The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger (50 page)

7.
Minutes of MH-5 Van Container Subcommittee, February 25, 1959.

8.
Marad Dimensions Committee, December 9, 1958; Minutes of MH-5 Van Container Subcommittee, February 25, 1959.

9.
On railroads’ capacities, see Tippetts-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton,
Shoreside Facilities
, p. 8, while railroad standardization is treated in John G. Shott,
Piggyback and the Future of Freight Transportation
(Washington, DC, 1960), p. 33, and
Progress in Piggyback
, p. 19. Concerning Bull Line, see F. M. McCarthy, “Aspects on Containers,” presented to Marad Construction Committee, December 10, 1958. Bull Line’s choice of sizes is justified in International Cargo Handling Coordination Association, “Containerization Symposium Proceedings,” p. 19.

10.
Minutes of Marad Dimensions Committee, April 16, 1959; letter, Ralph B. Dewey, Pacific American Steamship Association, to L. C. Hoffman, Marad, May 25, 1959; memorandum to various steamship company officials from George Wauchope, Committee of American Steamship Lines, June 16, 1959; minutes of Marad Dimensions Committee, June 24, 1959. Matson’s position on height is laid out in a “Report on why the standard container height and regional supplementary standard van container lengths, as proposed by the ASA Sectional Committee MH5, should not be approved,” submitted to Pacific American Steamship Association, February 15, 1960; Edward A. Morrow, “Line Chides I.C.C. on Rate Policies,”
NYT
, April 17, 1960.

11.
Letter, W. H. Reich, chairman, Marad/Industry Container Standardization Committee on Construction and Fittings, to L. C. Hoffman, Marad, June, 25, 1959.

12.
Morris Forgash, “Transport Revolution at the Last Frontier—The Thought Barrier,” in
Revolution in Transportation
, ed. Karl M. Ruppenthal (Stanford, 1960), p. 59; “Uniformity Urged in Big Containers,”
NYT
, September 12, 1959.

13.
Minutes of MH-5 Size Task Force, September 16, 1959. See testimony of Les Harlander to the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, November, 1967. For comments on Hall, see Vince Grey, “Setting Standards: A Phenomenal Success Story,” in Jack Latimer,
Friendship among Equals
(Geneva, 1997), p. 40. Pan-Atlantic had not been a participant in the standardization process until that point; Matson had been, but was not notified of the September 16 meeting until the previous day and did not attend; letter of Robert Tate, Matson, to J. M. Gilbreth, Van Container Subcommittee, September 15, 1959. On Hall’s interest in preferred numbers, see MH-5 Executive Committee, minutes, May 4, 1961.

14.
Ralph B. Dewey, Pacific American Steamship Association, to Herbert H. Hall, November 12, 1959; Dewey to L. C. Hoffman, Marad, November 12, 1959; Hoffman to Dewey, n.d.; Marad Dimensions Committee, January 14, 1960; Pacific American Steamship Association, minutes of special containerization committee, February 8, 1960; Dewey letter and statement to MH-5 committee, February 25, 1960. The vote is given in a letter from Hall to Dewey, June 20, 1961. Grace Line and American President Lines were so concerned by the government’s threat not to fund nonstandard containerships that they amended pending application for construction subsidies so that their proposed ships would handle 20-foot containers rather than 17-footers, which Grace was already using.

15.
Letter from George C. Finster, standards manager, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, to members of MH-5 committee, June 29, 1960; letter, George Wauchope to Committee of American Steamship Lines members, July 26, 1960; Pacific American Steamship Association, minutes of containerization committee, August 4, 1960; “U.S. Body Enters Container Field,”
NYT
, April 28, 1961. For Hall’s view on “modular” sizes, see MH-5 committee minutes, June 6, 1961. On the procedures by which the standards were deemed to have been approved, see the testimony of Fred Muller Jr., U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries,
Cargo Container Dimensions
, November 16, 1967. The standards were codified as ASA MH5.1–1961. Federal Maritime Board and Maritime Administration press release NR 61–35, April 28, 1961.

16.
MH-5 minutes, June 6, 1961.

17.
Tineke M. Egyedi, “The Standardized Container: Gateway Technologies in Cargo Transportation,” Working Paper, Delft University of Technology, 2000.

18.
Containers
, no. 30 (December 1963): 26; Egyedi, “The Standardized Container”; “Is Container Standardization Here?”
Via
—
Port of New York, Special Issue: Transatlantic Transport Preview
(1965), p. 28.

19.
Cost estimate appears in “Memorandum of Comment” by John J. Clutz, Association of American Railroads, to MH-5 Van Container Subcommittee #3, December 13, 1961.

20.
Minutes, MH-5 Van Container Subcommittee #3, December 14, 1961; Tantlinger, “U.S. Containerization.”

21.
Tantlinger, “U.S. Containerization”; letter, M. R. McEvoy, president, Sea-Land Service, to Vincent G. Grey, American Standards Association, January 29, 1963.

22.
Letter, James T. Enzensperger, Pacific American Steamship Association, to Eugene Spector, American Merchant Marine Institute, November 5, 1964; Tantlinger, “U.S. Containerization.”

23.
American Merchant Marine Institute, “Van Containers in Service,” n.d. (circulated January 1965); Pacific American Steamship Association, minutes of containerization committee, January 21, 1965; telegram, K. L. Selby, president, National Castings Co., to R. K. James, executive director, Committee of American Steamship Lines, January 7, 1965.

24.
Pacific American Steamship Association, “SAAM Proposed Cargo Container Standards,” January 20, 1965; Herbert H. Hall, “Facts Concerning the ASA-MH5 Sectional Committee Proposed Van Container Corner Fitting,” June 14, 1965; Memorandum, Tantlinger to W. E. Grace, Fruehauf Corporation, August 12, 1965.

25.
Murray Harding, “Final World Standards Set for Van Freight Containers,”
JOC
, October 5, 1965; Harlander interview, COHP.

26.
“Is Container Standardization Here?” p. 30.

27.
Various countries’ findings are detailed in letter, Harlander to Martin Rowbotham, chairman, second ad hoc panel on corner fittings, January 13, 1967, and letter, Robotham to panel members, February 1, 1967. Other sources include Grey, “Setting Standards,” p. 41; ISO, “Report of Ad Hoc Panel Convened at London Meeting,” January 1967; and author’s telephone interview with Les Harlander, November 2, 2004. Ship lines’ opposition is reported in the minutes of a meeting of “some members” of the MH-5 Securing and Handling Subcommittee, February 16, 1967. The ISO container and fitting specifications are in
Jane’s Freight Containers
, 1st ed. (New York 1968), p. 4–11.

28.
Minutes of MH-5 Demountable Container Subcommittee, July 20, 1967; Edward A. Morrow, “Rail Aide Scores Sea Containers,”
NYT
, September 17, 1967.

29.
ASA-MH-5 committee, cited in L. A. Harlander, “Container System Design Developments over Two Decades,”
Marine Technology
19 (1982): 366; Meyers, “The Maritime Industry’s Expensive New Box.”

30.
The possibility of such additional restrictions on nonstandard operators was much discussed at the 1967 hearings of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, reprinted in
Cargo Container Dimensions
(Washington, DC, 1968).

31.
Minutes of MH-5 Demountable Container Subcommittee, November 9, 1965; memo, L. A. Harlander to S. Powell and others, Matson Navigation Company, November 12, 1965.

32.
Minutes of ASA Group 1 Demountable Container Subcommittee, February 2, 1966; minutes of MH-5 Sectional Committee, June 23, 1966; letter, Hall to Tantlinger, November 1, 1966; Harlander interview, COHP; L. A. Harlander, “The Role of the 24-Foot Container in Intermodal Transportation,” submitted to ASA MH-5 committee, June 1966; Statement of Michael R. McEvoy, president, Sea-Land Service, in House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee,
Cargo Container Dimensions
, p. 130; MH-5 Executive Committee, minutes, June 1, 1967.

33.
Congressional Record
, November 6, 1967, pp. 31144–31151; House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee,
Cargo Container Dimensions
, Gulick testimony, October 31, 1967, p. 28; Ralph B. Dewey testimony, November 16, 1967, pp. 162–169.

34.
House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee,
Cargo Container Dimensions
, Powell testimony November 1, 1967, p. 50, and McLean comment November 16, 1967, p. 121.

35.
Ibid., Powell testimony November 1, 1967, pp. 70–71; Harlander interview, COHP.

36.
Minutes, combined meeting of MH-5 Load and Testing and Handling and Securing Subcommittees, November 30, 1966; Leslie A. Harlander, “Intermodal Compatibility Requires Flexibility of Standards,”
Container News, January
1970, p. 20; Minutes of MH-5 committee, January 29 and May 20–21, 1970; L. A. Harlander, “Container System Design Developments,” p. 368.

37.
Marad, “Intermodal Container Services Offered by U.S. Flag Operators,” January 1973 (unpaginated).

1.
New York figure estimated from PNYA data; West Coast figure taken from Hartman,
Collective Bargaining
, p. 160.

2.
Ernest W. Williams, Jr.,
The Regulation of Rail-Motor Rate Competition
(New York, 1958), p. 208; Werner Bamberger, “Containers Cited as Shipping ‘Must,’”
NYT
, January 21, 1959, and “Industry Is Exhibiting Caution on Containerization of Fleet,”
NYT
, December 4, 1960. Military freight accounted for one-fifth of the revenues of U.S.-flag international ship lines in 1964; see Werner Bamberger, “Lines Ask Rule on Cargo Bidding,”
NYT
, July 14, 1966.

3.
McLean Industries,
Annual Reports
, 1957–60; Werner Bamberger, “Lukenbach Buys 3 of 5 Vessels Needed for Containership Fleet,”
NYT
, November 26, 1960; George Horne, “Luckenbach Ends Domestic Service,”
NYT
, February 21, 1961; “Ship Line Drops Florida Service,”
NYT
, March 2, 1961; “Grace Initiates Seatainer Service,”
Marine Engineering/Log
(1960), p. 55; Niven,
American President Lines
, p. 211.

4.
“Coast Carriers Win Rate Ruling,”
NYT
, January 5, 1961.

5.
United Cargo Corporation, a freight forwarder, offered container service from the United States to Europe as early as 1959, but the service involved boxes only 10½ feet long, which were carried in ships’ holds along with other freight. Jacques Nevard, “Container Line Plans Extension,” NYT; June 6, 1959.

6.
Census Bureau,
Historical Statistics
, pp. 711 and 732; Beverly Duncan and Stanley Lieberson,
Metropolis and Region in Transition
(Beverly Hills, 1970), pp. 229–245.

7.
Census Bureau,
Historical Statistics
, pp. 732–733; ICC,
Transport Economics
, July 1956, p. 10.

8.
For information on piggyback operations prior to 1950, see Kenneth Johnson Holcomb, “History, Description and Economic Analysis of Trailer-on-Flatcar (Piggyback) Transportation” (Ph.D. diss., University of Arkansas, 1962), pp. 9–13.

9.
Movement of Highway Trailers by Rail
, 293 ICC 93 (1954).

10.
U.S. Census Bureau,
Statistical Abstract 1957
, Table 705, p. 564; Wallin, “The Development, Economics, and Impact,” p. 220; ICC Bureau of Economics, “Piggyback Traffic Characteristics,” December 1966, p. 6. On Teamster opposition, see Irving Kovarsky, “State Piggyback Statutes and Federalism,”
Industrial and Labor Relations Review
18, no. 1 (1964): 45.

11.
Curtis D. Buford,
Trailer Train Company: A Unique Force in the Railroad Industry
(New York, 1982); Comments of Roy L. Hayes, “Panel Presentations: Railroad Commercial Panel,”
Transportation Law Journal
28, no. 2 (2001): 516; Walter W. Patchell, “Research and Development,” in
Management for Tomorrow
, ed. Nicholas A. Glaskowsky, Jr. (Stanford, 1958), pp. 31–34; Shott,
Piggyback and the Future of Freight Transportation
, p. 7.

12.
Comments of Richard Steiner, “Panel Presentations: Railroad Commercial Panel”; Holcomb, “History, Description and Economic Analysis,” pp. 43–44; Eric Rath,
Container Systems
(New York, 1973), p. 33.

13.
Holcomb, “History, Description and Economic Analysis,” pp. 54–67; Rath,
Container Systems
, p. 33.

14.
Details here are taken from the ensuing U.S. District Court decision,
New York, New Haven and Harford v. ICC
, 199 F. Supp 635.

15.
The relevant sentence in the Transportation Act of 1958 reads, “Rates of a carrier shall not be held up to a particular level to protect the traffic of any other mode of transportation, giving due consideration to the objectives of the national transportation policy declared in this Act.” “Coast Carriers Win Rate Ruling,”
NYT
, January 5, 1961; Robert W. Harbeson, “Recent Trends in the Regulation of Intermodal Rate Competition in Transportation,”
Land Economics
42, no. 3 (1966). The case was finally decided in the railroads’ favor by a unanimous Supreme Court,
ICC v. New York, New Haven & Hartford
, 372 U.S. 744, April 22, 1963. The dubious economics of determining a railroad’s “fully-distributed cost” of carrying a particular load are, fortunately, beyond the scope of this book.

16.
Holcomb, “History, Description and Economic Analysis,” p. 220; Bernard J. McCarney, “Oligopoly Theory and Intermodal Transport Price Competition: Some Empirical Findings,”
Land Economics
46, no. 4 (1970): 476.

17.
Five of the ten leading users of the New York Central’s Flexi-Van service were freight forwarders, but four leading manufacturers and the Montgomery Ward department-store chain also were on the list; see memo, R. L. Milbourne, New York Central, to managers, July 10, 1964, in Penn Central Archives, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware, Accession 1810/Box B-1872/Folder 15. Alexander Lyall Morton, “Intermodal Competition for the Intercity Transport of Manufactures,”
Land Economics
48, no. 4 (1972): 360.