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Container Developments in Europe

The US invasion is imminent

EUROFE is about to be invaded—by the Americans. And, -1–+ no matter whether we like it or not, no matter how deeply we bury our heads into the sand and say "they'll burn their fingers", hauliers in the United Kingdom are going to get involved. Maybe slowly at first in terms of volume, but with increasing momentum, transcontinental containers up to maximum lengths of 40 ft. will be crossing the Atlantic to be slung off special container ships (if US-UK traffic is sufficient to warrant a call in England) at Southampton, Felixstowe, Liverpool, London and Hull. Or they may be offloaded from one of the many roll-on/ roll-off ferries operating between here and Le Havre, Antwerp, Rotterdam and Amsterdam as feeder services.

The invasion proper is due to start a fortnight today when the United States Lines high-speed "containerliner" s.s. "American Racer" will sail from New York on a pioneering Atlantic crossing to arrive 64 days later at Antwerp. After discharging 20 ft. arid 40 ft. containers there, she will sail on to Rotterdam with containers destined for the Low Countries and North West Europe.

Every Friday thereafter US Lines will send one of their four specially converted vessels to Europe with containers, constituting what they claim to be the first and the fastest integrated container ship service between the US and Western Europe. Altogether this company plans to use 1,200 containers, and their next move is to convert a further five ships and extend their door-to-door container service direct to France and the United Kingdom.

Forecasts have been made by prominent figures in transport that more than 75 per cent of the world's cargo eventually will be moved in containers of one sort or another. The mind almost boggles at the immensity of scale on which the Americans are planning their invasion of Europe, the one line competing against the other—so much so that concern is now being voiced in some quarters here that so many containers will soon be in circulation in Europe that there will not be the traffic to fill them.

For several years now transatlantic containers have in fact been entering this country—some of them 40 ft. in length, as some hauliers well know to their consternation—but only in relatively small numbers. Several shipping lines already have inaugurated pilot schemes, but an official of one of them said: "This has been child's play to what is going to hit Europe."

Perhaps the first ripples of the tidal wave will be provided by American Export Isbrandtsen. This company has already inaugurated a pilot scheme under a newly created subsidiary, Containers Marine Lines. In June its first two vessels will come into service, each carrying 632 containers, between New York, Le Havre and Amsterdam.

Towards the end of the year two specially constructed ships, capable of moving 738 containers each, will be operating. This company, which utilizes its own specially designed road running gear, plans to operate, as a first step, a total of 3,190 containers of the 20 and 40 ft. variety.

European centres for this service will be in Amsterdam, Bremen, Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Basel, Le Havre, Paris, Lyon, Rouen, Reims, Strasbourg, Antwerp and Liege. with extensions to England and Scandinavia.

Following closely on the tail of Isbrandtsen is the massive Sea-Land organization of McLean Industries Inc.—a company formed in 1955 by American haulier Malcom McLean "to foster a new concept of combined truck-water transportation, providing through routeing of freight under control of one company-.

This giant concern, which began its land/sea container services between the East and West coasts of America via Panama, extended its services to Puerto Rico (in the Caribbean) and is soon to operate extensively to Europe via the port of Rotterdam, using special container ships that will carry nearly 800 containers.

Sea-Land has six all-containerized ships on order, the first of which will be delivered in June, 1968, each capable of carrying 1,200 containers at high speed. With these ships in service they plan regular round voyages between North Europe, New York, Puerto Rico, Los Angeles and San Francisco via the Panama Canal.

An idea of the size of the Sea-Land organization can be gained from the fact that currently they operate 16 ships and more than 12,000 containers. As such they are by far the largest container operators in the world. Other large US shipping lines are on the container march to Europe. For instance, Moore McCormack Lines, now offering a modest service here, and which has plans for the construction of four fully containerized ships scheduled for completion in 1968; Black Diamond Steamship Co.; the US Navigation Co. (which operates the Hamburg-America Line) and States Marine Lines, currently sending 20 ft. and 40 ft. containers direct to Southampton.

In the opposite direction the Holland-American Line has banded together with Wallanius, Swedish American and Swedish Transatlantic Lines, with plans to put a containership fleet into operation by the late summer of 1967.

The British scene

Where does Britain stand in this container race? It would be true to say that over here "things are moving"—cautiously however, because as stated earlier, some of our larger international road-container operators are of opinion that the Americans are forcing the pace and will "burn their fingers".

To date two large consortia of well-known British shipping companies are "studying the carriage of containers in the longdistance sea haul", to quote an official of one of them—Overseas Containers Ltd., an independent company formed by four well-known British shipping lines. The other, and rival, group is Container Transportation Ltd.

According to the managing director of Overseas Containers, Maj.-Gen. G. E. Prior-Palmer, if their deliberations reveal that deep-sea containerization is felt to be a viable operation, the next stage will be to plan the operation of British container ships and to control such operation.

Both consortia are planning the physical distribution of containers in every aspect, including over-the-road operation. In the meantime a city-to-city experimental exchange scheme is starting up between this country and the US—claimed to be the first interchange of containers with inland Customs clearance.

Cunard, in conjunction with US Lines, are planning to send containers across the Atlantic via Liverpool, London and Southampton to Birmingham and Manchester, where Coast Lines and other interested parties are to establish inland clearance depots with space for storage, Customs inspection and transfer facilities.

The largest British land/sea container operator in this country is Anglo Continental Container Services, the company recently adopting the name "Containerway". ACCS were the first to use fully containerized vessels between England and Scotland and England and Northern Ireland, which operate under the flag of Atlantic Steam Navigation Co., better known to hauliers as the operators of the highly successful Transport Ferry Service. These companies between them pioneered container operations and the cheaper and popular Lancashire flat unit load system so popular on Irish Sea routes.

Michael Bustard, general manager of TFS, spoke of the popularity of the flat among hauliers and the difficulties of operating through-containers across Customs barriers. Taking into account the capital outlay involved in purchasing containers, a haulier can buy many more flats for the price of a container, he said.

Flats, several of which can be stacked when empty, also eliminate freight charges when traffic is one-way. "We are carrying far more flats than containers", Mr. Bustard said. However, he felt that this situation would be reversed in about five years' time. Altogether TFS is shipping about 3,000 units a week and flats are showing a faster rate of increase. Containers did best in a domestic or national market such as between England and Ireland, where there is no Customs impediment, Mr. Bustard said. "But when you break a national frontier, such as exists between here and Holland or the Benelux countries, the receiving country generally requires either a simple inspection of certain loads or, in the case of UK Customs, sometimes they want to see all the loads of certain classes".

This meant that the Customs officer had to survey the goods, continued Mr. Bustard. If the loads were on flats or on a TIR semi-trailer, the tilt could .be lifted and the items counted and inspected. If it was in a container, however, then the load had to come out—unless there was such a thing as a glass container!

As well as its conventional roll-on/roll-off ferries operating between UK and Holland, Belgium and across to Northern Ireland, TFS run special purpose-built, unit-load ships for ACCS between Ardrossan and Larne, Preston and Larne and Preston and Dublin. Indeed, their first exclusive container services started as far back as 1956 and business has boomed ever since, there being a 10 per cent increase every year.

As well as having plans for large cellular container ships for operation between the UK and the Continent, TFS is to install large gantry equipment of the Paceco type at Tilbury and Felix stowe within the next two years to load and offload containers at high speed. Another innovation planned by TFS is an express roll-on/roll-off service between Felixstowe and Europort.

Perhaps the man with the widest experience of container operation in this country is Mr. J. G. Woollam, chairman of ACCS which owns more than 1,200 containers and flats. Commenting on the future regarding containers and unit loads, Mr. Woollam said that without doubt the UK was behind the Continent and America because of length restrictions on our roads.

Regarding the popularity of the flat, his views were similar to Michael Bustard's, but he felt that the open flat had restrictions on the Continent. There, shippers had become so accustomed to the tilt-equipped trailer or boxvan vehicle that they tended to "look down their noses" when a flat arrived at their doors for loading or unloading. This, however, was tending to be overcome by use of sided flats with a TIR tilt top.

In answer to my question on whether the container would eventually take the place of the semi-trailer in hauls involving transcontinental short sea journeys, Mr. Woollam said that this would happen. The haulier of the future would mainly haul to the dock, although obviously there would always be a place for the "ferry haulier". (British Road Ferry Services, of which Mr. Woollam is also chairman, are developing lift-off or demountable bodies for all their future vehicles).

ACCS is already moving loads to and from the US via Rotterdam and Southampton, hiring equipment from the huge American leasing company, Integrated Container Services Inc. About their transatlantic operations Mr. Woollam had this to say: "We are proceeding the same way as we did with our operations to the Continent. We did not advertise ourselves as offering services there, but accepted loads where we were asked by our customers. So it has been with the US".

Although it is now one of 30 companies offering containerized services across the Irish Sea, ACCS claims several "firsts" in this kind of operation. They were the first to inaugurate such a service in April, 1949, bringing to Northern Ireland the first container specially built of aluminium alloys—with a tare weight of only 14 cwt. but capable of carrying up to 10 tons. ACCS planned, with ASN, the world's first purpose-built container ship—the "Clipper"—which was operated by ASN under charter to ACCS. The ship was the subject of considerable interest and has been visited by Americans, Australians, South Africans and Swedes. Such has been the build up in traffic— thanks to Lawther and Harvey Ltd., an agency which acts for ACCS in Ireland that seven specially chartered all-containerized ships now offer a sailing every 12 hours, six days a week, from Larne to Preston and Ardrossan. Whereas in the early days, 20 containers would be picked up in Ulster for shipment to England every other day, this number is now collected daily.

The largest container port in England at present is undoubtedly Preston, where many container operators have bases which include container parks, lifting gear, and so on. Here are the depots of Grenore Ferry Services, Link Line, Northern Ireland Trailers, Ulster Ferry Transport and British Road Ferry Services.

Typical of these Irish Sea operators are Jenkinson and Archer, who handle about 750 loads per month in and out of Preston. They also have services to Ireland from Newport. One of the latest here is Irish Sea Ferries Ltd., of Belfast, which utilizes 80 containers of various sizes and types and 280-odd platforms and flats.

American influence on road/rail techniques

Railways dominate the container scene in Europe. Ignoring completely the recently inaugurated and union-troubled British Railways Freightliner project—a "closed circuit" system incompatible with the general conception of the interchangeable container—the pattern of rail-road-sea container operations in Europe today bears a close resemblance to that abandoned by American carriers in the 1930s because of rate problems.

Railway companies both here and on the mainland have become increasingly aware of the large American-type van containers because of the increasing numbers that have reached the main entry ports and, in many cases, penetrated through to inland towns and cities.

French Railways, ever conscious of increased road competition, has for some time been offering two kinds of piggyback system for carrying road vehicles—the Kangaroo technique and the URF system (COMMERCIAL MOTOR, July 31, 1964 and February 26, 1965, respectively).

As a development of the Kangaroo, STEMA (the private operating company which runs the Kangaroo) has been carrying out studies on a prototype container-on-Kangeroo named, for obvious reasons, the Flexikan—an adaptation of the US Flexivan and the Kangaroo techniques.

Recently another type of• container/trailer on rail wagon system has been announced in France—the MC-22--which appears to be France's answer to the American sea-going container. Developed by the Frangeco Co. and the Road and Rail Transport Union, in conjunction with the General Transportation Corpn., of Chicago, the main advantage of this system is the side-loading method of transfer from rail to road vehicle. The Flexikan—soon going out of the experimental stage, 40 special rail wagons having been ordered to carry them—and the MC-22 represent the utmost in transport integration.

Several other container systems currently are on trial in France, and a body known as SECOTRAM has been set up to co-ordinate the various techniques. French Railways are expected to decide on one of the systems in the near future.

In Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn (Federal Railways) has developed containerization extensively for intra-European traffic and is part-owner of CONTRANS—operators of an intercontinental fleet of maritime containers available on a hiring basis. The Federal Railway containers exceed in number those of any American organization. Piggybacking in Germany is commonplace.

Within the smaller countries of Holland and Belgium, where piggybacking would be uneconomical, the Kangaroo system has been extended to take in Rotterdam where "Trailstar", a Dutch operating company, loads vehicles to journey long distances to Spain, Italy and Southern France.

As mentioned previously by Mr. Michael Bustard, of TFS, Continental hauliers are not keen on containers—they much prefer the tilt-top TIR trailer. But at least one internationally known Dutch haulier, Konig of Rotterdam, has gained valuable experience in the carriage of large American containers through an association with Helms International Inc. On both sides of the Atlantic both companies offer house-tohouse deliveries under one bill of loading, and these containers have reached the United Kingdom via TSF ferries to be hauled by Konig's counterpart in England—Continental Ferry Trailers, of Barking.

Before leaving the European scene mention must be made of TERRE—the Trans Europe Road Rail Express. Under American influence provided by the New York Central System and Integrated Container Service Inc., of New York, international freight expresses carrying Flexivans arriving in Europe from America will be arranged between Rotterdam and Antwerp to Chiasso on the Swiss-Italian border. Starting in the spring, TERRE trains will run four to six times weekly, providing a liner-train shuttle service between North and South Europe.

Transatlantic leasing and hauling

"Containers will come in such numbers that ultimately world container pools will be established, and consequently the interchangeability of containers will become important"—Maj.-Gen. Prior-Palmer. managing director of Overseas Containers Ltd.

At the time of writing three British companies are participants in Integrated Container Service Inc., of New York. They are Continental Ferry Trailers, of Barking; Anglo Overseas Transport Co. Ltd., of London; and ACCS, of London and Belfast. Another company—the newly formed container operating concern, International Ferry Freight Ltd., of East Ham and Hull— has applied for membership.

As such, these British operators join more than 40 American, Canadian, Belgian, German, Dutch, Italian, French and Norwegian haulage, railway and shipping companies. Organized in 1962 by Michael Kluge, its president, ICS owns a total of 1,200 Strick Flexivan containers of the 20 ft. and 40 ft. variety which form a leasing pool from which the participants can hire containers on a per diem basis ($3 a day for a 20 ft. one and $5 a day for a 40 ft. one).

Used extensively by the New York Central (Railroad) system and States Marine Lines Inc., ICS containers at 8 ft. by 8 ft. 6 in. by 20 ft. and 40 ft. have been arriving at Southampton during the past two years for onward road delivery to destina tions all over the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Two road operators—possibly the only two in the country with this valuable experience—have been responsible for the road section of the UK haul: Bakers Transport (Southampton) Ltd. and Victory Transport, of Roundhams, near Southampton.

Bakers Transport originally hauled the half dozen or so containers which arrived by States Marine line every 10 days or so, using various techniques for the 40 ft. boxes such as loading them on low-loaders and long trailers.

Victory Transport, on the other hand, has for more than a year been experimenting with these containers using seven sets of bogies supplied by States Marine, having first adapted the bogies to bring the vehicle and load within the regulations as they interpret them. Victory Transport prefers using the American running gear to carrying the containers on long trailers— the former being much more stable on the road, there being a certain amount of "tailwag" when carried on a trailer.

Normal rates for hauling these containers are charged by Victory Transport, but there are reductions when the customer's running gear is used. One big snag with the 40-footers—access to premises, is often difficult and sometimes impossible. Victory Transport, together with the Southampton Docks Board, British Railways and Overseas Containers, are currently exploring the possibility of operating between them an inland clearance depot on railway property at Eastleigh, just north of Southampton— it being a recognized factor that there is no space for storage and Customs clearance inside the Docks.

Dimensional differences still exist

Keeping pace with container developments, certain British international road hauliers are going in for containers—although, to quote one of them, Peter Kunzler, of MAT Transport, dimensions and fittings are still difficult to decide. While the International Standards Organization agreed the 8 ft. by 8 ft. by 20 ft., 30 ft. and 40 ft. lengths, the largest US operator, SeaLand uses 8 ft. by 8 ft. 6 in. by 35 ft. Corner castings recommended are of the MH-5 type.

The international hauliers, Continental Ferry Trailers, plan to operate containers, having ordered 32 from Duramin, size 8 ft. by 8 ft. by 20 ft. (as such they join hauliers like Ferrymasters (with 700 containers), Channelflow Freight Services, and Seawheel). In contrast, a new all-container operating company, International Ferry Freight Ltd., which began operating last month with the arrival of its first batch of containers, has decided on 8 ft. 6 in. for the height of its containers. Tare weight of the 20 ft.-long steel boxes (they will have 40 in March) is 1 ton 13 cwt. with a capacity of about 18 tons.

Because of the gross weights involved only plated semi-trailers are suitable, and this company is currently using a Hull haulier to tow its containers in the UK.

The final word about the future for container operators in this country operating to the Continent I leave with Vic Martin, a director of International Ferry Freight. "If you can compete with trailers, then there must be a future in it."