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US RAILWAYS blame shippers who fail to retrieve their containers in Chicago and other inland depots for the congestion at the heart of the nation's supply chain disruption, reports IHS Media.
The Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railways say that lack of movement is a major reason they have been unable to return trains from inland hubs to Southern California fast enough to relieve congestion on the docks in Los Angeles, the nation's largest port.
"It is important that end-receivers consume these shipments in a timely manner so inland terminals remain fluid and we can move containers," said UP.
There were 27,963 rail containers at the Port of Los Angeles as of last Friday, 14,681 of which were long-dwell containers that had been on terminal for nine or more days. That's up from 23,318 rail containers on May 13, 8,585 of which were long-dwell boxes.
In Long Beach, there's been minimal progress in reducing the backlog. There were 17,948 rail containers sitting on the docks as of June 8, of which 7,677 were long-dwelling. That's down from 18,359 containers (8,289 long-dwell containers) on May 9.
Railways said they are devoting more assets to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to whittle down the number of containers sitting on the terminals.
"We're focused on turning inventory in Chicago to get cars back to southern California as quickly as possible," said BNSF. "As we move into June, our efforts are beginning to yield positive results with greater velocity and productivity levels."
The average rail container dwell time at the 12 container terminals in Los Angeles-Long Beach in April, the latest data that is available, was 9.6 days, up from 7.7 days in March, according to the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. That was almost triple the 3.3-day average dwell in December.
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