Fruehauf Engineers the Shipping Container

Malcolm McLean was a longtime Fruehauf customer and discussed various shipping problems with Roy Fruehauf seeking a common solution.  McLean had purchased a steamship company with the idea of transporting entire truck trailers with their cargo inside.  Based on Fruehauf's successful use of the FlexiVan in Rail and piggy-backing and fishy-backing he wanted to take the concept one step further. He surmised it would be simpler than loading and unloading each step during transport between ships, trains and trucks, and it would vastly cut the pilfering known to occur on cargo ships. 

Jim Schulz, Fruehauf's Senior Engineer, recalls his work on the creation of the shipping container.

The following audio conversation was taped in 2014 and is between Fruehauf's Senior Engineer, Jim Schultz who worked at the Avon on Lake and the Westfield, Massachusetts plants during the 1950s.  He recounts his participation in the creation of the shipping container during those years.
* Special thanks to Greg Ennis for his help editing this audio file.

This historical video set's the stage for the partnership with rail and trucking transport.  Leading the charge was the Fruehauf Trailer Company

Keith Tantlinger, Fruehauf's Vice President of engineering is credited with developing the modern intermodal container.  His task was to create a shipping container that could be loaded onto ships and secured into place during long sea voyages. His design incorporated a twistlock mechanism on the top four corners of each container that allowed them to be lifted and secured to the ship’s deck, and each other, using cranes.  This, the first truly successful container was launched April 26, 1956 when McLean loaded 58 containers on board the refitted tanker ship, the SS Ideal X, and it sailed from Newark to Houston with great success.

Entering into a joint venture, Fruehauf financed McLean’s Sea-Land Service, Inc. the 35-foot containers were manufactured by Fruehauf and offered for sale by Sea-Land. After inventing the container Fruehauf and McLean agreed to give the patented designs and technology to industry.  This began international standardization of shipping containers.

These same sorts of compromises were agreed upon by railroads and US trucking companies before settling into accepted standards.  The double-stack container car came into production and use in July 1977 by Sea-Land and the Southern Pacific railroads.

Earlier designs had been used that had flaws such as being too small.  In 1956 the first recognized standard shipping container was offered to the transportation world, and Fruehauf opened that door, with the help of Keith Tantlinger and his immense talents and inventions.

Fruehauf received the patents for Tantlinger’s inventions which included vehicle construction spring-to-axle mountings, bolster locking head for securing a semi-trailer to tractor fifth wheel, a container coupler and a pivoted draw-bar with lock. These and other patents were developed by Tantlinger and owned by Fruehauf. They all advanced container shipping to the efficient and successful process it is today.
In June 1965 the ASA adopted a national standard based on Sea-Land, and Tantlinger’s design, and three months later the International Organization for Standardization adopted the ASA design as the world standard.

In 2006 the transportation world celebrated the 50th anniversary of the shipping container.  As of 2006, container ships carried about 60% of goods shipped via sea. By 2009 approximately 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide was moved by containers stacked onto transport ships.  Today a crane operator can pull a 20-ton container off a truck trailer chassis and load it onto a container ship in less than a minute. Fruehauf is responsible for this technology.