La Linda Awakens, Part 2

The “safety” meeting at Flora’s was fun, although the work train crew was disappointed when the south end crew departed after just a couple of beers. The next morning, the local departed, heading north back to Marathon with one load of perlite, four loads of fluorspar, and two empty boxcars. With the local out of

Bakersfield 1969 (Part 2)

Ethel Beeson, the 4′ 11′ local powerhouse, was in rare form even for her at lunch. She ripped the whole crew one way or another. Apparently she had to wait on a train last week, all of five minutes, while the crew serviced Fat Cow Animal Feed. It had pretty much calmed down until Rocky, the

Bakersfield 1969 (Part 1)

Today, we are going to introduce you to a new scenario on the RailsWest website, “Bakersfield 1969.” It is proto-free lanced but inspired by the actual Oil City Branch that was jointly operated by the Espee and the Santa Fe. The Oil City Branch was built by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1901 in order

Hard Red Winter Wheat Production in 1981, Part 2

When the loaded track is full, the loaded cars are shoved out onto the curve. When the loaded track is full, the loaded cars are shoved out onto the curve. Dragging an empty car from the empties track to the elevator, loading the car, and shoving the car to the loads track continues until all

Hard Red Winter Wheat Production in 1981

The West Texas wheat crop is a bumper crop this year. The Magdalena elevator has purchased a “new” switcher third hand to try to gain efficiencies and more timely switch the covered hoppers around during loading. The elevator can handle twelve cars to make up the unit grain train.  This is the situation at the

The LCN Diversifies

The start of a new day.  Time to get the daily local train to the interchange made up. Parts for Baldwin locomotives are getting harder and harder to find so the Limpia Canyon Northern invested in a second hand Alco RS3 (from an Oregon shortline, SP&S heritage).  Today we are going to give her a

West Texas in the early 1980s! (Part 2)

The train has returned to Magdalena and is about to cut off the industrial district cars. Three cars are shoved into the industrial district today, a load of beer in the ATSF car, an empty SP covered hopper for feed loading, and a BN RBL (insulated box car) for the food distributor. First spot is

Magdalena, Texas 1981

We’ll continue the run from Part 1 of “West Texas in the early 1980s!” in the near future, but first, let’s really introduce the “Magdalena, Texas 1981” scenario. Magdalena, Texas 1981 is a proto-free lance scenario based on a number of places in West Texas–Ballinger, Miles, San Angelo and other towns and cities cross the western

West Texas in the early 1980s! (Part 1)

Welcome to a new series on B. Smith’s Limpia Canyon Northern layout. The layout is large with lots of branches and small towns. The best part, it enables us to go time travelling whether it’s the small border village of La Linda in the 1960s, the Southwest Spur in the early 1970s, Milpitas, CA in

A Green Surprise!

By B. Smith It is Halloween and the daily freight has arrived back in La Linda.  I caught up with it pulling a load of wool from the wool house. Lots of changes happening on the La Linda Canyon Northern Railway. Business is good on the LCN while a small recession has made a lot