Working at Singapore Tanjong Pagar Container Port

Working at Singapore Tanjong Pagar Container Port

Contributed by Moh Teck (12 May 2020)

My First Job

Unlike many of my classmates, my family could only afford tertiary education for one child, and that privilege went to my younger brother, my only sibling.

So after completing National Service, armed with my GCE results, I began looking for a job. With no career guidance, I applied to whatever job that seems to make sense in terms of job prospects.

I chanced upon a job advertisement put up by PSA and applied for it. I thought that since Singapore has a strategic location between the east and west; has deep harbour that can allow big ships to berth alongside its harbour and is a busy maritime port, the job would have good prospects even if I was starting at the bottom. PSA hired me in my first job as a container yard operator. That was in 1980.

The container port is located at Tanjong Pagar. There was no vision yet for the Pasir Panjang Terminal. 

A Bit of History

In the 13^th century, a Kingdom known as Singapura was established on the north bank of the Singapore River around what was called the Old Harbour. The port settlement was established by a prince from Palembang known as Seri Teri Buana. Singapre was then known as Temasek.

 It was the only port in the southern part of the Strait of Malacca and serviced ships and traders in the region, competing with other ports along the coast of the Malacca Strait. (It was already an international entrepot) 

A change in China’s maritime trade policy (related: Admiral Zheng He, Ming Dynasty) saw a large number of Chinese ships calling at Southeast Asian countries to source for goods for their home markets.

The 14^th century saw Melaka being made the key port of call by the Chinese. As a result, by the 15^th century, Singapore had declined as an international trading port. Local trading continued on the island.

 In the early 17^th century, Singapore’s main settlement and its port were destroyed by a force from Aceh, Indonesia. After this incident, there was no significant settlement or port at Singapore until 1819 when Sir Stamford Raffles, excited by the deep and sheltered waters in Keppel Harbour established Singapore as a new settlement and international port for Britain.

Source: Port of Singapore, Infopedia, National Library Board

Video: Singapore in1956

The idea of using steel boxes as container boxes was conceived by an American trucking businessman, Malcom McLean (1913 to 2001). He secured a bank loan for 22 million dollars and on April 26, 1958 he shipped 58 35-foot containers on a converted world war two converted tanker ship, SS Ideal-X from Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, to Port of Houston. In April 1957, the first container ship, the Gateway City, began regular service between New York, Florida and Texas.

Containerisation result in faster loading and unloading of ships, reduced manpower and costs compared with stevedoring. In the old days, goods were shipped in crates, barrels, sacks, drums and bales and had to be loaded and unloaded using manpower, crane and nets or carried on a man’s back or using manual sack trucks.

Source: Stevedore, Wikipedia

Source: Stevedore, Wikipedia

Video:Old Singapore Harbour 1960

In 1969, Singapore Government made a decision to build Singapore’s first container terminal in Tanjong Pagar. This was a bold decision as the PSA invested millions of dollars to build Southeast Asia’s first container terminal at a time when demand was not clear, as no shipping companies would commit to building container vessels that sailed between Europe and Southeast Asia. The Tanjong Pagar Container Termnal opened in 1972 with three container berths, and welcomed the first container vessel M.V. Nihon, on 24 June 1972. Container shipping was initially slow to take off, but during the 1980s, container volume mounted steeply and more container berths had to be built to cope with the demand.

Source: Connecting to the World: Singapore as a Hub Port, Civil Service College

How Does Intermodal Transport Work

Source: How Container Ports Work: Logistics of Intermodal Transport (Youtube video)

My Job

Source: globalportsforum.com

After the container ship has come alongside the berth and anchored, the ship-shore crane or quay crane will start unloading containers onto prime-movers with trailer chassis. Once done, it will hoist containers from prime-movers with trailer chassis and load them on the ship.

Photo: Prime Mover with Trailer. Source: Prime Mover Magazine

The prime-movers with the container will be driven to a specified spot in the yard. My job is to use a walk-talkie, speak to the driver of the assigned straddle carrier to pick up the container from the trailer and stack the container at the assigned location in the container. We did the reverse for containers to be loaded onto the ship. At other times, the task could be to transfer containers from one location to another or to re-stack containers. The port operated 24 hours and I was working on 3 shifts. I was on my feet all the time, out in the yard, subjected to the mercy of the weather.

Photo: Straddle Carrier or TT

Photo: Straddle Carrier in Action

Photo: Moh Teck on Night Shift

Safety Became A Major Concern

If I recalled correctly, I worked for PSA for 3 months before I decided to quit. The yard was too dangerous a workplace for me.

One day, I came to work and overheard about an accident that took place on an earlier shift. One of the quay-crane was off-loading a container from a ship onto the trailer towed by a prime mover, with the driver still waiting in the tow head. The vertical alignment downwards was poorly done and probably the container was lowered too quickly. The container missed the trailer, crushed the tow head and killed in the driver inside. I vaguely remembered that the accident was published in The Straits Times as a miniature news script.

 You can see from the sample video how dangerous it was to be working in the yard with so many fast-moving vehicles. (Source from youtube: Liebherr Straddle Carriers)

My Job in Hindsight

“Singapore’s raison d’être was its port. Singapore must strive to remain a major hub port.” Lee Kuan Yew, late former Prime Minister.

I joined PSA just after mid-1980s. That was after I have completed my National Service. This was about 8 years later from 24 June 1972, the date which the first container vessel arrived in Singapore. By the 1990s, Singapore port would become more well-known and overtook Yokohama port.

“In 1993, the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) started constructing a new container terminal at Pasir Panjang, named the Pasir Panjang Terminal. It is located approximately 7 km west of PSA’s original terminals at Keppel Harbour.” (Source: Pasir Panjang, Wikipedia) It would be that in 2010 that Shanghai surpasses Singapore in terms of cargo tonnage and volume of container shipment.

Later in life, I would work for employers based along Pasir Panjang Road.

The life lesson that I learnt was that people in Government that have the power over State’s money, talents and the land required to build the State’s infrastructure must have foresight; so that workers and businesses that rely on our entrepot can sustain income and livelihood.

“The Republic’s often tumultuous relationship with its neighbour across the Causeway during Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s tenure as Prime Minister was often attributed to his personal relationship with Malaysia’s leaders.” (Source: A Close But Difficult Relationship, Today Online, published 23 March 2015).

My first bad experience was when both my grandfather and father lost their clerical jobs at Sim Lam Cheong Sawmill Company (Incorporated 17 February 1937) business was negatively impact. In 1973, because of strained relationships between Singapore and Malaysia, Malaysia banned exports of its timber to Singapore, badly affecting the island’s plywood factories and sawmills.

In the backdrop of all these, the first apple computer was debuted 1 April 1976 and the Apple II was released in April 1977. Microsoft released its first version of DOS in August 1981.

Even more important was the visit of Deng XiaoPeng. Deng Xiaoping had visited Singapore twice in his lifetime. In 1920, Deng was 16 years’ old. He was one of the 84 students from Sichuan province going to France to participate in a work cum study programme. His ship, Lebon, stopped over in Singapore for two days. He was again in Singapore from 12 to 14 November 1978. He met Lee Kuan Yew for the first Time (Source: Deng XiaoPeng and Singapore, written by Professor Tommy Koh, published in Tembusu College, NUS website 12 November 2018).