Here are two short videos that provide a glimpse at the revolution in cargo shipping in the UK (and the world) over the last half-century. The first video, “Look at Life – Report on a River – The River Thames – 1963,” captures a moment in time just before containerization changed everything. The second video shows the huge, largely automated container terminal London Gateway. The contrast between the port facilities shown on the two videos, separated in time by over 50 years, could not be more dramatic.
A recurring question raised by the narrator of the 1963 video was whether the London docks would be able to expand and adapt to the rise in world trade. The answer turned out to be “no.” Today the London docks have been described as “little more than a garnish of maritime nostalgia on riverside real estate.” What they could not have known in 1963 was that four years later, SeaLand Services would open the first UK container terminal in Felixstowe, approximately 90 miles northeast of London. Today, the Port of Felixstowe handles over 40% of containerized traffic in the UK.
In 2013, London Gateway, a new semi-automated deep-sea container terminal, opened on the Thames estuary roughly 30 miles east of Central London. Featuring the largest gantry cranes in the world and an attached rail yard and logistics park, it is almost twice as large the Felixstowe terminal.
Thamesport (on the River Medway) lost out big time to London Gateway, it used to be a thriving container port with new roads built to support the amount of truck traffic. It is now virtually empty.
I was surprised that London Gateway became such a success as it came online just as the deep water North Edinburgh Channel (through the sands of the Thames Estuary) silted up and was no longer navigable causing deep draft vessels to have to go the extra distance up to the Sunk gyratory and back which is right by Felixtowe Port.
Technically the first container vessels calling in the UK regularly were Sea-Land in 1966 into the Forth port of Grangemouth.