To understand why more than 100 containerships are waiting to enter U.S. ports from Southern California to Savannah, Ga., it helps to keep tabs on the congestion that’s building at another key junction of freight transportation: rail yards.
The so-called dwell time for containers at 11 major railroad depots reached an average of 9.8 days this month, according to a tally of its own boxes maintained by Hapag-Lloyd AG, the world’s fifth-largest container carrier. That’s up from 6.7 days in May and 5.9 in February.
