You don’t have to be in the shipping industry to know that containers are everywhere; you can find them on container ships containing a lot of cargo to pop-up shops located inside of one. No matter where you have seen them, you will definitely be familiar with the common shipping container. In this blog, we are going to fill you in on the history of shipping containers, from what was used before to the invention of the shipping container you now know.
Before Shipping Containers
For thousands of years humans have been shipping goods across the world; this started as people explored the globe and brought back goods from each country to trade in their own. This ranged from jewels, food, and other materials. Nowadays cargo is packed inside of shipping containers on huge ships, but the shipping process was not as straightforward back then. It was extremely difficult, time-consuming, and labour intensive to load and unload goods individually; all of the items were either stored in sacks, wooden boxes, or barrels, and was not easy for the dockworkers to transport from A-Z. Alongside being very slow, there was a very high risk of theft and damage to the cargo.
When transporting goods to port by train became more prevalent, there was still a lot of delays when it came to loading and unloading; it sometimes took weeks to load and unload the ships and some ships spent longer in the port than actually at sea! Despite the fact that ship workers used the logical way of moving and handling cargo in the form of a box or sack, the idea of using much larger boxes did not emerge until the later half of the 20th century.
The Invention Of Shipping Containers
In 1955, a trucking entrepreneur from North Carolina, named Malcom McLean, bought a steamship company (named SeaLand), with the intention of transporting entire truck trailers with their cargo still inside. He realised that it would be a lot quicker to have one container that was able to be lifted from a vehicle straight onto a ship, without having to load and unload the goods that were inside of the container. It was Malcom who recognised the effectiveness of larger containers and pursued this avenue of freight.
Continuous Innovation
Although the shipping container itself could be thought of as quite a recent invention, the impact that it has had on the shipping and logistics industry, as well as overall global trade, has been enormous. Since 1955, the idea for a standard container remains the same; advances in transport technology has ensured that the shipping industry constantly evolves and new innovations come into play.
Call Us Today
If you are interested in finding out more information about how our team can help with shipping your cargo overseas, you can give us a call on 07791 801896 or email steve@sftltd.co.uk. Alternatively, you can visit our contact page and fill out our enquiry form.
