Continuing Congestion in LA & Long Beach Ports

[Anonymous]

A tied up ship is like a train sitting in the yard; It isn't making any money!

The Hanjin terminal can handle at least three ships at once and has 12 cranes.

For comparison, Seattle's Terminal Five has three berths and five cranes, Terminal 18 has five berths and eight cranes, so Hanjin is not a small facility.

The bottleneck is unloading/loading the ship. Each container movement requires precision positioning by the crane operator on each end of the move. Each box can weigh approx. 30 tons so they must be handled gently and carefully to protect it and equipment and people in the area. Dropping 30 tons too hard on a trailer will break springs and axles and blowout tires, not to mention the problems of having a container fall over on its side.

There are a whole host of other problems depending on whether they are running a wheeled or grounded operation. In either case there must be a clear path for the transport equipment from the ship to the holding/sorting area so that pretty much rules out any conveyors. And a conveyor that could handle a 30 ton container would not look at all like a baggage conveyor that only needs to handle a 100 pounds or so. And you can't just dump the box on the carousel for the trucker to pick up! [:)]

[DPD1]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MP57313

The local truck drivers are frustrated though...sometimes it takes up to 7 hours waiting in line before they get a container to haul. The drivers are only paid for the haul, not the wait, and 10-20% of drivers are quitting this route because they can't make a living this way. According to the Daily Breeze, one trucking firm, Transport Express Inc., has been asking customers to pay $55-$75/hour to cover the trucker's wait time.

I've often wondered how those guys make any money... Seems like each time I've been down there lately, there's a line of trucks a mile long waiting at each terminal. All the drivers stand around for so long, they actually have food cart guys setup along the line.

I agree it's a very complicated issue, and there's no one reason why it's slow. Seems to me the basic problem is that the ships just want to disgorge too many containers at one time. It's like pouring a 5 gallon bucket down an oil funnel. On the Discovery show they had about the L.A. port the other night, it looked like the people at the Hanjin Terminal had their hands full just barely getting one ship unloaded in time. Imagine what it will be like when the super size ships start coming in. If you think about it, those things can carry 4-7 trains worth of containers on just one ship. When most ships have to be unloaded in 48 hours, and most terminals can dock two ships... Obviously you can see there's going to be a major problem.

Dave
Los Angeles, CA
-Rail Radio Online-Home of the "TrainTenna" RR Monitoring Antenna-
http://eje.railfan.net/railradioonline

[MP57313]

QUOTE: Originally posted by tabiery

Why on earth should any American who still has a job worry about west coast port congestion?

Depends on your job. Store manager trying to meet sales goals? Buyer trying to avoid running out of stock while not overloading the warehouse? Midwesterners trying to get rain gear/umbrellas in advance of winter? City officials relying on sales tax revenues associated with sales?

Since the US has a consumer-driven economy, it's important to get all that "stuff" through the ports and out to the warehouses and store shelves

[Junctionfan]

There is nothing wrong with importing and exporting goods as long as you aren't exporting jobs and importing products that are doing Americans out of work.

Trying to stay away from politics, I don't see G.W Bu***rying to balance that out; Kerry said he would. That might help out the conjestion problems for the U.S and also the over all economy.

[Anonymous]

Why on earth should any American who still has a job worry about west coast port congestion? Let the internationalists and their Chinese slave masters suffer a little. They created the problem. Let them fix it with their money. Sooner or later your job is going to be shipped to the Orient.. If you like working for minimum wages or less you will feel right at home in the future with the NWO. "As California goes so goes the Nation."

[bobwilcox]

Some of these issues are going to solve themselves. If you want more drivers pay more to haul the box. If S. CA congestion is delaying your box from Hong Kong to a Wal Mart distribution center in the Midwest divert it to the westbound trade through Savanah.

[MP57313]

The congestion is blamed on multiple factors. The big retailers (CostCo, Target, WalMart) ordered Christmas stuff a little earlier than last year and it is all coming in at once. The sheer volume of traffic is maxxing out the system. It's a combination of ship-berth space, transloading zones, rail capacity, etc.

The trucks that are picking up shipments to be transloaded to rail further north & east are mingled with the local-area trucks, all waiting to pick up loads.

A few smaller shippers are having overseas freight shipped by air, but that costs 8 times as much. You won't see the big retailers doing that. It must not be realistic or practical to switch to another port, so the waiting continues.

The trench section of the Alameda Corridor is not congested, but the train staging areas (ICTF etc.) always have a lot of container trains.

[Junctionfan]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MP57313

Actually there are several cranes out there; they are visible from a distance.

Meanwhile, several of the port-area tracks were newly constructed or majorly rebuilt around 2000-2001. Not all of them, of course, but a good number (will send scanned photos if requested--I don't have my own website).

The photo accompanying today's Daily Breeze article showed two long rows of trucks waiting in line, next to a partly empty (perfectly straight) multiple-track rail yard.

vsmith's comments about the freeways...the 110 eases up Saturday mornings but the 710 is constantly clogged with trucks, and the pavement has a lot of cracks and pot-holes. It's a "white knuckle" drive on the 710 trying to fit one's car between all the big rigs. I avoid the 710 now (even though it has "great scenery"---it passes over the BNSF Hobart Yard and the UP East LA/Commerce yard)

Is the reason why the two long rows of trucks waiting and partly empty rail yard because there is not enough workers working the port?

[MP57313]

Actually there are several cranes out there; they are visible from a distance.

Meanwhile, several of the port-area tracks were newly constructed or majorly rebuilt around 2000-2001. Not all of them, of course, but a good number (will send scanned photos if requested--I don't have my own website).

The photo accompanying today's Daily Breeze article showed two long rows of trucks waiting in line, next to a partly empty (perfectly straight) multiple-track rail yard.

vsmith's comments about the freeways...the 110 eases up Saturday mornings but the 710 is constantly clogged with trucks, and the pavement has a lot of cracks and pot-holes. It's a "white knuckle" drive on the 710 trying to fit one's car between all the big rigs. I avoid the 710 now (even though it has "great scenery"---it passes over the BNSF Hobart Yard and the UP East LA/Commerce yard)

[Anonymous]

Well said, but the trouble with common sence is just how uncommon it is. But I do like the way you think.

[Junctionfan]

Maybe I am wrong but is what OOCL saying is that they are short on man power so what they are going to do is restrict on service rather than hire more people to make up the service demand?

I don't really understand the U.S position on public versus private ownership since I am Canadian but, isn't the ports at least owned by the government either state or federal?

My idea of an efficient port due to conjestion is increase funding for extra crews to unload the boats faster. Extra cranes or extra docks. If the trains don't get their on time to pick up the port loads, why can't the ports have their own engines and shunt the loaded cars in and out of the port and into staging tracks either near the port or outside the port to be used by all the railroads so the crews aren't waiting and the ports aren't cluttered with containers just sitting around waiting to be loaded on to what ever train?

Perhaps there should be more truck loading facilities connected by conveyer belt systems that connect between truck loading and the ships. I am thinking about the many sorting stations of bagages at the airport that gets sorted into different planes by a crane (person's arm) and the conveyer belt. In this case the arm is a container crane but you get the idea what I'm saying right?

Of course this is expensive but it is easier than building more ports and maintaining them structurely, securely and financially isn't it? Few is O.K than many provided that the few can operate like many. In otherwords, if only a few ports can work just as well as many more ports, than that is O.K as long as they have the means too. They don't seem to be able to keep up with the demand and that's even at non -holiday season; what the heck will happen than?

No I don't have the answers but maybe a little more commonsense is needed in this issue.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Junctionfan

Wow.......not to state the obvious but there really is a lot more to this issue isn't there?

[#ditto]Junctionfan, Your gift for understatement remains unchallenged[tup] and well deserved[swg]. My complements, Piouslion

[Overmod]

Perhaps an interesting note on this topic arose in another thread where OOCL was mentioned. This container line posts a 'rail advisory' on their site:

http://www.oocl.com/press/special/NAT/NATRailAdvisoryJuly9.htm

which indicates a working restriction from "24 to 48 hours" allegedly for traffic reasons. This almost certainly isn't related to "congestion" in the Alameda Corridor -- I'd think either lack of crews or equipment suitable for the area would be the likely issue.

Note that this is separate from the news story regarding port congestion. I doubt that any 'democratic' or 'arbitration' process among the various stakeholders in the area would produce any kind of operations improvement -- additional cranes won't help much, and I suspect the recent lockout made no friends...

[Junctionfan]

I think everybody from the ports, rails, roads, and government authorities need to sit down at a table and figure this out before it really gets out of hand.

[vsmith]

Yeah, its a real mess when you hear of all the factors going into just how the Port is run. I dont think anyone out here is expecting this to clear up anytime soon.

[Junctionfan]

Wow.......not to state the obvious but there really is a lot more to this issue isn't there?

[mudchicken]

From one who worked in the port: (1) The port would only allow a certain train of a certain railroad to enter the port at any given time. (2) The port's trackage is low speed and beaten up. (3) The tides facilitate the arrival of ships full of sea cans. (3) The port is underfunded. (4) A good number of the drayage truckers are so cuthroat that they and their rigs should not be allowed to operate (they don't deserve any sympathy).. CHP and the local jurisdictions go nuts down there and cant catch them all. (5) Local regulations for industries receiving TEBU/ sea-cans allow trucking companies to pick up an deliver/ use certain roads only during off hours. (6) The I-710 Long Beach Freeway has been overcapacity for 20 years. (for you non-Californians, visualize traffic jams at 2AM, nothing moves for hours, nearly every other day.)....Spent many nights across fro the Queen Mary at Sea-Land and Maersk re-railing stack trains that tore up submarine switches that should have been retired after the Korean War. (7) We have not even touched the issue of the longshoremen and how those prima-donna clowns screw-up the fluidity of the port.

Think cluster-fluff!!
[banghead][banghead][banghead]

[Junctionfan]

Why don't the ports invest in using more than 1 crane to unload a ship? Also if they had a conveyer belt system of transporting containers about to various holding areas of the property, wouldn't that speed things up?(I'm thinking assembly line like unloading; a faster version)

Basically what I'm suggesting is the ports increase operation capacity.

[vsmith]

Well the 710 and 110 freeways coming out of Long Beach are still a Five Fisted $&*# of a drive traffic wise every day! More trucks than you can shake a stick at all driving like they are auditioning for a part in "Road Warrior III, Beyond Congestiondome!"

Driving by the port and looking at the large area of container storage vs loading facilities it does look like they are more concerned with unloading the ships as fast as possible than with getting the containers off the property and to their destinations. The rail facilites always look like they are full up. I cant say so for the truck loading areas as most are not very visable from the two bridges, at least not from my car. I wonder though about the thought process behind so much contianer storage and what could be an undersized transfer loading zone? or is the overly large storage a rea a side effect of the shear volumn of containers?

Is it possible that the port operators are more worried about the associated costs of having a ship docked there for an extended period of time and upsetting the ship owners -vs- unloading the ships as fast as possible and just letting the container truck drivers and owners wait until the they get around to tranfering them. IOW the ship owners have priority over the truck owners. just wondering?

[MP57313]

Other recent articles have addressed potential port expansion, though it wasn't clear if this would help get the trucks through any quicker. Whatever solution they come up with will take some time to put in place. In addition to the transportation clog-up, the diesel exhaust from trucks, ships (and trains) are raising air quality concerns.

As of today, there are 74 ships at berths, with another 28 waiting to get in to the port area. Each ship takes 4-to-10 days to unload.

Today's paper (Daily Breeze) said the delays could last beyond the beginning of 2005, with only a brief lull before the South American produce shipments start arriving in bulk in the spring.

[Overmod]

vsmith, we've had folks already address this...

1) Issue here isn't congestion on the roads; it's congestion inside the port facility, with limited access to ships and to container equipment, or perhaps too much traffic for the available facilities.

2) Alameda Corridor does exactly what it was intended to do, very well. (For example, eliminate much redundant trackage at street level...) The Corridor project does NOT include changing the traffic patterns for containers outbound from LA port facilities. Many of these go to distribution centers not on major rail routes, or close enough in that the double container exchange eats up all the time and other advantages that freeway-delay reduction would give.

Doesn't matter how fast or convenient the move of intermodal trains to the port is, if the port can't use the extra speed... or the traffic isn't optimal for trains.

[vsmith]

So whatever happened to the Alameda Corridor? Wasnt this expensive project supposed to relieve congestion on the freeways by loading containers directly onto trains at the port and then send them on thier way without having to use the freeways? Last I heard the AC was only operating at 40% capacity and they were having choke point problems once the trains reached central LA. Another Muy Expensive project to expand the corridor east has also snagged due to the States fiscal fiasco. Anyone else know anything about this?

[Overmod]

jsanchez, note that the problem here is not driver availability, rather the reverse. One surmises that for each driver there is also a tractor 'waiting to be engaged', probably idling at least part of the time to keep A/C or heat (yes, it can get cold in Southern California!) running.

The congestion is in getting the containers off the ships and to the locations where they will be loaded on the trucks' underframes. In part, this is a truck-traffic-in-the-yard issue, but I do not believe that is part of the 'critical path' causing the reported delays.

The probable 'best use' of RailRunner technology in this situation would be to assemble unit trains to move containers 'in bulk' from the port facility to other intermodal facilities where trucks could access the containers. This kind of operation might also provide reasonable logistics for 'returning' the underframes to maximize bimodal efficiency in assembling 'cost-effective' trainlengths in reasonably-scheduled time. However, there is a certain amount of capital efficiency involved in doing transfer moves with more conventional (cheaper) skeleton equipment and rapid parallel transfer to minimize trip time, switch costs, etc. -- multiple Letroporters may be less expensive overall than a large number of relatively costly bimodal underframes for this service.

[jsanchez]

The trucker shortage has been impacting intermodal in many places, I think BNSF has been looking for away to load containers in the LA area that would be less dependent on trucks, I know UP had trouble with getting truckers to haul loads to their intermodal terminals, the truckers were not getting compensated enough to cover their costs, the best solution would be to find away to load containers directly onto trains or having the intermodal terminal within a few hundred yards of the ship unloading areas. The achilles heal of intermodal is becoming the drayage costs of the truck delivery portion of the freight move. I think a good solution might be the new railrunner technology which allows container loading onto trains almost anywhere at very little investment cost, I'm suprised Trains magazine has had no mention of this revolutionary technology, http://www.railrunner.com Norfolk Southern is using it between Jacksonville Florida and Fort Wayne Indiana in conjunction with a trucking firm.

[MP57313]

Recents news items in the LA area have covered the ports...in the LA Times and Long Beach Press-Telegram. The LA-LB ports expect to bring in 13 million containers this year, up from 11.9 last year. Both are record numbers (they did not use the term "TEUs" in the article).

The local truck drivers are frustrated though...sometimes it takes up to 7 hours waiting in line before they get a container to haul. The drivers are only paid for the haul, not the wait, and 10-20% of drivers are quitting this route because they can't make a living this way. According to the Daily Breeze, one trucking firm, Transport Express Inc., has been asking customers to pay $55-$75/hour to cover the trucker's wait time.

The major congestion is not expected to ease until the end of the year.