Before China reform and opening-up in year 1978,

the International Container Shipping industry had already started since 1957.

And during the 1960s, the Ship-To-Shore container quayside cranes (STS Crane/Quayside container crane) were developed, and put into the pioneer intermodal ports and yards for bring two or more modes of transportation together in one location with transferring the 20’, 40’ containers as a revolution in shipping industry.

Containers were transferred between different ship vessels, railroads, and various trucks from or onto Sea and Land.

In 1973, with the international trade expanding, more and more import and export need to be shipped, and facing ports congestions in China, the slogan of “Changing the ports facilities appearance within three years” was proposed by the former prime minister Mr.Zhou Enlai. One of the important contents was the development of container transportation and related equipments. Due to the fact there was no container transportation equipments in China that time, the foreign port equipments manufacturers raised its prices at that time with a single unit of a 40.5T STS Crane at cost $9 million usd.

Under the above situation, the China National State Economic Commission organized the development and research of the container transportation equipments with the Ministry of Machinery Industry and the Ministry of Communications. The team of the 1st Ship-To-Shore quayside container crane development was from the Water Transport Bureau of the Ministry of Communications.

The first batch of two STS Cranes were finally built in 1978, and then shipped, assembly & erection & commioning, put into production at Tianjin port container terminal in 1982, when the major container shipping lines began calling at China, and made the port becoming the fastest growing port in China along the sea coast.

Since 1976, numerous simulation model tests were made on the plate beam truss composite structure. The utility model was with the advantages that the load bearing characteristics of each parts can be fully utilized, and with less the self-weight. The original design for the STS Crane was with machinery trolley, which the hoist and trolley traversing mechanism were all on the trolley structure, thus the weight of the whole crane was heavier due to the heavier moving load. After optimization, the semi-rope type trolley was developed (the hoist mechanism in the machinery room, and only the traversing was on the trolley), thus made the whole machine weight reduced.

From 1973 till 1978, a total of six years (including almost three years’ design) was spent on the first STS cranes made in China.

The installation and erection took another six months at Tianjin port container terminal.

After 40 years service at Tianjin port, the China’s first two historic STS Cranes come to an end and finally into the Dismantling stage.

With new-Generation STS cranes deployed, the port will keep on playing an increasingly significant role in both international and domestic trade in China.

Main Technical Particulars of the China’s first STS Container Cranes in 1978 as below: