Containers have been more important for globalization than freer trade!

That is the information that the Economist economic website gave more than 10 years ago. Original text: “In fact, new research suggests that the container has been more of a driver of globalisation than all trade agreements in the past 50 years taken together.”. Containers (or shipping containers) are something that is too familiar to everyone today, but few people think that its importance is so great. In this article, let’s briefly review the evolution of containers in the history of transportation and trade!

Origin of container

As we can imagine, before containerization, goods were often handled manually in the form of individually packaged shipments, which cost a lot of money, time and loss. Later, thanks to containerization or the standardization of packaging – loading – unloading – transporting and transferring, transportation has become a remarkable “evolution” for the transportation industry in particular and global trade in general. A shipping container is designed and manufactured according to certain standards, used to contain goods during transportation or storage.

Based on that standardization, it is believed that the beginning of this “evolution” originated from the coal mines in England in the 18th century when engineer James Brindley designed the ship ‘Starvationer’, which could hold ten wooden barrels of coal (about 2 tons of coal) on it. Thus, these ‘Starvationer’ ships can also be considered the “ancestors” of the later container shipping industry.

The subsequent development of containers was rather slow, mainly taking place in the railway and mining industries. Coal was stored in wooden crates, transported by train, then transferred by horse-drawn carriage. By the early 20th century, containers were more widely used. Notably, the passenger transport route between London and Paris used containers to carry passengers’ luggage, transfer from train to ship and from ship to train at the ports.

The economic crisis of 1929 spurred the use of containers in Europe and the United States as a way to help railroads recover. In 1932, the world’s first container terminal was opened in Enola, Pennsylvania, operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1933, the International Container Bureau was established in Europe and the first international container standard was designed.

Beginning of the modern container

In 1947, the US military developed a rigid corrugated steel shipping container, capable of holding 9,000lb (4,100kg), for transporting officers’ household belongings in the field, called the “Transporter”. It was 8ft 6in (2.59m) long, 6ft 3in (1.91m) wide, and 6ft 10in (2.08m) high, with double doors at one end, mounted on a frame, and with lifting rings at the four corners on the top. By 1952, they had developed this Transporter system into the CONtainer EXpress system, or CONEX for short. The dimensions and capacity of the Conex box are similar to the Transporter but the system has been made modular, by adding a smaller unit, measuring 6ft 3in (1.91m) long, 4ft 3in (1.30m) wide, 6ft 10+1⁄2 in (2.10m) high and stackable in three layers. This type was widely used by the US military during the Vietnam War.

In the early 1950s, Malcom McLean, the owner of a shipping company that shipped cars along the East Coast of the United States by loading them onto ocean-going vessels (known as RORO ships), had an idea to commercialize container shipping. McLean teamed up with engineer Keith Tantlinger to develop the modern intermodal container. The result was an 8ft high, 8ft wide, 10ft long “iron box” made from 2.5mm thick ribbed steel, which included a twistlock on each upper corner, allowing the container to be easily secured and lifted by crane. A few years later, Keith convinced McLean to cede control of their design to fuel the container revolution.

On January 29, 1963, McLean’s company, SeaLand – the world’s first container shipping line – released their patent rights, so that Tantlinger’s inventions could become “the basis for a standard corner fitting and twist lock“. With the debate and negotiation that followed over the years, the Sea-Land design was modified to American standards, then international standards, ushering in the international standardization of containers as we know them today.

Benefits of container shipping

Here are some of the benefits of container shipping that make it the most efficient and popular shipping option in the world today:

• Increase loading and unloading productivity.
• Reduce loading and logistics costs.
• Reduce losses due to theft, loss and damage to goods.
• Reduce cargo insurance costs.
• Reduce ship anchoring time at ports as well as increase ship performance.
• Distribution of goods is easier thanks to multimodal transport (1 container can be transported by different means without reloading).
• Thanks to the above benefits, containers help promote globalized trade.

Hopefully the above article has helped readers better understand the history of containers, the “humble hero” but plays a huge role in globalization or global trade. If you need further discussion, need advice or have a need for Logistics services, please comment below or contact our team of experts immediately to receive the earliest support.