Berth 26, Port Newark: The Worlds 1st Containerized Ocean Shipment (Newark, New Jersey)

 container, historic landmark

On April 26, 1956 a converted WWII-era T2 tanker named the SS Ideal X finished loading her cargo onboard and prepared to set sail for Houston, Texas. Owned by McLean Trucking Company President Malcom McLean, the former tanker had seen its deck spaces augmented with a steel cradle system specifically designed to hold truck trailer bodies in place during an ocean voyage, and 58 trailer boxes were secured to her deck.

While shipping truck trailers on ocean vessels was nothing new, the method devised by McLean involved only the box section of the trailer being moved while the chassis section could be reused for other box sections. His plans called for duplicate truck chassis to be waiting for the ship in Houston when it arrived, so the cargo could be quickly offloaded and brought to the customer's warehouse. Though many doubted the potential of this new method of shipping, when the Ideal X departed Berth 26 in Port Newark it had begun what has been called the single greatest change to modern shipping since the engine replaced the sail. By the time the Ideal X safely docked in Houston orders were beginning to come in for the return trips for the ship, and the age of Containerization had begun.

McLean was able to clearly show after just one voyage that costs for loading and unloading containerships like the Ideal X ran around $0.16 per ton and could be completed in hours, while a traditional breakbulk ship could run near to $5.83 a ton and could take several days to complete. The secure packaging of containers reduced theft through pilferage of cargo by stevedores, truckers, warehouse personnel and other cargo handlers and the shorter time the ships would spend in port meant each ship earned it's company more money carrying more cargo each year.

Containerization launched a revolution in modern freight transport which has unquestionably changed the modern world both for shipping but in the way the world trades its goods. Malcom McLean went on to found SeaLand Container Lines in 1960 which became one of the world’s most prominent container lines until it was purchased in 1999 by Maersk Lines to form Maersk-SeaLand Lines.

Growing from one ship with 58 containers onboard leaving from this berth in 1956, containerized freight is now a multi-trillion dollar industry, with over 200 million containers shipped yearly across the globe.