Specialised ships were rare in the 1920s, but Seatrain was an exception, having been designed with one simple purpose: to ship railcars of fresh fruit and vegetables from Cuba to the United States. At the beginning of the last century American investors formed large agricultural estates in Cuba to grow sugar, fruit and vegetables for the US market.
From 1915 a train ferry between Havana and Key West allowed perishables, like pineapples and winter tomatoes, to be moved direct to US cities in temperature-controlled boxcars, which would often return south carrying dairy products.
However, New York and Chicago were more than 1,500 miles from Key West. The long trail up through Florida, and transferring the freight cars between competing railroad companies, meant that the fruit could take a fortnight to reach its destination.
A New York shipowner, Graham M. Brush, saw an opportunity to shorten journey times by shipping boxcars directly from Cuba to New Orleans. Traditional rail ferries carried around 30 wagons, but the longer route
