Scotland intermodal freight

[Wavertreelad]

There is always a significant amount of materials in a container. There is however a market for "one trip" containers for storage etc. which travel one way with cargo before being sold off. I suspect they are fitted with ventilation, locking and so on in China to avoid doing it here. Buying and getting one delivered in the UK is still going to cost you around £2k from a supplier like Qube Containers.

It is the receivers' responsibility to empty shipping company containers at the unloading address, failure to do so will result in a large bill coming their way for the privilege of removing the contents.

Don't forget a laden container arriving at a warehouse may well be rebooked to load elsewhere with another load, and in such cases the warehouse would have every right to reject the container with all the costs being billed to the importing parties.

One way containers from China are possible, but these are not owned by the shipping company and the moment you start adding vents etc, you run the risk of the container being declared out of gauge and then the freight costs will rocket. Shipper owned containers in this market would also be subject to higher freight rates than the shipping line's normal tariff.

 

[endecotp]

It's perhaps worth considering that in 2000 the world fleet of containers was estimated to be about 4.3 million and by the end of this year it's estimated to about 40 million

That’s an astonishing statistic - a 9-fold increase in the number of containers in circulation in 25 years. Wow.

 

[Tester]

That’s an astonishing statistic - a 9-fold increase in the number of containers in circulation in 25 years. Wow.

Indeed so.

There is an interesting 2006 book, 'The Box' by Marc Levinson, detailing the history of containers - well worth a read!

I read it in 2006 while working across the Nullarbor Desert in Australia, watching 1.8km long double stack container trains passing through - quite surreal!