A Short History of the Container

Seventy years ago a road haulier in North Carolina got tired of watching his cargo be unloaded from a truck, carried across a wharf and stowed into a ship's hold piece by piece. What replaced that has not fundamentally changed since — and the four corner castings it settled on are the reason everything in this catalogue exists.

• 1956 — One converted tanker, 58 boxes. On 26 April the Ideal X sails from Port Newark for Houston carrying 58 thirty-five-foot boxes on deck — the first commercially viable container voyage.
• 1961 — The standards work begins. ISO forms Technical Committee 104, Freight containers, and starts the argument about dimensions that will take most of the decade to settle.
• 1966 — The box crosses an ocean. Sea-Land's Fairland sails from New Jersey in April and reaches Bremen on 6 May, opening the first international container service.
• 1968 — The dimensions are fixed. ISO Recommendation R 668 sets the external dimensions and ratings of Series 1 containers — the moment a box loaded anywhere fits equipment everywhere.
• 1972 — Safety becomes law. The International Convention for Safe Containers is concluded at Geneva on 2 December, creating the approval and examination regime behind the CSC plate.
• 1977 — Two dates that matter here. The CSC enters into force on 6 September; in July, the Durban Container Terminal is established — containerisation arrives on the South African coast.
• 1981 — Every box gets a name. ISO 6346 introduces the owner code, serial number and check digit — the identification stencilled on the door of every container you will ever handle.
• 1984 — The corner casting is specified. ISO 1161 sets out the corner fitting: the single interface that every twistlock, lashing point and lifting device in this catalogue engages.
• 1997 — Handling and securing. ISO 3874 consolidates handling and securing practice — the standard behind twistlocks, stacking fittings and lashing arrangements.
• 2007 — Room for the forty-five. Amendment 1 to ISO 1161 extends the corner-fitting provisions to 45 ft containers, formalising a size the market had already adopted.
• 2020–22 — Still being revised. ISO 668 is reissued in 2020 and ISO 6346 in 2022 — the framework is seventy years old and still under active maintenance.
• Today — Why none of this is history. The corner casting has outlasted every ship, crane and operator that has handled it. It is why one hardware range still fits a box built in 1975 and one built last year.

Loading costs after Marc Levinson, The Box, Princeton University Press, 2006.