The Box

How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and The World Economy Bigger

Mark Levinson - Multco Cen 387.544 L665B 2006

Piers and longshoremen cost money, time, complexity and sometimes strikes and shrinkage. Containers cut all these drastically, and keep ships moving (slowly), with information moving ahead of the container.

• Gridlock on the Docks, labor was costly, jobs were irregular, individuals were mistreated, especially minorities.

• p19: Breakbulk - individual items stowed manually.
• p21: After WW2, ship lines could buy surplus Liberty Ships, Victory Ships, and tankers for as little as $300K.
• p29: Railroad boxcars spent weeks being filled, routed, and sorted

• The Trucker - Malcom Purcell McLean, of Maxton, NC McLean Trucking, March 1934

• p39 ICC Interstate Commerce Commission controlled what, where, and how much - Lawyers needed, "wanted to keep the transportation industry stable".
• p40 buy carriers already had routes, leased established truck lines.
• p41 moved cigarettes north, manufactured goods south
• p42 by 1954, eighth in revenue and third in profits, fast growth, highly leveraged
• p43 veterans trained rookies, and got a 1 month bonus if rookie had no accidents for a year
• p44 1953 idea Newark to Houston, bought Waterman Steamship (Pan Atlantic) 1955 - First Leveraged Buyout, $63M in government loan guarantees
• p48 Ballentine Beer from Newark to Miami, truck body containers 94% cheaper than breakbulk
• p49 Keith Tantlinger Brown Industries Spokane (1949 designed 30 ft aluminum box for barge/truck, Seattle to Alaska
• p49 Spar decks above surplus tankers, containers 8 abreast.
• p51 Cranes on tracks with spreader bar, 1 every 7 minutes
• p52 1956 converted tanker Ideal-X, 58 containers, loading cost $0.158/ton instead of $5.83/ton breakbulk

• The System 1956 strike, six C-2 freighers converted to pure 226 container ships

• p55 Cell guides .75 inch wider, 1.25 inch longer than container
• p56 Edge posts and casting quicklocks
• p57 Modelling clay in spaces between corners, 5/16 shift
• p61 Matson Lines to Hawaii - load containers in California for route-sequence order in Hawaii
• p63 Matson side loading bridging cranes
• p65 Matson IBM 704 simulations, 1959, 20 boxes/hour

• p66 Hawaiian Citizen 408 25 ton 25 foot containers

• p67 McLean's Pan-Atlantic becomes SeaLand 1960, buys Bull Line to Puerto Rico 1961

• p76 The Battle for New York's Port - docks die, waterfront reused

• p277 2004 300M 20 foot containers on oceans, per year, more over borders by truck or train

  • UNCTAD, Review of Maritime Transport ,also, Institute for Shipping and Logistics Shipping Statistics and Markey Review

• p278 Malacca-Max 400m long, 60m wide, 20m deep 18,000 TEUs

• Panamax 294m long, 32m wide, 12m deep in Lake Gatun water, 58m high (113K tons?)

  • New Panamax 427m long, 55m wide, and 18m deep ( 423K tons?)

• Launch loop: 10 TEUs/second 24 tons each, 150 MJ/kg -> 37 TW . 60% losses as heat, 22 TW, Earth is 174K TW, about 0.01C heating.