help im looking for a container ship for my ho layout
There is a hull kit out there for a Great Lakes freighter, which is smaller than a modern container ship, but it still is a foot wide, and more than six feet long in its shortened version. It is not inexpensive. See: http://www.resinunlimited.com/
A scale modern container ship would be over 10 feet long, more than 15" wide, and have about 6" under the waterline. They hold 4000 to 5000 containers.
Your best bet is to make one, based on photographs.
If you aren’t strictly confined to a container but would settle for smaller cargo ships, I found a North Atlantic Trawler which could easily be kit-bashed into one or two hold cargo ships. These are 1-90 scale but close enough for HO. I have two of them in my busy port. There is also a Fireboat at 1-87 scale which can also be kit-bashed. I got them at www-modelexpo-online/fboa. Good luck.
A full-size container ship would be massive in HO - you could fit motors and R/C gear and take it out on your local pond/lake. You might be better advised to model a feeder container ship as these are smaller!
Or model a barge. I’ve seen quite a few container laden barges working the Eastern seaboard going from smaller ports to the majors. You can scale it to fit your space without having to trade off too much.
dharmon and railroading_brit are absolutely correct. On the layout in the Museum of Scienc and Industry’s HO layout here in Chicago they have both a container ship and the Great Lakes ore carrier and they are massive and kind of look misplaced compared to the rest of the layout. I could send you some photos of my Port of Melmatt if you contact me at my e-mail address and give me your home address.