The Hindu Business Line : 50 years of containers

April 26 marked the 50th anniversary of containerisation, an innovation that led to revolutionary changes in sea transportation of break-bulk cargo so much so that today nearly 90 per cent of the world's non-bulk cargo is being transported in specially designed boxes on board specially built ships, known as container-ships.

The world owes it all to Mr Malcom McLean of the US, who in 1955 sold McLean Trucking, the company he struggled to build up during the Great Depression, and secured a bank loan to buy equipment to build the world's first container ship. On April 26,1956, Ideal X, a tanker converted into an improvised container ship, sailed from Newark, New Jersey, for Houston, Texas, with 58 modified 35-ft truck containers, thus ushering in the age of containerisation.

According to some experts, the birth of containerisation started in the early 1960s when the US was at war in Vietnam.The first purpose-built container ship, Kooringa, was built at the New South Wales Dockyards in Australia in 1964. In India, the era of containerisation began in the mid-70s when the country's first two container terminals, one each at Haldia and Mumbai, were commissioned.

Our Bureau

More Stories on : Shipping | Supply Chain Management

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
J. Lo to rock India

Soccer fever grips travel agents, airlines, TV channels

Air Deccan to expand operations in Kerala

Cochin Shipyard lays the keel for ambitious buildings

Birganj ICD: Concor's Himalayan blunder?

Port and hinterland development should happen in tandem

50 years of containers

Indo-Pak shipping protocol

Chittagong-Singapore feeder service

Panama Canal expansion