Container freight cranes

[Dani]

Hello,

 

I was searching any photo of a container crane in any railway freight station in Japan, but I haven't been able to find any. I just find harbour cranes photos used to unload containers from ships, but no from trains. In Tokyo Freight Terminal I only see those crane-trucks or fork lifters, but no crane like I've seen in other counties. I mean those big cranes with its own rails that can move along the train and pick the containers.

 

The most similar thing I've found are these cranes from Tokyo Rail Center, but they seem to be used to unload rails or similar kind of goods, but no containers. ( )

 

Are this kind of cranes not used in Japan? It's because the distinct container measures (smaller), so it's more practical to load/unload with the truck? If not, where could I get some photos to try to reproduce one of those cranes?

 

Thanks in advance!!

 

Dani.

[bikkuri bahn]

They use forklifts for the containers.  As you say, most containers that move by rail are the short JR variety.  Cargo haulage is dominated by truck and ship, any large containers are typically offloaded from ships, placed on flatbed tractor trailers, and moved to nearby warehousing facilities.  Little (if any) international container traffic moves by rail, it doesn't have to when all big population centers are either adjacent to or within 100km of the sea.

 

forklifts at Sumidagawa Freight terminal:

http://red-train2000.at.webry.info/201111/article_3.html

[Nick_Burman]

They use forklifts for the containers.  As you say, most containers that move by rail are the short JR variety.  Cargo haulage is dominated by truck and ship, any large containers are typically offloaded from ships, placed on flatbed tractor trailers, and moved to nearby warehousing facilities.  Little (if any) international container traffic moves by rail, it doesn't have to when all big population centers are either adjacent to or within 100km of the sea.

 

forklifts at Sumidagawa Freight terminal:

http://red-train2000.at.webry.info/201111/article_3.html

 

And Tomix makes/made these forklift containers.

 

Cheers NB

[KenS]

One reason for this is that the domestic containers don't have attachment points on the top for securely stacking, since they're shipped by train and truck, where stacking isn't practical. See this photo of a typical container:

 

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%95%E3%82%A1%E3%82%A4%E3%83%AB:JRF19Dcontainer.jpg

 

There's a small hinge bracket on the top, but no equivalent of the corner piece with large holes for a retaining clip, and that's what overhead cranes grab onto.  ISO containers have attachment points on all corners so they can be stacked on ocean-going ships.

[cteno4]

the smaller containers are standardly stacked 2 high by the forklifts for storage, but i have seen a few picts of places where they are 3 or 4 high in some warehouse like structures but these maybe yards of empties and have some vertical struts to prevent tipping. as ken noted on locking connection points on the corners, so earthquake or accidental bumping could slide one off the top of a taller stack! these kinds of smaller forklifts are also really mobile and maneuverable so they can really pack in a yard and ive seen pictures of some of the freight yards that are very odd shaped and sized.

 

kato is coming out with a new forklifts (in two colors) but the price is pretty horrible at $19 ea

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10182087

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10182088

 

but they should be nicer detailing than the old tomix and come painted and decaled. the tomix are pretty bare bone, but can be spiffed up with some details, paint and the supplied decals.

 

rest of the forklifts out there are top lifters which i dont think are used in the intracountry small containers.

 

jeff

[Nick_Burman]

 

kato is coming out with a new forklifts (in two colors) but the price is pretty horrible at $19 ea

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10182087

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10182088

 

but they should be nicer detailing than the old tomix and come painted and decaled. the tomix are pretty bare bone, but can be spiffed up with some details, paint and the supplied decals.

 

 

Not only they should be nicer than the Tomix ones but also be more up-to-date.

 

Cheers NB

[Guest Closed Account 1]

A search on my favorite site for RR pictures gave me this.  Just search for Forklift and you'll a buch of results.

 

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=258029&nseq=10

[cteno4]

Not Japanese though, no Japanese picts on this site.

 

Jeff

[Guest Closed Account 1]

I misunderstood. Are you looking for Japanese yards or Japanese Container Fork Trucks/

 

Many of them are Japanese. I bet a lot use Kutebota engines.

[cteno4]

he was specifically asking about container cranes in japanese container yards.

 

they use forklifts for the smaller intracountry containers system. there are cranes and hoists in the container ship dock yards with the big iso containers.

 

from all ive seen they use the larger lift trucks for moving iso containers around in the yards and onto trucks as well.

 

jeff

[Dani]

It's a pity!!!! Because a found a very cheap and beautiful one from Vollmer... I think my terminal container station will be a company carrying the conversion between 40ft sea containers to the smaller ones used in japan and doing the transportation from the good arrived to the harbor to the rest of the land by train.... I NEED TO JUSTIFY THAN CRANE!!! It's just too beautiful to left it in the shelves... 

 

Thanks everybody!!

 

Dani.

[cteno4]

dani,

 

in looking at google images for container port japan you do see container cranes like this to stack and load containers, but they are the taller kind that can make higher stacks of containers. like most ports container space is at a premium. but hey ifs your model, just sub size it!

 

if you wanted to make a large one like in the ports to stack high you could try their HO scale crane then just replace the detail bits that are at HO with N scale size and shorten its depth some.

 

http://www.ajckids.com/products/Vollmer/5620

 

from what ive learned the 40' and larger iso containers come in by ship and then then transferred by ship/barge by water to other ports then either trucked from there or repacked into the smaller japanese intracountry containers.

 

btw i found a weird container crane i had not seen before. two small cranes at either end of a truck to lift the container off or stack it up 3 high. nifty.

 

http://www.hammar.co.nz/news.php

 

also does anyone have pictures of the barges that you see around smaller ports with the large A frame cranes on one end. there were usually a number of them so i always figured they were for short coastal container movement, but never got to see one in a port. way too many of them to be construction derrick barges.

 

anyone know more detail of the japanese container system?

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Dani]

Jeff, I don't know if that's what you mean, but Yokohama port has this kind of gantry crane to unload ships:

 

 

Also "K" line Osaka terminal:

 

 

And here you can see them in movement: http://www.kline.co.jp/index_e.html

 

The one I found is not for ships, is this one and I saw it for 5$ and I HAD TO BUY IT!!

 

 

But I'll find the needed justification to have it in my layout. 

 

Cheers,

 

Dani.

[KenS]

A useful reference page is this one, part of a larger Model Train Bleu website, which has details on model container flat cars (KoKi) and information on which containers can be loaded. It's in Japanese, so you'll need to run it though one of the translators to make sense of it, but even with Google's rather poor translator it's understandable. The site also has example photos showing how containers would be distributed on a car when a mix of sizes are loaded, probably for weight distribution reasons.

 

One interesting point is that while a number of other cars can load up to 30' international (ISO) containers (as well as domestic 20' and 30'), the KoKi 104, 106, 107 and 200 can load 40' ISO containers as well. So there is some rail transport of all sizes of ISO container. It would appear that this was a JR change, as the 100-series KoKi are the first listed for ISO containers.  The 100 series had a lower deck, which appears to have been necessary for the larger international containers. But that apparently wasn't the only change needed.

 

The KoKi 104 was introduced in 1989, but reading the Japanese wikipedia page seems to suggest that ISO containers weren't provided for until a change in 1993/94 added improved bearings (although I could be misreading this). This might have been due to the higher maximum loading weights of ISO containers.

 

Weight and size (clearance) would restrict where these could be used, but I don't have any info on that.

 

Note: credit to Capt. O. for originally posting this URL in the KOKI thread. There's more info on containers in that thread as well.

[cteno4]

my understanding was that the ISO height and width was the major restriction to portals and tunnels for many lines and thus why little incentive to do much iso rail traffic in japan. also so much coastal access (especially for manufacturing) that it made it easier to transfer around by sea for the iso containers.

 

Dani,

 

i meant the yellow cranes in the port picture you posted. these are the ones that move the containers to/from their storage stack for loading onto the proper ship or for later truck transport out. those are similar to the vollmer, but much taller to stack containers high. in some places you see tall ones like this in the states that go over loading tracks as well to transfer directly from the stacks to the train cars (our local county waste depot has this for large waste containers).

 

ive just never seen this kind of crane transfer to rail in a japanese yard, but it might exist, thats one of the beauties about japanese rail modeling, there is almost always a prototype for a wild assed idea!

 

jeff

[KenS]

my understanding was that the ISO height and width was the major restriction to portals and tunnels for many lines and thus why little incentive to do much iso rail traffic in japan. also so much coastal access (especially for manufacturing) that it made it easier to transfer around by sea for the iso containers.

 

Height can be an issue, though not on all lines. Standard ISO height is 2.591m (some are as low as 2.438m apparenly), slightly more than the 2.5m of a Japanese 19D. There are some higher Japanese containers (the 30-foot U54A used on the M250 is 2.641m, for example), but 2.5m is the usual maximum for modern ones. The JNR-era C-series containers had a maximum height of 2.438m. The 2.44m ISO width is within the bounds of a 19D, which is 2.45m. There are oversize ISO containers that could be more troublesome dimensionally than standard ones.

 

Older KOKIs had a higher deck level than the 100-series, which I've read was an issue for ISO containers.  Dropping the deck 10cm is one of the changes that enabled transport of the ISO containers on that model.

 

Weight is likely another problem, as a 20- or 40-foot ISO can be loaded to 30.4 metric tons, while a set of 5 19D containers maxes out at 25 tons. The heaviest Japanese containers I've seen are LNG tank containers in 30-foot size, loaded one per car, with a maximum weight of 20 tons. Note, however, that the KOKI 100 series cars support loadings of 40.5 tons (the most recent examples of KOKI suport 40.7 ton loadings). That doesn't mean the track (bridges, etc) can handle that much.

 

But I think the worst problem is likely to be how you get containers from the terminal to the destination. Japanese 30-foot containers appear to have been developed for "large" truck use, often having end doors rather than side doors. You could deliver a 20-foot ISO on that size truck, but one suited for a 40-foot container would probably have issues on smaller streets due to its longer length and thus larger turning radius.

 

I haven't found any examples of just where ISO containers are carried by rail. Ones shipped internationally must originate somewhere, and that's probably not adjacent to the dock where they're loaded. It could be, if they're provided by a shipping company that transfers freight from other containers/trucks to ship containers. The capability to move them by rail appears to have been added with the 100-series KOKI c. 1988 and persists on the newest designs of KOKI, so they must see a use for it somewhere.