Patent 10023252 was granted and assigned to Amazon on July, 2018 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
In one embodiment, an intermodal container comprises a metal box, and left and right wheel assemblies. The box includes a front wall, a rear door opposite the front wall along a longitudinal direction, first and second sidewalls that oppose one another along a lateral direction, a top wall, a bottom wall that opposes the top wall along a vertical direction, and a structural frame. The left and right wheel assemblies are spaced from one another along the lateral direction. Each one of the wheel assemblies includes an axle and at least one tire mounted on the axle. The wheel assemblies are movable between an extended position in which the tires extend below the first and second sidewalls in the vertical direction so as to be engageable with a ground surface, and a retracted position in which the first and second sidewalls extend below the tires along the vertical direction.