Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed the WorldFifty years ago--on April 26, 1956--the freighter Ideal X steamed from Berth 26 in Port Newark, New Jersey. Flying the flag of the Pan-Atlantic Steamship Company, she set out for Houston with an unusual cargo: 58 trailer trucks lashed to her top deck. But they weren't trucks--they were steel containers removed from their running gear, waiting to be lifted onto empty truck beds when Ideal X reached Texas. She docked safely, and a revolution was launched--not only in shipping, but in the way the world trades. Today, the more than 200 million containers shipped every year are the lifeblood of the new global economy. They sit stacked on thousands of "box boats" that grow more massive every year. In this fascinating book, transportation expert Brian Cudahy provides a vivid, fast-paced account of the container-ship revolution--from the maiden voyage of the Ideal X to the entrepreneurial vision and technological breakthroughs that make it possible to ship more goods more cheaply than every before. Cudahy tells this complex story easily, starting with Malcom McLean, Pan-Atlantic's owner who first thought about loading his trucks on board. His line grew into the container giant Sea-Land Services, and Cudahy charts Masterful maritime history, Box Boats shows how fleets of these ungainly ships make the modern world possible--with both positive and negative effects. It's also a tale of an historic home port, New York, where old piers lie silent while 40-foot steel boxes of toys and televisions come ashore by the thousands, across the bay in New Jersey. |
Contents
Cargo Ships American Style | 1 |
The PanAtlantic Steamship Company | 13 |
From the Hudson River to Newark Bay | 42 |
SeaLand | 68 |
SeaLand Approaches Maturity | 99 |
From RJR to CSX | 145 |
After 1999 Horizon MaerskSealand and Beyond | 187 |
Three Other Companies | 206 |
Epilogue | 252 |
Vessel Roster | 255 |
SeaLand Liner Services 1999 | 283 |
Maritime Activity at the Port of New York Thursday April 26 1956 | 290 |
Notes
| 295 |
319 | |
321 | |
335 | |