The power to regulate commerce among the states eventually gave rise in 1887 to the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which regulated nearly every aspect of long-range transport in the United States, corroded nearly every industry it touched, and stifled American transport innovation until it was finally abolished in 1995. For more than a century, merchants had sought an “intermodal” shipping device that could be seamlessly loaded and unloaded among train, truck, and ship. In 1837 a shipper in Pittsburgh, James O’Connor, devised a boxcar that could be either fitted with train wheels or
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