Western Railroad Discussion > Container Freight

I saw this picture on Facebook and it made me wonder how many railfans have never seen how the containers that they see in well-cars get to this country.
Bill Pyper
Salem, Oregon
 

---

They look like colored toy blocks on a toy boat!
Couldn't be further from the truth, thanks for posting

We're talking SERIOUS tonnage here folks!

Kent in CArmel Valley

Coming back from a whale watch January 2016.

---

And to add a dimension to this: En route from China, this is the biggest container ship ever to dock in the U.S.  from CNN

Please explain to me how those containers stay together--now keep the below in mind:

--when the container crane picks up the containers off the trucks, it's grabbing the TOP of the container.  As it lifts it away, the bottom corners are EMPTY, with no attachment devices.  I've never seen any dockworker STOP the lift, and run around all 4 corners to attach some sort of locking device in each hole.  

So, with that in mind, the container is lifted away, then dropped down onto a container on the ship.  I've NEVER seen a man onboard attaching any sort of securement devices to the container before it is dropped down and released by the crane.   Plus, where would he go???!  It is a WALL of steel containers, and there's nowhere safe to go.

And yet, I've seen photos of container leaning WAY OVER the side of a ship after a rough storm.

So what keeps these things together??!!  I live near the Port of Oakland and have watched tons of containers being lifted onto ships, and taken off ships.  I've never seen any locking devices attached or removed.  It has baffled me ever since I saw it the first time!

There are narrow walkways between the rows of containers. Workers do place the locking devices and do so with long "handles", yes, dangerous work! 
You Tube it.
Gonut