Unit Load Formation Equipment (ll) - Inter-modal Container

Since the 1960s major efforts have been made to integrate separate transport systems through intermodalism, which took place are several stages. This involves the use of at least two different modes in a trip from origin to destination through an inter-modal transport chain. Inter-modal transportation is the movements of passengers or freight from one mode of transport to another, commonly taking place at a terminal specifically designed for such a purpose.


The container is a large standard size metal box into which cargo is packed for shipment aboard specially configured oceangoing vessels and designed to be moved with common handling equipment enabling high-speed inter-modal transfers in economically large units between ships, railcars, truck chassis, and barges using a minimum of labor. The container, therefore, serves as the load unit rather than the cargo contained therein, making it the foremost expression of inter-modal transportation.

Advantages:

• Flexibility of usage. It can transport a wide variety of goods ranging from raw materials (coal, wheat), manufactured goods, and cars to frozen products.
• Costs. Relatively to bulk, container transportation reduces transport costs considerably, about 20 times less than bulk transport.
• More items can be handled at the same time, thereby reducing the number of trips required and, potentially, reducing handling costs, loading and unloading times, and product damage.
• Enables the use of standardized material handling equipment.

Disadvantages:

• Time spent forming and breaking down the unit load.
• Cost of containers/pallets and other load restraining materials used in the unit load.
• Empty containers /pallets may need to be returned to their point of origin.
  
  

The article below will illustrate real world application of inter-modal transportation:

Containers from around the world can be found at Diamond Express Inc., a trucking company tucked away between First Avenue North and the airport.
"We're the largest inland container depot around the Birmingham area," says veteran trucking executive Tom Brown, owner of Diamond Express.

The company has developed a niche doing what used to be called "piggybacking," delivering truck trailers to and from flatbed railcars. The process is more modern these days, with containers lifted off trailer chassis and loaded, two-high, minus their cumbersome wheels.

Diamond Express, with $8 million in sales revenue last year, transports and stores containers from around the globe. One of its top customers is Maersk-Sealand, the world's largest steamship company. Intermodal freight, mostly containers from the Far East coming through ports in California, includes clothing, lumber, paper and electronics.

But Brown says his company, spread across three lots totaling 15 acres, doesn't rely solely on international export/imports to and from companies in the South, or the rail-dependent intermodal business as a whole.

"With Norfolk Southern closing its Birmingham intermodal ramp, and Burlington Northern (Santa Fe) moving its California freight through Atlanta (instead of Birmingham), we started focusing four or five years ago on van freight in the South," he says. Industries served include paper products, cooking oil containers and fire extinguisher equipment, to name a few. Local clients include Pepsi bottler and snack food vendor Buffalo Rock, Stevens Graphics, Amerex, Cook Publications and Ventura Foods.

Brown says the ratio of intermodal containers to van freight business is 60/40.

"The main advantage of intermodal is transit time and rates," he says. "If you can put a container that's not time-sensitive on rail service that gets to California in four or five days, and for cheaper rates (than trucks), then you stay with it."


Diamond uses 65 leased owner-operator trucks and 25 company-owned trucks. About 20 office personnel are employed in the company's Birmingham headquarters, and at terminals in Atlanta and Chattanooga.

Hauling the phone books
One of the company's biggest jobs is delivering BellSouth phone books in nine Southern states. Last year, Diamond Express was rated the best delivery company by supervisors at 514 drop-off sites, scoring a 3.85 out of 4.0 (similar to a college grading scale) in quality of service, professionalism, courtesy, condition of the books, on-time performance and other criteria.

Below are some pictures that illustrate inter-modal containers.