Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Monday 13 May 1929, page 13


COMMERCIAL.

NEW TRANSPORT METHOD.

Traders in England who have once used the "Container" system never return to other methods ot transport, states the "Railway Newsletter." The English railway companies are, in fact, experiencing difficulty in coping with the demand for containers, and a large number are being constructed in the railway workshops. The container is a box van equally adaptable for transport by road, rail or sea. Among other advantages it ensures absolute door-to-door service, reduction in handling costs, reduction in pscking costs minimum loss by damage, and minimum loss by theft. Goods which have already been successfully conveyed in containers reveal such widely differing commodities as furni-ture and confectionery, bricks, and flowers, radiators, and earthenware. The railways are also collaborating with experts in the meat trade in the production of an insulated container for the transport of meat under ideal conditions. The container operates on terms ot equality with the commercial motor vehicle. It is equally mobile, if not more so, in that it is a separate unit from the chassis and it has the advantage over the motor vehicle that it can also travel by rail. The absolute door-to-door service which the container enables the railways to offer is illustrated by thc case in which a container loadcd with building material was delivered to the third story of a partially constructed building. The road-rail truck is attracting the world-wlde attention of all interested in transport. An international con-tainer service between England and the Con-tinent is an accomplished fact. The Nord, Est and P.L.M. Railways of France are building containers of their own, and the laat named company has successfully operated a container service between Paris and Morocco. The container has taken a very flexible place in the development of railway transport and by means of it the railways are winning traffic back from the road. A year ago British railways possessed 350 containers; today they own 2000. That is the tangible mea-

sure of the success of this new method

of transport.