then
When I left the USA four decades ago, containers had become an established dimension of the shipping industry but most were TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) and they weren’t as all-pervasive as they are now. They didn’t appear so much on city streets and in all kinds of commercial settings.
now
Today I was stopped more than five minutes by a long slow train moving through our neighborhood on one of the main rail lines still serving Louisville. The first thing I noticed is that CSX has replaced our beloved L&N (Louisville and Nashville) railroad.
Next I noticed that the old TEUs which used to ride on standard flatcars have been replaced almost exclusively by the FEUs (forty-foot equivalent units), and in place of the old flatcars new purpose-built carriages convey not one but two stacked FEUs. Things have changed.