In the South - Printable Version

In the South - Printable Version

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Re: In the South - Russ Bellinis - 12-30-2010

Reinhard, I like it very much. I've worked in Vernon, but more often in City of Commerce often times in close proximity to the LAJ, and saw many LAJ trains in operation. I don't think I ever saw them mu anything. The other thing to keep in mind about buildings on the LAJ or even the PHL, is that a building may have a curve on the side facing the tracks, but they were always squared off on the other sides of the buildings. The side away from the tracks would most likely have been the front of the building where there would be offices or other details to add interest to the building's design. In addition there would also be a parking lot somewhere for employees and customers. What I'm saying is that you don't need to be stuck with a plain white box.

Re: In the South - faraway - 12-30-2010

Russ Bellinis Wrote:...a building may have a curve on the side facing the tracks, but they were always squared off on the other sides of the buildings...

Russ, you are right. There is no prototype in Vernon for a "banana building". The building became more prototypical with a straight wall but is was to massive and dominated to much. I learned that I may show the front of "large" building in the rear of the layout but must place smaller buildings in the foreground.
I did follow fast car's example on the left side and broke the building into three smaller units. That works fine and one building follows the curved track.
Another observation is the difference in the optical appearance of free space in Vernon. All top/bird view show a dense development. That changes drastically if you switch to street view. There is a lot of space not occupied with buildings. Some space are parking lots, some are fenced areas and some are the very typical areas of "nothing" to be found in the US so often. Another unique feature of Vernon are the sidewalks. That unusual for an industrial area and I missed them in the beginning. I have started to implement them as lots become new populated.
ps. It is funny to see how the sidewalks have been carefully planned and how thankful they are taken to populate them with all kind of utility poles etc. until they are totally blocked Wink

Re: In the South - Russ Bellinis - 12-30-2010

faraway Wrote:Russ, you are right. There is no prototype in Vernon for a "banana building". The building became more prototypical with a straight wall but is was to massive and dominated to much. I learned that I may show the front of "large" building in the rear of the layout but must place smaller buildings in the foreground.
I did follow fast car's example on the left side and broke the building into three smaller units. That works fine and one building follows the curved track.
Another observation is the difference in the optical appearance of free space in Vernon. All top/bird view show a dense development. That changes drastically if you switch to street view. There is a lot of space not occupied with buildings. Some space are parking lots, some are fenced areas and some are the very typical areas of "nothing" to be found in the US so often. Another unique feature of Vernon are the sidewalks. That unusual for an industrial area and I missed them in the beginning. I have started to implement them as lots become new populated.
ps. It is funny to see how the sidewalks have been carefully planned and how thankful they are taken to populate them with all kind of utility poles etc. until they are totally blocked

Vernon is almost a "private city." The Leonis family almost owns the city because the total resident population of the "city" is less than 100. There is a massive scandal here in So Cal that I think may have started by an investigative report done by the L.A. Times on Vernon and other small cities around it. Apparently, the mayor of Vernon (Mr. Leonis, last I heard) makes almost $1 million per year in salary! No body paid any attention because the city had such a small population, and the taxes on the businesses were well within reason for comparable commercial property, and such a low population did not require nearly as much in the way of services as larger cities with less commercial property. The city "crooks" running other neighboring cities with larger resident populations decided to use Vernon's salary structure as a pattern for their own salaries. The problem was that they had to offer more services to the local populace, and had a lower tax base to pay for it with. The result was that taxes were too high for mostly poor people and the services that their tax dollars should have paid for were lacking while mayors, city managers, police and fire chiefs were making upwards of $750,000.00 per year in salaries! After the Time exposed these neighboring city officials greed, the state investigated and found out that Vernon had similar salary structures without the complaints made by the other cities. It seems now that city officials in neighboring cities are facing criminal charges, but ther was nothing illegle about Vernon's civic leaders actions. However since the city has less than 100 people, the state is moving to unincorporate Vernon so that it will just be part of Los Angeles County.

I mention this because it explains why there is so much "clutter" by utility poles, etc. on Vernon's sidewalks. It is an old city and the electrical loads have been upgraded considerably since 1900. The clique running the city (Leonis family) has kept industry happy by upgrading power and utility needs the least expensive way possible. If the sidewalks get blocked or partially blocked by utility poles, there are only 100 people or so to complain anyway, so who cares! If the fire chief has a problem with access to anything, he knows that expensive repairs mean his salary is compromised, so they "work around" it.

My son-in-law used to work in the planning dept for the City of Long Beach, and he became aware of the corruption of many other cities in So Cal., but apparently no one noticed who was in a position to do anything about the problems until the Times brought it to the attention of authorities outside of some of the cities in question. There are some other cities in So Cal who might be in a similar situation, but so far are sliding "under the radar."

Re: In the South - Harry - 12-30-2010

Russ, Thanks for the reports.

Re: In the South - faraway - 12-30-2010

Russ, that is exceptional interesting.
I did first search and read the official web side of Vernon http://www.cityofvernon.org/. That makes clear the city has a lot of money (class 1 fire department etc.). They run everything needed to support the industry. There are no remarks about real Vernon population. They claim to support 50.000 people. That must be the people working in Vernon.
Triggered by your remarks I discovered http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2010/12/05/scandal-plagued-city-of-vernon-may-lose-cityhood/. It becomes even hotter at the end of the text. I did also lookup the peoples background running the city council. There is no match to that kind of salary. "all" people in Vernon life is city owned apartments they get at a low price. That is really a "private town" in the sense of a large plant made to make money with the business.

It will be interesting if they will become part of LA. Do you expect a long legal battle? Vernon should have the funds to fight for it's very own point of view for a long time.

That one http://abcnews.go.com/WN/california-payroll-corruption-scandal-spreads-city-vernon/story?id=11597835is also a great report. But is states the City of Vernon did layoff city employees due to budget problems. That does not match the other information.

Re: In the South - Harry - 12-30-2010

Reini,
you have a beautiful diesel locomotive CF7 Thumbsup

and have no scale for Z (I only GP9 and GP35 Santa Fe) :cry:

Re: In the South - faraway - 12-30-2010

Harry Wrote:Reini,
you have a beautiful diesel locomotive CF7
and have no scale for Z (I only GP9 and GP35 Santa Fe) :cry:

Harry, that is not to bad. LAJ is running one GP30u (2447) and two GP35u (2536 and 2648) in SantaFe color scheme with BNSF patches since about one year. The CF7 are out of service since some month and there is no ready to run model for the MK1200 in any scale.
You may put the correct road number and BNSF patches on the SantaFe GP35. A problem are the front lights. They are in the nose. I assume the Z-model has the front lights in the cab. I did the conversion on one GP30. However I have no clue how that can be done on a Z model.
Shots of both GP35u:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/pictures%5C3685%5CBNSF%202536.jpg
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/pictures%5C35053%5Cbnsf2648_commerce_091909_07.jpg

Re: In the South - jeznew - 12-30-2010

The CF7s look good Reinhard - may I ask where you ordered them from - thanks,

Jez

Re: In the South - Harry - 12-30-2010

Reini, this is my GP 35 Santa Fe, even with the headlight problem, but never mind, the main thing is gameplay. Wink

Re: In the South - faraway - 12-31-2010

jeznew Wrote:The CF7s look good Reinhard - may I ask where you ordered them from - thanks,

Jez

I ordered them at the German dealer rd-Hobby ( http://www.rd-hobby.de/shopping/catalog.php?lang=en&id=677 ) but they are on stock at MB-Klein in the US ( http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/CF7-Locomotives-HO-Scale-s/1560.htm ) right now.

ps. Trainworld ( http://www.trainworldonline.com/catalog/category/index.php?section_id=828 ) shows them available but has none on stock and did not update the online catalog since I asked some weeks ago.

Re: In the South - fast car - 12-31-2010

faraway Wrote:I have second thoughts watching the structure in it's place. Should I replace the inner curved wall of the building with a straight wall?
Would that a) look better b) be more prototypical? I did see in Vernon lots of buildings with one curved side following a given track but none of the buildings has the curve on the other side too. May be I overdid it with both walls curved?

Some time later....
I gave it a try. Straight wall is ok but the building is very dominating now. Would be fine in the background but in the foreground? May be I have to sit another day behind this new wall hiding my beloved layout...

Some more time later....
This is leading to nowhere. Both versions of the building are out of proportion for the layout and the place of the layout. The old building is back and I will scan Vernon again and again for a suitable/shrinkable prototype.

Reinhard,

I like your curved structure. I think what your are feeling is the fact that it is bumped right up to the edge of your layout. I ran into this with my structures and was the main reason for adding a road to the front. If you could add a 4" section along the edge to give the impression of a road along the front side might reduce the feeling of massiveness. Also, once you get windows, doors and loading dock doors cut in to the building should help to reduce its size. All your seeing right now is a big block of "white plastic". After looking at your curved building and comparing it to Kurts, it pretty much occupies the same amount of space. I always admire your work.

Larry

Re: In the South - Russ Bellinis - 12-31-2010

One reason that I'm modeling the LAJ in the 1990's is that they pretty much parked the Cf7's in the late 1990's except for emergency use. I'm not sure if the LAJ got the LPG units because the Santa Fe didn't like them or if it was because the LAJ had the potential to make more smog than the Santa Fe would at Hobart. I suspect it was the former, because I think the switchers at Hobart do a lot more running than the CF7's at the LAJ. It could have also been that the CF7's were getting "long in the tooth" and may have become a maintenance headache. I remember that they made a big deal about the Santa Fe and the UP getting the LPG units to work Hobart Yard and Washington St. Yard, but I saw the Santa Fe units operating exclusively on the LAJ very soon after the S.F. got them.

Re: In the South - faraway - 01-01-2011

Russ Bellinis Wrote:One reason that I'm modeling the LAJ in the 1990's is that they pretty much parked the Cf7's in the late 1990's except for emergency use. I'm not sure if the LAJ got the LPG units because the Santa Fe didn't like them or if it was because the LAJ had the potential to make more smog than the Santa Fe would at Hobart. I suspect it was the former, because I think the switchers at Hobart do a lot more running than the CF7's at the LAJ. It could have also been that the CF7's were getting "long in the tooth" and may have become a maintenance headache. I remember that they made a big deal about the Santa Fe and the UP getting the LPG units to work Hobart Yard and Washington St. Yard, but I saw the Santa Fe units operating exclusively on the LAJ very soon after the S.F. got them.

That did also justify the way how I ran the CF7 until I got the LAJ labeled two days ago. SF pushed LAJ to use CF7 long time before they got their dedicated LAJ to use constantly changing SF labeled CF7. LAJ with SF labeled CF7 is a perfect setup for about 1990 (and it saves the problem to have ditch lights:-)
I think LAJ got the LPG units not voluntary. There are to many critical comments in the West Coast forum. If they could, they would still run their beloved Alco switchers... But I do not know how many staff is still on active duty that really worked with the Alco switchers and how much is a myth only.

Re: In the South - Russ Bellinis - 01-01-2011

I think part of the problem for the LAJ is that they are a wholly owned subsidiary of the Santa Fe now owned by BNSF. They are really a poor "step child" with some of worst track anywhere in North America. A friend of mine who is a conductor or engineer depending on where the LAJ needs him told me a few years ago that they had derailments almost every day somewhere on the line that resulted in delays and extra work for crews on a daily basis with attendant overtime pay. Management response to the problem has been to tell train crews to "be more careful!"

I think there are two reasons why the old timers loved the Alcos so much. I think the Alcos were a lot like the Ge "u-boats" in that they have a lot of low end "punch" for kicking cars. The local Santa Fe switching crews on many of the local branches were really sad to see the Santa Fe get rid of the U23B units because they loved the combination of a U23B with a chopped nose Gp7 or 9. The u-boat had the low end punch to get a train moving, and the EMD had better high end power to keep the train moving once it started. On the LAJ, they don't need the high end because the track is so bad that the speed limit system wide is 10 mph. That brings up the second reason why they liked the Alcos. I think the short wheelbase yard switcher type unit is more forgiving of rough track than the longer detuned road switchers. I think an EMD sw might work as well as the Alcos, but I think the Alco S-4s were the last Sw type locomotives on the Santa Fe other than the "Beep" that was used at the Argentine yard for hostling dead engines around the shop. By the way the "Beep" got that name because they started with a Baldwin switcher, and put an EMD prime mover in it with a Gp7 or 9 long hood!

Re: In the South - faraway - 01-06-2011

Fast car's inspiration did continue to materialize on the left wing. It toke some time but I do feel comfortable behind the front row of buildings now.

Today is the first day with temperatures above the freezing point. That will continue with heavy rain but Saturday or Sunday might be a chance to do spray can painting on the balcony. It white roofs are strange but have a very special beauty; to be gone soon.

[Image: Img_0512.jpg?t=1294332426]