Viewpoint: Rail service from LA/Long Beach ports moving at speed of sloth

The flow of trade is being derailed out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach as $1.5 billion in trade is landlocked waiting for rail service. A combined 33,484 containers are sitting nine-plus days in San Pedro. This backup is eating up valuable space at the ports, inhibiting the fluidity of trade. The CNBC Supply Chain Heat Map shows the growing congestion at the West Coast ports and the diversion of trade to the East Coast increasing and creating more congestion.

“Rail containers continue to pile up in the ports in record numbers,” said Noel Hacegaba, deputy executive director of administration and operations of the Port of Long Beach. “We need those boxes to move to create more capacity and to keep the economy moving.”

According to MarineTraffic, approximately 460,000 twenty-foot equivalent units were loaded on vessels waiting off the East Coast ports, and 180,000 TEUs were stacked on vessels off the West Coast ports as of Wednesday.