Why aren't container ships going to San Francisco?

Scuttlebutt
1

I’m not a containership guy, but a lot of container ships outside Long Beach, but none anchored in San Francisco

2

Well to begin with, box boats mostly go to Oakland, not to SF, and as has been pointed out here more than once, rerouting a liner is not as easy as people think, but O-Town is making the effort

3

“The two-week delay coming to Los Angeles versus the Hueneme routing was going to cause less headache for the customers,” Mr. Parker said.

4

Spoke with a retired trainmaster severat years back who ran trains from Sacramento to Reno. He said that they would have to add an additional two engines to cross the eight thousand foot passes of the Sierra both for the push up and the braking down. Mostly single track one way road and then add 10 feet of snow in the winter. 100 miles north is the Feather River line adding 3/4 of a day. So if unloading boxes in Oakland it would take 5-20 trains per ship to head east.

2 Likes
5

Oakland doesn’t have nearly as many berths as LA/LB also.

1 Like
6
7

Plenty of container ships anchored in SF which was unusual up until 2020. The Everport Terminal Services’ new crane started operations beginning of this month. Port of Oakland is busy

1 Like
8

Maybe you shouldn’t wish for more ships idling near your place?:

They are polluting the air and blocking your view of the horizon.
If they anchor they may hit a pipeline, or hinder recreational fishing.

They are all foreign, why don’t they go away and be a nuance to the people in their own country?

9

Because it’s much easier to whine about climate change than actually do something in practice, in the real world, like solving the problem of idling ships on their doorstep.

1 Like
10

4 years ago, when in the commercial side of things, the various cargo ships I was on were running aux power at the dock. So what’s the diff if the ships are at anchor, or at the dock? They still run aux power. . . Or, are they now required to plug into the dock while berthed and conducting cargo ops?

11

A lot of berths have shore power now in LA/LB. I wanna say most if not all of oakland does. There are also outfits that have barges that hook into their exhaust at berth and reduce emissions in la/lb.