ABSTRACT
It is now almost 50 years since Malcolm McLean began his New York to Houston box service on the Ideal X, thus launching the container revolution. Wholesale changes in how ships were built, how shipping companies operated, how trade routes were configured both on sea and land and how ports operated were to be made over the next 50 years. Those changes are ongoing today. No longer is international trade of general cargo thought of in discrete stages; rather, it takes place across many integrated modes linking inland origins on one continent to inland destinations on another. Thus we speak of intermodal chains of transportation. Of interest in this chapter is the landward portion of these intermodal cargo flows and just how accessible container terminals are to trucks and trains. The chapter focuses on Canadian intermodal operations at the ports of Halifax and Vancouver through the analysis of a questionnaire administered to key personnel in the two port-cities.
