As Shanghai and Guangzhou return to full operation in June, there are some troubling signs regarding summertime rail capacity.

Long dwell times and insufficient capacity are already slowing down the gains the West Coast ports are making to recover from the original Covid backlog.

The rail companies are responding to this by reporting labor shortages and an inability to hire qualified personnel in the current labor market. It is unlikely they will be able to staff to open up their capacity to meet the surge of products leaving Chinese ports.

Now is the time to be looking at answering the following questions.

• What are my current inventory levels?
• Can my providers manage a surge of products in July and August?
• Do I have enough warehouse space to meet my needs?
• How do I avoid excessive storage and demurrage charges?
• If rail capacity gets overloaded, do I have a workable transload strategy?

This is shaping up to be one of the most demanding markets for importers in their lifetime.

Now is the time to make your summertime plans.