Port Driver Mishap

If anyone starts driving port using intermodel chassis remember to lock the container down.

I saw a guy dump a container the other day in Seattle after coming out of a shipper.

The fully loaded container landed about 5 feet from some occupied cars going the other direction.

Our containers run up to 70k pounds.

No injuries, thank God. But wow!

Be careful and check and recheck eveything.

Firemarshalbill,

"Let me show you something!!!"

^^^^^ This...

I've worked on the port (longshoreman) - drivers always need to lock the pins down on the corners of the bomb cart (that's what they call container trailers).

There's a number of different types of levers that work the locking pins, but you can always look through the hole in the container, to make sure they're locked in.

DO MAKE SURE they're locked in. At the yard I worked in, I would drop the container onto the trailer - and the driver would roll off. There was an "inspection station" before you left the yard, where you're supposed to verify the cans are locked in, and your lights and stuff all work.

Down here at Port Everglades - DOT frequently hangs outside the port gates, pulling trucks in for inspection.

Rick

Same procedures here in Seattle area. Always a stop before going out to lock down the container.

I usually try and find a place out of traffic while at the port to lock down. Been manya times when the container needed to be repositioned for the locks to work.

You're better of trying to jam the locks down, before the top loader pulls away then.

I've run a top loader, and the heavy fork down on the port. Some of those carts are pretty beat up - a lot of them, the locks are screwed for being in the locked position and having people drop boxes on them. We can't see the locks from up on the toploader - so we depend on the TT driver to make sure they're good.

The carts used to go to/from the stacks to the cranes, have the locks removed - they're not used when doing internal moves on the port. Toploader operators also can't see the pins on the far side (obviously), we have to depend on the cart not being too beat up, that all 4 pins will align when we get the nearside on.

Rick