The Port of Long Beach has made a deal with a Utah site to transfer containers there, to relieve the congestion at the Long Beach terminal yards.
Moving containers by rail to Utah will clear space at the port and allow faster unloading there. The containers can then be picked up in Utah and forwarded to the points in the US.
This is a good strategy for the port. Many European ports, such as Rotterdam, Hamburg, and Antwerp, have done the same thing. In Europe, the containers tend to be moved by river barge or truck, but in the US, rail is the natural transportation mode to use.
It’s an idea that has been suggested years ago for the large ports on the West Coast US, but it took a crisis for it to happen.
I thought that long ago the ports would make such agreements with the Centerpoint complex in the Chicago area. Much of the container cargo moves to the Chicago area, for distribution to the rest of the United States. 8 years ago, Centerpoint had empty space available. Now it is completely built out, according to my informants.
Below the articles, I’ve provided my reference to our article of 2014, which suggested forging alliances with the Chicago warehouses.
By Ian Putzger in Toronto 28/10/2021
Long Beach in tie-up with inland port and rail operator to move boxes faster – The Loadstar
Sarah Zimmerman
Union Pacific steps up efforts to ease West Coast port congestion
Our paper of 2014:
Clott, Christopher B. and Bruce C. Hartman. (2014). “Supply Chain Integration, Landside Operations and Port Accessibility in Metropolitan Chicago”. Journal of Transportation Geography (51) 131-139. DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2015.12.005
Supply Chain and Logistics 