Australian container exhibition
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dimensions. This exhibitor also showed Bloxwich container door handles and other hardware and made the first public display in Australia of Dobson hydraulic lifting legs.
Largest individual piece of handling equipment at the Exhibition was a Henley Hercules fork-lift truck of 30,000lb capacity at 48in. load centre. This had been sold to a freight forwarding organization and will be used for container and other heavy-duty cargo handling at Australian ports.
Other fork-lift and industrial truck equipment was shown by Lansing Bagnall and Lancer Boss.
Prominent in the design and manufacture of modular LCL container units is Geetainers (Australia) Pty. Ltd., whose stand displayed a range of these units, collapsible containers and bins of varying designs to suit particular commodity applications.
The sole New Zealand exhibitor, Modern Insulation Ltd.. showed a 14ft 5in. insulated container which had been designed for local coastal services. It was equipped with an integral refrigeration unit which could be powered from a 3 hp electric motor or, alternatively, a 10 hp petrol engine. A 4in. thickness of polyurethane foam provides adequate insulation and the interior of the unit has a holding capacity of 680 cu.ft.
A number of the largest Australian road transport and freight forwarding organizations, including Mayne Nickless, Brambles, Fleetways, Universal Transport and Terminals and Tradex Transport, mounted stands at the Exhibition. These indicated the scope continued from page 21 of various through-transport services with special emphasis on co-ordinated road /sea operations and door-to-door services.
Two of Australia's most extensive furniture removal operators arranged displays; and both showed examples of special containers which have been devised for interstate and overseas furniture removals.
The seven Australian Government railway administrations had a combined exhibit which illustrated the ability of the local rail industry to handle containers of varying sizes as well as any other freight commodity.
The place of road transport in national development was indicated by the Australian Road Transport Federation. This exhibit drew attention to the size and scope of the continent's road transport industry and showed how it is organized through the member associations in each state.
Prominent displays were mounted by a number of overseas shipping companies engaged in the Australian trade. Special emphasis was placed on those already operating container services to Australia, such as Overseas Containers Ltd., Associated Container Transportation, and others shortly to introduce similar services. The latter include the Eastern Searoad Service to Japan, Columbus Line to USA and three Japanese shipping lines who are combining in a joint container service to the Far East. Norddeutscher Lloyd and Hamburg Amerika Line publicized their Europe-Australia container service which will be commencing in 1970.
Unitized and unit-load shipping services between Australia and Europe were displayed by four European lines: Royal Interocean, Holland-Australia, Wilh Wilhelmsen and East Adriatic and the Australia West Pacific Line showed a wide range of cargo flats and containers.
Two of Britain's biggest port authorities, the Port of London and the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, also provided attractive displays.
Anxious to catch the booming market in Australia for container handling and intermodal transfer plant, several manufacturers showed sophisticated equipment of this nature. An open-air display of the Goldhofer Swine& unit was shown by Transport Specialties Pty. Ltd. which also exhibited a model of the Ackermann Load-a-matic transfer system.
The Melbourne exhibition was the third in a series of five international container equipment and services exhibitions to be staged throughout the world. The first two were held in 1968 in London and Baltimore; the fourth will be in London in September; the fifth in Munich during October 1970.
The exhibition was organized by International Trade Fairs Pty. Ltd. in association with the Mack-Brooks Exhibitions organization in London.