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> "Before containers, transport costs ate up to 25 percent of the value of whatever was being shipped." And lost you a portion of the cargo if you were shippin
by rurounijones 13y ago
> "Before containers, transport costs ate up to 25 percent of the value of whatever was being shipped."
And lost you a portion of the cargo if you were shipping something the dockyard workers had a fancy for (Barrels of whiskey "accidentally broken" during loading was a common one.)
There is a fantastic BBC documentary called "The Box that changed Britain" which charts the rise of containerization and the massive affect it had on maritime trade, the ports and workers.
- eru 13y agoThere are also two good books I know of about the topic of containers: "The Box" and "Ninety Percent of Everything".
- derekp7 13y agoThis article is an excerpt of "Ninety Percent of Everything".
- ojbyrne 13y agoI'd hazard a guess that that was a large proportion of the 25%.
- megablast 13y agoI doubt it. It would take days, even weeks to unload a ship, using lots of people, as opposed to hours and a few people.
- the_watcher 13y agoThe second season of The Wire is also an interesting look at dock workers in the modern world.