The yard job pulls a cut of cars out of the Fruitland Team Track, lays on the horn, and prays it doesn’t spear any motorists as it crosses Leonis Blvd. (LA RailProductions video)
As long as I’ve been studying it, I still continue to be amazed at the modeling potential of the Fruitland Avenue Team Track (now operated by Arrow Reload) adjacent to Malabar Yard on the northern remnants of BNSF’s Harbor Sub. Every research foray seems to lead to a new discovery.
The geometry of the facility lends itself well to modeling. Logistics yards are always good modeling subjects. Modern ones, however, have the drawback of being on the antiseptic side visually. The Fruitland facility is a step back in time and is surrounded by vintage structures. The breadth of car variety spotted at the team track is astounding; you have: coil cars, gondolas, hoppers, boxcars, “regular” flats, low bulkhead flats, and high bulkhead flats.
There is an unusual amount of present-day, high-quality video documentation (Primarily by LA Rail Productions and Pasadena Sub). Enter “BNSF Malabar Job” in the YouTube search panel and you’ll see over a dozen videos that feature the several block transfer hop from Malabar Yard to the team track. It gets better, this short run features a one-block section of street running. One video even shows them using an old BN shoving caboose.
Street running and a caboose/shoving platform. It doesn’t get much better than that!
Click HERE for the video. It’s the first segment.
From a modeling standpoint the entire operation is a gift from the gods: compact facility, vintage structures, car variety, street running, and a caboose on some transfer runs. Whether you model this exact facility or not, the concept in general deserves a hard look.
Here’s a labeled aerial for reference. Click on the image for an expanded view. The one thing that isn’t obvious, and only apparent when you’re actually there, is how relatively small the area in question is. It only takes a few minutes to walk from the Malabar yard throat to the entrance alleyway to the team track on Leonis Blvd.