Empty cable reels picked up in City of Industry

What gets made in City of Industry

City of Industry is a business city first: more than 3,000 businesses employing about 67,000 people, with only 264 residents in the 2020 census. It stretches for miles along the Pomona Freeway (the 60) and the Union Pacific line, from the 605 east to the 57 interchange, with large distribution centres, food plants, electronics importers and building-supply yards on both sides.

Because the city is long and thin, ZIP codes here are shared with Hacienda Heights, La Puente, Rowland Heights and Walnut. Give us the street and the ZIP together and we will place the stop on the right part of the run; a building off Valley Boulevard and one off Gale Avenue can be twenty minutes apart at four in the afternoon.

The city was set up for industry from the start, which shows in its streets: wide truck routes, rail spurs, big truck courts and very few homes to work around. Large distribution centres here change tenants often, and every change means new power for racking, conveyors and charging rooms. Food processing and cold storage add refrigeration and controls work. Between them they produce a steady, mixed stream of empties: some one-way reels from building wire, some heavier reels from feeders, and plywood spools from data and control cable.

Where City of Industry's empty reels come from

Distribution-centre fit-outs

New tenants wire racking, conveyors and chargers for forklifts; empties are 30 to 48 inch nailed reels, often a dozen at once.

Electrical and data contractors

Shops based along the 60 bring reels back from jobs across the valley and stack them in their own yards.

Middle-mile fibre crews

Fibre builds along the corridor leave plywood and nailed reels of 36 to 60 inches at staging yards.

How the San Gabriel Valley and the 60 run reaches City of Industry

The San Gabriel Valley run leaves the Gateway Cities on the 60 and works east, so City of Industry is the middle of the run rather than its end. That makes it the easiest place in the valley for a ride-along: a stack of eight reels can be added to the morning's stops without changing the route. The 57-60 interchange is slow in the afternoon, so docks east of Azusa Avenue get morning windows when we can.

Other stops on the San Gabriel Valley and the 60 lane: Northeast Los Angeles, Pomona. Reels from City of Industry can share a deck with any of them.