eight corner castings that could withstand stacking loads. Tantlinger also designed automatic spreaders for handling the containers, as well as the twistlock mechanism that connects with the corner castings.
Modern form
Containers in their modern 21st-century form first began to gain widespread use around 1956. Businesses began to devise a structured process to use and to get optimal benefits from the role and use of shipping containers. Over time, the invention of the modern telecommunications of the late 20th century made it highly beneficial to have standardized shipping containers and made these shipping processes more standardized, modular, easier to schedule, and easier to manage.Two years after McLean's first container ship, the Ideal X, started container shipping on the US East Coast, Matson Navigation followed suit between California and Hawaii. Just like Pan-Atlantic's containers, Matson's were wide and high, but due to California's different traffic code Matson chose to make theirs long. In 1968, McLean began container service to South Vietnam for the US military with great success.
Modern ISO standards
ISO standards for containers were published between 1968 and 1970 by the International Maritime Organization. These standards allow for more consistent loading, transporting, and unloading of goods in ports throughout the world, thus saving time and resources.The International Convention for Safe Containers is a 1972 regulation by the Inter-governmental Maritime Consultative Organization on the safe handling and transport of containers. It decrees that every container traveling internationally be fitted with a CSC safety-approval plate. This holds essential information about the container, including age, registration number, dimensions and weights, as well as its strength and maximum stacking capability.