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104-516: As a result of the intermodal shipping container revolution, the required number of dockworkers has declined by over 90% since the 1960s. The word stevedore ( / ˈ s t iː v ɪ ˌ d ɔːr / ) originated in Portugal or Spain , and entered the English language through its use by sailors . It started as a phonetic spelling of estivador ( Portuguese ) or estibador ( Spanish ), meaning

208-477: A 40-ft unit than for a 1 TEU box. Although 20-ft units mostly have heavy cargo, and are useful for stabilizing both ships and revenue, carriers financially penalize 1 TEU boxes by comparison. For container manufacturers, 40-foot High-Cubes now dominate market demand both for dry and refrigerated units. Manufacturing prices for regular dry freight containers are typically in the range of $ 1750–$ 2000 U.S. per CEU (container equivalent unit), and about 90% of

312-560: A clause in the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) contract stipulated that the work of "stuffing" (filling) or "stripping" (emptying) a container within 50 miles (80 km) of a port must be done by ILA workers, or if not done by ILA, that the shipper needed to pay royalties and penalties to the ILA. Unions for truckers and consolidators argued that the ILA rules were not valid work preservation clauses, because

416-597: A crane. However they frequently do not have the upper corner fittings of ISO containers, and are not stackable, nor can they be lifted and handled by the usual equipment like reach-stackers or straddle-carriers. They are generally more expensive to procure. Basic terminology of globally standardized intermodal shipping containers is set out in standard: From its inception, ISO standards on international shipping containers, consistently speak of them sofar as 'Series 1' containers – deliberately so conceived, to leave room for another such series of interrelated container standards in

520-412: A crane. The containers either leave the port by truck or rail or are stored until they are placed on another ship. Once the ship is offloaded, the containers it leaves with are brought to the dock by truck. A crane lifts the containers from the trucks onto the ship. As the containers pile up on the ship, the workers connect them to the vessel and the other already-placed containers. The jobs involved include

624-471: A day's work; and a day's work could be 24 hours of continuous labouring. In addition, the work itself was incredibly dangerous. A docker would suffer a fatal injury from falling cargo almost every week during 1900, and non-fatal injuries were even more frequent. The London dockers handled exotic imports such as precious stones, African ivory, Indian spices, and Jamaican rum that they could never dream of purchasing themselves, and so robberies were very common on

728-588: A deep water channel, added the King George V Dock (1920) to the Royal group, and made continuous improvements to the other enclosed dock systems throughout the first two-thirds of the 20th century. This culminated in expansion of Tilbury in the late 1960s to become a major container port (the UK's largest in the early 1970s), together with a huge riverside grain terminal and mechanised facilities for timber handling. Under

832-597: A man who loads ships and stows cargo , which was the original meaning of stevedore (though there is a secondary meaning of "a man who stuffs" in Spanish); compare Latin stīpāre meaning to stuff , as in to fill with stuffing . In Ancient and Modern Greek, the verb στοιβάζω (stivazo) means pile up. In Great Britain and Ireland , people who load and unload ships are usually called dockers ; in Australia , they are called stevedores , dockworkers or wharfies ; and, in

936-438: 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

1040-403: A new 35 ft (10.67 m) x 8 ft (2.44 m) x 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) 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

1144-517: A port for a limited amount of time, so their work must be completed quickly. In earlier days before the introduction of containerization , men who loaded and unloaded ships had to tie down cargoes with rope. A type of stopper knot is called the stevedore knot . Securely tying up parcels of goods is called stevedore lashing or stevedore knotting . While loading a general cargo vessel, they use dunnage , which are pieces of wood (or nowadays sometimes strong inflatable dunnage bags ) set down to keep

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1248-462: A typical internal width of 2.44 m ( 96 + 1 ⁄ 8  in), (a gain of ~ 10 centimetres ( 3 + 15 ⁄ 16  in) over the ISO-usual 2.34 m ( 92 + 1 ⁄ 8  in), gives pallet-wide containers a usable internal floor width of 2.40 m ( 94 + 1 ⁄ 2  in), compared to 2.00 m ( 78 + 3 ⁄ 4  in) in standard containers, because

1352-439: A winter day.. .. Three more power stations, at Belvedere (Oil-firing), and Northfleet and West Thurrock (coal-firing), are being built. This coal was handled directly by riverside coal handling facilities, rather than the docks. For example, Beckton Gas Works had two large piers which dealt with both its own requirements and with the transfer of coal to lighters for delivery to other gasworks. A considerable proportion of

1456-777: 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 Corten steel ; almost all 8 feet (2.44 m) wide, and of either 20 or 40 feet (6.10 or 12.19 m) standard length, as defined by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard 668:2020 . The worldwide standard heights are 8 feet 6 inches (2.59 m) and 9 feet 6 inches (2.90 m) –

1560-550: The 13.6 m (44 ft 7 + 3 ⁄ 8  in) swap bodies that are common for truck transport in Europe. The EU has started a standardization for pallet wide containerization in the European Intermodal Loading Unit (EILU) initiative. Many sea shipping providers in Europe allow these on board, as their external width overhangs over standard containers are sufficiently minor that they fit in

1664-538: 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 8 ft (2.44 m) wide and 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) high, but due to California's different traffic code Matson chose to make theirs 24 ft (7.32 m) long. In 1968, McLean began container service to South Vietnam for

1768-517: The British Trades Union movement, leading to the betterment of labourers across London. Alongside the docks many port industries developed, some of which (notably sugar refining , edible oil processing , vehicle manufacture and lead smelting ) survive today. Other industries have included iron working, casting of brass and bronze, shipbuilding , timber, grain, cement and paper milling, armament manufacture, etc. London dominated

1872-769: The City Canal , was subsequently cut across the Isle of Dogs. London's Docklands had their origin in the lack of capacity in the Pool of London which particularly affected the West India trade. In 1799, the West India Dock Act allowed a new off-river dock to be built for produce from the West Indies, and the rest of Docklands followed as landowners built enclosed docks with better security and facilities than

1976-545: 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

2080-590: The ISO 6346 standard classifies a broad spectrum of container types in great detail. Aside from different size options, the most important container types are: Containers for offshore use have a few different features, like pad eyes , and must meet additional strength and design requirements, standards and certification, such as the DNV2.7-1 by Det Norske Veritas , LRCCS by Lloyd's Register , Guide for Certification of Offshore Containers by American Bureau of Shipping and

2184-559: The International standard ISO10855 : Offshore containers and associated lifting sets , in support of IMO MSC/Circ. 860 A multitude of equipment, such as generators, has been installed in containers of different types to simplify logistics – see § Containerized equipment for more details. Swap body units usually have the same bottom corner fixtures as intermodal containers, and often have folding legs under their frame so that they can be moved between trucks without using

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2288-662: The Marie Maersk no longer use separate stacks in their holds, and other stacks above deck – instead they maximize their capacity by stacking continuously from the bottom of the hull, to as much as 21 high. This requires automated planning to keep heavy containers at the bottom of the stack and light ones on top to stabilize the ship and to prevent crushing the bottom containers. Regional intermodal containers, such as European, Japanese and U.S. domestic units however, are mainly transported by road and rail, and can frequently only be stacked up to two or three laden units high. Although

2392-627: The North Sea and including any associated docks. Once the largest port in the world, it was the United Kingdom's largest port as of 2020. Usage is largely governed by the Port of London Authority ("PLA"), a public trust established in 1908; while mainly responsible for coordination and enforcement of activities it also has some minor operations of its own. The port can handle cruise liners, roll-on roll-off ferries and cargo of all types at

2496-965: The Swiss Museum of Transport and the Bureau International des Containers (BIC) 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 (lit. "Loading chests"), in use since 1934. This system used roller containers for transport by rail, truck and ship, in various configurations up to 5,500 kg (12,100 lb) capacity, and up to 3.1 by 2.3 by 2 metres (10 ft 2 in × 7 ft 6 + 1 ⁄ 2  in × 6 ft 6 + 3 ⁄ 4  in) in size. This became

2600-467: The U.S. Army Transportation Corps developed the "Transporter", a rigid, corrugated steel container, able to carry 9,000 pounds (4,100 kg). It was 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) long, 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) wide, and 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) 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,

2704-617: The United States and Canada , the term longshoreman , derived from man-along-the-shore (or alongshore + man ), is used. Before the extensive use of container ships and shore-based handling machinery in the United States, longshoremen referred exclusively to the dockworkers, while stevedores , part of a separate trade union , worked on the ships operating their cranes and moving cargo. Dockworkers, also known as longshoremen and stevedores, have existed since ancient times. The role of dockworkers has evolved significantly over

2808-647: The shape-up . Dock workers have been a prominent part of the modern labor movement . Former stevedores and dockworkers include: Intermodal container An intermodal container , often called a shipping container , or cargo container , (or simply “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

2912-597: The twistlock mechanism that connects with the corner castings. Containers in their modern 21st-century form first began to gain widespread use around 1956. Businesses began to devise a structured process to utilize 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,

3016-611: The 1990s, and bulk paper import at Convoy's Wharf in Deptford until 2000. The wider port continued to be a major centre for trade and industry, with oil and gas terminals at Coryton , Shell Haven and Canvey in Essex and the Isle of Grain in Kent. In 1992 Government privatisation policy led to Tilbury becoming a free port . The PLA ceased to be a port operator, retaining the role of managing

3120-401: The 9 ft 6 in (2.9 m) tall high-cube, as well as 4-foot-3-inch half-height (1.3 m) 20-foot (6.1 m) containers are equally counted as one TEU. Similarly, extra long 45 ft (13.72 m) containers are commonly counted as just two TEU, no different from standard 40 feet (12.19 m) long units. Two TEU are equivalent to one forty-foot equivalent unit (FEU). In 2014

3224-703: The Box: How Globalization Changed from Moving Stuff to Spreading Ideas and The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger , said in an interview: Because of delays in the process, it's taking a container longer to go from its origin to its final destination where it's unloaded, so the container is in use longer for each trip. You've just lost a big hunk of

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3328-647: The Clyde and other centres from the mid-19th century. This also affected an attempt by Henry Bessemer to establish steel-making on the Greenwich Peninsula in the 1860s. The last major warship, HMS Thunderer , was launched in 1911. The volume of shipping in the Port of London supported a very extensive ship repairing industry. In 1864, when most ships coming in were built of wood and powered by sail, there were 33 ship-repairing dry docks. The largest of these

3432-584: The East & West India Docks Company (owners of the East India, West India, and Tilbury docks), Surrey Commercial Docks Company and London & St Katharine Docks Company (owners of the London, St Katharine and Royal docks). By the beginning of the 20th century, competition and strikes led to pressure for amalgamation. A Royal Commission led to the setting up of the Port of London Authority (PLA) in 1908. In 1909,

3536-413: The London docks. Dockers would leave work with goods hidden under their clothes, and robbers would break into warehouses at night. While tobacco, pineapples, bearskins, and other goods were all targets of thievery, the most common transgression was stealing to drink. Many reports from the early 20th century detail dockers stealing bottles of brandy or gin and drinking rather than working. More often than not,

3640-610: The PLA has implemented a plan to safeguard 50 wharves , half above and half below the Thames Barrier . In recent years there has been a resurgence in the use of the River Thames for moving cargo between terminals within the Port of London. This is seen to be in the main part due to the environmental benefits of moving such cargo by river, and as an alternative to transporting the cargo on the congested road and rail networks of

3744-505: The PLA took control of the enclosed docks from Tower Bridge to Tilbury, with a few minor exceptions such as Poplar Dock which remained as a railway company facility. It also took over control of the river between Teddington Lock and Yantlet Creek from the City corporation which had been responsible since the 13th century. The PLA head Office at Trinity Square Gardens was built by John Mowlem & Co and completed in 1919. The PLA dredged

3848-511: The PLA, London's annual trade had grown to 60 million tons (38% of UK trade) by 1939, but was mainly transferred to the Clyde and Liverpool during World War 2. After the war, London recovered, again reaching 60 million tons in the 1960s. By 1900, the wharves and docks were receiving about 7.5 million tons of cargo each; an inevitable result of the extending reach of the British Empire. Of course, because of its size and grandeur,

3952-469: The Pool were colliers meeting an increase in the demand for coal as the population of London rose. Coastal trade virtually doubled between 1750 and 1796 reaching 11,964 vessels in 1795. In overseas trade, in 1751 the pool handled 1,682 ships and 234,639 tons of goods. By 1794, this had risen to 3,663 ships and 620,845 tons. By this time, the river was lined with nearly continuous walls of wharves running for miles along both banks, and hundreds of ships moored in

4056-737: The Pool's wharves. Throughout the 19th century, a series of enclosed dock systems was built, surrounded by high walls to protect cargoes from river piracy. These included West India Docks (1802), East India Docks (1803, originating from the Brunswick Dock of 1790), London Docks (1805), Surrey Commercial Docks (1807, originating from the Howland Great Wet Dock of 1696), St Katharine Docks (1828), Royal Victoria Dock (1855), Millwall Dock (1868), Royal Albert Dock (1880), and Tilbury docks (1886). The enclosed docks were built by several rival private companies, notably

4160-536: The Port of London handles around 10% of the UK commercial shipping trade, and contributes £8.5 billion to the UK's economy . In addition to cargo, 37 cruise ships visited the Port in 2008. Once a major refiner of crude oil, today the port only imports refined products. The Kent ( BP ) and Shell Haven ( Shell ) refineries closed in 1982 and 1999, and Coryton in 2012. A number of upstream wharves remain in use. At Silvertown, for example, Tate & Lyle continues to operate

4264-453: The Port was a place of work for many labourers in late 19th and early 20th century London. While most of the dockers were casual labourers, there were skilled stevedores who loaded ships, and lightermen who unloaded cargo from moored boats via barges. While these specific dockhands found regular work, the average dockhand lived day to day, hoping he would be hired whenever a ship came in. Many times these workers would actually bribe simply for

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4368-474: The Romans at its height in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The harbour town grew and expanded quickly. The lavish nature of goods traded in London shaped the extravagant lifestyle of its citizens and the city flourished under Roman colonization. The Roman expansion of port facilities and organisation of the London harbour have remained as the base of the London harbour. Until the beginning of the 19th century, shipping

4472-505: The Romans built the original harbour. The construction involved expanding the waterfront using wooden frames filled with dirt. Once these were in place, the wharf was built in four stages moving downstream from London Bridge . The port began to rapidly grow and prosper during the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and saw its final demise in the early 5th century with the decline in trade activity due to the Roman departure from Britain . The changes made to

4576-572: The Thames and its tributaries and canals. Major Thames-side gasworks were located at Beckton and East Greenwich , with power stations including Brimsdown , Hackney and West Ham on the River Lea and Kingston , Fulham , Lots Road , Wandsworth , Battersea , Bankside , Stepney , Deptford , Greenwich , Blackwall Point , Brunswick Wharf , Woolwich , Barking , Belvedere , Littlebrook , West Thurrock , Northfleet , Tilbury and Grain on

4680-944: The Thames. Much of the disused land of the upstream London Docklands is in the process of being developed for housing and as a second financial district for London (centred on Canary Wharf ). The Port of London today comprises over 70 independently owned terminals and port facilities, directly employing over 30,000 people. These are mainly concentrated at Purfleet (with the world's largest margarine works), Thurrock , Tilbury (the Port's current main container facility), London Gateway , Coryton and Canvey Island in Essex, Dartford and Northfleet in Kent, and Greenwich, Silvertown, Barking , Dagenham and Erith in Greater London. The Port of London handles containers , timber, paper, vehicles, aggregates , crude oil , petroleum products , liquefied petroleum gas , coal, metals, grain and other dry and liquid bulk materials. In 2012 London

4784-428: The Thames. The coal requirements of power stations and gas works constituted a large proportion of London's post-war trade. A 1959 Times article states: About two-thirds of the 20 million tons of coal entering the Thames each year is consumed in nine gas works and 17 generating stations. Beckton Gas Works carbonises an average of 4,500 tons of coal every day; the largest power stations burn about 3,000 tons during

4888-654: The Transporter was developed into the Container Express (CONEX) 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 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) long, 4 ft 3 in (1.30 m) wide and 6 ft 10 + 1 ⁄ 2  in (2.10 m) high. CONEXes could be stacked three high, and protected their contents from

4992-738: 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. In April 1951 at Zürich Tiefenbrunnen railway station ,

5096-651: The US military with great success. 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 (CSC) is a 1972 regulation by the Inter-governmental Maritime Consultative Organization on

5200-482: The banks along the port made by the Romans are so substantial and long-lasting that it was hard to tell where the natural waterfront really began. However, the harbour within the Roman town was already in decline at the end of the 2nd century AD. It seems likely that a proper port developed at about this time at Shadwell , about 1 mile (1.6 km) east of the Roman town London became a very important trading port for

5304-572: The capital. Local authorities are contributing to this increase in intraport traffic, with waste transfer and demolition rubble being taken by barges on the river. The construction of the Olympic Park and Crossrail both used the river as a means of transporting cargo and waste/excavation material, and the ongoing Thames Tideway Scheme also uses the river for these purposes, as well as for transporting of its Tunnel Boring Machines as well as temporary offices. The Crossrail project alone involved

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5408-427: The cargo out of any water that might be lying in the hold or are placed as shims between cargo crates for load securing . Today, the vast majority of non- bulk cargo is transported in intermodal containers . The containers arrive at a port by truck, rail, or another ship and are stacked in the port's storage area. When the vessel that will be transporting them arrives, the containers it is offloading are unloaded by

5512-406: The centuries as maritime trade has grown and modernized: Loading and unloading ships requires knowledge of the operation of loading equipment, the proper techniques for lifting and stowing cargo , and the correct handling of hazardous materials . In addition, workers must be physically strong and able to follow orders attentively. Many longshoremen are needed to unload a ship. A ship can only be at

5616-492: The consequences were harsh. Five weeks of hard labour for one bottle of Hennessy brandy was not unheard of. These conditions eventually spurred Ben Tillett to lead the London Dock strike of 1889 . The workers asked for only a minuscule increase in payment, but foremen initially refused. Over time the strike grew and eventually helped to draw attention to the poor conditions of London dockhands. The strike also revitalized

5720-401: The container, to avoid axle weight violations. The maximum gross weights that U.S. railroads accept or deliver are 52,900 lb (24,000 kg) for 20-foot containers, and 67,200 lb (30,500 kg) for 40-foot containers, in contrast to the global ISO-standard gross weight for 20-footers having been raised to the same as 40-footers in the year 2005. In the U.S., containers loaded up to

5824-452: The corrugated sides cause aerodynamic drag, and up to 10% fuel economy loss in road or rail transport, compared to smooth-sided vans. Standard containers are 8 feet (2.44 m) wide by 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) high, although the taller "High Cube" or "hi-cube" units measuring 9 feet 6 inches (2.90 m) have become very common in recent years . By the end of 2013, high-cube 40 ft containers represented almost 50% of

5928-439: The crane operators, the workers who connect the containers to the ship and each other, the truck drivers who transport the containers from the dock and storage area, the workers who track the containers in the storage area as they are loaded and unloaded, as well as various supervisors. Those workers at the port who handle and move the containers are likely to be considered stevedores or dockworkers. Before containerization, freight

6032-427: 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 30 by 8 by 8.5 feet (9.14 m × 2.44 m × 2.59 m) containers that could be stacked two high, for Alaska-based Ocean Van Lines . Steel castings on

6136-415: The drop in London's trade since the 1960s is accounted for by loss of the coal trade, the gas works having closed following discovery of North Sea gas , domestic use of coal for heating being largely replaced by gas and electricity, and closure of all the coal-burning power stations above Tilbury. In 2011, when Tilbury Power Station switched fully to burning biomass, London's coal imports fell to zero. With

6240-484: The eight corners, to allow gripping the box from above, below, or the side, and they can be stacked up to ten units high. Although ISO standard 1496 of 1990 only required nine-high stacking, and only of containers rated at 24,000 kg (53,000 lb), current Ultra Large Container Vessels of the Post New Panamax and Maersk Triple E class are stacking them ten or eleven high. Moreover, vessels like

6344-453: 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

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6448-435: The extra width enables their users to either load two Euro-pallets end on end across their width, or three of them side by side (providing the pallets were neatly stacked, without overspill), whereas in standard ISO containers, a strip of internal floor-width of about 33 centimetres (13 in) cannot be used by Euro-pallets. As a result, while being virtually interchangeable: Some pallet-wides are simply manufactured with

6552-529: The figure for intraport trade was 1.9 million tonnes, making the River Thames the busiest inland waterway in the UK. DP World 's London Gateway , opened in November 2013, is an expansion of the Port of London on the north bank of the Thames in Thurrock, Essex, 30 miles (48 km) east of central London. It is a fully integrated logistics facility, comprising a semi-automated, deep-sea container terminal on

6656-508: 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

6760-427: The future. Basic dimensions and permissible gross weights of intermodal containers are largely determined by two ISO standards: Weights and dimensions of the most common (standardized) types of containers are given below. Forty-eight foot and fifty-three foot containers have not yet been incorporated in the latest, 2020 edition of the ISO 668. ISO standard maximum gross mass for all standard sizes except 10-ft boxes

6864-494: 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: freight container, sea container, ocean container, container van or sea van , sea can or C can , or MILVAN , or SEAVAN . The term CONEX (Box)

6968-462: The global container fleet grew to a volume of 36.6 million TEU, based on Drewry Shipping Consultants' Container Census. Moreover, in 2014 for the first time in history 40-foot High-Cube containers accounted for the majority of boxes in service, measured in TEU. In 2019 it was noted by global logistics data analysis startup Upply that China's role as 'factory of the world' is further incentivizing

7072-506: The growth and success of the city. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was the busiest port in the world, with wharves extending continuously along the Thames for 11 miles (18 km), and over 1,500 cranes handling 60,000 ships per year. It was a prime target for Nazi German bomber aircraft during World War II ( the Blitz ). The first evidence of a reasonable sized trading in London can be seen during Roman control of Britain, at which time

7176-412: The larger facilities in its eastern extent. As with many similar historic European ports, such as Antwerp and Rotterdam , many activities have steadily moved downstream towards the open sea as ships have grown larger and the land upriver taken over for other uses. The Port of London has been central to the economy of London since the founding of the city in the 1st century and was a major contributor to

7280-640: 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. The first international standard for containers was established by the Bureau International des Containers et du Transport Intermodal (B.I.C.) 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

7384-601: The late 18th century. In 1766 James Brindley designed the box boat 'Starvationer' with ten wooden containers, to transport coal from Worsley Delph (quarry) 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

7488-519: The latter are known as High Cube or Hi-Cube ( HC or HQ ) containers. Depending on the source, these containers may be termed TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), 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

7592-497: The maximum width of road vehicles in the region but is 6 inches (15 cm) wider than ISO-standard containers, and they are often not built strong enough to endure the rigors of ocean transport. The first North American containers to come to market were 48 feet (15 m) long. This size was introduced by container shipping company American President Lines (APL) in 1986. The size of the containers matched new federal regulations passed in 1983 which prohibited states from outlawing

7696-425: The operation of single trailers shorter than 48 feet long or 102 inches wide. This size being 8 feet (2.44 m) longer and 6 inches (15 cm) wider has 29% more volume capacity than the standard 40-ft High-Cube, yet costs of moving it by truck or rail are almost the same. In the late 1980s, the federal government announced it would once again allow an increase in the length of trailers to 53 feet (16 m) at

7800-492: The process can easily cause major delays everywhere up and down the supply chain. The reliance on containers exacerbated some of the economic and societal damage from the 2021 global supply chain crisis of 2020 and 2021, and the resulting shortages related to the COVID-19 pandemic . In January 2021, for example, a shortage of shipping containers at ports caused shipping to be backlogged. Marc Levinson, author of Outside

7904-722: The rail cargo weight limit cannot move over the road, as they will exceed the U.S. 80,000 lb (36,000 kg) highway limit. Australian RACE containers are also slightly wider to optimise them for the use of Australia Standard Pallets , or are 41 ft (12.5 m) long and 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) wide to be able to fit up to 40 pallets. European pallet wide (or PW) containers are minimally wider, and have shallow side corrugation, to offer just enough internal width, to allow common European Euro-pallets of 1.20 m ( 47 + 1 ⁄ 4  in) long by 0.80 m ( 31 + 1 ⁄ 2  in) wide, to be loaded with significantly greater efficiency and capacity. Having

8008-467: The river or alongside the quays. In the late 18th century, an ambitious scheme was proposed by Willey Reveley to straighten the Thames between Wapping and Woolwich Reach by cutting a new channel across the Rotherhithe , Isle of Dogs , and Greenwich peninsulas. The three great horseshoe bends would be cut off with locks, as huge wet docks. This was not realised, though a much smaller channel,

8112-445: 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. Longshoremen and related unions around the world struggled with this revolution in shipping goods. For example, by 1971

8216-553: The same site as the UK's largest land bank for development of warehousing, distribution facilities and ancillary logistics services. It is a deep-water port able to handle the biggest container ships. The Port of London once had its own police force – the Port of London Authority Police – but is today policed by a number of forces. These are the local territorial police forces of the areas the Thames passes through (the Metropolitan , City of London , Essex and Kent forces) and

8320-487: The same, ISO-standard floor structure, but with the side-panels welded in, such that the ribs/corrugations are embossed outwards, instead of indenting to the inside. This makes it possible for some pallet-wides to be just 2.462 m ( 96 + 7 ⁄ 8  in) wide, but others can be 2.50 m ( 98 + 3 ⁄ 8  in) wide. The 45 ft (13.72 m) pallet-wide high-cube container has gained particularly wide acceptance, as these containers can replace

8424-577: The ship lines want to ship them empty back to Asia, rather than letting them go to South Dakota and load over the course of several days. So we've had exporters in the United States complaining that they have a hard time finding a container that they can use to send their own goods abroad. Ninety percent of the global container fleet consists of "dry freight" or "general purpose" containers – both of standard and special sizes. And although lengths of containers vary from 8 to 56 feet (2.4 to 17.1 m), according to two 2012 container census reports about 80% of

8528-451: The standard, general purpose container, many variations exist for use with different cargoes. The most prominent of these are refrigerated containers (also called reefers ) for perishable goods, that make up 6% of the world's shipping boxes. Tanks in a frame, for bulk liquids, account for another 0.75% of the global container fleet. Although these variations are not of the standard type, they mostly are ISO standard containers – in fact

8632-451: The standards. Empty weight ( tare weight ) is not determined by the standards, but by the container's construction, and is therefore indicative, but necessary to calculate a net load figure, by subtracting it from the maximum permitted gross weight. The bottom row in the table gives the legal maximum cargo weights for U.S. highway transport, and those based on use of an industry common tri-axle chassis. Cargo must also be loaded evenly inside

8736-657: The start of 1990. Anticipating this change, 53 foot containers were introduced in 1989. These large boxes have 60% more capacity than 40' containers, enabling shippers to consolidate more cargo into fewer containers. Port of London The Port of London is that part of the River Thames in England lying between Teddington Lock and the defined boundary (since 1968, a line drawn from Foulness Point in Essex via Gunfleet Old Lighthouse to Warden Point in Kent ) with

8840-687: The third most and the Medway ports (chiefly London Thamesport ) the fifth. The number of twenty-foot equivalent units of containers handled by the Port of London exceeded two million in 2007 for the first time in the Port's history and this continued in 2008. The Port's capacity in handling modern, large ships and containers is set to dramatically expand with the completion of the London Gateway port project, which will be able to handle up to 3.5 million TEUs per year when fully completed. With around 12,500 commercial shipping movements annually,

8944-401: 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,

9048-418: The total capacity because the containers can't be used as intensively. We've had in the United States an additional problem, which is that the ship lines typically charge much higher rates on services from Asia to North America than from North America to Asia. This has resulted in complaints, for example, from farmers and agricultural companies, that it's hard to get containers in some parts of the country because

9152-414: The transporting of 5 million tonnes of material, almost all of which is clean earth, excavated from the ground, downstream through the Port, from locations such as Canary Wharf to new nature reserves being constructed in the Thames estuary area. This also includes the re-opening of wharves or jetties for various building projects along or near the Thames, Battersea coal jetty being the most recent. In 2008,

9256-404: The two ends are quite rigid, containers flex somewhat during transport. Container capacity is often expressed in twenty-foot equivalent units ( TEU , or sometimes teu ). A twenty-foot equivalent unit is a measure of containerized cargo capacity equal to one standard 20-foot (6.1 m) long container. This is an approximate measure, wherein the height of the box is not considered. For example,

9360-452: The use of 40-foot containers, and that the computational standard 1 TEU boxes only make up 20% of units on major east–west liner routes, and demand for shipping them keeps dropping. In the 21st century, the market has shifted to using 40-foot high-cube dry and refrigerated containers more and more predominantly. Forty-foot units have become the standard to such an extent that the sea freight industry now charges less than 30% more for moving

9464-571: The use of larger ships and containerisation , the importance of the upstream port declined rapidly from the mid-1960s. The enclosed docks further up river declined and closed progressively between the end of the 1960s and the early 1980s. Trade at privately owned wharves on the open river continued for longer, for example with container handling at the Victoria Deep Water Terminal on the Greenwich Peninsula into

9568-641: The usual interlock spaces in ship's holds, as long as their corner-castings patterns (both in the floor and the top) still match with regular 40-foot units, for stacking and securing. The North American market has widely adopted containerization, especially for domestic shipments that need to move between road and rail transport. While they appear similar to the ISO-standard containers, there are several significant differences: they are considered High-Cubes based on their 9 ft 6 in (2.90 m) ISO-standard height, their 102-inch (2.6 m) width matches

9672-466: The work of stuffing and stripping containers away from the pier had not traditionally been done by ILA members. In 1980 the Supreme Court of the United States heard this case and ruled against the ILA. Some experts have said that the centralized, continuous shipping process made possible by containers has created dangerous liabilities: one bottleneck, delay, or other breakdown at any point in

9776-456: The world submarine communication cable industry for decades with works at Greenwich , Silvertown, North Woolwich , Woolwich and Erith . For centuries London was the major centre of shipbuilding in Britain (for example at Blackwall Yard , London Yard , Samuda Yard , Millwall Iron Works , Thames Ironworks , Greenwich , and Deptford and Woolwich dockyards), but declined relative to

9880-537: 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. Containerization has its origins in early coal mining regions in England beginning in

9984-486: The world's containers are either 20- or 40-foot standard-length boxes of the dry freight design. These typical containers are rectangular, closed box models, with doors fitted at one end, and made of corrugated weathering steel (commonly known as CorTen) with a plywood floor. Although corrugating the sheet metal used for the sides and roof contributes significantly to the container's rigidity and stacking strength, just like in corrugated iron or in cardboard boxes ,

10088-591: The world's containers are made in China. The average age of the global container fleet was a little over 5 years from end 1994 to end 2009, meaning containers remain in shipping use for well over 10 years. A gooseneck tunnel , an indentation in the floor structure, that meshes with the gooseneck on dedicated container semi-trailers , is a mandatory feature in the bottom structure of 1AAA and 1EEE (40- and 45-ft high-cube) containers, and optional but typical on standard height, forty-foot and longer containers. Other than

10192-571: The world's largest cane sugar refinery , originally served by the West India Docks but now with its own cargo handling facilities. Many wharves as far upstream as Fulham are used for the handling of aggregates brought by barge from facilities down river. Riverside sites in London are under intense pressure for prestige housing or office development, and as a consequence the Greater London Authority in consultation with

10296-423: The world's maritime container fleet, according to Drewry's Container Census report. About 90% of the world's containers are either nominal 20-foot (6.1 m) or 40-foot (12.2 m) long, although the United States and Canada also use longer units of 45 ft (13.7 m), 48 ft (14.6 m) and 53 ft (16.15 m). ISO containers have castings with openings for twistlock fasteners at each of

10400-545: Was Langley's Lower Dock at Deptford Green, which was 460 ft (140 m) in length. While the building of large ships ceased with the closure of the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company at Leamouth in 1912, the ship repairing trade continued to flourish. Although by 1930 the number of major dry docks had been reduced to 16, highly mechanised and geared to the repair of iron and steel-hulled ships. There were also numerous power stations and gas works on

10504-531: Was handled entirely within the Pool of London on the stretch of the River Thames along Billingsgate on the south side of the City of London . All imported cargoes had to be delivered for inspection and assessment by Customs Officers, giving the area the name of " Legal Quays ". The Pool saw a phenomenal increase in both overseas and coastal trade in the second half of the 18th century. Two-thirds of coastal vessels using

10608-423: Was often handled with a longshoreman’s hook , a tool which became emblematic of the profession (mainly on the west coast of the United States and Canada). Traditionally, stevedores had no fixed job but would arrive at the docks in the morning seeking employment for the day. London dockers called this practice standing on the stones , while in the United States, it was referred to as shaping up or assembling for

10712-421: Was raised to 36,000 kg or 79,000 lb per Amendment 1 on ISO 668:2013, in 2016. Draft Amendment 1 of ISO 668: 2020 – for the eighth edition – maintains this. Given the average container lifespan, the majority of the global container fleet have not caught up with this change yet. Values vary slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer, but must stay within the tolerances dictated by

10816-444: Was the second largest port in the United Kingdom by tonnage handled (43.7 million), after Grimsby and Immingham (60 million). The Port of London however handles the most non-fuel cargo of any port in the UK (at 32.2 million tonnes in 2007). Other major rival ports to London in the country are Felixstowe and Southampton , which handle the most and second-most number of containers of British ports; in 2012 London handled

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