LOS ANGELES JUNCTION RY PLAN & MAPS

[lajmdlr]

Finally able to load these images to this site (no hacker here lol). The LAJ plan was done by Rob Chant thru a free offer on the Railroad Line Forums site. He used my hand drawing which had a ton of "impossible" trackwork. The second image was done by Ken Johnson Trainworks. It shows mostly the Vernon side which is what my layout will be based on. 3rd image was given to me by John Signor before he he published his Santa Fe Los Angeles Division book.

The LAJ is located on the Los Angeles River flood plain so there's no topography, i.e hills & mountains It is located about 3 mi. SE of downtown Los Angeles CA. This RR takes up about an area about 2 mi. by 5 mi. When it began it was all in LA but now it's all in the cities of Commerce, Maywood & Vernon. There's about 65 miles of track compressed into that area. LAJ has 3 yards (A, B & C) w/ 22 switch leads coming out of them. The only place that it's possible to go roundy round is in Commerce on east side of the river. Maywood & Vernon are on the west side. Commerce has 6 switch leads, Maywood has one & Vernon  15.

As can be seen will only be modeling 7 leads (4 stacked) & one yard. Also have a stub ended version of the Santa Fe Malabar Yard (for staging) & their Vernon Team which handles alot of shapes as Santa Fe calls metal products.. Vernon Team is literally right next door to the LAJ Fruitland Team as shown in the plan. Both take up an area roughly 400' x 1000'. To see them in Bing &/or Google aerials use 2695 Fruitland Av 90058.

The LAJ started in 1922 using ALCO 4 0-6-0s. Santa Fe always had a controlling interest so if they needed extra power, Santa Fe loaned them some.  In 1941 the got their first diesels ALCO S-2s. By 1949 they had 5 S-2s & 2 S-4s. They lasted til 9/74 & started using Santa Fe CF7s out of the LA pool. BY then LAJ was wholly owned by Santa Fe. LAJ finally got 2563, 2568, 2571 & 2619 after Santa Fe stopped using them. in 1992 they used 2 Santa Fe MK1200Gs. They are gone now being replaced by w/ whatever BNSF (current owner) gives them. Currently they are using RCLs being run by conductors only w/ there's only one working engineer position.

Have the LAJ switch Maps & the Industry List that were done in the early '70s when Santa Fe took over  The maps were given to me by Charlie Slater who was a conductor there 1970-1984. He then went to Santa Fe & retired from. BNSF. He's also an excellent HO modeler! Also have collected many pix of the LAJ locomotives. Email me at lajrmdlr@gmail DOT com if you want to see anything.

[lajmdlr]

Don't think the 2nd & 3rd images were attached to 1st post so here they are hopefully.
Also have a Yahoo Group: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/LAJRy/conversations/messages
And there's also a LAJ forum on trainboard.com

[avel]

Cool!  I like checking out that area using Google Earth, I had a delivery there a week back, wish I had time to explore and take photos.  I like the plan too.

[lajmdlr]

Cool!  I like checking out that area using Google Earth, I had a delivery there a week back, wish I had time to explore and take photos.  I like the plan too.

Where was your delivery?

[tom mann]

This is great stuff.  I never got too far with my layout.  This is the only photo I have (of the General Mills plant):

[lajmdlr]

Tom
 Very good model of General Mills on the LAJ in Vernon CA. Attached 2 pix - one is is the real one & the other is a model by Reinhard Peters' of Germany. Will bash the Walthers ADM Grain elevator into my version.

[Noah Lane]

This layout looks like it'll be really cool.

We just gotta have a mod fix the all cap locks title 

[lajmdlr]

Nothing "wrong" using all caps in a title.

[lajmdlr]

Tom
Here's an image sort of like your model one. Note the yellow safety harness poles & the different sized silos.

[johnb]

Very cool prototype, if I were to model an L.A. shotline, it would be the other, only because I don't like CF7's....

[lajmdlr]

Very cool prototype, if I were to model an L.A. shotline, it would be the other, only because I don't like CF7's....

If you're talking PHL as the other switching RR they added alot of 6 axle switchers in the last 15+ years. Saw a 6 axle SD? come thru Barstow in "99. It was in white on black zebra stripes because of their GM Andy Fox.

[johnb]

If you're talking PHL as the other switching RR they added alot of 6 axle switchers in the last 15+ years. Saw a 6 axle SD? come thru Barstow in "99. It was in white on black zebra stripes because of their GM Andy Fox.

there were four, SD18's

[lajmdlr]

Those are old pix. The little blue SWs are gone now, some SD18s are zebra stripe Plus converted to GenSets & the new ones also! Here's a 2013 PHL roster by Craig Walker: http://www.thedieselshop.us/PHL.HTML

[johnb]

[OldEastRR]

Did you reference the March '96 Model Railroader article on  the LAJ? Don't know what era you're running but this can cover the '90s.