Once again, train prioritization and speed of delivery will depend on the contract....and how fast you're willing to pay to get something to where it is going.

Ship comes into Long Beach, is sorted, and assigned to be either rail loaded on-dock, or drayed to either the ICTF, or even one of the downtown LA yards (this is done less and less, but was once common). Once the container is loaded on a rail car, it can be sent on a direct routed train to the nearest intermodal terminal to the Target warehouse for which it is destined. Or, the container may be sent by train to another intermodal transfer yard, to be resorted, and placed on another rail car, or even sometimes drayed to a connecting RR's yard and reloaded there, and then sent by train to the nearest terminal to the Target warehouse it is going to.

Now, let's talk about logistics, and more specifically about retail logistics. Loaded containers are often broken up to sort redistribute the contents to many locations where they are actually needed. Retail logistics is about getting all kinds of differing items of inventory to the stores....

Suppose a whole container load of calphalon pots and pans comes in for William Sonoma from the factory in France (or wherever...) it comes off of the ship, and goes through the process above.

But there are say 200 Williams Sonoma stores in a across the country, and none of them is going to require a whole container load of just pans and pots, nor could they handle a whole container load of them. So these go to a warehouse (I believe in Memphis, if I recall correctly?), where Williams Sonoma (or the logistics services provider for them) sort and reloads them with other stuff (salt shakers, martini glasses, cookbooks, etc.)in loads that reflect the inventory restocking needs of the various stores, then these go back to the intermodal terminal, and the process starts over again.

Williams Sonoma basically repacks the containers with specific inventory items for a set of stores. When the container comes into say, Los Angeles, there may be to or three William Sonoma containers full of inventory, but each container now contain items, pre packed, for a number of stores. Then the container is unloaded from the train, put on a rack, with a tractor, and driven to the Glendale store, where some of the cargo is unloaded, and then to the Pasadena store, where some is unloaded, then to the Arcadia store...you get the idea.
This is done until the container is empty, and then it is taken back and reassigned to be reloaded.

Very rarely, if ever, would a container come directly from China to the loading dock at Target, since that is a retail distribution chain. However, some things like auto parts often do go right to the loading dock at the assembly plants....

Life is complicated that way, too. Most things that happen depend on other things coming together and happening.....and organizing that is often very complicated.

As I've often told the students at USC, there will be a test later......