40ft Marine Containers on JNF

[bill937ca]

Generally, containers in Japan are very small with full trains of these containers being common.  Here is a video with several 40ft marine containers . Is  this something new or just something that happens near ocean ports?

 

EDIT: Train 1065 Iwakuni → Hiroshima 2018.6

 

Video by superknightrider 3000

 

 

Edited June 11, 2018 by bill937ca

[kvp]

Imho generally anything that is moved via ships and or comes from or goes to other countries are in standard 20 or 40 feet containers. The smaller japanese domestic containers were mostly used with forklift loading at private sidings. Transferring from and to trucks for the last mile is much easier with the international standard containers. The smaller domestic containers are not as efficient as the standard ones.

[cteno4]

If memory serves me right there are only a few lines that have the clearance for marine containers on low cars. Smaller domestic containers can go everywhere and allow easier breakup for distribution and unloading and can use smaller trucks. I think the smaller size fit the more on demand, less inventory of a lot of Japanese supply chains as well. I’m sure not as true for heavy manufacturing like autos where volume is large, but these lots of times are located near ports so don’t require the transloading. Japan is also unique being an island so lots of coastal shipping available to move marine containers around.

 

jeff

[Suica]

By the way, both Tomix and MicroAce have released Kokis with 40ft containers.

[pbunter]

I saw these containers frequently on JR Freight trains - at least through the Nagoya area. Yamato, Freight Liner, Fukuyama transport, Sagawa, Seino, RUNTEC, Bridgestone, Yokohama, Toyota ... many others. I don't think of them as being "marine" though - just larger rail containers owned by companies other than JR. Has anyone actually seen them loaded on a ship?

 

Tomix produces some N scale models of the larger containers. By far, Hogarakadou produces the most models but are more difficult to get outside of Japan.

 

- - - Paul

[railsquid]

I see trucks with 40ft containers from overseas on the main road close to Chez Squid (easily 25km inland) pretty regularly.

 

If you look around port areas in Google maps aerial view it's easy enough to spot them; couple of Street View links:

 

https://goo.gl/maps/mE7JYnJj4Lq

 

https://goo.gl/maps/HBcPE1PmcY82

[Kiha66]

From my time working in Japan, It seems larger items are normally sent by ship rather than taken by land if at all possible.  Also Yokohama has a few transloading warehouses where items brought in by ISO container are reloaded into Japanese domestic containers.

[pbunter]

The Google Street View links brought back some memories. I walked around the port area last October although not those exact streets. There is a bird park nearby and a main road (316) that loops around and links to a bridge over the main Tokyo JR Freight Terminal and Shinkansen parking area (saw a couple of Dr Yellows parked there). 

 

Like railsquid mentioned, I saw many marine containers on trucks but I saw none at the JR Freight yard. I have seen CAI containers on freight trains but I have not seen K Line, Maersk, Interasia Lines, SITC, APL, or Wan Hai containers carried by rail through Nagoya. Of equal note, looking at the Google Maps aerial view, I do not see any of the containers I mentioned in my previous post (Yamato, Freight Liner, Fukuyama transport, etc) stacked at the marine port yards. Seems odd that the JR Freight Terminal would be right in the middle of the marine port but they don't have any interaction.

 

If you are interested, the photos from my walk are on Flikr: Flikr Photos 

I must say the most impressive thing I saw on the walk was a vertical parking structure for trailers. Now that would make for a heck of a diorama piece. Trailer Parking

 

- - - Paul

[cteno4]

Paul, 

 

thanks those are some great reference photos! I’ve never seen the vertical car park frames used with trailers like that! Way cool!

 

thanks

 

jeff

[kvp]

Actually there are several kinds of international (marine) containers. There are the standard 20 and 40 feet standard height ones, there are the 45, 48 and 53 feet ones and each length has a high height variant. There are also non stackable soft cover types used for example in Europe for road/rail transport. The 20 feet ones are easy to transport on japanese rails and by using well cars, it's possible to carry them on very low clearence lines. The 40 feet variant is movable by rail, but has route limitations and only a few low platform cars exist that could carry them over a larger route range. But afaik these are not carried by rail too much. Many modern container trucks i've seen carried 20 or 40 feet containers or in case of the M250 31 feet domestic ones. The high cubles and the longer ones on the other hand are oversized even for road transport, so while common in shipping, don't really get carried by road or rail in Japan. Even the standard euopean loading gauge has problems with them.

 

ps: The newer type of 20 feet domestic containers seems to be mostly the same as a 20 international and the 40 feet domestic types are based on the 40 feet international. One difference is that sometimes they have added forklift loading capability that is usually missing from standard international 40 feet ones. The 31 feet domestic ones are completly non standard but two of them fill a 20 meter standard car, while a 40 feet one would need 13 meter cars or 20 meter well cars (which would by the way solve the weight and clearence issues). Third option that for a time was used in Europe too was to load one 40 feet and one 20 feet one into a 20 meter (65 feet) car, but it mostly ended with only a single 40 feet one getting loaded asymmetrically.