One nice aspect of modeling The Los Angeles Junction is that there are a few retired employees on the forums who are very generous with their time from the standpoint of explaining how they did things. Additionally, there are a handful of highly energetic young videographers who do a great job of documenting the routine of day-to-day operations. I call them the “professors”. Having these resources gives you the luxury of being pretty accurate from the standpoint of operating a layout prototypically. If you listen to what they say and carefully watch the videos, you can really stretch a layout by applying this information.
The photo above shows the Horn Lead crossing Gifford Avenue in LA’s Central Manufacturing District. Unlike Miami, the majority of the LAJ’s street crossings do not have flashing signals. How the heck can you get from point A to B without T-boning three or four cars a week? I posed the question on the SoCal Railfan forum and got the following answer from an LAJ conductor:
“Normally you would just slow down at each crossing, almost to a stop. Most of us would throw flares out at crossing as we approached.
Only a few cars got hit there during my 20 years; you would think there would have been more. “
An active employee from the area added, “That’s a STOP and Protect (until occupied) crossing.”
Here’s an example , a re-post from a few days ago, showing what these guys are explaining.
So, if your layout is only ten feet long, slowing almost to a stop at crossings and using flares is a way to stretch things from a time standpoint.