A Intermodal Train in the United States

These are huge boxes made of metal which carry every single thing you can think of from A-Z. They are the lifeline for millions of households and businesses. This is the most cost-effective way to move goods in a large scale. While a plane may hold a few hundred tons, ships with these containers hold a few million tons of goods making it less expensive.

In the past, every single product on the ship had to be moved by humans and trucks would wait upto a day to be unloaded and ships on the other hand stayed at the port for upto 5 days. The labor work was too much and not efficient at all.

 For example if a truck of tyres has to be loaded, the workers had to roll every single tyre onto the ship. The day would go from dawn to dusk but all the tyres were still not loaded on. With this, think of the arrival port.

With such a problem in hand, the intermodal container was born. The invention was a massive hit!
The origin warehouse would load items onto the intermodal container then seal it shut. It then was taken to the port by truck and the container was then lifted onto the ship. The loading/unloading time for 1 truck went from 12 hours to 12 seconds & ships only stayed at the port for less than a day instead of 5 days.

A group of workers manually moving goods into the warehouse in seattle.

Titanic vs today size container ships.

In the old time, ships were tiny and loads were too. With this system, ships went from small to 4XL because of efficiency and capability to build bigger. 

The ports have gone from sleepy to super energetic. Check out how ships are loaded and what is loaded. Even the largest ships only stay around for max 18 Hours.

The evolution of size of ships and number of containers they carry