Port of Los Angeles freight rail delays reach two-year high, with holiday and everyday items piling up

Record imports over the last several months at the West Coast ports are leading to congestion on the rails, as holiday goods and everyday items pile up. Almost half of the containers bound by freight rail out of the Port of Los Angeles are waiting nine-plus days to get out of the port and onto the rail.

Before the August and September container surges, the average rail dwell for the San Pedro Basin (which includes the Port of LA and Long Beach) was four days.

In September, the Port of Los Angeles moved a total of 954,706 twenty-foot equivalent units making the month its best September ever. At the port's monthly cargo briefing on Friday, executive director Gene Seroka told CNBC there are currently 20,000 rail containers sitting at the port waiting to be loaded out, and he is speaking with the railroads on a daily basis about the increased dwell times.

But he stressed that the rail congestion is not leading to any additional issues at the port as far as vessel and trucking operations. "This is not impacting port operations," said Seroka. "We want to make sure we improve on all port operations. The railroads continue to be our focal point."

Seroka said he is monitoring three key factors related to future container growth and port ability to move all of the cargo efficiently: early Lunar New Year, the U.S. presidential election, and the strength of the economy, which currently continues to look strong based on the recent port volume data.

"October is shaping up to be another strong month," Seroka said. "We see no precipitous signs of a pullback. We are looking at the mid-800-thousand [TEU] range. We have an early Lunar New Year. With tariffs, we may see an uptick of cargo in early to avoid those extra costs depending on the