Intermodal freight transport

transferred to a railroad car with a gantry crane, an example of early intermodal freight transport by the French Mail in 1844; the drawing is exhibited in Deutsches Museum Verkehrszentrum in Munich. Intermodal transportation has its origin in 18th century England and predates the railways. Some of the earliest containers were those used for shipping coal on the Bridgewater Canal in England in the 1780s. Coal containers (called "loose boxes" or "tubs") were soon deployed on the early canals and railways and were used for road/rail transfers (road at the time meaning horse-drawn vehicles). Wooden coal containers were first used on the railways in the 1830s on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. In 1841, Isambard Kingdom Brunel introduced iron containers to move coal from the vale of Neath to Swansea Docks. By the outbreak of the First World War the Great Eastern Railway was using wooden containers to trans-ship passenger luggage between trains and sailings via the port of Harwich. The early 1900s saw the first adoption of covered containers, primarily for the movement of furniture and intermodal freight between road and rail. A lack of standards limited the value of this service and this in turn drove standardisation. In the U.S. such containers, known as "lift vans", were in use from as early as 1911. ==Intermodal container==

Early containers in 1928 In the United Kingdom, containers were first standardised by the Railway Clearing House (RCH) in the 1920s, allowing both railway-owned and privately owned vehicles to be carried on standard container flats. By modern standards these containers were small, being long, normally wooden and with a curved roof and insufficient strength for stacking. From 1928 the London, Midland & Scottish Railway offered "door to door" intermodal road-rail services using these containers. This standard failed to become popular outside the United Kingdom. Pallets made their first major appearance during World War II, when the United States military assembled freight on pallets, allowing fast transfer between warehouses, trucks, trains, ships, and aircraft. Because no freight handling was required, fewer personnel were needed and loading times were decreased. Truck trailers were first carried by railway before World War II, an arrangement often called "piggyback", by the small Class I railroad, the Chicago Great Western in 1936. The Canadian Pacific Railway was a pioneer in piggyback transport, becoming the first major North American railway to introduce the service in 1952. In the United Kingdom, the big four railway companies offered services using standard RCH containers that could be craned on and off the back of trucks. Moving companies such as Pickfords offered private services in the same way. Containerization In 1933 in Europe, under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce, The Bureau International des Containers et du Transport Intermodal (BIC; English: International Bureau for Containers and Intermodal Transport) was established. In June 1933, the BIC decided about obligatory parameters for container use in international traffic. Containers handled by means of lifting gear, such as cranes, overhead conveyors, etc. for traveling elevators (group I containers), constructed after July 1, 1933. Obligatory Regulations: • Clause 1 — Containers are, as regards form, either of the closed or the open type, and, as regards capacity, either of the heavy or the light type. • Clause 2 — The loading capacity of containers must be such that their total weight (load, plus tare) is: for containers of the heavy type; for containers of the light type; a tolerance of 5 percent excess on the total weight is allowable under the same conditions as for wagon loads. In April 1935, BIC established a second standard for European containers: s in piggyback service in Albuquerque, New Mexico In the 1950s, a new standardized steel Intermodal container based on specifications from the United States Department of Defense began to revolutionize freight transportation. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) then issued standards based upon the U.S. Department of Defense standards between 1968 and 1970. The White Pass & Yukon Route railway acquired the world's first container ship, the Clifford J. Rogers, built in 1955, and introduced containers to its railway in 1956. In the United Kingdom the modernisation plan, and in turn the Beeching Report, strongly pushed containerization. British Railways launched the Freightliner service carrying high pre-ISO containers. The older wooden containers and the pre-ISO containers were rapidly replaced by ISO standard containers, and later by containers and larger. In the U.S., starting in the 1960s, the use of containers increased steadily. Rail intermodal traffic tripled between 1980 and 2002, according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR), from 3.1 million trailers and containers to 9.3 million. Large investments were made in intermodal freight projects. An example was the US$740 million Port of Oakland intermodal rail facility begun in the late 1980s. Since 1984, a mechanism for intermodal shipping known as double-stack rail transport has become increasingly common. Rising to the rate of nearly 70% of the United States' intermodal shipments, it transports more than one million containers per year. The double-stack rail cars design significantly reduces damage in transit and provides greater cargo security by cradling the lower containers so their doors cannot be opened. A succession of large, new, domestic container sizes was introduced to increase shipping productivity. In Europe, the more restricted loading gauge has limited the adoption of double-stack cars. However, in 2007 the Betuweroute, a railway from Rotterdam to the German industrial heartland, was completed, which may accommodate double-stacked containers in the future. Other countries, like New Zealand, have numerous low tunnels and bridges that limit expansion for economic reasons. Since electrification generally predated double-stacking, the overhead wiring was too low to accommodate it. However, India is building some freight-only corridors with the overhead wiring at above rail, which is high enough. Containers and container handling double-stacking a 40 foot container on the Canadian National line Containers, also known as intermodal containers or ISO containers because the dimensions have been defined by ISO, are the main type of equipment used in intermodal transport, particularly when one of the modes of transportation is by ship. Containers are wide by  or high. Since introduction, there have been moves to adopt other heights, such as . The most common lengths are , , , , although other lengths exist. The three common sizes are: • one TEU – × • two TEU – × • highcube × . In countries where the railway loading gauge is sufficient, truck trailers are often carried by rail. Variations exist, including open-topped versions covered by a fabric curtain are used to transport larger loads. A container called a tanktainer, with a tank inside a standard container frame, carries liquids. Refrigerated containers (reefer) are used for perishables. Swap body units have the same bottom corners as intermodal containers but are not strong enough to be stacked. They have folding legs under their frame and can be moved between trucks without using a crane. Handling equipment can be designed with intermodality in mind, assisting with transferring containers between rail, road and sea. These can include: • container gantry crane for transferring containers from seagoing vessels onto either trucks or rail wagons. A spreader beam moves in several directions allowing accurate positioning of the cargo. A container crane is mounted on rails moving parallel to the ship's side, with a large boom spanning the distance between the ship's cargo hold and the quay. • Straddle carriers, and the larger rubber tyred gantry crane are able to straddle container stacks as well as rail and road vehicles, allowing for quick transfer of containers. Load securing in intermodal containers According to the European Commission Transportation Department "it has been estimated that up to 25% of accidents involving trucks can be attributable to inadequate cargo securing". Cargo that is improperly secured can cause severe accidents and lead to the loss of cargo, the loss of lives, the loss of vehicles, ships and airplane; not to mention the environmental hazards it can cause. There are many different ways and materials available to stabilize and secure cargo in containers used in the various modes of transportation. Conventional Load Securing methods and materials such as steel banding and wood blocking & bracing have been around for decades and are still widely used. In the last few years the use of several, relatively new and unknown Load Securing methods have become available through innovation and technological advancement including polyester strapping and -lashing, synthetic webbings and Dunnage Bags, also known as air bags. File:Stabilizing capabilities Cordstrap dunnage bags.jpg|Application in container File:Lashing and dunnage bag application.JPG|Polyester strapping and dunnage bag application File:Lashing application flat rack.jpg|Polyester lashing application ==Transportation modes==

Container ships port in Belgium Container ships are used to transport containers by sea. These vessels are custom-built to hold containers. Some vessels can hold thousands of containers. Their capacity is often measured in TEU or FEU. These initials stand for "twenty-foot equivalent unit", and "forty-foot equivalent unit", respectively. For example, a vessel that can hold 1,000 40-foot containers or 2,000 20-foot containers can be said to have a capacity of . After the year 2006, the largest container ships in regular operation are capable of carrying in excess of . On board ships they are typically stacked up to seven units high. A key consideration in the size of container ships is that larger ships exceed the capacity of important sea routes such as the Panama and Suez canals. The largest size of container ship able to traverse the Panama canal is referred to as Panamax, which is presently around . A third set of locks is planned as part of the Panama Canal expansion project to accommodate container ships up to in future, comparable to the present Suezmax. Very large container ships also require specialized deep water terminals and handling facilities. The container fleet available, route constraints, and terminal capacity play a large role in shaping global container shipment logistics. Railways and intermodal terminals intermodal terminal at the Port of Savannah s with intermodal terminals and maritime RoRo ports Increasingly, containers are shipped by rail in container well cars. These cars resemble flatcars but have a container-sized depression, or well, in the middle of the car between the bogies or trucks. Some container cars are built as an articulated "unit" of three or five permanently coupled cars, each having a single bogie rather than the two bogies normally found on freight cars. Containers can be loaded on flatcars or in container well cars. In North America, Australia and Saudi Arabia, where vertical clearances are generally liberal, this depression is sufficient for two containers to be loaded in a "double-stack" arrangement. In Europe, height restrictions imposed by smaller structure gauges, and frequent overhead electrification, prevent double-stacking. Containers are therefore hauled one-high, either on standard flatcars or other railroad cars – but they must be carried in well wagons on lines built early in the Industrial Revolution, such as in the United Kingdom, where loading gauges are relatively small. In India (which uses Indian broad gauge) and China double-stack container trains run on electrified rail lines purpose-built or upgraded to the needed standards. There are plans to electrify the Mombasa–Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway which has been transporting double-stacked containers with diesel locomotives since 2018. narrow-gauge railways have smaller wagons that do not readily carry ISO containers, nor do the long and wide wagons of the gauge Kalka-Shimla Railway. Wider narrow gauge railways of e.g. and gauge can take ISO containers, provided that the loading gauge allows it. It is also common in North America and Australia to transport semi-trailers on railway flatcars or spine cars, an arrangement called "piggyback" or TOFC (trailer on flatcar) to distinguish it from container on flatcar (COFC). Some flatcars are designed with collapsible trailer hitches so they can be used for trailer or container service. Such designs allow trailers to be rolled on from one end, though lifting trailers on and off flatcars by specialized loaders is more common. TOFC terminals typically have large areas for storing trailers pending loading or pickup. Thievery has become a problem in North America. Sophisticated thieves learn how to interpret the codes on the outside of containers to ascertain which ones have easily disposable cargo. They break into isolated containers on long trains, or even board slowly moving trains to toss the items to accomplices on the ground. Trucks in South Florida Trucking is frequently used to connect the "linehaul" ocean and rail segments of a global intermodal freight movement. This specialized trucking that runs between ocean ports, rail terminals, and inland shipping docks, is often called drayage, and is typically provided by dedicated drayage companies or by the railroads. As an example, since many rail lines in the United States terminate in or around Chicago, Illinois, the area serves as a common relay point for containerized freight moving across the country. Many of the motor carriers call this type of drayage "crosstown loads" that originate at one rail road and terminate at another. For example, a container destined for the east coast from the west will arrive in Chicago either via the Union Pacific or BNSF Railway and have to be relayed to one of the eastern railroads, either CSX or Norfolk Southern. Barges Barges utilising ro-ro and container-stacking techniques transport freight on large inland waterways such as the Rhine/Danube in Europe and the Mississippi River in the U.S. The term reverse land bridge refers to a micro land bridge from an east coast port (as opposed to a west coast port in the previous examples) to an inland destination. File:Land Bridge.png|Image of a land bridge. File:Mini Land Bridge.png|Image of a mini land bridge. File:Micro Land Bridge.png|Image of a micro land bridge. File:Reverse Land Bridge.png|Image of a reverse land bridge. Planes and aircraft helicopter carries a sling-loaded 20 foot shipping container during retrograde operations and base closures in the Wardak province of Afghanistan in Afghanistan Generally modern, bigger planes usually carry cargo in the containers. Sometimes even the checked luggage is first placed into containers, and then loaded onto the plane. Of course because of the requirement for the lowest weight possible (and very important, little difference in the viable mass point), and low space, specially designed containers made from lightweight material are often used. Due to price and size, this is rarely seen on the roads or in ports. However, large transport aircraft make it possible to even load standard container(s), or use standard sized containers made of much lighter materials like titanium or aluminium. == Biggest shipping liner companies by TEU capacity ==

File:Kuantan Port Container Yard (View 2).JPG|Containers at Kuantan Port File:Containers ContainerCare Copenhagen.JPG|ISO-code and dimension/load table on several newly washed containers File:Melbourne--swanston-dock-container-carrier.jpg|Straddle carriers in operation at the Port of Melbourne, Australia File:The Asahi liner train (9 of 11) - geograph.org.uk - 1092290.jpg|The former Asahi liner train running through Tuam railway station == See also ==