By Land & by Sea

To the Interstate Commerce Commission in Washington last week went an unusual application. The McLean Trucking Co. of Winston-Salem, N.C., the South's biggest, wanted permission to go to sea, build ships, and expand into a $50 million land-sea transportation service between Southern and Eastern ports. McLean's reason: highway transportation costs have shot up 50% since 1940, and the company wants a cheaper way of hauling freight.

McLean, which operates 1,425 trucks and trailers and 37 terminals all along the East Coast and last year grossed $19.2 million, has in mind a system similar to the "sea trains" used by the railroads to carry freight cars by water. Using specially designed ramp-loaded ships, the company plans to drive trailers on board at a Southern port, steam them north at 20-knot speeds, where waiting trucks would take them to inland customers. Each ship would make six round trips monthly between Wilmington, N.C. and Northern ports with 240 trailers each trip.

Some 90% of the company's business is north-south freight, and the ships would cut out 60% of McLean's expensive highway mileage. Though overall shipping time would be slower (30 hours for ships from Wilmington to New York v. 18 for trucks), costs would drop sharply; McLean figures that its ships can haul freight 50% cheaper than trucks on the highway, take business away from railroads.

Hard-driving President Malcom McLean, 40, who built his company up from a secondhand dump truck, has already bought the S.C. Loveland shipping company for its franchise rights to operate coastal routes, is negotiating a $24 million contract with Bethlehem Steel for four 6,000-ton trailer transports. With the ICC's blessing, McLean hopes to have his ships ready by late 1955.

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