sea containers

Sea Containers

Type: 20 and 40 foot "dry vans" or 40HC "high cube" container.

Purchase:

Transport:

  • drayage: local tranport by diesel truck to and from a rail hub, rates are zone based. Within 20 miles of terminal $300-400.00 USD. If close, can drop and return, otherwise 2 hour load / driver wait time is usually included.

  • flatbed: transport by a flatbed truck, across country. Generally $2.25 per mile one way, plus any special equipment to load or unload the container off of the flatbed.

  • rail: this is intermodal because it combines a local drayage rate and rail rate. Savings can be achieved as opposed to flat bed trucking the entire route. However, if you own the container, you are still going to have the extra equipment costs of getting the container off of the ground and onto the truck chassis, and then at the other end, getting it down from the drayage haulers chassis. Usually the Rail Operator will include RENTAL of the container as part of the transport, so it is actually cheaper to ship using the railroads container than to use your own.

  • ocean: often it is less costly to send a container all the way back to China from an inland US termianl than it is to transport it in the US only.