more on containeriaion...
Sweeping up the Autumn leaves - lovely beech and not so lovely sycamore leaves set me thinking how to justify my assertion that the revenue from containers shot up 400% or more.....
Would be interesting to see an understandable study, but in the meantime...
Take a 10,000 ton general cargo ship loading a full cargo ( excluding bulk) running on a regular route and we know this loading period averaged 10 to 14 strike free days. ( In London and Liverpool, at least) Just comparing the loading period, and ignoring the length of voyage and therefore the annual number of trips, after the dedicated container ships came in ( thinking of the ' baby' Bay class Australian trade ships) - they were 20,000 tons plus and they loaded a full load in 2 to 3 days working round the clock. i.e. 60,000 tons for a 10 to 14 day period. a factor of +6! This is a substantial benefit and maybe what students should be told.
Of course, it could be done because of one major, major, benefit of the boxes. THEY COULD BE PRE-LOADED INLAND. This meant, for example, that it was common to load 3000 to 4000 tons on one 8 hr night shift alone. Like shelling peas... Absolutely. I was a shift manager on the Australian 37 berth in Tilbury in the early days, and woe betide anything or anyone that got in the way of the night programme. To induce the dockers to go like hell, I would permit an early ' pop ' or better still a showing of blue movies in a 40ft container afterwards as a bonus!
The UK / Australia NZ trade makes a good study. It was ideal because the traffic ( even wool) was suited to boxes; the hinterlands around the ports had good and accessible roads with facilities. Most of the uncertainties, ( except weather) could be ironed out, and the annual pattern established well in advance. What happened as we have said elsewhere in these threads, is that everyone else in the industry got carried away a bit, and started trying to containerise totally or partially unsuitable trades using quite often unsuitable equipment, i.e. the port hole reefers that Bank Line unfortunately bought.
I guess we could go on and on , and it IS interesting. Many of the strongly held anti container views do have a valid thread, and this is due to the rush to stuff everything into boxes. This, apart from the loss of fun and longer port stays that we all enjoyed in the lazy 50's!