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> A twistlock and corner casting together form a standardized rotating connector for securing shipping containers. The primary uses are for locking a container
by some1else 7y ago
> A twistlock and corner casting together form a standardized rotating connector for securing shipping containers. The primary uses are for locking a container into place on a container ship, semi-trailer truck or railway container train, and for lifting of the containers by container cranes and sidelifters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twistlock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twistlock
- dvirsky 7y agoActually the shipping container itself is pretty much high up there I guess. Pretty revolutionary for a box.
- hencq 7y agoYou might already be familiar with it, but I can heartily recommend the book The Box by Marc Levinson [1]. It describes how a simple idea of putting items in a container first, instead of directly on a ship, completely changed the world. It is for example the reason why Oakland and New Jersey eclipsed San Francisco and New York as ports. When Malcolm McLean, the inventor of the humble container, died in 2001, container ships all over the world, at an agreed moment, sounded their horns in tribute. [1] - https://g.co/kgs/vCK3nB https://g.co/kgs/vCK3nB
- ufmace 7y agoI was going to post the standardized shipping container myself. It was apparently a massive boost to transportation efficiency when the industry moved to a standard container that a single simple crane could rapidly load and unload from any ship and load onto a truck or railcar. It seems that, before this, most goods were transported in barrels or other one-off small containers loaded and unloaded from ships by manpower. Could take weeks to load and unload a ship.