Scotland intermodal freight

[lizmcp]

Are there any resources that track intermodal freight to/from Scotland, i.e. number of weekly trains, number of containers carried etc.? Container volumes through seaports have been on the decline since 2022, and I'm trying to get a handle on how much of this is a result of modal shift to rail or road vs. a structural decline in Scottish international trade volumes. Transport Scotland has some good data, but it's focused on tonnes or tonne.miles, not trains and boxes.

 

[Dr Hoo]

‘Trains’ and ‘boxes’ aren’t in themselves particularly useful metrics.

What use is a 34-wagon train carrying one 20-foot box of spring water? What does it benefit the Scottish economy if a southbound train is full of empty boxes because the export market has collapsed? Is a short or lightly loaded train a good use of a path over the constrained single track Highland Main Line?

 

[lizmcp]

Intermodal trains don't tend to run unless they are fully laden, or almost full. It just doesn't make economic sense otherwise. So, for a train running (rather than just scheduled) it's a reasonable assumption that it's carrying somewhere in the region of 60-70 TEU; empty boxes need repositioning regardless, so putting them on a train takes them off the road.

Anyway, I'm not advocating intermodal rail traffic one way or another, I am just looking to quantify it, and - if possible - see how that's changed over the last 2-3 years.

 

[The Planner]

Intermodal trains don't tend to run unless they are fully laden, or almost full. It just doesn't make economic sense otherwise. So, for a train running (rather than just scheduled) it's a reasonable assumption that it's carrying somewhere in the region of 60-70 TEU; empty boxes need repositioning regardless, so putting them on a train takes them off the road.

Anyway, I'm not advocating intermodal rail traffic one way or another, I am just looking to quantify it, and - if possible - see how that's changed over the last 2-3 years.

There are plenty of Intermodals that run far from full.

 

[Class15]

There are plenty of Intermodals that run far from full.

4L67 Trafford Park - Felixstowe is normally very poorly loaded. Surely the return (4M53 Felixstowe - Trafford Park) must be better, or there would be no point running it?

 

[LRV3004]

Intermodal trains don't tend to run unless they are fully laden, or almost full.

4L67 passed me at Lichfield Trent Valley a few weeks ago. A load of empty wagons and one solitary container on the entire train.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Oct 2025 ==

4L67 Trafford Park - Felixstowe is normally very poorly loaded.

Great minds think alike ha ha!

 

[Numbskull100]

4L67 Trafford Park - Felixstowe is normally very poorly loaded. Surely the return (4M53 Felixstowe - Trafford Park) must be better, or there would be no point running it?

Correct, 4m53 is generally, but not always, well loaded.

 

[66701GBRF]

Should also be noted that whether an empty (or near empty) train is worth running is contingent on what might be booked for the return journey or how the contract is set up. For example there might not be a lot of containers from A to B but it might be heavy on the return B to A. Some trains are fully contracted trains so the freight operating company get paid the same whether the train is empty, loaded with 1 container or loaded with 50.

 

[krigg32]

Haha, looks like we both had the same thought there!
Yeah, I’ve seen the same thing 4L67 often runs almost empty, and it’s not the only one. There are quite a few diagrams that still operate even when the loadings are minimal, either for path retention or to keep the cycle balanced for the return working.

 

[D1511]

Back to the OP's request re: flows to and from Scotland, Felixstowe and Daventry - Coatbridge are reasonably heavy daily flows, and there's a reasonably frequent Basford Hall - Mossend service too.
4S88 is always a particularly heavily loaded FLT service and is regularly 2 90s.
DRS Tescos rarely have a single container missing in either direction, although I'm not sure if they're all empty southbound.

 

[furnessvale]

Back to the OP's request re: flows to and from Scotland, Felixstowe and Daventry - Coatbridge are reasonably heavy daily flows, and there's a reasonably frequent Basford Hall - Mossend service too.
4S88 is always a particularly heavily loaded FLT service and is regularly 2 90s.
DRS Tescos rarely have a single container missing in either direction, although I'm not sure if they're all empty southbound.

It hardly matters if the return containers are empty or not. They need repositioning whether it be by rail or by road.

 

[Dr Hoo]

It hardly matters if the return containers are empty or not. They need repositioning whether it be by rail or by road.

It might ‘hardly matter’ to a Freight Operating Company if they are ‘getting paid anyway’ by a logistics or container company that has effectively ‘chartered’ the service in the short term.

But make no mistake, the customer will be disappointed that their boxes aren’t being loaded both ways. If a road haulier offers to triangulate the container to somewhere else less conveniently located for rail where it can get a backload and then return it to the port of origin it can place the entire flow at risk of modal shift.

This is before we get to the issue of ‘lumpy’ forwarding with mega-ships cycling huge numbers of boxes through a port one day but then nothing for the next few.

 

[mmh]

Intermodal trains don't tend to run unless they are fully laden, or almost full. It just doesn't make economic sense otherwise. So, for a train running (rather than just scheduled) it's a reasonable assumption that it's carrying somewhere in the region of 60-70 TEU; empty boxes need repositioning regardless, so putting them on a train takes them off the road.

Anyway, I'm not advocating intermodal rail traffic one way or another, I am just looking to quantify it, and - if possible - see how that's changed over the last 2-3 years.

It's not exactly unusual to see trains where the containers seem the exception among countless empty wagons going through Manchester Oxford Road.

 

[LRV3004]

Regarding my previous comment about 4L67, on 1st October 66547 hauled this train through Manchester Piccadilly and there were 27 containers on it on that occasion!

 

[deltic]

It might ‘hardly matter’ to a Freight Operating Company if they are ‘getting paid anyway’ by a logistics or container company that has effectively ‘chartered’ the service in the short term.

But make no mistake, the customer will be disappointed that their boxes aren’t being loaded both ways. If a road haulier offers to triangulate the container to somewhere else less conveniently located for rail where it can get a backload and then return it to the port of origin it can place the entire flow at risk of modal shift.

This is before we get to the issue of ‘lumpy’ forwarding with mega-ships cycling huge numbers of boxes through a port one day but then nothing for the next few.

Good luck with getting containers loaded both ways. The latest finalised port data for Felixstowe is for 2023. Inbound there were 950k containers, outbound 890k. Average inbound container contained14tonnes, average outbound 6.5tonnes. Suggests that around half of all containers leaving Felixstowe were empty, fresh air is one of our largest exports.

 

[John R]

Good luck with getting containers loaded both ways. The latest finalised port data for Felixstowe is for 2023. Inbound there were 950k containers, outbound 890k. Average inbound container contained14tonnes, average outbound 6.5tonnes. Suggests that around half of all containers leaving Felixstowe were empty, fresh air is one of our largest exports.

So is there a pile of rusting containers somewhere growing at 60k pa, or do they exit the country by a different port?

 

[Oxfordblues]

When I worked at BR's Central Wagon Authority, responsible for distributing empty common-user wagons to meet orders nationwide, we were constantly stessing to the operators the importance of giving equal priority to empty wagons. Loaded wagons had already generated revevue but to delay empty wagons might jeopardise getting the revenue for the next load.

 

[deltic]

So is there a pile of rusting containers somewhere growing at 60k pa, or do they exit the country by a different port?

There are certainly lots of containers used for storage around the country, but on average more containers enter than leave by sea.

 

[sh24]

So is there a pile of rusting containers somewhere growing at 60k pa, or do they exit the country by a different port?

Repositioned by road to a different location and/or and then sent to port direct after discharge.

One of the contributors to sky high seafreight prices post Covid was a failure to reposition empties back to China.

 

[John R]

Repositioned by road to a different location and/or and then sent to port direct after discharge.

One of the contributors to sky high seafreight prices post Covid was a failure to reposition empties back to China.

I think the stats related to sea movements, which is why I was surprised at such a difference.

 

[hwl]

I think the stats related to sea movements, which is why I was surprised at such a difference.

There have been plenty of historic issues of not being able to loading sufficient empties at Felixstowe hence more containers tend to exit via other ports where turn arounds are less tight and all the cranes have full reach to the far side of the biggest ship which not all the Felixstowe cranes do (which impacts ability to load as many empties as possible).
For example I'd expect MSC to have more leaving Liverpool2 than coming in to balance the Felixstowe issues.

More capacity at London Gateway and Maersk/Hapag focusing there will also help the Felixstowe capacity issues.

Also end-of-life containers tend to be scrapped in the UK if they aren't rehomed for storage use.

 

[John R]

There have been plenty of historic issues of not being able to loading sufficient empties at Felixstowe hence more containers tend to exit via other ports where turn arounds are less tight and all the cranes have full reach to the far side of the biggest ship which not all the Felixstowe cranes do (which impacts ability to load as many empties as possible).
For example I'd expect MSC to have more leaving Liverpool2 than coming in to balance the Felixstowe issues.

More capacity at London Gateway and Maersk/Hapag focusing there will also help the Felixstowe capacity issues.

That explains the apparent anomaly. Thanks!

 

[LickeyIncliner]

There have been plenty of historic issues of not being able to loading sufficient empties at Felixstowe hence more containers tend to exit via other ports where turn arounds are less tight and all the cranes have full reach to the far side of the biggest ship which not all the Felixstowe cranes do (which impacts ability to load as many empties as possible).

My thanks too - that explains something I read recently (possibly in Modern Railways) about Felixstowe being absolutely full to capacity with empty containers, and unable to accept more no matter how they arrive.

 

[Adrian Barr]

Are there any resources that track intermodal freight to/from Scotland, i.e. number of weekly trains, number of containers carried etc.?

Below is a snapshot of the intermodal trains that ran on Wednesday in Scotland (08/10/25). This is a fairly typical weekday, so with 11 intermodal departures from Scotland into England (plus another 11 or so over the weekend) there's something like ~66 per week. Getting exact numbers of containers per train would be difficult, but you could work out a rough average from YouTube footage of the individual trains.

Freightliner services into Coatbridge tend to run from the port to Basford Hall as two portions, one of which continues to Coatbridge, which makes them shorter than some of the other trains. These Freightliner Coatbridge trains, plus the Mossend to Seaforth service, are deep sea intermodal but most of the rest are domestic intermodal, particularly supermarket traffic, often using 45ft containers / swapbodies. The Tees Dock train connects with Ro-Ro ferries across the north sea and also conveys some supermarket traffic. Photos of the Hams Hall service show it conveying deep sea containers. Both Mossend Euroterminal and Hams Hall are operated by Maritime, so possibly the 4S57 / 4M57 service is used to give a Scottish connection for containers arriving into Hams Hall on GBRF services operated for Maritime from Felixstowe / Southampton / London Gateway.

I think the DRS services into Coatbridge are for Russells with several end customers, notably Tesco but also Sainsburys (see this post). The Freightliner service from Daventry with portions for Mossend (PD Stirling) and Grangemouth is for Malcolms. The Doncaster Iport to Mossend Euroterminal GBRF service usually has a lot of Stobart boxes on it, but I don't know if it's run specifically for them. This means there's a lot of road haulier involvement with the domestic intermodal trains, where they manage the containers which are railed and integrate that with their road operations.

Southbound intermodal services from Scotland seem to be fairly well loaded (in terms of loaded vs empty containers) compared to the average container train returning from English terminals to UK ports.

Looking at the class 4 trains through Mossend North Jn on Realtime trains should capture all of the services below (except the internal Scottish trains from Coatbridge to Inverness and Blackford). It would be nice to see an Aberdeen intermodal service restart but that's not run for a while.

Coatbridge DRS

Departures
4M49 0003 Daventry
4H47 0453 Inverness
4M27 0533 Daventry
4L00 0716 Blackford
4M48 1838 Daventry

Arrivals
4S45 0116, ex Daventry
4D01 1317, ex Blackford [Daventry traffic]
4S43 1402, ex Daventry
4S44 2024, ex Daventry
4D47 2107, ex Inverness

Coatbridge Freightliner

Departures
4M11 1814 Basford Hall [Southampton traffic]
4M86 1936 Basford Hall [Felixstowe traffic]
4M82 2207 Basford Hall [London Gateway traffic]

Arrivals
4S59 0215, ex Southampton
4S88 0632, ex Felixstowe
4S50 1038, ex Basford Hall [from London Gateway]

Mossend Euroterminal

Departures
4M57 0022 Hams Hall (GBRF)
4M35 0207 Seaforth (DB)

Arrivals
4S38 2105, ex Seaforth (DB)
**4S57 1945, ex Hams Hall, did not run** (GBRF)

Grangemouth

Departures

4E99 1524 Tees Dock (attaches at Mossend Euro) DB
4M30 1923 Daventry (FLiner) - also conveys traffic from Mossend PD Stirling to Daventry ex 4N30 (4M30 does not call at Mossend)

Arrivals

4S99 1329, ex Tees Dock (detaches at Mossend Euro) DB

Mossend PD Stirling

Departures
4N49 0521 Grangemouth (traffic ex Daventry, portion off 4S47) FLiner
4E04 1107 Doncaster Iport (GBRF)
4N30 1500 Grangemouth (traffic to Daventry) FLiner. This traffic is loaded at Mossend and runs to Grangemouth to be attached to 4M30 there.

Arrivals
4S47 0135, ex Daventry (FLiner) - conveys Mossend + Grangemouth portions
4S04 0645, ex Doncaster Iport (GBRF)

 

[Wavertreelad]

Some interesting comments here so far, but some also need further explanation.

Starting with the international movements, the proportional number of empty containers depends to a certain extent on the shipping line and the way the current market works which in general terms means there are between three to five times more laden containers arriving in the UK compared to number of laden containers exported.

The Asian shipping lines tend to attract greater support from their national countries due to the size of their domestic organisation and pricing policies whereas in the UK their organisation is usually very much smaller is largely geared to handling the import volumes. Unless a customer moves many containers, it's very unlikely they will ever see a sales person from the shipping line, to add to which most of this business is placed through forwarding agents or logistics companies who negotiate the pricing of the export movement with the shipping line. In contrast, the European shipping lines UK organisations tend to be based on attracting export cargo as traditionally this is the way they earned their commissions as a percentage of the freight against a much smaller fee for handling the import container. Today, most of the UK agents of the shipping lines are wholly owned subsidiaries of the parent shipping line so now they are treated as a cost centre so it's more a question of filling their allocation of laden containers on each ship which will be a set of multi-trade targets, whereas the Asian lines to a lesser extent will concentrate on selling space to a smaller number of customers who ship to markets where they need empty containers.

As a result, the European shipping lines may be loading from multiple UK ports, whereas the Asian Lines will tend to concentrate on one or two UK main ports. This also affected by the amount of feedering that the shipping lines operate, so for example MSC which is the largest shipping line in the world operates all it's own three main feeder services, to and from

1) Southampton, Portbury to from Antwerp/Le Havre
2) Liverpool, Greenock to/from Antwerp/Felixstowe, Le Havre and separately to Rotterdam.
3) Grangemouth, Teesport, Felixstowe and/or London Gateway to/from Antwerp
These are supplemented by additional vessels as necessary or by taking slots on their subsidiary WEC Line sailings.

CMA CGM operate their own feeder from Rotterdam/Dunkirk to Liverpool and Dublin and then tend to us BG Freight Lines which is wholly owned by Peel Ports for most of its feeder operation to all the ports served by MSC.

Maersk and Hapag has concentrated its Asian Europe/Indian Subcontinent trades on London Gateway, and it's Transatlantic trade on Southampton for the time being, but Maersk still uses exclusively BG Freight Line for it's UK and Irish feeder operations whilst Hapag follow a similar policy to a much more limited degree.

All the other global shipping lines also use BG Freight Line and DP World's Unifeeder, as and when necessary, supplemented by X-Press container line and one or two others.

Whilst Cosco and Evergreen both offer feedering opportunities the majority of their empty containers end up in Felixstowe and to a lesser extent Southampton and their import pricing for the UK inland delivery tends to reflect the round trip cost (port/delivery point/port) which is why during the Covid crisis the Port of Felixstowe, stopped accepting empty units back to the quay because they simply ran out of space and customers we told to return them to Immingham or Liverpool!

This sort of problem still happens from time to time at peak periods to other shipping lines as well, but they also have the advantage of switching volumes to other ports if the problem persists.

As far as Scotland is concerned, MSC is usually always looking for empty containers in Scotland followed by Hapag Lloyd, Maersk and CMA CGM because I suspect it's one area of the UK where export traffic is stronger than the import business largely because the import retail flows move via the retail outlets distribution centres in the UK.

Containers moving from Felixstowe, London Gateway and Southampton to Scotland will normally prebooked in advance of the vessel arrival, so if for example the vessel is delayed arriving or unloading is delayed by weather conditions, or port congestion on the Continent etc., can result in large number of late cancellations which can then result in the train loosing large numbers of containers if the spaces cannot be filled from other containers on the terminal which are available to move.

Turning to the UK domestic movements, i.e. Tesco etc, by and large I would not expect to see many empty spaces as these northbound trains originate from Tesco controlled distribution centres so they will maximise the space on a continuous basis from the stocks held in the distribution centre.

The southbound movements will contain the cages of returned or unsold stock and foodstuffs that cannot be disposed of locally etc, as well as cages of packaging etc that is to be recycled and of course the empty cages to be returned to the distribution warehouse.

The packaging will be collected then from the distribution warehouse by a specialist company who will sort it with other domestic recycling including newspapers and magazines, cardboard, and then it will be baled up ready for sale.

The plastic packaging along with off cuts from UPVC windows etc will also be baled or ground down to granules and bagged ready for sale. The recycling company or the party they sell these recycled material will then arrange to position a 40ft HC container at the premises where it will be loaded it to about 25 tonnes and check weighed ready for shipment usually back to China, Indonesia, South Korea or India for recycling.

These movements form important volumes for the shipping lines looking to return otherwise empty containers to these markets and move at rock bottom rates, often seemingly below cost and with the volumes from the rest of Europe, these volumes are the largest quantities moved eastbound.

This helps mitigate the cost of resituating otherwise huge volumes of empties and at the same time helps trim the ship as each laden 40ft then becomes equivalent to a 12.5 tonne 20ft which is a little under the optimum weight for a laden container when the lines calculate their planning and costings.

Outside the M25 the main areas for these recycling exports are the West Midlands, and the M62 corridor along with South Wales which conveniently means the volumes from the first two areas can be moved by rail, although the shipping lines may also use road transport if they are looking for a return load for import container tipping in the area.

And if you're wondering what happens to all this recycled material as well as recycled non-ferrous metals and electrical goods which move in the same direction to a lesser extent, it's simple.

Newspapers and magazines are de-inked and converted to pulp before being recycled into photocopy paper, whilst the plastic scrap is recycled into Xmas decorations and cheap plastic goods or components, whilst the card is recycled into new packaging to wrap the consumer goods etc we then purchase manufactured from the recycled metals and electrical goods which are then reshipped around the world.

 

[Port Road]

When I worked at BR's Central Wagon Authority, responsible for distributing empty common-user wagons to meet orders nationwide, we were constantly stessing to the operators the importance of giving equal priority to empty wagons. Loaded wagons had already generated revevue but to delay empty wagons might jeopardise getting the revenue for the next load.

"...remember; today's empties are tomorrow's loads.." as they used to say at Webb House...

 

[Rab Smith]

Some interesting comments here so far, but some also need further explanation. Starting with the international movements the proportional number of empty containers depends to a certain extent on the shipping line and the way the current market works which in general terms means there are between three to five times more laden containers arriving in the UK compared to number of laden containers exported.

The Asian shipping lines tend to attract greater support from their national countries due to the size of their domestic organisation and pricing policies whereas in the UK their organisation is usually very much smaller is largely geared to handling the import volumes. Unless a customer moves a large number of containers, it's very unlikely they will ever see a sales person from the shipping line, add to which most of this business is placed through forwarding agents or logistics companies who negotiate the pricing of the export movement with the shipping line. In contrast the European shipping lines UK organisations tend to be based on attracting export cargo as traditionally this is the way they earned their commissions as percentage of the freight against a much smaller fee for handling the import container. Today, most of the UK agents of the shipping lines are wholly owned subsidiaries of the parent shipping line so now they are treated as a cost centre so it's more a question of filling their allocation of laden containers on each ship which will be a set of multi-trade targets, whereas the Asian lines to a lesser extent will concentrate on selling space to a smaller number of customers who ship to markets where they need empty containers.

As a result the European shipping lines may be loading from multiple UK ports whereas the Asian Lines will tend to concentrate on one or two UK main ports. This also affected by the amount of feedering that the shipping lines operate, so for example MSC which is the largest shipping line in the world operates all it's own three main feeder services, to and from

1) Southampton, Portbury to from Antwerp/Le Havre
2) Liverpool, Greenock to/from Antwerp/Felixstowe, Le Havre and separately to Rotterdam.
3) Grangemouth, Teesport, Felixstowe and/or London Gateway to/from Antwerp
These are supplemented by additional vessels as necessary or by taking slots on their subsidiary WEC Line sailings.

CMA CGM operate their own feeder from Rotterdam/Dunkirk to Liverpool and Dublin and then tend to us BG Freight Lines which is wholly owned by Peel Ports for most of its feeder operation to all the ports served by MSC.

Maersk and Hapag has concentrated it's Asian Europe/Indian Subcontinent trades on London Gateway and it's Transatlantic trade on Southampton for the time being, but Maersk still uses exclusively BG Freight Line for it's UK and Irish feeder operations whilst Hapag follow a similar policy to a much more limited degree.

All the other global shipping lines also use BG Freight Line and DP World's Unifeeder, as and when necessary supplemented by X-Press container line and one or two others.

Whilst Cosco and Evergreen both offer feedering opportunities the majority of their empty containers end up in Felixstowe and to a lesser extent Southampton and their import pricing for the UK inland delivery tends to reflect the round trip cost (port/delivery point/port) which is why during the Covid crisis the Port of Felixstowe, stopped accepting empty units back to the quay because they simply ran out of space and customers we told to return them to Immingham or Liverpool! This sort of problem still happens from time to time at peak periods to other shipping lines as well, but they also have the advantage of switching volumes to other ports if the problem persists.

As far as Scotland is concerned, MSC is usually always looking for empty containers in Scotland followed by Hapag Lloyd, Maersk and CMA CGM because I suspect it's one area of the UK where export traffic is stronger than than the import business largely because the import retail flows move via the retail outlets distribution centres in the UK. Containers moving from Felixstowe, London Gateway and Southampton to Scotland will normally prebooked in advance of the vessel arrival, so if for example the vessel is delayed arriving or unloading is delayed by weather conditions, or port congestion on the Continent etc., can result in large number of late cancellations which can then result in the train loosing large numbers of containers if the spaces cannot be filled from other containers on the terminal which are available to move.

Turning to the UK domestic movements, ie Tesco etc, by and large I would not expect to see many empty spaces as these northbound trains originate from Tesco controlled distribution centres so they will maximise the space on a continuous basis from the stocks held in the distribution centre. The southbound movements will contain the cages of returned or unsold stock and foodstuffs that cannot be disposed of locally etc as well as cages of packaging etc that is to be recycled and of course the empty cages to be returned to the distribution warehouse.

The packaging will be collected then from the distribution warehouse by a specialist company who will sort it with other domestic recycling including newspapers and magazines, cardboard, and then it will be baled up ready for sale. The plastic packaging along with off cuts from UPVC windows etc will also be baled or ground down to granules and bagged ready for sale. The recycling company or the party they sell these recycled material will then arrange to position a 40ft HC container at the premises where it will be loaded it to about 25 tonnes and check weighed ready for shipment usually back to China, Indonesia, South Korea or India for recycling. These movements form important volumes for the shipping lines looking to return otherwise empty containers to these markets and move at rock bottom rates, often seemingly below cost and with the volumes from the rest of Europe, these volumes are the largest quantities moved eastbound. This helps mitigate the cost of resituating otherwise huge volumes of empties and at the same time helps trim the ship as each laden 40ft then becomes equivalent to a 12.5 tonne 20ft which is a little under the optimum weight for a laden container when the lines calculate their planning and costings. Outside the M25 the main areas for these recycling exports are the West Midlands, and the M62 corridor along with South Wales which conveniently means the volumes from the first two areas can be moved by rail, although the shipping lines may also use road transport if they are looking for a return load for import container tipping in the area. And if your wondering what happens to all this recycled material as well as recycled non ferrous metals and electrical goods which move in the same direction to a lesser extent it's simple. The news paper and magazines is deinked and converted to pulp before being recycled into photocopy paper, whilst the plastic scrap is recycled into Xmas decorations and cheap plastic goods or components, whilst the card is recycled into new packaging to wrap the consumer goods etc we then purchase manufactured from the recycled metals and electrical goods which are then reshipped around the world.

That's a great read but It's always baffled me how the world's containers get back to where they need to be. As a major manufacturer of containers, China has the process down to an art and the cost is very low. As manufacturing gets even more efficient, will it ever get to the stage where containers will be like pallets and after one trip just simply scooped up by second hand buyers paying pennies for them?

 

[Wavertreelad]

"...remember; today's empties are tomorrow's loads.." as they used to say at Webb House...

Absolutely.

That's a great read but It's always baffled me how the world's containers get back to where they need to be. As a major manufacturer of containers, China has the process down to an art and the cost is very low. As manufacturing gets even more efficient, will it ever get to the stage where containers will be like pallets and after one trip just simply scooped up by second hand buyers paying pennies for them?

Actually many pallets get used over and over again, especially the painted ones like the blue pallets which are used by the retail and some other industries which belong to a company called Chep.

The organisations using these pallets basically subscribe to a pallet pooling system operated by Chep, who supply the organisations with a supply of pallets but continue to own and maintain them, so their customers don't have to support maintaining or purchasing of new pallets and instead the Chep pallets move between customers on a one for one basis.

The pallets are constructed to a high standard to allow them to be used multiple times, and customers damaging them face high costs for their replacement as a result. It should also be noted that most containers arriving from China containing smaller consumer goods are loose packed in the container to maximise utilisation of the internal container space which is why these containers usually go to a warehouse to "handball" the container contents to pallets, label and shrink wrap prior to be delivered to the retail outlets own distribution centres which only accept defined standard sizes designed to fit the cells in the warehouse racking system.

Some distribution centres do accept containers, particularly for the larger consumer items, where the external packaging incorporates spaces for fork lifts. Thus, those northbound Tesco etc containers will likely also to be filled with Chep and standard pallets southbound as well as the cages, returned stock etc.

It's widely acknowledged that China leads the world on the manufacture certainly of "standard" containers, but I suspect we will never see single use containers simply because shipowners require by international agreement and law that containers they load on board any ship are constructed to strict standards designed to withstand the strains and stresses of marine transport.

The largest vessels deployed on the Asia Europe trades can load 24000 teu can stack containers up to nine or even ten high. This height is limited by the ship's ability to balance the load and the strength of the containers, but potentially the bottom container in a stack of nine containers would have over 250 tonnes bearing down on them as well as the stresses of the ships' movement when at sea.

On land the usual maximum stack is five high, so again it would make single use containers impractical because the international standards and the owners dictate that a container should last 20 to 35 years.

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 with the likelihood of this continuing to grow as the shipping lines continue to order more ships, despite for example the effect of Trump's tariffs which has seen considerable reductions in trade with the USA.

This is because in the last five years the Chinese have developed new markets in Latin America and Africa to mitigate their reliance on the US markets, so now the shipping lines are able to berth 24000 teu vessel in some West African ports. With potentially so many developing markets, there is little demand for a new one way container, as it's obviously cheaper to purchase a used container with a valid plate or short life plate.

 

[Tester]

Absolutely.



Actually many pallets get used over and over again, especially the painted ones like the blue pallets which are used by the retail and some other industries which belong to a company called Chep. The organisations using these pallets basically subscribe to a pallet pooling system operated by Chep who supply the organisations with a supply of pallets but continue to own and maintain them so their customers don't have to support maintaining or purchasing of new pallets and instead the Chep pallets move between customers on a one for one basis. The pallets are constructed to a high standard to allow them to be used multiple times, and customers damaging them face high costs for their replacement as a result. It should also be noted that most containers arriving from China containing smaller consumer goods are loose packed in the container to maximise utilisation of the internal container space which is why these containers usually go to a warehouse to "handball" the container contents to pallets, label and shrink wrap prior to be delivered to the retail outlets own distribution centres which only accept defined standard sizes designed to fit the cells in the warehouse racking system. Some distribution centres do accept containers, particularly for the larger consumer items were the external packaging incorporates spaces for fork lifts. Thus those northbound Tesco etc containers will likely also to be filled with Chep and standard pallets southbound as well as the cages, returned stock etc.

It's widely acknowledged that China leads the world on the manufacture certainly of "standard" containers but I suspect we will never see single use containers simply because shipowners require by international agreement and law that containers they load on board any ship are constructed to strict standards designed to withstand the strains and stresses of marine transport. The largest vessels deployed on the Asia Europe trades can load 24000 teu can stack containers up to nine or even ten high. This height is limited by the ship's ability to balance the load and the strength of the containers, but potentially the bottom container in a stack of nine containers would have over 250 tonnes bearing down of them as well as the stresses of the ships movement when at sea so. On land the usual maximum stack is five high so again it would make single use containers impractical because the international standards and the owners dictate that a container should last 20 to 35 years. 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 with the likelihood of this continuing to grow as the shipping lines continue to order more ships, despite for example the effect of Trumps tariffs which has seen considerable reductions in trade with the USA. This is because in the last five years the Chinese have developed new markets in Latin America and Africa to mitigate their reliance on the US markets, so now the shipping lines are able to berth 24000 teu vessel in some West African ports. With potentially so many developing markets, there is little demand for a new one way container as it's obviously cheaper to purchase a used container with a valid plate or short life plate.

This is all fascinating stuff, which generally lives in the shadows - thank you for sharing.

 

[RichardAsh1981]

As manufacturing gets even more efficient, will it ever get to the stage where containers will be like pallets and after one trip just simply scooped up by second hand buyers paying pennies for them?

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.