OVERSEAS STUDY OF CONTAINER CARGO

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31480, 21 September 1967, Page 1

OVERSEAS STUDY OF CONTAINER CARGO

Mr A. J. Sowden, the general manager of the Lyttelton Harbour Board, will attend an international conference on container transport economics.

A special meeting of the board yesterday agreed that Mr Sowden should attend the conference, which will be in London from November 7 to November 9, as it should be of benefit to the board in its efforts to have Lyttelton used as a container port. The conference chairman will be Mr S. A. Finnis, chairman of the British Transport Docks Board, for the first session. Mr N. J. Freeman, chairman of the British Shippers’ Council, will conduct another session before the conference splits into groups. The speakers will be from the United States. Switzerland and Australia as well as Britain. Associated with the conference will be a technical tour to study developments in container handling and transport. At Southampton, Mr Sowden will see recent developments, including roll-on, roll-off facili-

i ties and a new container berth under construction. He will go to the Isle of Wight to see the Hovercraft Corporation’s works, where the first craft capable of handling 250 passengers and 30 cars is in the final stage of assembly. .With other delegates, Mr Sowdon will fly to Amsterdam to visit Europort and inspect container facilities. He will then go to New York where there i. a programme to produce 37 container ship berths; at Elizabeth Port there are 10 deep-sea container, ship berths supported by about 120 acres of marshalling area. In San Francisco the delegates will see the new terminal with a container cargo accommodation store capable of handling 100,000 tons. The facilities of the 68-acre terminal include nine berths for deep-draught freighters with supporting storage track and railway services.