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The US Trade Ledger — every US container gateway, every partner country, every month. Census-recorded, AIS-verified.

The great queue began in October 2020 — months before it made news

precision · 2020-06 → 2021-02 · verdict: CONFIRMED

What was registered, before the data was touched

The import boom outruns terminal capacity from autumn 2020; LA/LB anchorage hours should begin climbing Oct–Nov 2020 and not stop.

What the record shows

Anchorage hours doubled in October 2020 (5,183 → 11,762) and then climbed every month: 15,338 → 18,826 → 23,170 by January 2021. The queue that dominated 2021’s headlines is visible forming in the physics in October 2020, months before it was news — the strongest argument in the atlas that gateway physics leads the story.

23k 12k 2020-06: 5.5k hours2020-07: 7.2k hours2020-08: 6.6k hours2020-09: 5.2k hours2020-10: 12k hours2020-11: 15k hours2020-12: 19k hours2021-01: 23k hours2021-02: 20k hours 20k 2020-062020-102021-02
Anchorage hours/month at LA–Long Beach, Jun 2020 – Feb 2021. The queue forms in October and never looks back.

What would prove this wrong

Anchor hours holding baseline through Q4 2020 would have put the queue’s origin in 2021 and broken the "boom outran capacity immediately" reading.

Cite this

In print: “The great queue began in October 2020 — months before it made news” — a pre-registered event study by the Trimtab US Trade Ledger, ruled 2026-08-06, from US Census port records and 174,440 vessel stays (NOAA AIS, 2018–2024) — trimtabist.com/atlas/covid-queue-formation
For the record: Event Atlas · covid-queue-formation · CONFIRMED · ruled 2026-08-06

This study is a frozen artifact: the ruling and its exhibits do not change when new data lands. If the verdict is ever revised, the revision is printed here with its reason, and the original stays on the record.

← all studies · sources: TT-008 port ledger · method & rules