Port of LA Rail Dwell Times Surge to 9 Days Amid Record Volumes

The Port of Los Angeles is grappling with a significant operational bottleneck: approximately 9,500 containers designated for rail transport are experiencing dwell times of nine days or longer, with roughly half stuck at the Fenix Terminal under BNSF Railway's purview. Port Executive Director Gene Seroka characterized this as unacceptable, noting that dwell times should be zero. This situation has persisted for several months, with measurements exceeding nine days consistently since September.

The underlying driver is record cargo volumes: the port processed nearly 5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) between June and October, its strongest five-month period on record, with October alone setting a monthly record of just over 1 million TEUs. The surge stems from sustained consumer spending, inventory replenishment cycles, trade policy shifts, and ocean shipping disruptions. Rail cargo has grown approximately 25% during this period, outpacing the 17% increase in loadings year-over-year.

For supply chain professionals, this congestion creates immediate tactical pressures and strategic implications. Shippers are increasingly pivoting to truck transport or transloading near the port to maintain inland delivery schedules, effectively bypassing the rail bottleneck at higher cost. The mismatch between inbound volume growth (25% for rail) and loading capacity growth (17%) signals that the port's infrastructure and carrier capacity investments are not keeping pace with demand, suggesting this may be a structural issue rather than a temporary seasonal spike.