View allAll Photos Tagged containerization
Guemes Channel. Curtis Wharf.
Built in Anacortes, Washington by Dakota Creek Industries, delivered to Coastal Transportation In Feb. 2016.
Coastal Standard carries palletized frozen product below decks with space for containerized or breakbulk cargo topside. Moving cargo on and off the ship is done by the sideport loading system built by TTS of Bergen, Norway.
On Madison Avenue, on a Sunday morning.
As seen in "Gothamist,": gothamist.com/news/early-addition-containerized-trash-but...
Geroldstrasse/Bhf. Hardbrücke, Zurich/Switzerland.
The Freitag flagship store, located in the Zurich-West developing area, is made of seventeen used freight containers stacked together. Architects: Spillmann Echsle.
(See article in NYT…)
Vorbote der Hochhäuser, die noch kommen werden: Der neue Freitag-Shop im Zürcher Industriequartier, erstellt aus siebzehn rezyklierten, aufgetürmten Schiffscontainern. Mehr zum Projekt…
[blogged]
A very clean Class 37.710 heads a train of ex works 'Cawoods' containers on route to Coedbach Washery from Seaforth. The hoppers were used for the transportation of containerized coal from South Wales to Seaforth Docks near Birkenhead
ORIGINAL SLIDE TAKEN WITH A CANON A1 CAMERA
A diorama of a small intermodal freight terminal, including a quay with several harbor cranes, a small container ship being eased into place by a pair of harbor tugs, a rail yard with a pair of gantry cranes, a number of road trucks and yard trucks, straddle carriers, reach stackers, and some warehouses and covered storage areas.
The total size of the diorama is roughly 270x200 studs and it contains more than 26,000 parts. I would have included several hundred more containers and a few more vehicles, but I hit the limit of what LDD could support, at least on my PC.
Even if I had been able to include those details, I still would have fallen short of accurately representing a real containerized freight terminal. The largest container ports in the world move over 30 million TEUs per year - that's about 40,000 40-ft containers per day, or about one every two seconds. Even a relatively small port would be capable of handling several thousand containers per day. Given the size limitations, though, I tried to include all of the important details.
I'll post pictures with different points of view and some close-ups over the next few days.
It's a sunny Friday, May 27, 1988, and the skies have cleared over Corner Brook, Newfoundland.
TerraTransport 929 switches its train of containers on narrow gauge flatcars that have arrived from the east.
TerraTransport 929 and the rest of the railroad's motive power was a fleet of General Motors Division (GMD) NF210 diesel-electric locomotives. Between 1956 and 1960, GMD's plant at London, Ontario built 38 of these three foot six inch (1,067 mm) gauge locomotives for Canadian National Railways' narrow gauge network on the island province of Newfoundland.
The NF210's had a C-C wheel arrangement, with three-axle trucks with all axles powered, and could develop 1,200 horsepower.
When CN spun off its Newfoundland rail and bus operations to TerraTransport around 1980, the fleet of NF210 locomotives – minus two that had been wrecked at Corner Brook in 1966 – passed into TerraTransport's hands.
It's a sunny Friday, May 27, 1988, and the skies have cleared over Corner Brook, Newfoundland.
TerraTransport 929 switches its train of containers on narrow gauge flatcars that have arrived from the east.
TerraTransport 929 and the rest of the railroad's motive power was a fleet of General Motors Division (GMD) NF210 diesel-electric locomotives. Between 1956 and 1960, GMD's plant at London, Ontario built 38 of these three foot six inch (1,067 mm) gauge locomotives for Canadian National Railways' narrow gauge network on the island province of Newfoundland.
The NF210's had a C-C wheel arrangement, with three-axle trucks with all axles powered, and could develop 1,200 horsepower.
When CN spun off its Newfoundland rail and bus operations to TerraTransport around 1980, the fleet of NF210 locomotives – minus two that had been wrecked at Corner Brook in 1966 – passed into TerraTransport's hands.
Containerization on this island operation was seen as a way of eliminating some of the inefficiencies inherent to traffic traveling between Newfoundland and the mainland. Prior to the appearance of the containers, a railcar originating on the island would have its lading transferred from narrow gauge box cars onto the ferry at Port-aux-Basques; upon arrival on the mainland after the seven-hour passage across the Cabot Strait to North Sydney, the lading would again have to be transferred – this time onto a standard gauge boxcar – before it could continue by rail to its destination.
Though TerraTransport's move to containers streamlined the operation, this railway operation like any other located on an island is inherently inefficient. The inherent inefficiency of narrow gauge was evident to this observer: containers on the island were stacked one to a narrow gauge flatcar, while on the mainland the same containers would be packed two-high ("double stacked") on a standard gauge flatcar.
Once highways were improved and extended to all population centers on the island of Newfoundland, the rail operations had little advantage over road transport. Ultimately, time ran out for the railway on Newfoundland. The entire TerraTransport rail operation ended operation in fall 1988, only four months after these pictures were taken. In subsequent years, the rail was torn out.
When the railway shut down, most of the NF210 fleet was sold to overseas buyers. Several of the fleet – including the 929 – wound up in Chile.
A diorama of a small intermodal freight terminal, including a quay with several harbor cranes, a small container ship being eased into place by a pair of harbor tugs, a rail yard with a pair of gantry cranes, a number of road trucks and yard trucks, straddle carriers, reach stackers, and some warehouses and covered storage areas.
The total size of the diorama is roughly 270x200 studs and it contains more than 26,000 parts. I would have included several hundred more containers and a few more vehicles, but I hit the limit of what LDD could support, at least on my PC.
Even if I had been able to include those details, I still would have fallen short of accurately representing a real containerized freight terminal. The largest container ports in the world move over 30 million TEUs per year - that's about 40,000 40-ft containers per day, or about one every two seconds. Even a relatively small port would be capable of handling several thousand containers per day. Given the size limitations, though, I tried to include all of the important details.
I'll post pictures with different points of view and some close-ups over the next few days.
Princes Pier, adjacent to Station Pier in Port Phillip Bay, is one of Melbourne’s most important cultural assets both as an exemplar of a pre-containerised shipping facility and as a place rich in Australia’s wartime, maritime and multicultural history. Words by Steve Brown, design director, NDYLIGHT.
Princes Pier gatehouse. Photo by Peter Glenane courtesy of MPV
Built between 1912 and 1915, it was constructed by the Melbourne Harbour Trust as a second railway pier in Port Melbourne, The pier was designed to handle both cargo and passengers, and also boasted office accommodation for customs officers and shipping companies as well as waiting room for passengers with moveable gangways making it safer and more comfortable to board or disembark.
Princes Pier gatehouse. Photo by Simmonds courtesy of MPV1
Originally known as 'New Railway Pier', it was renamed Princes Pier in 1921 in honour of the royal visit by the Prince of Wales. The pier’s iconic two-level timber Gatehouse was added in 1935 to enable better monitoring of cargo and traffic on to and off of the pier.
Princes Pier is a heritage listed structure, and was the departure point for Australian troops during the First and Second World Wars, and also the arrival point for American troops during the Second World War. In a significant peacetime role, it was the first landing point in Australia for post-war migrants — more than one million between 1947 and 1969.
Princes Pier forest of timber piles. Photo by Peter Glenane courtesy of MPV1
After the containerization boom and the last of the migrant ships in 1969 the pier became run-down and was decommissioned in 1985. It suffered severe deterioration over the next two decades, until in 2006 the Victorian Government decided Princes Pier would not be left to rot and committed $34 million to its restoration.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busan_Tower
Busan Tower is a 120-metre-high tower at Yongdusan Park, located in Jung-gu, Busan, South Korea.
Busan Tower was built in 1973. It's only used for entertainment purposes and doesn't have any transmitting equipment which sets the tower apart from many other towers with observation decks primarily built as TV- and radio towers. The deck features panoramic view and a small cafe, it's only accessible during working hours via two high-speed elevators. The base of the tower is interconnected with a few galleries and souvenir shops. The tower is usually mentioned in tourist guides as a good place to get a view of the city's port.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Busan
The Port of Busan (Hangul: 부산항; Hanja: 釜山港) is the largest port in South Korea, located in the city of Busan, South Korea. The Port of Busan was established in 1876 as a small port with strict trading between Korea, China and Japan. It is situated at the mouth of the Nakdong River (Hangul: 낙동강) facing the Tsushima Island of Japan. During the Korean War (1950-1953), Busan was among the few places North Korea did not invade, causing war refugees to flee to the city of Busan. At that time Busan’s port was crucial to receive war materials and aid, such as fabrics and processed foods to keep the economy stable. In the 1970s, a rise in the footwear and veneer industries caused factory workers to migrate to Busan, bringing Busan’s population from 1.8 million to 3 million.
The Port of Busan continued to grow and by 2003 the port was the fourth largest container port in the world. South Korea accounted for 0.7% of global trade in 1970, but by 2003 it went up to 2.5%. 50% of the Busan’s manufacturing jobs are related to exports, and 83% of the country’s exports are containerized, making Busan the country’s largest container and general cargo port. Compared to the Port of Busan, Inchon port handles only 7% of containers. Easy access to the Port of Busan between Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong contribute to its vast growth.
Currently the Port of Busan is the fifth busiest container port in the world and the tenth busiest port in North-east Asia. It is developed, managed, and operated by the Busan Port Authority (BPA) established in 2004. Today the Port of Busan consists of four ports- North Port, South Port, Gamcheon Port, and Dadaepo Port, an International Passenger Terminal and the Gamman container terminal. The North Port provides passenger handling facilities and cargo, and with Gamcheon Port’s help more cargo volumes can be handled (Ship Technology). The South Port is home to the Busan Cooperative Fish Market which is the largest fishing base in Korea, and it handles 30% of the total marine volume. The Dadaepo Port located west of the Busan Port, mainly handles coastal catches.
In 2007 the Busan Port handled cargo containing fertilizers, meat, scrap metal, petroleum and other gases, crude petroleum, coal, leather, fats and oils, iron ore, rough wood, natural sand, milling industry products, and sugar. In 2016, South Korea exported a total of $515B and imported $398B. Top exports of South Korea are integrated circuits, cars, refined petroleum, passenger and cargo ships, and vehicle parts. South Korea exports the most to China, the United States, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Japan. Imports to South Korea mainly come from China, Japan, the United States, Germany, and other Asian countries. In 2017 Busan processed more than 20 million TEUS, twenty-foot equivalents (a measure used to estimate the compacity of container ships).
Its location is known as Busan Harbor.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busan_Tower
Busan Tower is a 120-metre-high tower at Yongdusan Park, located in Jung-gu, Busan, South Korea.
Busan Tower was built in 1973. It's only used for entertainment purposes and doesn't have any transmitting equipment which sets the tower apart from many other towers with observation decks primarily built as TV- and radio towers. The deck features panoramic view and a small cafe, it's only accessible during working hours via two high-speed elevators. The base of the tower is interconnected with a few galleries and souvenir shops. The tower is usually mentioned in tourist guides as a good place to get a view of the city's port.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Busan
The Port of Busan (Hangul: 부산항; Hanja: 釜山港) is the largest port in South Korea, located in the city of Busan, South Korea. The Port of Busan was established in 1876 as a small port with strict trading between Korea, China and Japan. It is situated at the mouth of the Nakdong River (Hangul: 낙동강) facing the Tsushima Island of Japan. During the Korean War (1950-1953), Busan was among the few places North Korea did not invade, causing war refugees to flee to the city of Busan. At that time Busan’s port was crucial to receive war materials and aid, such as fabrics and processed foods to keep the economy stable. In the 1970s, a rise in the footwear and veneer industries caused factory workers to migrate to Busan, bringing Busan’s population from 1.8 million to 3 million.
The Port of Busan continued to grow and by 2003 the port was the fourth largest container port in the world. South Korea accounted for 0.7% of global trade in 1970, but by 2003 it went up to 2.5%. 50% of the Busan’s manufacturing jobs are related to exports, and 83% of the country’s exports are containerized, making Busan the country’s largest container and general cargo port. Compared to the Port of Busan, Inchon port handles only 7% of containers. Easy access to the Port of Busan between Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong contribute to its vast growth.
Currently the Port of Busan is the fifth busiest container port in the world and the tenth busiest port in North-east Asia. It is developed, managed, and operated by the Busan Port Authority (BPA) established in 2004. Today the Port of Busan consists of four ports- North Port, South Port, Gamcheon Port, and Dadaepo Port, an International Passenger Terminal and the Gamman container terminal. The North Port provides passenger handling facilities and cargo, and with Gamcheon Port’s help more cargo volumes can be handled (Ship Technology). The South Port is home to the Busan Cooperative Fish Market which is the largest fishing base in Korea, and it handles 30% of the total marine volume. The Dadaepo Port located west of the Busan Port, mainly handles coastal catches.
In 2007 the Busan Port handled cargo containing fertilizers, meat, scrap metal, petroleum and other gases, crude petroleum, coal, leather, fats and oils, iron ore, rough wood, natural sand, milling industry products, and sugar. In 2016, South Korea exported a total of $515B and imported $398B. Top exports of South Korea are integrated circuits, cars, refined petroleum, passenger and cargo ships, and vehicle parts. South Korea exports the most to China, the United States, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Japan. Imports to South Korea mainly come from China, Japan, the United States, Germany, and other Asian countries. In 2017 Busan processed more than 20 million TEUS, twenty-foot equivalents (a measure used to estimate the compacity of container ships).
Its location is known as Busan Harbor.
It's 7:15am so it's still a comfortable 81 degrees on a day that will hit 106 in the afternoon, fortunately the spring rains have been plentiful so Curtis Hill is very green in spite of the Spring heat. The hot ZLACWSP8-16L is running 2 1/2 hours behind schedule as it quietly glides off the hill at Heman with it's 5675 tons & 7775 feet of containerized and LCL trailer freight behind 4 GE motors.
With the advent of containerization, all of the piers on the nearby Hudson River, except passenger ship terminals, disappeared or were converted to other uses. Modern day container ship ports require much land in order to offer ships quick turn-arounds. The containers on land need to be out of one another's way and not bottle necked. A big ship can exchange much of its cargo and be on its way in a few hours*. On the right is Port Elizabeth and below that is a small part of Port Newark. Most ships come in through Kill Van Kull - middle left - which connects to upper NY Bay. Other ships come in through Arthur Kill from Raritan Bay up top.
*See my caption under www.flickr.com/photos/62890821@N08/24997057331/in/album-7...
Also see this view from boat: www.flickr.com/photos/62890821@N08/49508401951/in/photost...
Upon driving back into Cairns, I noticed some cement containers moving through the trees then suddenly a big bright engine on the front. A swift U turn was made and I was heading back out towards Townsville again...
2308D hurries into Gordonvale in fast fading light with a south bound Aurizon cement train from Cairns on a very humid Monday afternoon
Monday 8th December 2014
Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They are a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport and now carry most seagoing non-bulk cargo.
Container ship capacity is measured in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Typical loads are a mix of 20-foot and 40-foot (2-TEU) ISO-standard containers, with the latter predominant.
VL353 and 1440 cruise through the S curve at Towang as 1263 empty Viterra containerized grain service to Southern NSW for loading.
Tuesday 11th July 2016
It's the dreary afternoon of Thursday, May 26, 1988 while three TerraTransport NF210 narrow gauge diesel engines switch the yard at Corner Brook, Newfoundland under overcast skies.
The 936, 938, and 945's combined 3,600 horsepower jockey a combination of containers on flat cars and pulpwood cars on the railroad's three foot six inch (1,067 mm) gauge track.
The pulpwood cars are likely destined to the giant Bowater paper mill nearby in Corner Brook. Easily the town's biggest industry, the mill was undoubtedly also part of the reason this archaic railway lasted as long as it did.
Containerization on this island operation was seen as a way of eliminating some of the inefficiencies inherent to traffic traveling between Newfoundland and the mainland. Prior to the appearance of the containers, a railcar originating on the island would have its lading transferred from narrow gauge box cars onto the ferry at Port-aux-Basques; upon arrival on the mainland after the seven-hour passage across the Cabot Strait to North Sydney, the lading would again have to be transferred – this time onto a standard gauge boxcar – before it could continue by rail to its destination.
The containers eliminated much of this manpower-intensive and hence costly operation. Subsequently, at Port-aux-Basques, each container would be transferred in one operation from a narrow gauge flatcar onto a standard gauge flatcar, and then shoved onto the ferry (which had standard gauge rails) by a standard gauge locomotive at Port-aux-Basques.
The adoption of containers streamlined the movement of freight to and from the mainland. Though TerraTransport's move to containers reduced the cost of the operation, any rail operation on an island is inherently inefficient because any transfer, even a simplified one at port, is less efficient than a line haul from origin to destination. Furthermore, the inherent inefficiency of narrow gauge was evident to this observer: containers on the island were stacked one to a narrow gauge flatcar, while on the mainland the same containers would be packed two-high ("double stacked") on a standard gauge flatcar.
Once highways were improved and extended to all population centers on the island of Newfoundland, the rail operations had little advantage over road transport. Ultimately, time ran out for the railway on Newfoundland. The entire TerraTransport rail operation ended operation in fall 1988, only four months after these pictures were taken. In subsequent years, the rail was torn out. The three NF210 diesels in this picture were sold to a buyer in Chile.
After falling a little short on my last attempt to build a micro freight terminal, I decided to give it another try. This time, I used a smaller scale (1:305 instead of 1:200) and narrowed the scope a little so that I could include all of the details that were missing from the first one.
This diorama is a section of a small, manned freight terminal, designed to handle both containerized and RO-RO cargo. A Panamax class container ship is docked at the quay and is ready to be unloaded. In the staging areas of the terminal are the cargo from a recently unloaded RO-RO ship, including a fleet of new cars and some heavy equipment (including a few ultra-class, 400-ton mining trucks). Yard trucks and reach stackers are busy moving containers around the yard, and there are two fully loaded freight trains on the rail spurs ready to pull out.
Guemes Channel. Dakota Creek Industries.
Coastal Standard carries palletized frozen product below decks with space for containerized or breakbulk cargo topside. Moving cargo on and off the ship is done by the sideport loading system built by TTS of Bergen, Norway.
XA-ADS - Bombardier CRJ-200SF - Aeronaves T.S.M.
at Hamilton International Airport (YHM)
c/n 7300 - built in 1990 for ASA Atlantic Southeast Airlines -
to Frontera Flight holdings in 2018 - converted to freighter by Aeronautical Engineers Inc at DHN 07/2021 -
leased to Aeronaves T.S.M. 08/2021
The Aeronautical Engineers Inc. AEI CRJ200 SF “Large Cargo Door” Conversion consists of the installation of a 94"x70" cargo door on the left side of the fuselage, installation of a 9G rigid cargo/smoke barrier and modification of the main deck to a Class E cargo compartment. After conversion the aircraft has the capability to carry containerized and or bulk cargo up to 6.7 tonnes.
The CRJ-200SF replaced the Convair CV-580/640 freighters Aeronaves T.S.M. used in the past
Following our visit to the 1896 three-masted barque Rickmer Rickers, we fast-forwarded 65 years to the 1961 general cargo ship Cap San Diego, another ship museum at the port of Hamburg.
Even though I'm not an engineer, I've always been fascinated by transportation and logistics, and seeing a cargo ship's engine room, cargo holds, bridge and living quarters was interesting.
xxxx
In December 1961, the Hamburg-Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft Eggert & Amsinck launched the brand-new general cargo ship cap San Diego. The vessel was built by Deutsche Werft AG right in Hamburg-Finkenwerder.
During its first voyage om 1962. Cap San Diego sailed to Montreal, Baltimore, New York, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Santos, Antwerp, Rotterdam and Bremen before returning to Hamburg, each such round trip takes about 60 days. However, just a few years after its launch, marine bulk cargo transportation, or more specifically, break-bulk cargo transportation, was already rapid moving to the more efficient containerization, and general cargo ships like Cap San Diego were becoming obsolete rapidly.
By 1986, the ship was reaching the end of her useful life and scheduled to be broken up and scrapped. At that point, The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg decided to buy the Hamburg-built ship and restored her to a floating museum that we see today.
Fifty years ago today, the age of containerization began.
Here's how Marc Levinson, author of "The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger," described the impact of the event in an excellent column in yesterday's Financial Times:
news.ft.com/cms/s/8c05da96-d3f7-11da-b2f3-0000779e2340.html/
It may not be printed in red on your calendar, but April 26 is an important date in economic history. Fifty years ago, the Ideal-X, a war-surplus oil tanker with a steel frame welded above its deck, loaded 58 aluminium containers at a dock in Newark, New Jersey. Five days later, the ship steamed into Houston, Texas, where trucks took on the metal boxes and carried them to their destinations.
This was the beginning of the container revolution. By dramatically lowering freight costs, the container transformed economic geography. Some of the world's great ports - London and Liverpool, New York and San Francisco - saw their bustling waterfronts decay as the maritime industry decamped to new locations with room to handle containers and transport links to move them in and out. Manufacturers, no longer tied to the waterfront to reduce shipping costs, moved away from city centres, decimating traditional industrial districts. Eventually, production moved much farther afield, to places such as South Korea and China, which took advantage of cheap, reliable transportation to make goods that could not have been exported profitably before containerisation.
Photo: 20-foot (1 TEU) containers stacked in Alameda, California
NOTE: I've created a new group for posting images of containers, container terminals, container ships, and container-based architecture. It's called Big Metal Box. Please join in!
~*Photography Originally Taken By: www.CrossTrips.Com Under God*~
Shipping container architecture is a form of architecture utilizing steel shipping containers as structural element, because of their inherent strength, wide availability and relatively low cost.
Advantages
Strength and durability
Shipping containers are in many ways an ideal building material. They are designed to carry heavy loads and support heavy loads when they are stacked in high columns. They are also designed to resist harsh environments - they are transported globally on ocean going vessels or can be covered in road salt when transported on roads.
Modular
All shipping containers are made to the same standard measurements and as such they provide modular elements that can be combined into larger structures. This simplifies design, planning and transport. As they are already designed to interlock for ease of mobility during transportation, structural construction is completed by simply emplacing them. Due to the containers' modular design additional construction is as easy as stacking more containers. They can be stacked up to 12 high when empty.
Transport
Pre-fabricated modules can also be easily transported by ship, truck or rail, because they already conform to standard shipping sizes.
Availability
Used shipping containers are available across the globe. In cases where a company or country receives more containers than it can use to ship in the return directions these containers have no real use, since it is not cost effective to return empty containers to their origin.
Cost
Many used containers are available at a cost that is relatively low compared to a finished structure built by other labour-intensive means such as bricks and mortar — which also require larger more expensive foundations. Construction involves very little labour and a used shipping containers requiring only simple modification can be purchased from major transportation companies for as little as $900 USD each. Even when purchased brand new they seldom cost more than $6000 USD.
Disadvantages
Temperature
Steel conducts heat very well; containers used for human occupency in an environment with extreme temperature variations will normally have to be better insulated than most brick, block or wood structures. Spraying two coats of a Ceramic powder additive in spray paint a insulation value of R-28 thermal efficiency can be achieved, thus no traditional insulation is required for heat or cold.[citation needed]
Labour
The welding and cutting of steel is considered to be specialized labour and can increase construction costs, yet overall the costs are still lower than conventional construction.
Construction site
The containers will, in most cases, be delivered by truck and then must be emplaced by a crane or forklift. Traditional brick, block and lumber construction will also be delivered by truck. However, these materials often require a forklift to remove the pallets of materials, and might need a crane to lift them to upper stories.
Building permits
The use of steel for construction, while prevalent in industrial construction, is currently not yet widely used for residential structures. Obtaining building permits may be troublesome in some regions due to municpalities not having seen this application before.
Examples
Many structures based on shipping containers have already been constructed, and their uses, sizes, locations and appearances vary widely.
When futurist Stewart Brand needed a place to assemble all the material he needed to write How Buildings Learn, he converted a shipping container into office space, and wrote up the conversion process in the same book.
In 2006, Southern California Architect Peter DeMaria [1], designed the first two story shipping container home in the U.S. as an approved structural system under the strict guidelines of the nationally recognized Uniform Building Code (UBC).
Several architects, such as Adam Kalkin have built original homes, using discarded shipping containers for their parts or using them in their original form, or doing a mix of both.[2]
In 2000, the firm Urban Space Management completed the project called Container City I in the Trinity Buoy Wharf area of London. The firm has gone on to complete additional container-based building projects, with more underway. In 2006, the Dutch company Tempohousing[3] finished in Amsterdam the biggest container village in the world[4]: 1,000 student homes from modified shipping containers from China.
In 2002 standard ISO shipping containers began to be modified and used as stand-alone on-site wastewater treatment plants [5]. The use of containers creates a cost-effective, modular, and customizable solution to on-site wastewater treatment and eliminates the need for construction of a separate building to house the treatment system.
Markets
Empty shipping containers are commonly used as market stalls and warehouses in the countries of the former USSR.
The biggest shopping mall or organized market in Europe is made up of alleys formed by stacked containers, on 170 acres (69 ha) of land, between the airport and the central part of Odessa, Ukraine. Informally named "Tolchok" and officially known as the Seventh-Kilometer Market it has 16,000 vendors and employs 1,200 security guards and maintenance workers.
In Central Asia, the Dordoy Bazaar in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, almost entirely composed of double-stacked containers, is of comparable size. It is popular with travelers coming from Kazakhstan and Russia to take advantage of the cheap prices and plethora of knock-off designers.
Other uses
* Press Boxes[1]
* Emergency hurricane shelters for thoroughbred horses
* Concession Stands[2]
* Fire Training Facility[3]
* Military Training Facility[4]
* Emergency shelters
* School buildings
* Urban homes
* Rural homes
* Apartment and office buildings
* Artists' studios
* Stores
* Large houses
* Moveable exhibition spaces on rails
* Telco hubs
* Bank vaults
* Medical clinics
* Radar stations
* Shopping malls
* Sleeping rooms
* Recording Studios
* Abstract art
* Transportable factories
* Data centers (in the form of Project Blackbox)
* Experimental labs
* Clandestine Cannabis gardens
* Combatant Temporary Containment (ventilated)
* Bathrooms
* Showers
* Workshops
* Intermodal sealed storage on ships, trucks, and trains
* House Foundations on unstable seismic zones
* Elevator/stairwell shafts
Containers used for housing and other architecture
In North America, containers are in many ways an ideal building material, because they are strong, durable, stackable, cuttable, movable, modular, plentiful and relatively cheap. It is not surprising then that architects as well as laypeople have utilized them to build homes, offices, apartments, schools, dormitories, artists' studios, emergency shelters and many other uses. They are also used to provide temporary secure spaces on construction sites and other venues on "as is" basis instead of building shelters.
During the 1991 Gulf War ("Desert Storm"), containers saw considerable nonstandard uses, not only as makeshift shelters but also for the transportation of Iraqi prisoners of war. Holes were cut in the containers to allow for ventilation and there were no reported ill effects from this method. Containers continue to be used for military shelters, often additionally fortified by adding sandbags to the side walls to protect against weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades ("RPGs").
The abundance and relative cheapness during the last decade comes from the deficit in manufactured goods coming from North America in the last two decades. These manufactured goods come to North America from Asia and, to a lesser extent, Europe, in containers that often have to be shipped back empty ("deadhead"), at considerable expense. It is often cheaper to buy new containers in China and elsewhere in Asia, and to try to find new applications for the used containers that have reached their North American cargo destination.
See also
* Containerization
* Prefab
Guemes Channel.
Built in Anacortes, Washington by Dakota Creek Industries, delivered to Coastal Transportation In Feb. 2016.
Coastal Standard carries palletized frozen product below decks with space for containerized or breakbulk cargo topside. Moving cargo on and off the ship is done by the sideport loading system built by TTS of Bergen, Norway.
A diorama of a small intermodal freight terminal, including a quay with several harbor cranes, a small container ship being eased into place by a pair of harbor tugs, a rail yard with a pair of gantry cranes, a number of road trucks and yard trucks, straddle carriers, reach stackers, and some warehouses and covered storage areas.
The total size of the diorama is roughly 270x200 studs and it contains more than 26,000 parts. I would have included several hundred more containers and a few more vehicles, but I hit the limit of what LDD could support, at least on my PC.
Even if I had been able to include those details, I still would have fallen short of accurately representing a real containerized freight terminal. The largest container ports in the world move over 30 million TEUs per year - that's about 40,000 40-ft containers per day, or about one every two seconds. Even a relatively small port would be capable of handling several thousand containers per day. Given the size limitations, though, I tried to include all of the important details.
I'll post pictures with different points of view and some close-ups over the next few days.
A diorama of a small intermodal freight terminal, including a quay with several harbor cranes, a small container ship being eased into place by a pair of harbor tugs, a rail yard with a pair of gantry cranes, a number of road trucks and yard trucks, straddle carriers, reach stackers, and some warehouses and covered storage areas.
The total size of the diorama is roughly 270x200 studs and it contains more than 26,000 parts. I would have included several hundred more containers and a few more vehicles, but I hit the limit of what LDD could support, at least on my PC.
Even if I had been able to include those details, I still would have fallen short of accurately representing a real containerized freight terminal. The largest container ports in the world move over 30 million TEUs per year - that's about 40,000 40-ft containers per day, or about one every two seconds. Even a relatively small port would be capable of handling several thousand containers per day. Given the size limitations, though, I tried to include all of the important details.
I'll post pictures with different points of view and some close-ups over the next few days.
After falling a little short on my last attempt to build a micro freight terminal, I decided to give it another try. This time, I used a smaller scale (1:305 instead of 1:200) and narrowed the scope a little so that I could include all of the details that were missing from the first one.
This diorama is a section of a small, manned freight terminal, designed to handle both containerized and RO-RO cargo. A Panamax class container ship is docked at the quay and is ready to be unloaded. In the staging areas of the terminal are the cargo from a recently unloaded RO-RO ship, including a fleet of new cars and some heavy equipment (including a few ultra-class, 400-ton mining trucks). Yard trucks and reach stackers are busy moving containers around the yard, and there are two fully loaded freight trains on the rail spurs ready to pull out.
8105 rushes the steep section between Wallerwang and Marangaroo Tunnel with an extra 8934 containerized ore train from Blayney. The full length train normally rates three 3000hp locomotives, and can often be heard for miles around as it ascends this hill.
The hulk and cargo hold of a general cargo ship has a lot more space than I thought.
xxxxx
In December 1961, the Hamburg-Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft Eggert & Amsinck launched the brand-new general cargo ship cap San Diego. The vessel was built by Deutsche Werft AG right in Hamburg-Finkenwerder.
During its first voyage in 1962. Cap San Diego sailed to Montreal, Baltimore, New York, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Santos, Antwerp, Rotterdam and Bremen before returning to Hamburg, each such round trip takes about 60 days. However, just a few years after its launch, marine bulk cargo transportation, or more specifically, break-bulk cargo transportation, was already rapid moving to the more efficient containerization, and general cargo ships like Cap San Diego were becoming obsolete rapidly.
By 1986, the ship was reaching the end of her useful life and scheduled to be broken up and scrapped. At that point, The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg decided to buy the Hamburg-built ship and restored her to a floating museum that we see today.
Guemes Channel. Curtis Wharf.
Built in Anacortes, Washington by Dakota Creek Industries, delivered to Coastal Transportation In Feb. 2016.
Coastal Standard carries palletized frozen product below decks with space for containerized or breakbulk cargo topside. Moving cargo on and off the ship is done by the sideport loading system built by TTS of Bergen, Norway.
The Port of Miami, styled as "PortMiami" but formally the Dante B. Fascell Port of Miami, is a major seaport located in Biscayne Bay at the mouth of the Miami River in Miami, Florida. It is the largest passenger port in the world, and one of the largest cargo ports in the United States. It is connected to Downtown Miami by Port Boulevard—a causeway over the Intracoastal Waterway—and to the neighboring Watson Island via the PortMiami Tunnel.
The port is located on Dodge Island, which is the combination of three historic islands (Dodge, Lummus, and Sam's Islands) that have since been combined into one. It is named in honor of 19 terms Florida Congressman Dante Fascell.
As of 2018, PortMiami accounts for approximately 334,500 jobs and has an annual economic impact of $43 billion to the state of Florida.
In the early 1900s, Government Cut was dredged along with a new channel to what now is known as Bicentennial Park in downtown Miami. This new access to the mainland created the Main Channel which greatly improved the shipping access to the new port. From these original dredging spoils which were disposed of on the south side of the new Main Channel, new islands were inadvertently created which later became Dodge, Lummus, and Sam's Island along with several other smaller islands.
PortMiami's improved shipping access and growth of the South Florida community led to an expansion of the port. On April 5, 1960, Resolution No. 4830, "Joint Resolution Providing for Construction of Modern Seaport Facilities at Dodge Island Site" was approved by the Dade County Board of Commissioners. On April 6, 1960, the City of Miami approved City Resolution No. 31837 to construct the new port. The new port on Dodge Island required expansion of the island by joining it together with the surrounding islands. After the seawalls, administrative buildings, and a vehicle and railroad bridge were completed, Port of Miami operations were moved to the new Dodge Island port. Additional fill material enlarged the connected Lummus and Sam's islands as well as the North, South and NOAO slips, creating a completely man made island for PortMiami.
In 1993, the first dredge of PortMiami occurred, deepening it to 42 feet. In 2006, a $40 million project to expand the South Harbor finished. In 2011, a project to reconnect PortMiami to the mainland via railroad began. In 2013, a dredging project began to deepen the harbors around PortMiami from 44 to 52 feet. In April 2019, the Miami-Dade Tourism and Ports Committee approved a deal for Royal Caribbean Cruises to build a new office and parking garage on Dodge Island.
PortMiami is an important contributor to the local south Florida and state economies. As a world-class port, PortMiami is among an elite group of ports in the world that cater to both cruise ships and containerized cargo.
PortMiami boasts the title "cruise capital of the world", and is the busiest cruise/passenger port in the world. It accommodates the operations of major cruise lines such as Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Disney, and MSC, among others. Over 5.5 million cruise passengers pass through the port each year (FY2018/2019).
The largest cruise ship in the world by gross tonnage, the Symphony of the Seas, is currently homeported at PortMiami. As of October 2019, the following cruise ships are homeported at PortMiami: Carnival Conquest, Carnival Horizon, Carnival Sensation, Carnival Victory, Empress of the Seas, Navigator of the Seas, Symphony of the Seas, Norwegian Breakaway, Norwegian Sky, MSC Armonia, and MSC Seaside.
As of October 2019, there are currently seven actively operating passenger cruise terminals at PortMiami: A, C, D, E, F, G, and J. One facility that is purpose-built for a specific company is currently in use, with four more of these types of facilities in their planning or construction stages.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PortMiami
© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.
A UPRR SD40-2 locomotive pulling out of Global 3 to assemble a new containerized train I assume will be heading West
California - Santa Barbara - Franceschi Park - Fire Upon the Deep - 11-30-2024. A lot going on in this photo: you can see storm clouds, a sunset, lights from a few houses in the foreground, oil platform Holly, several containerized cargo ships, backlit eucalyptus trees, and the sunset reflecting off a calm Pacific Ocean.
Photo Copyright 2013, dynamo.photography.
All rights reserved, no use without license
+++ FROM WIKIPEDIA ++++
The bamboos /bæmˈbuː/ (About this sound listen) are evergreen perennial flowering plants in the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. In bamboo, as in other grasses, the internodal regions of the stem are usually hollow and the vascular bundles in the cross section are scattered throughout the stem instead of in a cylindrical arrangement. The dicotyledonous woody xylem is also absent. The absence of secondary growth wood causes the stems of monocots, including the palms and large bamboos, to be columnar rather than tapering.[3]
Bamboos include some of the fastest-growing plants in the world,[4] due to a unique rhizome-dependent system. Certain species of bamboo can grow 91 cm (36 in) within a 24-hour period, at a rate of almost 4 cm (1.6 in) an hour (a growth around 1 mm every 90 seconds, or 1 inch every 40 minutes).[5] Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. Bamboos are of notable economic and cultural significance in South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, being used for building materials, as a food source, and as a versatile raw product. Bamboo has a higher specific compressive strength than wood, brick, or concrete and a specific tensile strength that rivals steel.[6][7]
The word bamboo comes from the Kannada term bambu, which was introduced to English through Indonesian and Malay.[8]
Bamboo
Bamboo (Chinese characters).svg
"Bamboo" in ancient seal script (top) and regular script (bottom) Chinese characters
Chinese name
Chinese 竹
[show]Transcriptions
Korean name
Hangul 대나무
[show]Transcriptions
Japanese name
Kanji 竹
Kana たけ
[show]Transcriptions
Phylogeny of the bamboo within the BOP clade of grasses, as suggested by analyses of the whole of Poaceae[9] and of the bamboos in particular.[1]
Bamboos have long been considered the most primitive grasses, mostly because of the presence of bracteate, indeterminate inflorescences, "pseudospikelets", and flowers with three lodicules, six stamens, and three stigmata.[10] Following more recent molecular phylogenetic research, many tribes and genera of grasses formerly included in the Bambusoideae are now classified in other subfamilies, e.g. the Anomochlooideae, the Puelioideae, and the Ehrhartoideae. The subfamily in its current sense belongs to the BOP clade of grasses, where it is sister to the Pooideae (bluegrasses and relatives).[9]
The bamboos comprise three clades classified as tribes, and these strongly correspond with geographic divisions representing the New World herbaceous species (Olyreae), tropical woody bamboos (Bambuseae), and temperate woody bamboos (Arundinarieae). The woody bamboos do not form a monophyletic group; instead, the tropical woody and herbaceous bamboos are sister to the temperate woody bamboos.[1][9] Altogether, more than 1,400 species are placed in 115 genera.[1]
Distribution
Worldwide distribution of bamboos
Most bamboo species are native to warm and moist tropical and warm temperate climates.[11] However, many species are found in diverse climates, ranging from hot tropical regions to cool mountainous regions and highland cloud forests. In the Asia-Pacific region they occur across East Asia, from 50 °N latitude in Sakhalin[12] south to Northern Australia, and west to India and the Himalayas. China, Japan, Korea, India, and Australia, all have several endemic populations.[13] They also occur in small numbers in sub-Saharan Africa, confined to tropical areas, from southern Senegal in the north to southern Mozambique and Madagascar in the south.[14] In the Americas, bamboo has a native range from 47 °S in southern Argentina and the beech forests of central Chile, through the South American tropical rainforests, to the Andes in Ecuador near 4,300 m (14,000 ft). Bamboo is also native through Central America and Mexico, northward into the Southeastern United States.[15] Canada and continental Europe are not known to have any native species of bamboo.[16] As garden plants, many species grow readily outside these ranges, including most of Europe and the United States.
Recently, some attempts have been made to grow bamboo on a commercial basis in the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa, especially in Rwanda.[17] In the United States, several companies are growing, harvesting, and distributing species such as Phyllostachys nigra (Henon) and Phyllostachys edulis (Moso).[18]
Ecology
Closeup of bamboo stalk
Bamboo Canopy
The two general patterns for the growth of bamboo are "clumping" (sympodial) and "running" (monopodial). Clumping bamboo species tend to spread slowly, as the growth pattern of the rhizomes is to simply expand the root mass gradually, similar to ornamental grasses. "Running" bamboos, though, need to be controlled during cultivation because of their potential for aggressive behavior. They spread mainly through their rhizomes, which can spread widely underground and send up new culms to break through the surface. Running bamboo species are highly variable in their tendency to spread; this is related to both the species and the soil and climate conditions. Some can send out runners of several metres a year, while others can stay in the same general area for long periods. If neglected, over time, they can cause problems by moving into adjacent areas.
Bamboos include some of the fastest-growing plants on Earth, with reported growth rates up to 91 cm (36 in) in 24 hours.[5] However, the growth rate is dependent on local soil and climatic conditions, as well as species, and a more typical growth rate for many commonly cultivated bamboos in temperate climates is in the range of 3–10 cm (1.2–3.9 in) per day during the growing period. Primarily growing in regions of warmer climates during the late Cretaceous period, vast fields existed in what is now Asia. Some of the largest timber bamboo can grow over 30 m (98 ft) tall, and be as large as 25–30 cm (9.8–11.8 in) in diameter. However, the size range for mature bamboo is species-dependent, with the smallest bamboos reaching only several inches high at maturity. A typical height range that would cover many of the common bamboos grown in the United States is 4.5–12 m (15–39 ft), depending on species. Anji County of China, known as the "Town of Bamboo", provides the optimal climate and soil conditions to grow, harvest, and process some of the most valued bamboo poles available worldwide.
Unlike all trees, individual bamboo culms emerge from the ground at their full diameter and grow to their full height in a single growing season of three to four months. During this time, each new shoot grows vertically into a culm with no branching out until the majority of the mature height is reached. Then, the branches extend from the nodes and leafing out occurs. In the next year, the pulpy wall of each culm slowly hardens. During the third year, the culm hardens further. The shoot is now a fully mature culm. Over the next 2–5 years (depending on species), fungus begins to form on the outside of the culm, which eventually penetrates and overcomes the culm.[citation needed] Around 5–8 years later (species- and climate-dependent), the fungal growths cause the culm to collapse and decay. This brief life means culms are ready for harvest and suitable for use in construction within about three to seven years. Individual bamboo culms do not get any taller or larger in diameter in subsequent years than they do in their first year, and they do not replace any growth lost from pruning or natural breakage. Bamboo has a wide range of hardiness depending on species and locale. Small or young specimens of an individual species produce small culms initially. As the clump and its rhizome system mature, taller and larger culms are produced each year until the plant approaches its particular species limits of height and diameter.
Many tropical bamboo species die at or near freezing temperatures, while some of the hardier temperate bamboos can survive temperatures as low as −29 °C (−20 °F). Some of the hardiest bamboo species can be grown in USDA plant hardiness zone 5, although they typically defoliate and may even lose all above-ground growth, yet the rhizomes survive and send up shoots again the next spring. In milder climates, such as USDA zone 7 and above, most bamboo remain fully leafed out and green year-round.
Mass flowering
Further information: Bamboo blossom
Flowering bamboo
Phyllostachys glauca 'Yunzhu' in flower
Bamboos seldom and unpredictably flower, and the frequency of flowering varies greatly from species to species. Once flowering takes place, a plant declines and often dies entirely. In fact, many species only flower at intervals as long as 65 or 120 years. These taxa exhibit mass flowering (or gregarious flowering), with all plants in a particular 'cohort' flowering over a several-year period. Any plant derived through clonal propagation from this cohort will also flower regardless of whether it has been planted in a different location. The longest mass flowering interval known is 130 years, and it is for the species Phyllostachys bambusoides (Sieb. & Zucc.). In this species, all plants of the same stock flower at the same time, regardless of differences in geographic locations or climatic conditions, and then the bamboo dies. The lack of environmental impact on the time of flowering indicates the presence of some sort of "alarm clock" in each cell of the plant which signals the diversion of all energy to flower production and the cessation of vegetative growth.[19] This mechanism, as well as the evolutionary cause behind it, is still largely a mystery.
One hypothesis to explain the evolution of this semelparous mass flowering is the predator satiation hypothesis, which argues that by fruiting at the same time, a population increases the survival rate of its seeds by flooding the area with fruit, so even if predators eat their fill, seeds will still be left over. By having a flowering cycle longer than the lifespan of the rodent predators, bamboos can regulate animal populations by causing starvation during the period between flowering events. Thus, the death of the adult clone is due to resource exhaustion, as it would be more effective for parent plants to devote all resources to creating a large seed crop than to hold back energy for their own regeneration.[20]
Another, the fire cycle hypothesis, states that periodic flowering followed by death of the adult plants has evolved as a mechanism to create disturbance in the habitat, thus providing the seedlings with a gap in which to grow. This argues that the dead culms create a large fuel load, and also a large target for lightning strikes, increasing the likelihood of wildfire.[21] Because bamboos can be aggressive as early successional plants, the seedlings would be able to outstrip other plants and take over the space left by their parents.
However, both have been disputed for different reasons. The predator satiation hypothesis does not explain why the flowering cycle is 10 times longer than the lifespan of the local rodents, something not predicted. The bamboo fire cycle hypothesis is considered by a few scientists to be unreasonable; they argue[22] that fires only result from humans and there is no natural fire in India. This notion is considered wrong based on distribution of lightning strike data during the dry season throughout India. However, another argument against this is the lack of precedent for any living organism to harness something as unpredictable as lightning strikes to increase its chance of survival as part of natural evolutionary progress.[23]
More recently, a mathematical explanation for the extreme length of the flowering cycles has been offered, involving both the stabilizing selection implied by the predator satiation hypothesis and others, and the fact that plants that flower at longer intervals tend to release more seeds.[24][25] The hypothesis claims that bamboo flowering intervals grew by integer multiplication. A mutant bamboo plant flowering at a noninteger multiple of its population's flowering interval would release its seeds alone, and would not enjoy the benefits of collective flowering (such as protection from predators). However, a mutant bamboo plant flowering at an integer multiple of its population's flowering interval would release its seeds only during collective flowering events, and would release more seeds than the average plant in the population. It could, therefore, take over the population, establishing a flowering interval that is an integer multiple of the previous flowering interval. The hypothesis predicts that observed bamboo flowering intervals should factorize into small prime numbers.
The mass fruiting also has direct economic and ecological consequences, however. The huge increase in available fruit in the forests often causes a boom in rodent populations, leading to increases in disease and famine in nearby human populations. For example, devastating consequences occur when the Melocanna bambusoides population flowers and fruits once every 30–35 years[26] around the Bay of Bengal. The death of the bamboo plants following their fruiting means the local people lose their building material, and the large increase in bamboo fruit leads to a rapid increase in rodent populations. As the number of rodents increases, they consume all available food, including grain fields and stored food, sometimes leading to famine. These rats can also carry dangerous diseases, such as typhus, typhoid, and bubonic plague, which can reach epidemic proportions as the rodents increase in number.[19][20] The relationship between rat populations and bamboo flowering was examined in a 2009 Nova documentary "Rat Attack".
In any case, flowering produces masses of seeds, typically suspended from the ends of the branches. These seeds give rise to a new generation of plants that may be identical in appearance to those that preceded the flowering, or they may produce new cultivars with different characteristics, such as the presence or absence of striping or other changes in coloration of the culms.
Several bamboo species are never known to set seed even when sporadically flowering has been reported. Bambusa vulgaris, Bambusa balcooa, and Dendrocalamus stocksii are common examples of such bamboo.[27]
Animal diet
Bamboo is the main food of the giant panda, making up 99% of its diet.
Soft bamboo shoots, stems, and leaves are the major food source of the giant panda of China, the red panda of Nepal, and the bamboo lemurs of Madagascar. Rats eat the fruits as described above. Mountain gorillas of Africa also feed on bamboo, and have been documented consuming bamboo sap which was fermented and alcoholic;[14] chimpanzees and elephants of the region also eat the stalks.
The larvae of the bamboo borer (the moth Omphisa fuscidentalis) of Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Yunnan Province, China, feed off the pulp of live bamboo. In turn, these caterpillars are considered a local delicacy.
Cultivation
Although a few species of bamboo are always in flower at any given time, growing a specific bamboo typically requires obtaining plants as divisions of already-growing plants, rather than waiting for seeds to be produced.
Commercial timber
Timber is harvested from both cultivated and wild stands, and some of the larger bamboos, particularly species in the genus Phyllostachys, are known as "timber bamboos".
Harvesting
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Bamboo used for construction purposes must be harvested when the culms reach their greatest strength and when sugar levels in the sap are at their lowest, as high sugar content increases the ease and rate of pest infestation.
Harvesting of bamboo is typically undertaken according to these cycles:
1) Lifecycle of the culm: As each individual culm goes through a 5– to 7-year lifecycle, culms are ideally allowed to reach this level of maturity prior to full capacity harvesting. The clearing out or thinning of culms, particularly older decaying culms, helps to ensure adequate light and resources for new growth. Well-maintained clumps may have a productivity three to four times that of an unharvested wild clump. Consistent with the lifecycle described above, bamboo is harvested from two to three years through to five to seven years, depending on the species.
2) Annual cycle: As all growth of new bamboo occurs during the wet season, disturbing the clump during this phase will potentially damage the upcoming crop. Also during this high-rainfall period, sap levels are at their highest, and then diminish towards the dry season. Picking immediately prior to the wet/growth season may also damage new shoots. Hence, harvesting is best a few months prior to the start of the wet season.
3) Daily cycle: During the height of the day, photosynthesis is at its peak, producing the highest levels of sugar in sap, making this the least ideal time of day to harvest. Many traditional practitioners believe the best time to harvest is at dawn or dusk on a waning moon.
Leaching
Leaching is the removal of sap after harvest. In many areas of the world, the sap levels in harvested bamboo are reduced either through leaching or postharvest photosynthesis. Examples of this practice include:
Cut bamboo is raised clear of the ground and leaned against the rest of the clump for one to two weeks until leaves turn yellow to allow full consumption of sugars by the plant.
A similar method is undertaken, but with the base of the culm standing in fresh water, either in a large drum or stream to leach out sap.
Cut culms are immersed in a running stream and weighted down for three to four weeks.
Water is pumped through the freshly cut culms, forcing out the sap (this method is often used in conjunction with the injection of some form of treatment).
In the process of water leaching, the bamboo is dried slowly and evenly in the shade to avoid cracking in the outer skin of the bamboo, thereby reducing opportunities for pest infestation.
Durability of bamboo in construction is directly related to how well it is handled from the moment of planting through harvesting, transportation, storage, design, construction, and maintenance. Bamboo harvested at the correct time of year and then exposed to ground contact or rain will break down just as quickly as incorrectly harvested material.[28]
Maintenance of spreading runners
Regular observations at ground level indicate major growth directions and locations of rhizomes. In dry and hard soil conditions extending rhizomes will cause cracks in the soil surface. To facilitate rhizome maintenance it's best to dig a furrow around the bamboo planting and/or plant in a raised mound or bottomless lumber frame box. During "root pruning" of running bamboo the cut rhizomes are typically removed; however, rhizomes take a number of months to mature, and an immature, severed rhizome usually ceases growing if left in-ground. If any bamboo shoots come up outside of the bamboo area afterwards, their presence indicates the precise location of the removed rhizome. The fibrous roots that radiate from the rhizomes do not produce more bamboo.
Bamboo growth can be somewhat controlled by surrounding the plant or grove with a physical barrier. Typically, steel, concrete, and specially rolled HDPE plastic are used to create the barrier, which is placed in a 60– to 90-cm-deep ditch around the planting and angled out at the top to direct the rhizomes to the surface; this is only possible if the barrier is installed in a straight line. Regardless of size of area,[citation needed] blocking bamboo rhizomes as a solution to controlling running bamboo is detrimental to the health of the plant, and only temporary. Bamboo within barriers usually become rootbound after a few years and start to display the signs of any unhealthy containerized plant. In addition, rhizomes pile up against the barrier and often escape over the top or under the bottom. Strong rhizomes and tools can penetrate plastic easily, so care must be taken. In small areas, regular root pruning maintenance may be the best method for controlling the running bamboos. Barriers and edging are unnecessary for clump-forming bamboos, although these may eventually need to have portions removed if they become too large.
Lucky bamboo
The ornamental plant marketed as "lucky bamboo" is an entirely unrelated plant, Dracaena sanderiana. It is a resilient member of the lily family that grows in the dark, tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia and Africa. "Lucky bamboo" has long been associated with the Eastern practice of feng shui. Images of the plant widely available on the Web are often used to depict bamboo.
Invasive species
Phyllostachys species of bamboo are also considered invasive and illegal to sell or propagate in some areas of the US.[29] On a related note, Japanese knotweed is sometimes mistaken for a bamboo, but it grows wild and is considered an invasive species.
Uses
Culinary
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Unprocessed bamboo shoots in a Japanese market
Although the shoots (new culms that come out of the ground) of bamboo contain a toxin taxiphyllin (a cyanogenic glycoside) that produces cyanide in the gut, proper processing renders them edible. They are used in numerous Asian dishes and broths, and are available in supermarkets in various sliced forms, in both fresh and canned versions. The golden bamboo lemur ingests many times the quantity of the taxiphyllin-containing bamboo that would kill a human.
The bamboo shoot in its fermented state forms an important ingredient in cuisines across the Himalayas. In Assam, India, for example, it is called khorisa. In Nepal, a delicacy popular across ethnic boundaries consists of bamboo shoots fermented with turmeric and oil, and cooked with potatoes into a dish that usually accompanies rice (alu tama (आलु तामा) in Nepali).
Khao lam (Thai: ข้าวหลาม) is glutinous rice with sugar and coconut cream cooked in specially prepared bamboo sections of different diameters and lengths
In Indonesia, they are sliced thin and then boiled with santan (thick coconut milk) and spices to make a dish called gulai rebung. Other recipes using bamboo shoots are sayur lodeh (mixed vegetables in coconut milk) and lun pia (sometimes written lumpia: fried wrapped bamboo shoots with vegetables). The shoots of some species contain toxins that need to be leached or boiled out before they can be eaten safely.
Pickled bamboo, used as a condiment, may also be made from the pith of the young shoots.
The sap of young stalks tapped during the rainy season may be fermented to make ulanzi (a sweet wine) or simply made into a soft drink. Bamboo leaves are also used as wrappers for steamed dumplings which usually contains glutinous rice and other ingredients.
Pickled bamboo shoots (Nepali: तामा tama) are cooked with black-eyed beans as a delicacy food in Nepal. Many Nepalese restaurant around the world serve this dish as aloo bodi tama. Fresh bamboo shoots are sliced and pickled with mustard seeds and turmeric and kept in glass jar in direct sunlight for the best taste. It is used alongside many dried beans in cooking during winters. Baby shoots (Nepali: tusa) of a very different variety of bamboo (Nepali: निगालो Nigalo) native to Nepal is cooked as a curry in hilly regions.
In East Timor, cooking food in bamboo is called tukir.
In Sambalpur, India, the tender shoots are grated into juliennes and fermented to prepare kardi. The name is derived from the Sanskrit word for bamboo shoot, karira. This fermented bamboo shoot is used in various culinary preparations, notably amil, a sour vegetable soup. It is also made into pancakes using rice flour as a binding agent. The shoots that have turned a little fibrous are fermented, dried, and ground to sand-sized particles to prepare a garnish known as hendua. It is also cooked with tender pumpkin leaves to make sag green leaves.
In Konkani cuisine, the tender shoots (kirlu) are grated and cooked with crushed jackfruit seeds to prepare kirla sukke.
The empty hollow in the stalks of larger bamboo is often used to cook food in many Asian cultures. Soups are boiled and rice is cooked in the hollows of fresh stalks of bamboo directly over a flame. Similarly, steamed tea is sometimes rammed into bamboo hollows to produce compressed forms of Pu-erh tea. Cooking food in bamboo is said to give the food a subtle but distinctive taste.
In addition, bamboo is frequently used for cooking utensils within many cultures, and is used in the manufacture of chopsticks. In modern times, some see bamboo tools as an ecofriendly alternative to other manufactured utensils.
Bambooworking
Bamboo was used by humans for various purposes at a very early time. Categories of Bambooworking include:
Construction
Further information: Bamboo construction
house from Bambou Habitat
House made entirely of bamboo
Bamboo has long been used as an assembly material in Hong Kong because of its versatility
Bamboo scaffolding can reach great heights.
Bamboo, like true wood, is a natural composite material with a high strength-to-weight ratio useful for structures.[30]
In its natural form, bamboo as a construction material is traditionally associated with the cultures of South Asia, East Asia, and the South Pacific, to some extent in Central and South America, and by extension in the aesthetic of Tiki culture. In China and India, bamboo was used to hold up simple suspension bridges, either by making cables of split bamboo or twisting whole culms of sufficiently pliable bamboo together. One such bridge in the area of Qian-Xian is referenced in writings dating back to 960 AD and may have stood since as far back as the third century BC, due largely to continuous maintenance.
Bamboo has also long been used as scaffolding; the practice has been banned in China for buildings over six stories, but is still in continuous use for skyscrapers in Hong Kong.[31] In the Philippines, the nipa hut is a fairly typical example of the most basic sort of housing where bamboo is used; the walls are split and woven bamboo, and bamboo slats and poles may be used as its support. In Japanese architecture, bamboo is used primarily as a supplemental and/or decorative element in buildings such as fencing, fountains, grates, and gutters, largely due to the ready abundance of quality timber.[32]
Various structural shapes may be made by training the bamboo to assume them as it grows. Squared sections of bamboo are created by compressing the growing stalk within a square form. Arches may similarly be created by forcing the bamboo's growth into the desired form, costing much less than it would to obtain the same shape with regular wood timber. More traditional forming methods, such as the application of heat and pressure, may also be used to curve or flatten the cut stalks.[33]
Bamboo can be cut and laminated into sheets and planks. This process involves cutting stalks into thin strips, planing them flat, and boiling and drying the strips; they are then glued, pressed, and finished.[34] Long used in China and Japan, entrepreneurs started developing and selling laminated bamboo flooring in the West during the mid-1990s;[34] products made from bamboo laminate, including flooring, cabinetry, furniture, and even decorations, are currently surging in popularity, transitioning from the boutique market to mainstream providers such as Home Depot. The bamboo goods industry (which also includes small goods, fabric, etc.) is expected to be worth $25 billion by 2012.[35] The quality of bamboo laminate varies among manufacturers and varies according to the maturity of the plant from which it was harvested (six years being considered the optimum); the sturdiest products fulfill their claims of being up to three times harder than oak hardwood while others may be softer than standard hardwood.[34]
Bamboo intended for use in construction should be treated to resist insects and rot. The most common solution for this purpose is a mixture of borax and boric acid. Another process involves boiling cut bamboo to remove the starches that attract insects.[34]
Bamboo pavilion in the Shenzhen Biennale
Bamboo has been used as reinforcement for concrete in those areas where it is plentiful, though dispute exists over its effectiveness in the various studies done on the subject. Bamboo does have the necessary strength to fulfil this function, but untreated bamboo will swell with water absorbed from the concrete, causing it to crack. Several procedures must be followed to overcome this shortcoming.[36]
Several institutes, businesses, and universities are researching the use of bamboo as an ecological construction material. In the United States and France, it is possible to get houses made entirely of bamboo,[citation needed] which are earthquake- and cyclone-resistant and internationally certified. Three ISO standards are given for bamboo as a construction material.
In parts of India, bamboo is used for drying clothes indoors, both as a rod high up near the ceiling to hang clothes on, and as a stick wielded with acquired expert skill to hoist, spread, and to take down the clothes when dry. It is also commonly used to make ladders, which apart from their normal function, are also used for carrying bodies in funerals. In Maharashtra, the bamboo groves and forests are called Veluvana, the name velu for bamboo is most likely from Sanskrit, while vana means forest.
Furthermore, bamboo is also used to create flagpoles for saffron-coloured, Hindu religious flags, which can be seen fluttering across India, especially in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, as well as in Guyana and Suriname in South America.
Bamboo was used for the structural members of the India pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The pavilion is the world’s largest bamboo dome, about 34 m (112 ft) in diameter, with bamboo beams/members overlaid with a ferro-concrete slab, waterproofing, copper plate, solar PV panels, a small windmill, and live plants. A total of 30 km (19 mi) of bamboo was used. The dome is supported on 18-m-long steel piles and a series of steel ring beams. The bamboo was treated with borax and boric acid as a fire retardant and insecticide and bent in the required shape. The bamboo sections were joined with reinforcement bars and concrete mortar to achieve the necessary lengths.[37]
Textiles
Since the fibers of bamboo are very short (less than 3 mm (0.12 in)), they are not usually transformed into yarn by a natural process. The usual process by which textiles labeled as being made of bamboo are produced uses only rayon made from the fibers with heavy employment of chemicals. To accomplish this, the fibers are broken down with chemicals and extruded through mechanical spinnerets; the chemicals include lye, carbon disulfide, and strong acids.[34] Retailers have sold both end products as "bamboo fabric" to cash in on bamboo's current ecofriendly cachet; however, the Canadian Competition Bureau[38] and the US Federal Trade Commission,[39] as of mid-2009, are cracking down on the practice of labeling bamboo rayon as natural bamboo fabric. Under the guidelines of both agencies, these products must be labeled as rayon with the optional qualifier "from bamboo".[39]
As a writing surface
Bamboo was in widespread use in early China as a medium for written documents. The earliest surviving examples of such documents, written in ink on string-bound bundles of bamboo strips (or "slips"), date from the fifth century BC during the Warring States period. However, references in earlier texts surviving on other media make it clear that some precursor of these Warring States period bamboo slips was in use as early as the late Shang period (from about 1250 BC).
Bamboo or wooden strips were the standard writing material during the Han dynasty, and excavated examples have been found in abundance.[40] Subsequently, paper began to displace bamboo and wooden strips from mainstream uses, and by the fourth century AD, bamboo slips had been largely abandoned as a medium for writing in China. Several paper industries are surviving on bamboo forests. Ballarpur (Chandrapur, Maharstra) paper mills use bamboo for paper production.
Bamboo fiber has been used to make paper in China since early times. A high-quality, handmade paper is still produced in small quantities. Coarse bamboo paper is still used to make spirit money in many Chinese communities.[41]
Bamboo pulps are mainly produced in China, Myanmar, Thailand, and India, and are used in printing and writing papers.[42] The most common bamboo species used for paper are Dendrocalamus asper and Bambusa blumeana. It is also possible to make dissolving pulp from bamboo. The average fiber length is similar to hardwoods, but the properties of bamboo pulp are closer to softwood pulps due to it having a very broad fiber length distribution.[42] With the help of molecular tools, it is now possible to distinguish the superior fiber-yielding species/varieties even at juvenile stages of their growth, which can help in unadulterated merchandise production.[43]
Weapons
Bamboo has often been used to construct weapons and is still incorporated in several Asian martial arts.
A bamboo staff, sometimes with one end sharpened, is used in the Tamil martial art of silambam, a word derived from a term meaning "hill bamboo".
Staves used in the Indian martial art of gatka are commonly made from bamboo, a material favoured for its light weight.
A bamboo sword called a shinai is used in the Japanese martial art of kendo.
Bamboo is used for crafting the bows, called yumi, and arrows used in the Japanese martial art kyudo.
Bamboo is sometimes used to craft the limbs of the longbow and recurve bow used in traditional archery, and to make superior weapons for bowhunting and target archery.
The first gunpowder-based weapons, such as the fire lance, were made of bamboo.
Bamboo was apparently used in East and South Asia as a means of torture.
Musical instruments
Other uses
Bamboo is extensively used for fishing and aquaculture applications on the Dayu Bay in Cangnan County, Zhejiang
Bamboo is used for mussels breeding and propagation (Abucay, Bataan, Philippines).
Bamboo has traditionally been used to make a wide range of everyday utensils and cutting boards, particularly in Japan,[44] where archaeological excavations have uncovered bamboo baskets dating to the Late Jomon period (2000–1000 BC).[45]
Bamboo has a long history of use in Asian furniture. Chinese bamboo furniture is a distinct style based on a millennia-long tradition, and bamboo is also used for floors due to its high hardness.[46]
Several manufacturers offer bamboo bicycles, surfboards, snowboards, and skateboards.[47][48]
Due to its flexibility, bamboo is also used to make fishing rods. The split cane rod is especially prized for fly fishing. Bamboo has been traditionally used in Malaysia as a firecracker called a meriam buluh or bamboo cannon. Four-foot-long sections of bamboo are cut, and a mixture of water and calcium carbide are introduced. The resulting acetylene gas is ignited with a stick, producing a loud bang. Bamboo can be used in water desalination. A bamboo filter is used to remove the salt from seawater[dubious – discuss].[49]
Many ethnic groups in remote areas that have water access in Asia use bamboo that is 3–5 years old to make rafts. They use 8 to 12 poles, 6–7 m (20–23 ft) long, laid together side by side to a width of about 1 m (3.3 ft). Once the poles are lined up together, they cut a hole crosswise through the poles at each end and use a small bamboo pole pushed through that hole like a screw to hold all the long bamboo poles together. Floating houses use whole bamboo stalks tied together in a big bunch to support the house floating in the water. Bamboo is also used to make eating utensils such as chopsticks, trays, and tea scoops.
The Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD) Chinese scientist and polymath Shen Kuo (1031–1095) used the evidence of underground petrified bamboo found in the dry northern climate of Yan'an, Shanbei region, Shaanxi province to support his geological theory of gradual climate change.[50][51]
Symbolism and culture
Bamboo's long life makes it a Chinese symbol of uprightness and an Indian symbol of friendship. The rarity of its blossoming has led to the flowers' being regarded as a sign of impending famine. This may be due to rats feeding upon the profusion of flowers, then multiplying and destroying a large part of the local food supply. The most recent flowering began in May 2006 (see Mautam). Bamboo is said to bloom in this manner only about every 50 years (see 28–60 year examples in FAO: 'gregarious' species table).
In Chinese culture, the bamboo, plum blossom, orchid, and chrysanthemum (often known as méi lán zhú jú 梅兰竹菊) are collectively referred to as the Four Gentlemen. These four plants also represent the four seasons and, in Confucian ideology, four aspects of the junzi ("prince" or "noble one"). The pine (sōng 松), the bamboo (zhú 竹), and the plum blossom (méi 梅) are also admired for their perseverance under harsh conditions, and are together known as the "Three Friends of Winter" (岁寒三友 suìhán sānyǒu) in Chinese culture. The "Three Friends of Winter" is traditionally used as a system of ranking in Japan, for example in sushi sets or accommodations at a traditional ryokan. Pine (matsu 松) is of the first rank, bamboo (take 竹) is of second rank, and plum (ume 梅) is of the third.
The Bozo ethnic group of West Africa take their name from the Bambara phrase bo-so, which means "bamboo house". Bamboo is also the national plant of St. Lucia.
Attributions of character
Photo of carved Chinese bamboo wall vase. 1918. Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection.
Bamboo, one of the "Four Gentlemen" (bamboo, orchid, plum blossom and chrysanthemum), plays such an important role in traditional Chinese culture that it is even regarded as a behavior model of the gentleman. As bamboo has features such as uprightness, tenacity, and hollow heart, people endow bamboo with integrity, elegance, and plainness, though it is not physically strong. Countless poems praising bamboo written by ancient Chinese poets are actually metaphorically about people who exhibited these characteristics. According to laws, an ancient poet, Bai Juyi (772–846), thought that to be a gentleman, a man does not need to be physically strong, but he must be mentally strong, upright, and perseverant. Just as a bamboo is hollow-hearted, he should open his heart to accept anything of benefit and never have arrogance or prejudice.
Bamboo is not only a symbol of a gentleman, but also plays an important role in Buddhism, which was introduced into China in the first century. As canons of Buddhism forbids cruelty to animals, flesh and egg were not allowed in the diet. The tender bamboo shoot (sǔn筍 in Chinese) thus became a nutritious alternative. Preparation methods developed over thousands of years have come to be incorporated into Asian cuisines, especially for monks. A Buddhist monk, Zan Ning, wrote a manual of the bamboo shoot called "Sǔn Pǔ筍譜" offering descriptions and recipes for many kinds of bamboo shoots.[52] Bamboo shoot has always been a traditional dish on the Chinese dinner table, especially in southern China. In ancient times, those who could afford a big house with a yard would plant bamboo in their garden.
In Japan, a bamboo forest sometimes surrounds a Shinto shrine as part of a sacred barrier against evil. Many Buddhist temples also have bamboo groves.
A cylindrical bamboo brush holder or holder of poems on scrolls, created by Zhang Xihuang in the 17th century, late Ming or early Qing Dynasty – in the calligraphy of Zhang's style, the poem Returning to My Farm in the Field by the fourth-century poet Tao Yuanming is incised on the holder.
Bamboo-style barred window in Lin An Tai Historical House, Taipei
On May 28, 1988, we were headed back west from Bishop's Falls to Corner Brook, Newfoundland on the narrow gauge mixed train operated by TerraTransport on Canada's easternmost and newest province.
We're rolling westward on 3 foot 6 inch gauge rails in the Newfoundland wilderness somewhere west of Grand Falls.
The use of containers on flat cars was adopted as a way of eliminating some of the inefficiencies inherent to traffic traveling between Newfoundland and the mainland. The seven hour voyage on the ferry across the Cabot Straits between Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland and North Sydney, Nova Scotia previously required the lading to be transferred from narrow gauge box cars onto the ferry's deck before setting sail. After docking on the mainland, the lading would be transferred onto standard gauge flatcars for the remainder of the voyage.
With containerization, the container could simply be transferred from narrow gauge flatcar onto standard gauge flatcar at the docks in Port-aux-Basques, eliminating the second transfer and time-consuming work by dockworkers.
Though this move did streamline the Newfoundland rail operation, the inherent inefficiency of the narrow gauge flat cars was evident to this observer: Two flat cars on the island were required to hold the same containers would be packed two-high ("double stacked") on a single standard gauge flatcar on the mainland.
The improvement of the highway network on Newfoundland meant that the rail operations had little economic advantage over road transport. Ultimately, time ran out for the railway on the island. The entire TerraTransport rail operation was shut down forever in fall 1988, only four months after these pictures were taken. In subsequent years, the rail was torn out.
Full Stack, not a metaphor for a software engineer who works on both the front and back end software. Oh wait, maybe it is! 😊
Rainbow livered 66720 powers the 4F01 Ironbridge Power Station to Seaforth containerized biomass train past Slindon. Seen here on the 12th June 2014.
Norfolk Southern eastbound intermodal crossing the Susquehanna River at Marysville, Pennsylvania on the Rockville Bridge.
Once, the equipment seen here, trailers on chassis, atop flatcars, were essentially the only way for intermodal (highway, ocean) traffic to move on railroads.
Now, intermodal containers, capable of moving on multiple modes physically, and with economics superior to the use of trailers, with their accompanying additional weight and larger cubic footprint, have largely supplanted what was once known as TOFC (trailer on flatcar), or, more popularly, "piggyback".
The ability to move two containers loaded vertically, one atop the other, and referred to as "double stacking", doubles the productivity of the rail cars; which is reflected in economic benefits for both the railroad and its customers.
Even where overhead clearances dictate only a "single stack" arrangement, there are still significant economic benefits with containerization, with the only downside being the additional time to add or subtract independent chassis units to the containers when they are not in a rail or vessel environment.
Today when there is a significant group of TOFC equipment is seen, such as the one here, it indicates that this is a "premium" train, both in terms of service characteristics, and also the price paid by the customers to move these vehicles.
The driver of 37008 releases the token for the single line Seven Beach branch to the signalman at Hallen Marsh Junction.
The train is made up of 3 VDA's from Rowntrees and containerized Potash wagons from ICI Sevenside which will go to York and Boulby respectively.
I believe the brake van in the picture was used for the trip to the Rowntree distribution centre which received 3 wagons at a time - this was a push move and hence the brake van.
This late season chrysalis was formed on 06OCT22. The monarch butterfly may emerge as early as Sunday, 16OCT22 (10 days is within normal range) and I usually release them on the same day they emerge. With three days of cold temperatures (27-55° F.) after the 16th, I'll have to decide whether to release it (and hope it can beat the low probability of survival) or let it live its short life in captivity with the comfortable of containerized tropical milkweed plants and warm indoor temperature. Webster Groves, Missouri.
A PN containerized garbage train comes off the line to Canberra and onto the Main South, led by a pair of 81s.
Built during World War I, the spectacular Brooklyn Army Terminal reflects then-current best-practice industrial design: broad concrete slab floors, stacked high with ready access to ground shipping via an interiorized railroad track served by overhead portal cranes and staggered projecting balconies giving access to each floor. By the time the buiding saw full use as a critical departure point for materials and troops during World War II, the typology was actually obsolete: electric light had been joined by electric ventilation, individual motors for separate machines, and electric forklifts. Together with cheap land made available by the automobile, these developments favored sprawling, single-story sheds, which were seen as more flexible for organizing production. Nonetheless, the older-style buildings still worked fine (with some occasional hiccups), and it could be said that it was from this building that the Allied campaigns in North Africa and Western Europe were actually won. By the Vietnam War era, though, containerized shipping brought operations to an end, as at so many other older port facilities; the terminal was decommissioned in 1966. In an unlikely twist, the buildings - minus most of their piers, all the dockside structures, and the connecting sky-bridges - survive today. Following a long-term, multi-multi-million dollar redevelopment effort, Building B is now mostly occupied by light-industrial enterprises that have no need of wharves, rails, or gantry cranes, but which are happy to enjoy the in-town location and the scenic arrival through what is now an open-air courtyard. Two orphaned train cars, courtesy of the Long Island Railroad, add a bit of scenic punctuation. The buildings can be visited on regularly scheduled tours, as well as open house days for artists' studio spaces and the annual Open House New York weekend. Highly recommended.
(Apologies for the bad light on these shots - got there way too late in the afternoon. Will go back someday, for sure.)
Guemes Channel. Dakota Creek Industries.
Coastal Standard carries palletized frozen product below decks with space for containerized or breakbulk cargo topside. Moving cargo on and off the ship is done by the sideport loading system built by TTS of Bergen, Norway.
After falling a little short on my last attempt to build a micro freight terminal, I decided to give it another try. This time, I used a smaller scale (1:305 instead of 1:200) and narrowed the scope a little so that I could include all of the details that were missing from the first one.
This diorama is a section of a small, manned freight terminal, designed to handle both containerized and RO-RO cargo. A Panamax class container ship is docked at the quay and is ready to be unloaded. In the staging areas of the terminal are the cargo from a recently unloaded RO-RO ship, including a fleet of new cars and some heavy equipment (including a few ultra-class, 400-ton mining trucks). Yard trucks and reach stackers are busy moving containers around the yard, and there are two fully loaded freight trains on the rail spurs ready to pull out.
Carl Sandburg famously described Chicago as, among other things, "Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders..." While the hog-butchering, wheat-stacking and most of the tool-making have all faded away, Chicago is still stormy, husky and brawling (though in some ways, the edges have been sanded off) and is certainly still "Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler".
That latter characteristic is abundantly clear in the roughly triangular area between the elevation once hosting the B&OCT passenger route to Grand Central Station, (not to be confused with the similarly-named edifice in New York City- despite the common mislabeling, it's properly a Terminal) BNSF's "Racetrack", and the corridor of CSX and NS trackage parallel to Western Avenue. Contained within these boundaries are many massive warehouses, (rail-served in the days before the containerization revolution and now mostly converted into other industrial and commercial uses) BNSF's loose-car Western Avenue Yard, and Union Pacific's Global I intermodal terminal, formerly C&NW's huge Wood Street Yard. Into the latter facility, UP SD40N 1985 creeps with a transfer of empty well and spine cars- the foregroundmost car is in its train, showing how the yard's connection from CSX's B&OCT curves around from north to east. Through all the containerized tangle, one of a constant parade of tractor-trailers moves a container across town- a small but important piece of Chicago's role as the "Nation's Freight Handler".
A large multi-role cargo vessel, capable of carrying a mix of containerized, outsized, liquid, and small package cargo. Its distinctive hammerhead forward structure served as debris shielding for containers mounted to its forward truss, though the gradual improvement of energy shielding rendered this obsolete shortly after introduction. Some derivatives removed it, others retained the shield and extended it aftwards to form a pressurized section for passenger transport