MOL's containers

[Mol_PMB]

I'm starting a thread here to collate my research and modelling efforts regarding 1960s ISO containers in the Manchester area. Hopefully there will be some aspects that are of wider interest to others, as there seem to be a fair number of forum members interested in the early Freightliner trains and other intermodal traffic.

 

My own main interest is the container traffic carried by the Manchester Ship Canal Railway, and even within that remit there were at least four different traffics to consider:

• movement of containers from ships on 8 Pier to 9 Dock and vice versa (internal moves on the MSC Railway on unfitted flat wagons)
• movement of containers from 8 Pier or 9 Dock to BR destinations (usually on vacuum-braked 'Conflat ISO' wagons converted from Lowmacs)
• movement of containers from 8 Pier or 9 Dock to industries in Trafford Park or elsewhere on the MSC network (internal moves on the MSC Railway on unfitted flat wagons)
• movement of container trains from Barton Containerbase to BR exchange sidings at Trafford Park and then to destinations such as Harwich or Southampton (these were on FFA/FGA Freightliner wagons, air-braked, and a few MSC locos were air brake fitted to handle them)

Of course, looking more widely, BR had Freightliner terminals at Trafford Park and Longsight which opened in the late 1960s too. I might stray in those directions...

 

Manchester Liners brought the first ISO containers to Manchester in 1966, and was one of the earliest British shipping lines to focus on container transport. The decision was made at board level in 1967 and the first dedicated deep-sea cellular container ship in the UK entered service with Manchester LIners in November 1968, commencing a Manchester-Montreal service with onward connections to the Great Lakes ports including Chicago.

In this thread (and my modelling) I am going to restrict myself to the 1960s with a cut-off date of the end of 1970 as otherwise the scope becomes too broad.

 

As a taster, here's a couple of photos from 1969/70 showing BR 'Conflat ISO' wagons on 9 Dock which was the main container terminal in Manchester:

 

Here's a 1968 map of the container facilities in Manchester:

 

Hopefully this will be of wider interest because many of these early containers ended up on Freightliner services.

 

Cheers,

Mol

 

[Mol_PMB]

I should add. My name is Mol.

I will in due course have to have a Mol container, like this one:

It's OK for my time period (1969) but hopelessly wrong geographically because MOL was initially focused on the Japan-Australia route and didn't serve Europe until the mid-1970s.

These days MOL containers (more modern ones) are moderately common at the rail terminals in Trafford Park, but they wouldn't have been in my modelling period of the 1960s. I may have to invoke Rule 1. You've got to love the alligator!

 

[Mol_PMB]

Let's start with a look at the 'classic' Manchester Liners flush-sided container, as modelled by Hornby and Walthers.

The 1965 and 1967 ISO standards only provided for containers with an 8'x8' cross-section so all thoughts of of 8'6", 9'6" high or wider containers were very firmly in the future and out of scope of this thread.

Initially Manchester Liners (ML) carried only 20' containers, some of their later ships were built/modified for 40' boxes but I don't think they ever carried 30' containers.

These early flush-sided containers were all 20'x8'x8', and there were several thousand of them. I believe that most (possibly all) were built by Metro-Cammell.

This photo shows the stacks of containers on Manchester 9 dock in 1970, dominated by the ML flush-sided boxes but with an interesting selection of others that I will feature on this thread in future:

 

One of the best quality photos I've found of this basic container type is at Matt's Place:

Note the yellow 'Metro-Cammell' lettering on the end, These containers had a predominantly aluminium alloy structure and skin. Most were numbered in the MLA series but there were some variants with other codes. For example, the photo above has an MLH code, with vents (top right and bottom left on this side). Looking back at the previous photo, the nearest container is also a vented MLH, but the others are non-vented MLA to the standard design.

 

Here's a November 1968 view of the door end of one of these, at the Canadian end of the voyage. Note the MLA code and number on the brace above the door, and the Metro-Cammell lettering on the left-hand door:

Here's another view of a standard MLA container being loaded in Canada in 1968; the name of the manufacturer is not positioned in the same place on this one:

 

In 1970, Manchester Liners introduced the 'Flying Fish' service which was a combination of air and sea transport. Some containers received additional branding for this service, like this one. It also appears to have an MLP code which may or may not have had any connection with the flying fish:

 

In due course I plan to make one of these. They were also common on many of the early Freightliner trains but there seem to be few clear photos of them in that service.

These two photos dated 1971 show many of these containers at Trafford Park Freightliner terminal in 1971;

http://www.manlocosoc.co.uk/sutherland/slide-webone-off.cgi?ws-173&06

 

http://www.manlocosoc.co.uk/sutherland/slide-webone-off.cgi?ws-173&05

 

[Mol_PMB]

Today I'm going to describe an early type of container that isn't commonly seen these days: the Fruit Flat or Fruit Rack.

 

When shipping fruit and vegetables, they are prone to rot or spoil if placed in a sealed container. Before the days of containers they were placed in a well-ventilated part of the ship's hold; these days they are usually in refrigerated containers. But in the early days of container transport a different solution was sometimes used. I got interested in these when I bought this slide on ebay, showing two Fruit Rack containers in Manchester Docks around 1970, on MSC railway container flat wagons:

The containers are carrying boxes of Spanish 'Madisa' oranges, and other slides in the collection suggest that they had been unloaded from the ship 'Tatiana del Mar' which had arrived from Spain.

 

Looking closely at the containers, they consist of a substantial base frame and six pillars all joined together at the top. Between the pillars there are movable horizontal bars which can be slotted in to a variety of positions - three options near the bottom and two further up (you can see the unused slots on the middle pillar). On the closer container, one of these bars is missing and has been replaced with a piece of wood. This arrangement of bars does not seem to have been 100% successful in retaining the orange boxes - it looks like some have fallen off! The hooks around the base suggest that the container could be sheeted over, but these ones aren't and it would partly defeat the purpose of the good ventilation provided by this type of container.

 

A search through my early copies of 'Jane's Freight Containers' discovered a few more images of similar containers, though nothing quite identical. These two are the same concept but different in detail:

 

However, these two would look a bit more conventional when closed up, as they are curtain-sided with enclosed ends and roof. They have a similar arrangement of horizontal and vertical bars to retain the load. One has a load of the same Spanish oranges:

 

With such a spindly structure I decided that the best way to model this would be in etched brass. I created some artwork and had it etched by 4Dmodelshop (thanks to Iain for the excellent service).

I built the first one yesterday, and am pleased that it has captured the look of the prototype. Once it's cleaned and painted, I need to work out how to model the orange boxes!

 

 

[Robert Shrives]

A fine bit of etch work there Mol! would be uncharitable to suggest the missing boxes part of the dockers levy? 

 

Robert  

[Mol_PMB]

6 minutes ago, Robert Shrives said:

A fine bit of etch work there Mol! would be uncharitable to suggest the missing boxes part of the dockers levy? 

 

Robert  

Thanks!

Containerisation was supposed to stop the pilfering, but perhaps not in this case?

I've got a couple of books of reminiscences of people who worked on the Salford/Manchester docks, some good stories in there about how the most prized items (such as whisky) went AWOL!

[Michael Hodgson]

Excellent brasswork there.

 

Slinging the container off a wagon and into a ship cuts out labour at the dockside, but you still need manual labour to load and unload the orange boxes in the containers unless they are on pallets.  A standard modern container has doors but these don't.  Probably a silly question, but how do you get into those fruit containers to unload them ?  The horizontal bars may be removable but can you remove them if the load has shifted in transit and the stack of boxes is leaning on them ?

 

These are cardboard boxes with wooden corner pieces to support the weight of the box above ?

 

 

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks.

I did wonder whether there might be some sort of door at the end we can't see, but normally you would be able to see some evidence of the hinges on the corner.

Also, none of the photos I've found of the open rack type containers seems to have a door - the ends are fixed and you have to remove the horizontal bars to get at the load. Perhaps if the load has shifted you have to start at the other side? Perhaps this is a reason this type of container didn't last long?

It does look like the orange boxes are just stacked on top of each other, no intermediate supports or shelves. So I guess they have some reinforcement in the corners as you suggest.

For the model, I'm still trying to work out exactly how to do the orange boxes. I'm sure I can get them printed on thin card, then maybe most of the load is just a large block of wood painted black and with individual rectangles representing each box stuck on the side (some would need to be distressed a little first). The loose boxes at the top would have to be made separately. Here's a closeup of the boxes:

It would be good to have an idea what the top of these boxes would look like. Any retired greengrocers out there?

[Fat Controller]

8 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

Thanks.

I did wonder whether there might be some sort of door at the end we can't see, but normally you would be able to see some evidence of the hinges on the corner.

Also, none of the photos I've found of the open rack type containers seems to have a door - the ends are fixed and you have to remove the horizontal bars to get at the load. Perhaps if the load has shifted you have to start at the other side? Perhaps this is a reason this type of container didn't last long?

It does look like the orange boxes are just stacked on top of each other, no intermediate supports or shelves. So I guess they have some reinforcement in the corners as you suggest.

For the model, I'm still trying to work out exactly how to do the orange boxes. I'm sure I can get them printed on thin card, then maybe most of the load is just a large block of wood painted black and with individual rectangles representing each box stuck on the side (some would need to be distressed a little first). The loose boxes at the top would have to be made separately. Here's a closeup of the boxes:

It would be good to have an idea what the top of these boxes would look like. Any retired greengrocers out there?

The cardboard boxes look similar to ones used today. The boxes are in two parts; the decorated box , shown in the photos, slides over a brown corrugated, open top, box, which holds the fruit. When the top is pushed down, the resultant structure can support a fair weight; no need for intermediate support. I packed quite a few boxes like this, filled with Golden Delicious, in Southern France in the late 1970s/ early 1980s.

[Mol_PMB]

That’s very helpful, thank you. So the top would be closed, perhaps with some ventilation holes like the ones on the sides. Also I guess the top would be decorated in a similar style. 

[Mol_PMB]

Making a start on the second one. This has the lower bars positioned differently at the ends, and a missing bar on the side as per prototype. 

This photo shows the main structural parts formed up ready for assembly:

 

I am enjoying this form of construction. Whilst more expensive than scratchbuilding, it gives a quick and good quality result. I am wondering about doing a ‘classic’ Manchester Liners box in a similar way. 

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, Mol_PMB said:

For the model, I'm still trying to work out exactly how to do the orange boxes. I'm sure I can get them printed on thin card, then maybe most of the load is just a large block of wood painted black and with individual rectangles representing each box stuck on the side (some would need to be distressed a little first). The loose boxes at the top would have to be made separately.

I had been wondering about that too.  My feeling is that printing is the only way you can get a good consistent impression of the decorated sides, the ventilation holes are so small that a black dot is probably all that is possible.   3D printing is probably the best way to represent to loose boxes on top.

 

The Fat Controller's description of packing Golden Delicious sounds about right to me, even though he is talking about a different fruit.  I remember continuous line printer paper for computers coming in similar boxes, although without the ventilation holes or decoration on the sides, and despite the weight of paper you could stack those reasonably high and move them on a porter's barrow.  My own recollection of oranges at the greengrocers in the 60s is of a differnt style of box - open-topped, cobbled together from cheap wood (as were tea chests), and not safe to stack more than two or three high, so would presumably have had to go on shelving.  But you have clear photographic evidence there that these cardboard ones were used in your containers

[Fat Controller]

2 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

That’s very helpful, thank you. So the top would be closed, perhaps with some ventilation holes like the ones on the sides. Also I guess the top would be decorated in a similar style. 

You may find similar boxes at street markets, or just after the check-outs in supermarkets. Some times the side folding parts of the top and bottom would be designed to not meet in the middle. This would give a rectangular ventilation slot. The farm or packing station would receive the boxes as 'flat packs', only assembling them when required.

[njee20]

On 07/09/2021 at 18:50, Mol_PMB said:

I should add. My name is Mol.

I will in due course have to have a Mol container, like this one:

It's OK for my time period (1969) but hopelessly wrong geographically because MOL was initially focused on the Japan-Australia route and didn't serve Europe until the mid-1970s.

These days MOL containers (more modern ones) are moderately common at the rail terminals in Trafford Park, but they wouldn't have been in my modelling period of the 1960s. I may have to invoke Rule 1. You've got to love the alligator!

 

Lovely modelling! I'm glad you've addressed this, every time I see your "Mol's MSC wagons" thread I think it's about Mitsui OSK Lines using Mediterranean Shipping Company wagons! These days of course MOL's containers are part of the joint venture that is "Ocean Network Express", whose bright pink containers are increasingly common over here! Sorry for the mild hijack!

[Mol_PMB]

23 minutes ago, njee20 said:

Lovely modelling! I'm glad you've addressed this, every time I see your "Mol's MSC wagons" thread I think it's about Mitsui OSK Lines using Mediterranean Shipping Company wagons! These days of course MOL's containers are part of the joint venture that is "Ocean Network Express", whose bright pink containers are increasingly common over here! Sorry for the mild hijack!

 

 

Thanks!

This photo of mine shows both MSCs at least:

MSC Buffalo at Barton Locks, with an MSC container on the M60 above. 

 

I have also seen the MSC liveried GBRf 66 at Trafford Park. 

 

MOL (now ONE) containers are pretty common in Trafford Park these days, not many of the old alligators still around but I see them occasionally. 

[Mol_PMB]

Wrong fruit, but basically the right sort of box I think:

First container now painted in primer, second one finished and ready for painting. Wagons still not finished but gradually getting there!

 

I'm planning an MSC intermodal train of 6 or 7 wagons, mostly MSC internal flats plus a couple of BR 'Conflat ISO' which were converted from Lowmacs.

[Mol_PMB]

First attempt at an orange box:

 

I envisage a few loose boxes each made with a small block of wood (10x7x5.5mm) with this wrapped around.

The bulk of the stack will be made of a single block faced with many reproductions of the relevant side of the box.

I'm not sure I've got the colours quite right, I may have another play with them but it may not print quite the same as on the screen anyway.

[Michael Hodgson]

Looks good.

 

Yes, those colours do look a bit brighter than the photo - but I think the printing used on the boxes  would have been produced using a fairly crude system, after all the boxes only had to last for a single journey.  As you say the computer won't have rendered the colour correctly - but I assume your original photo was on 35mm film, whose colour rendition would also not necessarily be accurate, and then the film colours do tend to deteriorate over time.

[Mol_PMB]

Trial orange box:

It needs a bit of tweaking of the colours, and assembling round a small block of wood. 

[Fat Controller]

On 02/12/2021 at 21:33, Michael Hodgson said:

Looks good.

 

Yes, those colours do look a bit brighter than the photo - but I think the printing used on the boxes  would have been produced using a fairly crude system, after all the boxes only had to last for a single journey.  As you say the computer won't have rendered the colour correctly - but I assume your original photo was on 35mm film, whose colour rendition would also not necessarily be accurate, and then the film colours do tend to deteriorate over time.

IIRC, the process used for printed corrugated cardboard was web-offset

[Mol_PMB]

I know I'm going down a rabbit-hole here, maybe I need to make a miniature printing press of the correct sort to produce these...

 

The original image is a 35mm colour slide, all sorts of possibilities for colour degradation but it does include some bright reds as there are some Manchester Liners containers also visible, so I've tried to get those about right in post-processing the scan.

[neal cooper]

Why not make a plasticard box scribing the boxes in (with some loose ones for the top) and make a transfer or two to fit sides , ends and top?

[Mol_PMB]

Progress is being made! I There's still some weathering and lettering to be done on both the wagons and the containers, and I need to make a few more orange boxes. But these are starting to look the part...

I'm thinking of overlaying some spare orange box sides onto some of the existing ones to make the stacks look a bit more uneven on the sides. Or it might just be enough to draw in a few 'shadows' with a black pen.

Strictly, the nearest flat wagon is the wrong type, but I'm working on another custom etch for one of those too.

 

[Mol_PMB]

Fruit container update, with loading and weathering completed. I'm still in need of transfers for the containers and the wagons, and hoping that @railtec-modelscan provide in the new year.

[Mol_PMB]

I've been scanning some more old slides so I thought I'd feature a larger container, although it's not one I plan to model because it's too big for my wagons!

Manchester Liners started with just 20' containers but soon converted their ships and facilities to be able to take 40' containers too.

They bought their own 40' boxes (which were also 8'6" high, taller than their 20' boxes) in around 1970/71. Some of these were made in Dundalk as featured in this advert from 'Janes Freight Containers' 1971 edition:

These were numbered in the MLF series (this was before the container serial numbers had been fully standardised).

There seems to have been a fair bit of publicity surrounding their introduction. Here's a brand new one at the terminal, from the Matt's Place website:

 

And here are the slides I recently scanned, showing one travelling by road across Manchester and Salford between the Trafford Park Freightliner terminal and the 9 Dock container terminal. The transfer is on a Freightliner Leyland truck, and the set of photos show several stages of the process including cranes and straddle carriers, giving us good all-round views of the container:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 18, 2021 by Mol_PMB
correcting a fact