Delays at local ports force shippers to reroute cargo.

The severe congestion at the ports of L.A. and Long Beach is raising a troubling specter for local traders - the diversion of cargo shipments away from Southern California.

As a result of the recent meltdown of the Union Pacific railroad system, shippers trying to move merchandise through L.A. and Long Beach now face delays of up to a week - a costly hassle that is leading some to consider alternatives to the two local ports.

With the holiday shipping season entering its final weeks, it's too late for most importers to substantially alter their plans, according to shipping experts.

The question is, will importers simply throw up their hands and seek alternatives to Southern California to move their cargo?

W. Guy Fox, president of Global Transportation Services Inc., a freight forwarder and customs broker in Redondo Beach, said customers are considering rerouting shipments to less-congested ports in Oakland or Puget Sound.

"We're not seeing the impact now," he added. "But next year, you are going to see some diversion."

Officials at the ports of L.A. and Long Beach acknowledged that the congestion has reached unprecedented levels. But they insist the tie-ups won't have any long-term impact on the largest port complex in the nation.

"We are still the premiere port complex for eastbound Asian cargo, and once the Union Pacific situation settles down, we'll be back to normal," said Port of Long Beach spokeswoman Yvonne Avila. "I don't think this is the ports' problem - this is a railroad problem that has rippled into the ports."

Union Pacific Corp., the nation's largest railroad, has been plagued with safety and service problems since its merger with Southern Pacific Railroad last year. The problems include a shortage of flatcars and double-stack railcars needed to haul cargo containers to their destinations.

With containers piling up in the marine terminals, additional labor is needed to sort and eventually move the merchandise out the door. This has resulted in a shortage of longshore workers, further exacerbating the problems.

The Port of Los Angeles currently is losing about 2,500 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units, the industry standard for measuring container traffic) a week to the Port of Oakland, according to Al Fierstine, the Port of L.A.'s director of business development. That's about 4 percent of the port's total container volume.

Fierstine said that the diversions will cease as soon as U.P.'s troubles do. Meanwhile, Oakland is happy to get any additional traffic.

Dan Westerlin, that port's manager of strategic marketing, said rather than heading straight for L.A. and Long Beach, several ships a week are now dropping off their intermodal cargo in Oakland and then heading south with the merchandise destined for Southern California.

Because the port is so much smaller than L.A. and Long Beach, it is not suffering from the same railcar shortages and congestion problems and is able to move merchandise at a "normal" rate, he added.

"Oakland is a viable, alternative to the congestion of Southern California," Westerlin said. "We don't intend to try and take all of their cargo, or even a large portion of it, but we can handle a certain amount."

But others doubt whether any of Southern California's competitors have the capacity to handle anything other than a minor, temporary diversion of cargo.

"We see them as the competition, but if L.A. and Long Beach shut down tomorrow, we couldn't handle all that business," said Paul Chilcote, senior director of planning, research and budget at the Port of Tacoma, which has been experiencing delays of one to three days as a result of Union Pacific's troubles.

Rather than Puget Sound snatching market share from Southern California, Chilcote said he was more concerned about the West Coast losing business to East Coast competitors, with shippers using the Panama Canal and avoiding the West Coast and the intermodal system altogether.

"That's a problem for all of us," he said.