Seatrain Lines
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| Incorporation | |
| Industry | Shipping, transportation |
| Fate | Bankruptcy |
| Successor | C.Y. Tung Group. OOCL |
| Founded | 1931 in Hoboken, New Jersey |
| Defunct | 1981 |
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Area served
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Americas, Transpacific |
| Subsidiaries | Seatrain Shipbuilding |
Seatrain Lines, formally the Over-Seas Shipping Company, began intermodal freight transport in December 1928 by transporting entire loaded railroad freight cars between the United States and Cuba. The specially designed ship Seatrain, built in England, was followed in 1932 by two larger ships built in the United States and in 1939 by two additional ships. By the outbreak of World War II the company was operating five ships that became important in the war effort and basis for the design of fifty new ships for military use.
Seatrain Lines, the operating name for the Over-Seas Shipping Company, began intermodal container shipping by using entire loaded rail cars between ports in the United States and Havana, Cuba, with the first shipment in December 1928 aboard a specially designed ship, Seatrain. This original ship, built at Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Newcastle and later renamed Seatrain New Orleans, was capable of carrying 95 fully loaded rail cars.
The loading system consisted of a cradle that fit into a depression on the pier. Railway lines running on the pier continued onto the cradle and past it. Rail cars were rolled onto the cradle one at a time, and then lifted by a large overhead crane. The system was very similar to modern intermodal container loading systems, with the exception that it lifted the load from the bottom rather than the top. The crane rolled the cradle over a large hatch slightly longer than the cradle and as wide as the ship. The cradle could be lowered to match one of four internal decks (including the top surface) and moved side-to-side to match one of four parallel sets of rails on the decks. Once positioned, the car was pulled off by steam driven winches. During the voyage of the ship the cars were secured by chocking the wheels and using jacks and turnbuckles at each corner of the car.
The company built two larger specialized ships in 1932, Seatrain New York and Seatrain Havana with greater rail car capacity. This service was the forerunner of modern container shipping inaugurated in the late 1950s by other shipping companies. Seatrain was initially located in Hoboken, New Jersey, and owned the Hoboken Manufacturers Railroad that connected its facility to other railroads. In 1939 two more ships were under construction at Sun Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, Chester, Pennsylvania, with hulls 191 and 192 becoming Seatrain Texas and Seatrain New Jersey respectively.
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Wikipedia