Possibly a stupid question but I would like to know why?

[keiman]

Curious mind at work here.

Everywhere else in the world when you see container trains,they are mainly 20ft,upwards in length.and then you get the big rigs hauling them on the roads  to their final destination.

 

The UK  seems to go up to 40ft and of course you get the massive double stack cars in the states but a lot of the Japanese ones seem to be the small 10ft containers.even when they are on wagons that take 5 at a time.

 

Also I have not seen pictures of how the the small ones get delivered. Do the containers get delivered to a main yard and then unloaded into road transport.

[KenS]

International-use containers have been standardized on 20-foot and 40-foot lengths to allow ships and port facilities worldwide to handle them.  Individual countries have local requirements for more variation.  So, in the U.S. you'll see 45-foot, 48-foot and 53-foot (I think) containers, as well as 30-foot ones, all built to stack with 40-foot (or a pair of 20-foot) containers when used on trains.  I don't think the 30-foot ones are used internationally, but I'm not certain of that.

 

Japan standardized on a domestic container sized for small delivery trucks that could navigate typical roads.  Over the years there have been many variations of this, including a 30-foot model that's not the same as U.S. one.  Japanese containers also have forklift cut-outs in the base (similar to the modular cargo units used on airplanes) so that they can be moved without a complex overhead crane or specialized lift.

 

Loading gauge (clearance around the track) is also a factor with shipping international containers in both Britain and Japan, although I think both countries have some rail carriage of them.

 

Some container trains run to private sidings (and I think are directly unloaded) on one or both ends (e.g. the Toyota parts train, the Longpass Express, see Japanese Wikipedia), while others use a container yard and trucks.  Look around the forum and you should find at least one other thread about container trains in Japan that goes into that aspect in more depth.

[keiman]

Cheers Ken.

You have answered most of my questions in one post . Thankyou.

Had thought maybe big forklifts might be  involved.

Will do some more searching later.

[disturbman]

Thanks, I'm curious to see the end result. Geee... I think I'm going to start a collection of railway video. Of course it will be said to be for documentation, I will never publicly admit I'm enoug of a geek to watch train videos for my pleasure only. 

[Triplex]

Another basic question:

 

We always refer to containers by length, but they aren't all the same width or height, either. I can see this watching double-stack trains, or sometimes when multiple containers are placed on a long flatcar. What are the heights and widths of the containers used in Japan?

[The_Ghan]

They also fit on shorter trucks and get around tighter corners.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[KenS]

We always refer to containers by length, but they aren't all the same width or height, either. I can see this watching double-stack trains, or sometimes when multiple containers are placed on a long flatcar. What are the heights and widths of the containers used in Japan?

 

Modern Japanese containers are 2.5m high, 2.45m wide, and 3.714m long, providing an interior space of 19 cubic meters (hence the "19" in the type identification, 19D etc).  Older ones were slightly smaller.

 

There are Japanese wikipedia pages for these.  I collected a bunch of info about containers from them on my site and also have links to the wikipedia pages.

[The_Ghan]

...  I collected a bunch of info about containers from them ...

 

 

Don't get out much, do you KenS?   

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[Guest ___]

Not that this has any importance or bearing to anything what so ever, but while on a trip to Japan a few years ago I made out with a woman I was tutoring conversational English with in an abandoned container. I think it was a small Yamato one, but it didn't last long. I think there was a racoons in there.