Shipping containers come in a variety of lengths, 20,30, 40,45,48 and 53 foot. Over the years the original ISO standards of 20,30 and 40 ft have been tweaked to suit the needs of the trucking industry.
Ships, ports and railroads, but not roads, could probably handle much larger boxes. If larger containers offered economies of scale it might be possible to use these for journeys involving just rail and ship modes. For the railroads, the flatcar with its ‘megabox’ attached would be handled exactly like a box car, delivered to and collected from customers’ sidings as an integrated unit.
If it is possible to introduce really big shipping containers, too big for trucks to handle, this would allow rail to increase its share of international freight.
What would require a larger than 53 foot container? Is there an economic argument that can be made for it?
Remember many shipments ‘weigh out’ in 20 foot containers. Box size matches load density. Dense loads are shipped in small boxes. Lighter loads are shipped in bigger boxes.
No. There’s much more involved here than just ‘crayonista’ increases in external dimensions.
Remember that the width and, to a relatively slightly less restricted extent, the height of a container that will move in rail service is fixed. If you were to make the containers longer, they’d be more susceptible to sag, rack, and a variety of other distortions, and you will have potentially-excruciating problems in loading them to balance; an 80’ container would almost certainly have to be lifted with a spreader at its quarter points, necessitating multiple ‘corner castings’ in the upper framing and the necessary enhancements in container structure (and usable space) to reinforce them. There would be still more need for structure if stacking 40’ containers on top of 80s (let alone 20s, which don’t even stack over 40s) were anticipated in rail operations.
This to save only the intermediate bulkhead and door steel between two current-standard 40s and one continuous unit, and provide maybe a foot of additional usable internal length. I would suspect very few uses for the additional cubage in a unit that couldn’t be transferred easily with sideloading equipment, would be difficult or impossible to use on almost all existing intermodal railroad equipment, and cannot be transferred to road equipment.
Remember, too, that even with lightweight articulated frames, the size of a well is fixed by the load capacity of the adjacent wheels – this is why the trucks in the center of a well-car set have larger wheels. For stacks the wells HAVE to be fully between trucks/wheels; even if the old proposals for small-wheel three-axle trucks were to be dusted off, there won’t be the vertical clearance (or tolerance for things like wind deflection of suspension or harmonic rock) necessary for stacking.<
The entire US infastructure would have to be rebuilt to handle 80 foot containers let alone 60 footers. You may think that extra 7 feet would not matter that much. You try taking somthing that is 60 foot long that can not bend into say Philly or Boston and see how well you could do it. 53 foot trailers and containers are hard enough to manuver around in those cities your wanting to go longer. What would the cargo be for an 80 footer as your looking at a container that has a tare weight of over 30K lbs alone just to have structurial strength to hold itself up.
Ships are not designed to haul 80 foot containers they are designed for 40 foot models so even the shipping lines are going to fight it. Sorry those ideas will not fly at all.
Railroads already have these - 89 foot High Cube box cars.
In the days where American auto manufacturers made parts in Michigan and cars in assembly plants located all over the country they were primarly used to haul stamped out body panel - cargo the because of it’s bends and curves took up a lot of space with minimal weight. Now that the logistics of manufacturing automobiles has had seismic shifts over the past two decades these car, where they still exist are being under utilized.
The reality is that railroads are looking for train load volumes - not car load.
Making a move from current 53 foot containers and trailers would require major investment in making highways wide enough for trucks hauling those trailers to make turns at intersections. It’s hard to maneuver a 53footer in many locations as it is. A 60 or 80 footer would be impossible to haul. And besides the public infrastructure that would require changing, private facilities like factory or warehouse parking and driveway places would need expansion.
I’ve hauled 53footers into places designed for 45 and 48 footers and it was near impossible to do. Trying to haul a 60 or 80 footer into a place designed for 53 footers would be impossible.
In fact about 20 years ago there was a push for 58ft trailers and containers. I’ve seen 1 or 2 container well cars for them and a handful of 58ft trailers. But the rail cars were loaded with shorter containers and those trailers were in a scap yard. The non-rail infrastructure requirements made the idea unworkable.
Last I saw only Texas allowed 58ft trailers on the roads and the limited marketability of that forced the idea to die. Longer trailers and containers simply won’t work without a complete rebuilding of the country just to allow them.
Railroads advantage over other modes is the economy of scale. Train loads minimize railroad costs and maximize the price advantage over other modes for that traffic and thusly benefits the customer.
Car load traffic has worked its way to become a high cost element in the railroads product line. Costs which predicate rates that other modes can match or come close to matching.
Intermodal with 20, 40, 48 & 53 foot containers/trailers are railroads ‘car load’ business of the 21st Century.
Question I have been meaning to ask - When was the last 40 foot box car made - and how many are still in service?
THe first statement is exactly factual. Remember that the Original Federal Aid of 1956 authorized the building of the Interstate Defense Highway Network. I was noted widely at the time that the clearances and construction parameters were to build to clear the maximum height needed to clear movements of the then active (in the arsenal) M-65 ‘Atomic Canon’ which needed a clearance IIRC of 15’ (?) and was about 10’ in width.
The Bridge ‘loadings’(?) were designed to the specs of the military 6 axle cargo truck(?). At that time (1950’s) Civilian tractor trailer rigs were mostly 3 axle tractors and trailers with one or two axles ( length then was about 40’). I think that the weight limits for a 5 axle civilian combination was 73,280#. In the early ‘50s trailer lengths went from that 40’ length to 42’ then to 48’ and then to 53’. Gross weights went up accordingly as combination weights increased.
Motor Vehicle enforcement got more and more refined, from just having roadsi
Shipping containers come in a variety of lengths, 20,30, 40,45,48 and 53 foot. Over the years the original ISO standards of 20,30 and 40 ft have been tweaked to suit the needs of the trucking industry.
I’ve been a professional driver for over 28 years, and I have never seen, or even heard of a 30’ container.
The 20’ and 40’ are the standard overseas sizes, with container loads typically measured in TEU’s which stands for Twenty foot Equivalent Units.
The 45’, 48’ and 53’ boxes are typically used in domestic service, with to my knowledge only limited use of 45’ and maybe some 48’ in overseas service. To the best of my knowledge the 53’ boxes are not used in overseas service.
This thread made me curious, according to Wikipedia:
Intermodal containers in some form date back to timber boxes in the 1830’s that were typically loaded with coal and transfered from rail to horse drwan carts by crane.
There was some International standards begining in 1933 and 1935, but these were not of a stackable nature.
In the late 1940’s/Early 1950’s private companies and the US Military devoloped the modular “Transporters” an early version of the CONEX, with dimensions of 8’6"Long x 6’3" wide x 6’ 10" High, according to Wiki, these were the first containers in world wide usage
In 1949 there WERE 200 30’ x 8’ x 8’6" built for Ocean Van Lines, these were designed to be stacked 2 high.
In 1955, Pan-Atlantic, the predecessor of Sea-Land devoloped 35’ x 8’ x 8’6" containers, as 35’ was the then length limit on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. These appear to be the original containers with 8 corner castings designed for Stacking strength, and twist-lock connecters.
In 1957, Matson Lines introduced 24’ container service between California and Hawaii.
90% of all containers worldwide, are of either 20’ or 40’ lengths, lengths ranging from 8’-56’, but overseas use of other than 20’/40’ is rather limited but does occur, mostly as deck cargo.
Here in Canada it’s only 20, 40, 45 and 53 footers I see on the trains. There is very little trailer service in Canada; only 3 places I can think of with regular trailer service.
I have seen 10 foot containers around the city and 48s in private use but never on a train.
I do remember reading something about Canadian Tire looking into the possibility of 60 foot containers but I’ve yet to see anything over 53.
John Kneiling wrote a few times about using 80’ flat-deck ‘containers’, mainly for long & light loads like steel pipe and maybe timber, etc. Even he recognized they would be limited to off-road use such as factories and industrial/ distribution parks, etc. Someday maybe I’ll see if I can find those articles or pages in his book.
Since he advocated loading/ unloading them with a sliding-beam transfer truck, the length/ weight and lack of overhead castings would not have been an issue. Back then (1960’s - 70’s) no one - not even John - was thinking about double-stacking.
There may well be no 30 foot containers in widespread use, or certainly not in the U.S., but the International Standards Organisation does have a spec for this length of box:
Remember, and this applies to other commentators on this thread, that the point I raised is that it might be possible to introduce a shipping container to facilitate siding-to-siding, rail-dock-ship-dock-rail international transport. Since the world’s railroads have their own direct siding access to factories, warehouses etc the constraints imposed by highways could potentially be bypassed for some freight transport. Reconstruction of highways to take giant boxes would not be needed.
Railroads use box cars much bigger than any ISO container but box cars are not used for unitised transport.