Box and rail dwell
Port rail container dwell: Los Angeles vs Long Beach
Import containers waiting on terminal for an on-dock train at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and how many have waited 9+ days, by railroad and terminal. Daily counts, not an average dwell time.
Data through Oct 21, 2026 · source last checked Oct 22, 2026 · page revised Oct 22, 2026
Cite
- Los Angeles
- Long Beach
About this data
- Source
- Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach daily on-dock rail reports; railroad terminal dwell from the STB via BTS
- Series
- Import containers awaiting on-dock rail and the 9+ day subset, by railroad (BNSF, Union Pacific) and terminal
- Basis
- Daily counts of rail-bound import boxes on terminal, not an average dwell time; each port keeps its own report date
- Geography
- Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach, side by side (never summed)
- Unit
- percent
- Calculation
- Daily business-day snapshot per port; railroad terminal dwell is a weekly system-wide average
- Last observation
- Oct 21, 2026
- Update frequency
- Daily
As of Oct 21, 2026, 16,901 import containers were waiting on Port of Long Beach terminals for an on-dock train, 1,725 of them for 9 days or more, and 20,220 were waiting at the Port of Los Angeles, 6,738 for 9+ days. The 9+ day share is 23.1 points higher at Los Angeles (33.3% at Los Angeles, 10.2% at Long Beach). Los Angeles had more import boxes waiting for rail in total (20,220 against 16,901). Most of the boxes waiting 9+ days at both ports are BNSF-bound (Los Angeles 5,339 of 6,738, Long Beach 1,178 of 1,725).
Los Angeles has 20,220 import boxes waiting for on-dock rail, with 33.3% at 9+ days, against Long Beach's 16,901 with 10.2% at 9+ days. The 9+ day share is 23.1 points higher at Los Angeles, where BNSF-bound containers dominate the backlog (5,339 of 6,738 waiting 9+ days). Long Beach is clearing rail boxes faster.
| Los Angeles | Long Beach | |
|---|---|---|
| Import boxes waiting for on-dock rail | 20,220 | 16,901 |
| Waiting 9+ days | 6,738 | 1,725 |
| 9+ day share | 33.3% | 10.2% |
| BNSF | 11,350 (5,339 at 9+ days) | 13,092 (1,178 at 9+ days) |
| Union Pacific | 8,870 (1,399 at 9+ days) | 3,809 (547 at 9+ days) |
| Report date | Oct 21, 2026 | Oct 21, 2026 |
| Terminal | Waiting for rail | 9+ days | 9+ share | BNSF | Union Pacific |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| APMT | 3,933 | 310 | 7.9% | 1,160 | 2,773 |
| ETS | 793 | 23 | 2.9% | 0 | 793 |
| FMS | 9,196 | 4,684 | 50.9% | 9,017 | 179 |
| TraPac | 847 | 393 | 46.4% | 370 | 477 |
| WBCT | 3,052 | 1,132 | 37.1% | 759 | 2,293 |
| YTI | 2,399 | 196 | 8.2% | 44 | 2,355 |
| Terminal | Waiting for rail | 9+ days | 9+ share | BNSF | Union Pacific |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ITS | 2,734 | 201 | 7.4% | 532 | 2,202 |
| LBCT | 3,776 | 320 | 8.5% | 3,505 | 271 |
| PCT | 2,598 | 328 | 12.6% | 2,254 | 344 |
| TTI | 6,801 | 624 | 9.2% | 6,801 | 0 |
| Pier A | 992 | 252 | 25.4% | 0 | 992 |
| Railroad | Latest week | 4 weeks earlier | A year earlier | Trailing 12-month median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BNSF | 22.9 hours (week of Oct 10, 2026) | 22.3 hours | 21.6 hours | 22.2 hours (range 20.4 to 25.3) |
| Union Pacific | 19.9 hours (week of Oct 10, 2026) | 19.8 hours | 20.1 hours | 19.8 hours (range 18.1 to 21.6) |
Previous weeks
An earlier week
Long Beach 16,874 import boxes waiting for rail (9.9% at 9+ days), Los Angeles 21,163 (28.1% at 9+ days). Los Angeles has 28.1 percent of its waiting boxes past nine days; Long Beach has 9.9 percent. BNSF-bound containers dominate the long waits, 4,819 of the 5,951 at Los Angeles and 1,118 of the 1,664 at Long Beach.
An earlier week
Long Beach 16,851 import boxes waiting for rail (12.1% at 9+ days), Los Angeles 21,242 (29.9% at 9+ days). Los Angeles has substantially more boxes in extended wait on its rail terminals: nearly 30% of boxes have been on terminal 9 or more days awaiting an on-dock train, compared to 12% at Long Beach. Of the 6,357 boxes in the 9+ day cohort at Los Angeles, 5,171 are BNSF-bound.
Week of Oct 16, 2026
Los Angeles has 18,767 import containers waiting for on-dock trains, with 25.4% at 9 or more days. Long Beach has 14,812 waiting, with 17.7% at 9+ days. Most aged containers at both ports are BNSF-bound.
An earlier week
As of Oct 15, Long Beach had 15,811 import boxes waiting on terminal for an on-dock train, with 18.3% waiting 9+ days. Los Angeles had 18,767 import boxes waiting for rail with 25.4% at 9+ days, a 7.1-point higher share of delayed boxes. The long-wait boxes at both ports are predominantly BNSF-bound: Los Angeles had 3,903 of its 4,763 waiting 9+ days on the BNSF line, and Long Beach 2,413 of its 2,890.
What these numbers are
Both ports publish a daily table of import containers staged on their terminals for an on-dock train, split by railroad (BNSF and Union Pacific) and by terminal, with the number that have waited 9 days or more. The Port of Los Angeles posts it as its Import On-Dock Rail report on the Cargo Operations Dashboard; the Port of Long Beach posts it as Rail Dwell Data on its CargoNav operations dashboard. Because the two tables have the same shape, they compare cleanly: waiting boxes against waiting boxes, 9+ days against 9+ days. The Los Angeles line has gaps before September 23, 2026, days our collection missed; from then on both ports are read every business day.
Read the numbers as an inventory count, not a clock. A rising 9+ day share means more rail-bound boxes are sitting on the terminal longer, which is the rail version of the aging tell on the Los Angeles import-container dwell page. It is not an average dwell time, and it is not vessel dwell at the berth; dwell time explained covers those clocks. On a single booking, the on-dock rail step shows up as its own milestone, covered in container milestone tracking.
The railroad table below the terminal breakdowns is a different measure again: the average hours a railcar sits at a terminal across BNSF's and Union Pacific's whole networks, reported weekly to the Surface Transportation Board and republished by BTS. It is a true dwell time, but for railcars system-wide, so it gives context for how the railroads are running, not a count at these two ports.
Common questions
What is on-dock rail dwell at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach?
It is the count of import containers sitting on a marine terminal waiting to be loaded onto a train at an on-dock rail yard, and how many of those have waited 9 or more days. As of Oct 21, 2026, 20,220 boxes were waiting at Los Angeles (33.3% for 9+ days) and 16,901 at Long Beach (10.2% for 9+ days).
Is this an average dwell time?
No. Both ports publish counts: how many import boxes are waiting for rail and how many of them have waited 9+ days. Neither publishes an average number of days for rail-bound boxes. The only true dwell time on this page is the railroads' own system-wide terminal dwell, which measures hours per railcar across each railroad's whole network, not containers at a port.
Why compare the 9+ day share instead of the raw count?
Long Beach and Los Angeles move different volumes by rail, so a bigger port can show more waiting boxes without being more backed up. The share of waiting boxes that have passed 9 days adjusts for that size difference, which makes the two ports comparable.
Which railroads serve on-dock rail at Los Angeles and Long Beach?
BNSF and Union Pacific. Both ports' daily tables split the waiting boxes by those two railroads and by terminal, so you can see where the aging boxes are concentrated.
How is this different from the Los Angeles import-container dwell page?
That page covers every import box on Port of Los Angeles terminals, by age bucket (0-4, 5-8 and 9+ days). This page covers only the rail-bound slice, at both Los Angeles and Long Beach, because the two ports' daily rail tables are the one dwell measure they publish in exactly the same shape.