Comment

In recent months, the type of globetrotting we have all become used to has been a bit more complicated. Like many readers and colleagues, the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland hampered my travel plans and I nearly missed attending at the biennial ICHCA conference in Casablanca - an event CS will cover in our next edition.

Airline strikes haven’t helped either and I was fortunate to catch the last British Airways flight out of Shanghai before cabin crew at the world’s favourite airline (as the slogan goes) went on strike.

I was in Shanghai for the recent TOC Asia conference and exhibition which gave me the opportunity to visit that city for the first time in seven years. It was fascinating to see just how much it had changed in that time, with many areas completely unrecognisable as new skyscrapers continue to spring up.

I took the opportunity to travel from the airport into the city on the Maglev (magnetic levitation) train, reaching speeds of up to 431km per hour - the fastest one is ever likely to travel on the face of the Earth. While the journey is over in only seven minutes, it is almost certainly the most thrilling form of public transport I’ve ever used.

There have been proposals to apply Maglev technology to cargo transport, including a maglev freight wagon developed by Transrapid International makers of Germany’s high-speed monorail passenger train particularly for high-value, time-sensitive cargo. Port officials in Los Angeles and Long Beach, along with researchers at California State University, have also considered the Maglev as a means of ferrying containers through the world’s busiest port complex.

Among the many challenges faced by such projects is how to pay for them. While innovation can be exciting, cost is an ever present stumbling block and it would be a great shame if the economic recession puts pay to technical development.

Two companies that say they have used this period of economic decline for innovation developments are Liebherr Container Cranes and Terberg Benschop, which, respectively, have launched a straddle carrier and a new series of ro-ro tractors.

In the last month or so, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit the Liebherr plant in Killarney, Ireland, and the Terberg facility in Benschop, Holland. The two factories are both modern operations with precision robot welding ensuring high quality steel fabrication in Killarney and the same technology about to be installed in Benschop. Indeed, both firms are expanding their production facilities in preparation for future growth.

It was pleasing to see real industrial manufacturing taking place so close to home Ð something we see less and less of in the UK itself. Perhaps the incoming UK government should take note that it is still possible for manufacturing to take place in Northern Europe. Indeed, if the government were to back it with appropriate measures, it could lead this country’s economic recovery.