CONTAINERIZATION TODAY was produced in the 1960s and presented by the American Iron and Steel Institute, promoting the benefits of shipping cargo using steel containers. The film touts the major advancements in containers and freight transportation found on highways, waterways, and railways. The strong, durable steel boxes are a new system of freight that saves companies and shipping lines both time and money. Several shots related to shipping, including what appears to be the waterfront of New York City (00:43), start off the film. Various sizes of shipping containers are used to effectively and safely transport goods: some are as small as 10’x10’ while others are up to 40’ in length. Even at such large sizes, containers are easily moved from one shipping method to another, such as from a semi-truck to a barge (02:14). The strength of the steel frames allows the containers to be stacked on top of each other, maximizing the use of space. The essential principle of containerization is the shipment of many pieces of cargo as a single unit, such as Dodge V8 engines (05:18). At Hobart Brothers’ Troy, Ohio plant (05:37), art wielding units are loaded and sealed in containers as a single Seatrain unit, saving the company money on packaging materials. At the Ford Motor Company’s Tractor Division Plant, 10-speed transmissions come off the production line and are loaded into containers as a single unit (06:38); these containers are then loaded onto a ship (08:15) and are sent to Antwerp, Belgium (08:25) where they are unloaded, the contents undamaged. The safety and near-pilfering proof construction has reduced the cost of shipping insurance, further saving companies money. Steel plays the primary role in the containers because of its strength and fire-resistant quality. Other companies, including Chris-Craft (10:57) and Singer Company (11:09) have saved money using containerization to ship cargo. The film concludes by boasting of the benefits of containerization and shows aerial footage of what appears to be the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (11:48) in New York City.
Modern container shipping celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006. Almost from the first voyage, use of this method of transport for goods grew steadily and in just five decades, containerships would carry about 60% of the value of goods shipped via sea. The idea of using some type of shipping container was not completely novel. Boxes similar to modern containers had been used for combined rail- and horse-drawn transport in England as early as 1792. The US government used small standard-sized containers during the Second World War, which proved a means of quickly and efficiently unloading and distributing supplies. However, in 1955, Malcom P. McLean, a trucking entrepreneur from North Carolina, USA, bought a steamship company with the idea of transporting entire truck trailers with their cargo still inside. He realized it would be much simpler and quicker to have one container that could be lifted from a vehicle directly on to a ship without first having to unload its contents. His ideas were based on the theory that efficiency could be vastly improved through a system of “intermodalism”, in which the same container, with the same cargo, can be transported with minimum interruption via different transport modes during its journey. Containers could be moved seamlessly between ships, trucks and trains. This would simplify the whole logistical process and, eventually, implementing this idea led to a revolution in cargo transportation and international trade over the next 50 years.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
