by Thomas Bock, CTO and COO, FERNRIDE
Before the 1950s, shipping was a chaotic ballet of barrels, crates, and sacks, each piece of cargo loaded individually onto ships.
Then came Malcolm McLean, a trucking entrepreneur with a vision for efficiency. He imagined a world where goods traveled in standardized containers, transferable between trucks, trains, and ships with ease.
This 'intermodal' system, as it came to be known, was met with resistance. Shipping lines balked at the cost of new ships and port infrastructure. Unions worried about job displacement.