Pre-war
Technology Transfer in UK and US Railway Freight Handling (by
Thomas C. Cornillie with Keith Harcourt) – Presented by Keith Harcourt
at the 4th Annual Meeting of the International Association of Transport,
Traffic and Mobility, October 2006, in Paris, France
This
study examines the success of a technology in the context of differing
regulatory regimes and market conditions by exploring the parallel
development of systems for handling small freight shipments using
containers by railroads in the US and the UK in the 1920s and ’30s.
Each nation closely watched the other’s developments in this field
and as a result produced very similar containerization schemes.
These services had the potential to radically change how railroad
freight services operated by offering true door-to-door services
and seamless integration with highway transportation. However, trends
in US transportation policy ultimately curtailed such services while
UK transportation policies supported their continued development.
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