Source from Freightwaves; writer: Greg Miller

As with Long Beach, rail delays are the major culprit in Los Angeles. On Wednesday, 17,010 of the containers dwelling nine or more days — 60% of the total — were on-dock rail containers waiting to load.

Of all the import containers on the terminal, 28,984 or 41% of the total were rail-bound containers.

Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said during a press conference on June 14 that there are normally around 9,000 on-dock rail containers at the terminals, less than a third of the current tally, and there would normally be no on-dock rail containers dwelling nine days or more.

Los Angeles’ rail cargo has increased sixfold since February. Asked about the ongoing issue of long-dwelling containers, Seroka said, “Right now it’s all about the rail. We’re working all out to catch up with this rail cargo.

“If we were to strip out [the rail effect] and bring the rail product back to where it normally should be, we’d have no problem with aging containers and we’d be moving imports fluidly through this port complex.”