**** LOS ANGELES JUNCTION RY PLAN 3RDPLANIT VERSION ****

[lajmdlr]

See the thumbnail of my plan below. It was done in 3rdplanit by Rob Chant. He made an offer to do modelers plans for free in Rail Line Forums. It's a whole lot better than my chicken scratches. LOL

The LAJ is an industrial switching only RR in a 2mi. by 5mi. area about 3 mi. SE of downtown LA. In that area there are 64 mi. of track. It has 22 Switching Leads & 3 yards in the current cities of Vernon, Maywood & Commerce CA. It became wholly owned by Santa Fe in '72 but before that Santa Fe had 51% controlling interest. Back in the day LAJ interchanged w/ PE, ATSF, SP & UP. Now it's just BNSF & UP. It started in 1922 w/ 4 ALCO 0-6-0s then in the '40s got 5 ALCO S-2s & 2 S-4s. In '74 new AQMD regulations & lack of parts, led LAJ to use Santa Fe CF7s.  in 1985 after Santa Fe stopped using they they ended up w/ 2563, 2568, 2571 & 2619 for their permanent use. In '94 they got 2 Santa Fe MK1200Gs. Currently the CF7s & some MK1200Gs are gone & LAJ is using whatever 4 axle road units has available. The latest from my conductor/engineer friend there is they are now all RCL.. There still is one engineer position now though.  Back in the day they ran 24/7 365 days a year but now it's only 2 shifts M-F. On the Vernon side these days the most active industry is General Mills & all the other leads look "abandoned".

The best info on the LAJ is an article by Charlie Slater ex LAJ/ATSF/BNSF conductor & modeler in the 3rd quarter 2003 issue of the Warbonnet. It's available thru the Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society  http://www.atsfrr.net/ . Charlie is now retired. Charlie has provided me alot of good LAJ info including all 22 1971 lead Switching Maps.

 My version will be 7 Leads, B Yard plus the Santa Fe Malabar Yard (for staging) & their Vernon Team that are all in Vernon. My modeling era will be early '40s thru '80s. Have yet to do any of the ALCOs. Have some Atlas & Bachmann that can be used. Had collected a bunch of HO Champ & Microscale ATSF zebra strip decals. But after a closer look, their size is closer to N scale so will be using Microscale 60-1161. Currently only have LAJ 2571 plus a few other ATSF CF7s. Between 9/74 &1986 LAJ used many ATSF CF7s out f their LA pool. In 1986 LAJ "bought" Santa Fe 2563, 2568, 2571 & 2619. So have enough locos to get started. Also have plenty of cars from '40s-'80s. Planning on doing ops sessions in 10 year periods. Will let friends bring their own rolling stock for "run what you brung" sessions. The layout is in a E shape w/ a "tail" on bottom & very compressed in a 10' X 14" room. The leads being modeled were chosen for the variety of industry & car types.

All questions & comments about the above are very welcome. So please don't hesitate to respond.

Andy Jackson
Bellflower CA

[DKS]

Welcome! Here's a relevant bit of reading for you.

Sorry about having to use the link. Haven't figured out how to post images here yet.

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=23890.0

[JoeD]

I couldn't get your link to work...can you re post it?   Also, have you seen the March 1996 Model Railroader Mag article by Peter Youngblood?  Good plan and lots of interesting info on the area.  Let me know if you need a copy.

Cheers

Joe

Here's a link to my LAJ plan, my stacked leads idea, & an aerial map of the LAJ in Vernon CA: tinyurl.com/qdrhaut

Sorry about having to use the link. Haven't figured out how to post images here yet. The images are in Google's Picasa so if you have problems seeing it PM me w/ your email addy & will send them them to you. But Picasa is free & alot of things can be done there w/ images including storage.

The LAJ is an industrial switching only RR in a 2mi. by 5mi. area about 3 mi. SE of downtown LA. In that area there are 64 mi. of track. It has 22 Switching Leads & 3 yards in the current cities of Vernon, Maywood & Commerce CA. It became wholly owned by Santa Fe in '72 but before that Santa Fe had 51% controlling interest. Back in the day LAJ interchanged w/ PE, ATSF, SP & UP. Now it's just BNSF & UP. It started in 1922 w/ 4 ALCO 0-6-0s then in the '40s got 5 ALCO S-2s & 2 S-4s. In '74 new AQMD regulations & lack of parts, led LAJ to use Santa Fe CF7s.  in 1985 after Santa Fe stopped using they they ended up w/ 2563, 2568, 2571 & 2619 for their permanent use. In '94 they got 2 Santa Fe MK1200Gs. Currently the CF7s & some MK1200Gs are gone & LAJ is using whatever 4 axle road units has available. Back in the day they ran 24/7 365 days a year but now it's only 2 shifts M-F. On the Vernon side these days the most active industry is General Mills & all the other leads look "abandoned".

The best info on the LAJ is an article by Charlie Slater ex LAJ/ATSF/BNSF conductor & modeler in the 3rd quarter 2003 issue of the Warbonnet. It's available thru the Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society  http://www.atsfrr.net/ . Charlie is now retired. Charlie has provided me alot of good LAJ info including all 22 1971 lead Switching Maps.

 My version will be 7 Leads, B Yard plus the Santa Fe Malabar Yard (for staging) & their Vernon Team that are all in Vernon. My modeling era will be early '40s thru '80s. Have yet to do any of the ALCOs. Have some Atlas & Bachmanns that can be used. Have collected a bunch of HO Champ & Microscale ATSF zebra strip decals. But a closer look shows their size is closer to N scale so will be using those. Currently only have LAJ 2571 plus a few other ATSF CF7s. So have enough locos to get started. Also have plenty of cars from '40s-'80s. Planning on doing ops sessions in 10 year periods. Will let friends bring their own rolling stock for "run what you brung" sessions. The layout is in a E shape w/ a "tail" on bottom & very compressed in a 10' X 14" room. The leads being modeled were chosen for the variety of industry & car types. The plan is hand drawn as haven't learned how to use Cadrail yet.

All questions & comments about the above are very welcome. So please don't hesitate to respond.

Andy Jackson
Bellflower CA

[lajmdlr]

I couldn't get your link to work...can you re post it?   Also, have you seen the March 1996 Model Railroader Mag article by Peter Youngblood?  Good plan and lots of interesting info on the area.  Let me know if you need a copy.

Cheers
Joe

Joe
You may need to have Google to see it right. Haven't figured out how to post images direct to here yet even w/ David's help. Will try to get them in Dropbox & post a link from there.
Have that MR issue but the info in it isn't near as good as Charlie Slater's in the Warbonnet 3rd quarter 2003 issue.

[lajmdlr]

Hi All
Here's a link to my LAJ plan in Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rt1dss4b0qwbi ... 9-2-13.jpg



If you click the "+" it'll be big enough to see the 10 X 10 grid lines. Learned to use engineering grid working w/ the Santa Fe civil engineers on their Star Lake RR project in NW NM '76-'82. So no architect ruler for this guy.

Here's a Dropbox link to an aerial map of the LAJ in Vernon CA. The Leads to be modeled have * next to them. It also shows ATSF & UP tracks but not the PE/SP tracks just off the south edge of the map:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v7j7tbdvi8ftr ... ON-001.jpg

Ken Johnson of Trak Works (http://www.pbase.com/dh30973/image/149692350) provided me w/ all the RRs on it w/ the wording, etc. being mine.

[JoeD]

Ok...I was looking at your layout and it looks pretty complex.  I've always liked Mr Youngbloods designs and his seemed to make a lot of sense and kept operations to a manageable level.  I was considering building it in Z at one time, but not in the mood

To post a picture, at least on this forum, you have to have it posted elsewhere on line.  To the upper left you see a You Tube button...next to it is the hyper link for photo's.  Click on that once you have your curser clear of your text and you will see    Image in two brackects...the second one will have a back slash.  Find the image you want to post on line, click the image link (jpeg)...put your curser between the two brackets and left click your mouse and when the dialog box comes up, click past.  Move away from the brackets, click again and continue typing.  You can see if it worked by hitting the prevew button to the lower right...  It took me awhile.  I'm on a number of forums and none of them have the same method of posting pics or links.  Practice.  I tride to link your drop box images and it will not allow me to...I'm guessing I would have to download the JPEG to my computer and save it on an online photo file and then send the pic that way.  Most forums allow me to post from my computer...but Railwire, being what it is, provides the most difficult way to post anything       Now that we have some Alco options, I may revisit this on my current layout design and move from PFE to LAJ for more variety.
 

[lajmdlr]

Shipsure

Is this the right way to do it?



Didn't work on my post above.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

That would be the right way, but it dropbox doesn't let you embed images (because even though the url ends in .jpg, it actually responds with a page... shitty).

Is this going to be in N or HO? If N, you know about Randgusts's awesome CF7s, right?

[lajmdlr]

That would be the right way, but it dropbox doesn't let you embed images (because even though the url ends in .jpg, it actually responds with a page... shitty).

Is this going to be in N or HO?

Not being a computer "hacker" don't have a clue how these things work. LOL
The layout is HO & will be using Athearn CF7s, using both Santa Fes before '86 & LAJ after. Also have a bunch of Atlas & Bachmann ALCO S-2s & -4s to paint & decal. Was going to use the HO Champ & Microscale white Santa Fe zebra stripes but after looking at so many LAJ ALCO pix finally realized their stripes were narrower by about 1/2. So will be using Microscale 60-1161 (N scale). Anybody need any white HO zebra stripes? Will also be doing the pre zebra stripe version to run w/ a Bachmann 2-6-0 to be converted to 0-6-0 like LAJ did!

[DKS]

Not being a computer "hacker" don't have a clue how these things work. LOL

What you need to do is open an account with an image host (DropBox is not an image host). Then you're good to go--just follow the instructions on the Railwire image posting FAQ page. Don't need to be a hacker when you use the right tools... 

[lajmdlr]

What you need to do is open an account with an image host (DropBox is not an image host). Then you're good to go--just follow the instructions on the Railwire image posting FAQ page. Don't need to be a hacker when you use the right tools... 

David
Also have my pix in Googles Picasa. Ia that a good one? Some people can't see their links But can usually post pix from Picasa on other forums. After a quick search here couldn't find the "Railwire image posting FAQ page".

Andy Jackson
Bellflower CA

PS: Does Railwire have a way to do my above signature "automatically"?

[DKS]

After a quick search here couldn't find the "Railwire image posting FAQ page".

Same as the link I posted before: https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=23890.0

As for your signature, you'll be able to set that after you have 25 (IIRC) posts.

[JoeD]

Yea, you gotta earn your stripes around here    Just got done stripping my Alco and will do decals later this week.  Got some great photo's of the engine service facility post the shed and will probably start with a small dio building that.  What strip decal set are you using again?

Joe

[lajmdlr]

Yea, you gotta earn your stripes around here    Just got done stripping my Alco and will do decals later this week.  Got some great photo's of the engine service facility post the shed and will probably start with a small dio building that.  What strip decal set are you using again?

Joe

Joe
Spent 7 years as a real conductor. Doesn't that count? Also before then had a few RR as clients. Worked on one Santa Fe project over a 14 year period. And been an HO MRer since '58, but I'm still learning. And is conductor below engineer here? Conductors run the trains in this country!
Have alot of LAJ ALCO pix around the house & have the Railroad Model Craftsman 5/65 on how to scratchbuild the house. BTW LAJ also had a turntable. Found it looking at historicaerials.com. Use 4433 Exchange Av 90058 to see it there and on Bing & Google. That's the LAJ office address.
For LAJ zebra stripes will be using Microscale 60-1161. Yes N scale but after looking at so many LAJ ALCO pix realized the J's stripes are about i1/2 the size of Santa Fe's. Santa Fe has about 15 stripes on the side sill & LAJ has around 30. So if anybody needs any HO size white Santa Fe zebra stripes have PLENTY to sell. LOL

[JoeD]

Your work experience doesn't matter.  You have to suffer a certain level of criticism before you are allowed to post a signature    The nice thing is that we do west coast railroading which is a curiousity to most of the Railwire members and keeps them confused.  We get away with a lot more than most.  As long as we avoid anything Blue (conrail) we are good to go.

I have the drawings for that shed as well and have figured out, via Google Earth where it goes on the pad that still exists.  You can just make out the foundation line for the angled section of the workspace.  I was wondering if the pit was inside or out..looks like inside.  Thanks for the tip on the turntable...I don't see where a roundhouse was...do you know if there was one?

Cheers

Joe