uhhh ohhh, Ive found the Alameda Corridor....

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Trucklover

Trucklover

BNSF SD70MAC's
I just stumbled upon the Alameda Corridor near the ports of LA and Long Beach CA. I knew it existed and have always had an interest in modeling it, but it had slipped my mind until now when I stumbled across it looking on Bing Maps in the Vernon Area. For those of you that dont know, the Alameda Corridor is a 20 mile stretch of tracks that allows BNSF to run at high speed from the Port of LA and Long Beach to LA's Intermodal Facilities.

Im at a loss here, I have been pouring over the Vernon area and looking at the end of the Alameda Corridor and the LA Intermodal Facility, just drooling over the size of the yard and the modeling opportunities around the yard and corridor! I would really hate to abandon the La Mirada project I just started, but this, this Corridor and this Intermodal Facility is the kinda stuff I have been wanting to model, and it all came back to me when I stumbled upon the area looking for the UPS Terminal in Vernon, CA (which I still havnt found :rolleyes:)

To get a look at the yard, which is just absolutely massive, go to Bing Maps and type in: E 26th St, Los Angeles, CA 90040. There are 2 parts to this yard it looks like, I think BNSF has one part and Union Pacific has the other part because they are separated, one is right above the other. The BNSF Yard runs parallel to E26th street. Once you have typed it into Bing Maps, it will take you to the far right end of the BNSF Yard. Scroll to the left to see the yard and scroll up to see the UP yard.

Now to see the start of the Alameda Corridor, type in E 25th St, Los Angeles, CA 90058 into Bing Maps. When it loads, scroll left and follow E 25th Street, the start of the Corridor is about 3 full drags to the left, you will see a small yard, the curved start to the corridor, and South Alameda Street that runs above the Corridor. That corridor goes on forever, but im only interested in modeling a small section of it and a couple structures around it as well as the streets. If you follow the tracks that come out of the Corridor and follow them back to the right, you will come to a large river/drainage ditch with several railroad bridges going a few different directions over it. The top pair of tracks that continues straight over the river is the access tot he Union Pacific Intermodal Yard, and the pair of tracks that curves down into the Truss bridge and then across another bridge over the river is the tracks to the BNSF Yard.

There is just so much to look and SO MANY modeling opportunities its overwhelming almost.... Well at least for me being a Intermodal Fan. Im not sure what is going to happen with my La Mirada project, but im going to look into this area some more and see what else there is. Modeling something like this could easily take up a very large layout by itself, so if I did model parts of this, it would have to be scaled down tremendously and even then selecting parts to model would be difficult
 
Josh,

I think an interesting part of that to model would be from the port of Long Beach and across the vertical lift bridge to where it runs into the Alameda Trench. You can see almost any type of locomotive and roadname, with obviously UP and BNSF dominating, but also some foreign power. I always thought the SD40 was sharp looking in the Pacific Harbor Line scheme. Lots of bridges, switching, yards, mainline running, scenic options.
 
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Josh, the corridor is a really interesting stretch of track. Of course, I would stay with the La Mirada if I were you as modeling such a large space or even willing to scale it down would render as unfeasible.
 


Seems like you could make few great Free-mo modules of the corridor - they'd probably be a big hit at shows in Southern CA. And you wouldn't need to abandon your La Mirada project.
 
I'd say stick with La Mirada. You've already gotten quite a ways into it, and trying to model all that Alameda stuff could be overwhelming.
 
bigB said:
Josh,

I think an interesting part of that to model would be from the port of Long Beach and across the vertical lift bridge to where it runs into the Alameda Trench. You can see almost any type of locomotive and roadname, with obviously UP and BNSF dominating, but also some foreign power. I always thought the SD40 was sharp looking in the Pacific Harbor Line scheme. Lots of bridges, switching, yards, mainline running, scenic options.
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I never made it all the way down to the ports on Bing, I was too focused on the top of the Corridor and the Intermodal yards LOL. What you described is much like what the top of the Corridor is as well, some bridges, lots of switchding, a few freight yards as well as the 2 massive Intermodal Yards... Ill have to scroll down to the ports to check it out :D


brickbuilder711 said:
Josh, the corridor is a really interesting stretch of track. Of course, I would stay with the La Mirada if I were you as modeling such a large space or even willing to scale it down would render as unfeasible.
Click to expand...

Interesting is an understatement, well at least for me it is LOL. There is so much around the corridor its amazing. Lots industrial and switching and countless modeling opportunities! Much like you said, I will be sticking to La Mirada as its a much more manageable size and well, I already started so might as well keep going lol
 
I used to work for one of the engineering companies behind that project. It was always at the forefront of any presentation we did to market our services. The progress photos were always a sight to see!
 
Chris Roy said:
Seems like you could make few great Free-mo modules of the corridor - they'd probably be a big hit at shows in Southern CA. And you wouldn't need to abandon your La Mirada project.
Click to expand...

That is a neat idea! And it is something I may consider doing, thanks for the idea :D


CSX_road_slug said:
I'd say stick with La Mirada. You've already gotten quite a ways into it, and trying to model all that Alameda stuff could be overwhelming.
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This is very true about it being too much its overwhelming LOL. Thats why im going to stay away from it for now. Well mostly away from it anyways. You guys probably know me, whenever I come across something that I might want to model in the future, ill spend some time and come up with a trackplan, so ive started one and have made some progress on it. The main focus of the layout would be the Intermodal Yard but also modeling the end of the corridor and one of the industries at the end of the corridor that I found to be interesting and looked like it would be neat to model seeing how it is both truck and rail served. Covered Hoppers, Boxcars, and Tank Cars are the rolling stock I have seen, and the company also has a number of truck docks serving Dry Vans as well as a loading pumps for Tanker Trucks. I also see several Bulk Tanker Trucks (the ones that carry the try powders/materials) parked in the yard along with quite a few other Tanker Trucks that carry liquids. Several Modules, most 72"x24" would make up the layout

Mainline Radius of 36" on outer track, 34" on middle track, 32" on inner track of the corridor, and 30" everywhere else. I will post a quick picture of what I have started so far in my next reply :D
 


So as mentioned above, the layout would consist of several modules, most 72"x24" would make up the layout. Mainline Radius of 36" on outer track, 34" on middle track, 32" on inner track of the corridor, and 30" everywhere else.

The dashed tracks on the left side of the layout running down South Alameda Street would be built 4" under the street, giving enough clearance for Double Stack Trains. The solid white areas that are over the tracks are openings of the corridor as the entire corridor is not completely enclosed and does get some natural light from above. That blue track is an industrial track and along its way down to the large structure it branches off a couple times to serve other spurs which I did not include. The blue track is at the Alameda Street level and runs over the far right track of the Corridor. The purple tracks you see are the continuation of the corridor, but at this point they start uphill slightly to come back to street level. I havnt figured out how long it will take for them to be back at street level, but it would be nice to have them on a 2% grade going up.

East 25th Street crosses the Corridor and would have to be high enough again for double stacks to clear. This street is at street level with Alameda Street and the blue track that crosses it is also still at street level. I also drew in the lanes and such on the road. The white dotted lines are lanes, while the solid yellow lines are dividers and the solid white the turn lanes. The red shapes up at the top of Alameda Street are divider islands that direct the traffic through the area so to not interfere with the corridor.

Attached is the plan as I have it right now
 
And here are some aerial shots from Bing Maps of the small section of the Corridor I have just drawn

The first photo shows East 25th Street at the top with South Alameda Street on the left with the red traffic islands that are in the plan. This is the end of the corridor and where it comes back up to street level.

The second picture is another view of the end of the corridor near E25th Street. The blue track on the plan is the track that comes from the right center of the picture and travels ontop of the corridor.

The third picture is an aerial showing the large building I described earlier that receives both truck and rail traffic. It occupies a pretty large space and has a variety of equipment (Covered Hoppers, Tank Cars, Boxcars, Dry Van Trailers, Bulk Tanker Trucks, Liquid Tanker Trucks) that serve the structure.

The fourth is another shot showing that large building, just a different view
 
jbaakko said:
Josh, Vernon UPS? Try here:
http://tinyurl.com/UPS-vernon
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WHOA! Man I knew it was big that is BIG lol. That building would be awesome to model but would take up some serious realestate to scale it down in HO scale :eek:

Do you know what used to be next to the UPS hub? It looks like it saw alot of rail but looks as if the entire site has been leveled and only the foundations of whatever used to be there remain. It looks like it was a very large facility of some sort...
 
I wasnt remebering where I saw the alameda corridor, but now i remember, it was in the History channel mini-series "extreme trains" episode 2 "freight train", i suggest you check it on youtube or DL it somewhere on the internet. Sometimes explanation in this series are headed to non-trains-fans, but the series aint bad
 
Sorry, Josh, I never saved any of them. I might have if I hadn't been blindsided the day the company shut our branch down leaving me with half an hour to grab all my stuff before hitting the bricks. Doh!
 
Trucklover said:
Do you know what used to be next to the UPS hub? It looks like it saw alot of rail but looks as if the entire site has been leveled and only the foundations of whatever used to be there remain. It looks like it was a very large facility of some sort...
Click to expand...

A facility with a lot of tanks - you can tell by all the round foundations. Check it our in Google Earth instead of Maps, so you can use the History feature to look at past aerial views. You'll see that, whatever it was, it was all torn down between May and Dec. 2003.
 


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