I am planning my first layout to have the track plan of model railroad mag’s virginian layout, and I hope to keep it that way. My problem is that when I see the Virginian, it’s the virginian. It just doesn’t look Chessie. I will be flexable, but I have no more room than the virginian layout. I’ve been looking through photos and videos and I want something like the late 80’s (after the merge) in Garrett county, Maryland. Anyone with experience with Chessie please feel free to comment. Sadly I was not born in the chessie era so I have no expirince. Thanks in advance for anyone who helps.
Well, if you’ve seen videos, then I suppose you watched REM’s video for “Driver 8”, which features quite a bit of Chessie System railroading (seriously) filmed in Clifton Forge, VA, which is about 100 miles or so south of Garrett County, Maryland, and looks not unlike (judging from Google Earth) the southern portion of Garrett county. Besides, it’s a great song from my college years…
Well, I was more of a Conrail follower in college…
Keep in mind many areas of the US were deindustrializing (well, the Northeast had been losing heavy industry for decades before), with some urban areas revamping around FIRE and STEM industries (e.g. Pittsburgh PA) and other areas…just petering out. Railroads had been deregulated since 1980, and while Conrail took full advantage of that to abandon lines (including ones it would find it really need decades later), not sure how much Chessie (and SCL) shed lines.
Intermodal was a big topic in both the railway and the model press, and in general it meant mostly TOFC and COFC on 89ft flats. Stacks, well-cars, and spines came in toward the end of the '80s, along with some experiments like the 4-runner and boxcars/bulkhead flats rebuilt as TOFC flats. 4-axle power still pretty common, although with 5K units between them the SD40/SD40-2 were pretty much everywhere, so if you’re modeling a mainline have some of those models. I’ll let you do the research on which Chessie locos had B&O, C&O, or WM reporting marks. As for rolling stock, you can’t go wrong with covered hoppers, gondolas, outside post boxcars, and bulkhead flats. Other types of cars will depend on what type of industries you plan to model - for example a food processing plan could use tank cars of corn oil, while a supermarket chain warehouse could get mech reefers. And of course for western Virginia, don’t skimp on the 100 ton triple and quad hoppers for coal shipments. Don’t forget cabooses were being replaced by FREDs on most trains in this era as well.
The railroad infrastructure, at least in the NY Tri-state area, always seemed a bit seedy and beat-looking, even after Conrail refurbished a line; don’t recall how groomed Chessie was in this era. Keep graffitti on freight cars down to a minimum - there was some in the mid-80s, but boxcars and covered hoppers in general hadn’t become rollin
I worked on the Chessie(C&O) from '78-'84 and after the merger in '87 there was no Chessie just CSX with locomotives from SCL,Seaboard System, Chessie,C&O,B&O,WM,Family Lines,L&N and other Family Line roads. This started with the formation of CSX in '80.
Thanks for he info. I was wondering since the era I am modeling is phasing out cabooses and in with FREDs would I have both on my layout.? Like a caboose here a Fred there?
Thanks I figure it will be easier on me to do cabooses since it’s not a very industrial area (like Baltimore I would use FREDs) and very close to Virginia.
By the way the standard power for the Chessie System were GP40-2’s, they only had 20 SD40-2’s that were assigned to the B&O and some older SD40’s and SD35’s from the B&O and Western Maryland.
Well, Chessie had 80+ SD40s going by this list, of which only about 6 didn’t have the Chessie Cat Yellow/Black livery (of course, not going to verify if all those locos remained on Chessie at the OP’s preferred date). About 40 SD35s as well.
And about 10 SD9s, which I’ve always kind of liked the look of.
But yes, as I mentioned 4-axle power did predominate, for exampleGP40-2.
You can acquire any Chessie System 4 axle unit like GP30’s, GP35’s, GP38 and the mentioned GP40-2 and GP7/9. The four axle Chessie U30-B and B30-7 units are rare in B&O country.