I was interested to see the Los Angeles Junction article and track plan by Lance Mindheim in the May issue of MR. On one hand, I can understand that Lance imposed some very stringent limits on the design -- he only wants to spend something like 20 minutes at a time operating it. Well, that's a given, but Lance often imposes arbitrary limits on things that I have a hard time figuring out -- elswhere, for instance, he says a layout should have no more than 12 switches.
However, the reprint of the map from a Trains article contains errors that also contribute to oversimplification. The lead running north-south in the upper left of the map is actually a UP track, worked by the UP with a different job. UP and LAJ tracks fun right next to each other in an alley, and cross each other at several points in the western area of the map. A layout that provided the opportunity to operate UP and LAJ together would provide twice the fun in a still-small area.
But BNSF also has leads from its own Harbor District only a block or so from the LAJ and UP trackage. A good morning of railfanning in the western part of Vernon can turn up a BNSF switch job working industries, a UP switch job working other industries, and an LAJ yard job working A Yard. But UP and BNSF manifests also pick up and drop off cars with the LAJ; you can find main line BNSF power laying over routinely on the LAJ. Why impose arbitrary limits like Lance so often does?
The article also omits mention of the single most useful source for railfans in this area, Charles Freericks's book Southern California Locals http://www.amazon.com/Southern-California-Local-Freight-Trains/dp/1490504133/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8