Railway Containers - why did Van traffic persist ?

[jwealleans]

I have a photo of a German open wagon loaded with at least one LNER container, so I guess they were craned onto the ferry then craned off again. That was how they were moved after the war. Some specialist conflats did make it across on the ferry - i also have a picture of some of the 'Drikold' containers on LNER conflats in Poland in 1938. One of the vehicles is an ex-GNR fish truck. The most widely travelled GNR wagon?

[Dave]

I also found the same note on a BD container, 1935 seems to mean something in regards to international travel but I don't know the answer, maybe someone will.

[jwealleans]

Wasn't that the year the Dover-Calais train ferry service started?

The LNER built some steel containers specifically designed to stack and I'm given to understand that was to allow them to be stacked while in transit aboard ship.

Some containers were also lettered with metric dimensions for continental use, presumably from the batches which were authorised to be used on that traffic.

[Dave]

Thanks JW, sound about right, I'd forgotten about all that.

[Hatfield Shed]

...It would be interesting to know how the man on top of the container got there! There is only one way that I can see. Perhaps he was an ex-seaman!...!

There are quite excellent pictures of the Romford exhibition of 1936, in which members of the public are being craned about in an open container! The past is a foreign country, 'they' did things differently there.

Having watched factory workers, stevedores and such 'riding' the empty slings when moving cargo to or from road and rail vehicles, and on and off ship, during my own working lifetime I would propose that this may once have been a very common method for getting atop a container. It still is in some parts of the world, saw such things going on just two years ago.

[53C]

In the early days of mechanical handling, dock workers etc would stand on a pallet and the fork lift would put them up to
the height they needed to get onto wagons / containers etc. Some did the movement, just standing on the fork lift blades.
One foot on each blade.!
All well before the Health and Safety people were ever heard of.

[manna]

G'day Gents

Riding on a forklift blades, been there done that, and not much more than 10 years ago, probably still goes on today, although there was a home made 'box' that was welded together that the fork-lift could pick up with a man in it to change the light bulbs in the factory, this a least had sides and a door, I've used that many times as well.

manna

[Dave]

Yes I remember riding a fork like that many times in the early eighties, only way to get to the top of the rack and load it. Never bothered about H&S in those days.