In 1926, a regular connection of the luxury passenger train from London to Paris, Golden Arrow/Fleche d'Or, by Southern Railway and French Northern Railway, began. For transport of passengers' baggage four containers were used. These containers were loaded in London or Paris and carried to ports, Dover or Calais, on flat cars in the UK and "CIWL Pullman Golden Arrow Fourgon of CIWL" in France. At the Second World Motor Transport Congress in Rome, September 1928, Italian senator Silvio Crespi proposed the use of containers for road and railway transport systems, using collaboration rather than competition. This would be done under the auspices of an international organ similar to the Sleeping Car Company, which provided international carriage of passengers in sleeping wagons. In 1928 Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) started regular container service in the northeast United States. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 in New York and the subsequent Great Depression, many countries were without any means of transport for cargo. The railroads were sought as a possibility to transport cargo, and there was an opportunity to bring containers into broader use. On February 1931 was launched the first container ship in the world. It was called the Autocarrier, owned by Southern Railway UK. It had 21 slots for containers of Southern Railway. Under auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris in Venice on September 30, 1931, on one of the platforms of the Maritime Station (Mole di Ponente), practical tests were done to assess the best construction for European containers as part of an international competition.