Lisbon enters container field
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ADDITIONAL investment in the region of only £40,000—in a mobile handling machine —has, virtually overnight, turned the port of Lisbon into a challenging new contender for European and transatlantic container traffic.
Few if any other world ports can have made such a classically simple, smooth entry into a field of cargo handling which until now has been dominated by talk of individual investments running into six or seven figures.
Already containers are being handled in considerable volume for Fabre Line (on its Marseille-Lisbon-New York run) and EllermanWilson, and the Port of Lisbon Authority is known to be negotiating actively with a number of other shipping lines.
Ship-to-shore transfer of the 20ft ISO containers so far being handled is carried out by existing 10-ton capacity quayside cranes working in tandem to achieve the required lifts of up to 20 tons.
From the time the containers touch the quay, all handling is by a single truck—a Lancer 2500 Series with hydraulically operated toplift attachment for rapid, one-man pickup and placing of containers and with a forward-mounted cab which can be traversed across the truck's full width, enabling the driver to select the best point from which to view and control each stage in the lifting / transporting /stacking /loading cycle.
Picked up by the Lancer at the quayside, full containers either are stacked two high in space-saving block formation, clear of the cranes' operating area, or are transported at up to 25 mph to a bonded warehouse more than half a mile away, for de-stuffing under Customs supervision.
On its return trips from the bonded warehouse, the Lancer carries previously de-stuffed containers which it stacks two high, this time in a fully selective "turret" formation so that every container is immediately accessible for loading to road transport, as required. Transfer of containers to and from coupled rail fiats, in any desired sequence due to the truck's side-reach action, is also catered for.
For Lisbon, this single investment meets all immediate container handling needs, at the same time offering scope for expansion of capacity as required in the future and with the added advantage of furnishing mobile lifting capacity for general cargo handling —always in demand at any port—as with toplift attachment removed, the Lancer reverts to general-purpose fork operation.
Bulkliner service introduced
BRITAIN'S first scheduled, containerized road and rail delivery service for bulk freight between London and the Midlands and North of England is to be inaugurated next month by the National Carbonising Co. Ltd.
The new service, to be called the NCC Bulkliner, will provide a guaranteed additional annual revenue for the railways and reduce motorway lorry traffic as a result, It will help to extend the facilities for distributing solid fuels to the South of England and also provide a faster and more economic means of shipping general bulk freight north and south.
The operator, National Carbonising, produces Rexco smokeless fuel from three pro duction plants in the East Midlands and one in Scotland, and owns one of the largest road haulage organizations in the Midlands.
The arrival of containerization in the coal trade linked with a daily transport schedule will bring with it guaranteed transit time, regularity of shipments throughout the year and, perhaps most important of all, less pro duct-breakage. From the train, the containers will be taken by road direct into coal merchants' yards or to depots in the Home Counties, thus greatly reducing product handling.
Big tonnages of National Carbonising's own Rexco smokeless product will immediately be handled by Bulkliner but because the com
pany believes the new service will make such a significant contribution to the future pros
perity of the solid fuel industry, facilities will be offered also to all other solid fuel producers in both the national and private sectors.
Commenting on the announcement, the chairman of National Carbonising, the Hon.
Edward Davies, said: 'We see our new ser vice making a real contribution to the improvement of solid fuel distribution and also extending all the advantages of the Freight liner and containerization systems to shippers of bulk freight. Our container trains will pro vide every week-night (52 weeks of the year) a scheduled service between Nottingham and London so that goods loaded tonight will be delivered tomorrow at their destination. The service combines the flexibility of road transport with the logical use of the railway system."
Initially, National Carbonising has reserved two-thirds of the space (600ft) on the regular
nightly Freightliner train operating between
Nottingham and London. Charges for the Bulkliner, door-to-door, road and rail .service
will be based on the rail rate for the whole journey in the same way as the company charges for its present all-road deliveries. Specially designed containers mounted on tipping skeletal semi-trailers drawn by Atkin son four-wheeled tractive units will collect . bulk freight from points within a radius of Nottingham and London. At the new Beeston Freightliner depot and at London's York Way terminal, the containers will be transferred to rail bogies for overnight shipment north and south. Five days a week the trains will depart from London at 21.31hr and Nottingham (Beeston) at 03.00hr. At the other end the containers will be transferred again to the road vehicles for onward delivery.
On Southern journeys the Bulkliner is expected to carry mostly domestic solid fuels including Rexco, Sunbrite and the National Coal Board's bituminous coals. Northern shipments are expected to include pig iron, scrap metal, glass, grain, sand and mineral ores.
The special containers built by Crane Fruehauf Trailers Ltd., are 20ft x 8ft x 8ft 150
types with open tops and incorporate a dual-purpose rear "flap" door hinged at the top side which has been designed and patented by National Carbonising's own engineering company, NCC (Engineers) Ltd., of Mansfield. The doors, being made in Mansfield and supplied to Crane Fruehauf ready for attachment to its containers, provide the facility for tipping bulk commo dities and give access to fork-lift trucks when packaged or palletized goods are being moved.
PLA rail terminal
THE PLA's E+m rail container terminal has started operations on a two-shift system. The two shifts cover the hours from 6.45 a.m. to 9.15 p.m. daily. Monday to Friday inclusive.
The PLA will be handling trains from Freightliners Ltd's national network with traffic for the berths in Tilbury Docks. The 14man team on each shift will work the trains in the terminal and operate the truck-trailer service to and from the berths.
A steady increase in railborne container traffic is expected as a result of the two-shift coverage.
ASSIPORT brochure
A FREE publication, "A port where all cargo finds containers and all containers find cargo, has been issued by the Port of Antwerp Promotion Association (ASSIPORTl and copies can be obtained from 21, Meir, Antwerp 1, quoting the reference "Container brochure C.2".
The brochure gives details of the port facilities and cargo handled and contains some excellent photographs of the container berths and loading and unloading operations.