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Transportation Is The Development Of Containerization And The Idea Of Intermodal Transportation

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It is hard to imagine life in the 1950s. Many things have changed in every aspect of life, not restricted to transportation. One area that is especially interesting related to transportation is the development of containerization and the idea of intermodal transportation. The idea of using containers to transport goods has been around since 1792, when the British and French used wooden containers and transferred them between railcars and horse drawn buggies. Around 1953, Malcolm McLean, a trucking businessman from North Carolina , began thinking about how he could better transport his goods. McLean was concerned about the time it was taking to deliver goods and also highway congestion. He was also worried that tucking would be overlooked …show more content…

There was great deal of time wasted in every avenue of transportation by merely waiting, waiting for ships to arrive and waiting for crews to load and unload.
Malcolm McLean knew that container shipping was the way to go and he spent his life focused on the container shipping trade. He could see that it would be easier and more economical, by being able to ship more at one time. Whereas McLean initially thought that driving a truck straight onto the ship was the way to go, in 1955 he realized that he could make container shipping even more economical by removing the container from the truck itself. By taking this action, he was able to save a third of the space that was taken up by wheels and creating the ability to stack containers. This motivated McLean to find ways to increase the container load on the ships.
On April 26, 1956, the first container shipment of 100 containers, aboard Ideal-X launched from Newark, New Jersey and traveled to Houston, Texas. Ideal-X was originally a T-2, tanker ship. The containers were placed above deck on the ship. During the period from April to December, 1956, there were 44 container shipments, each carrying approximately 58 containers.
Malcolm McLean brought Keith Tantlinger, a renowned container expert, onboard to his company. It was Tantlinger’s job to increase the number of containers a

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