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No this is not me.  This is my cat Bonnie doing her best Chessie pose.
                                                                                                                                                                        January 8, 2007
Hello Fellow Chessie Fans:
    I have been modeling Chessie seriously for about 10 years.  I continue to work on modeling the East End: the Cumberland Sub-Division.  My hope is that in another 5 years the layout will be done or nearly so.  Benchwork construction is well underway and some pink foam and track has been laid.
    The roster of locomotives and freight cars is really coming along.  I need to add more locomotives and get some accurate B&O bay window cabeese out there.   Also, I have been neglecting getting other roads cars.
    I shoot for about 85% accuracy.  You can go for 100%, but I have found that nobody really knows the difference.  To some out there every detail is important, and that is fine.  But, if you go for perfection, you usually end up with 3 or 4 nice cars a year.  I am putting out on the order of 20 a year.
    The plan is to have a functioning railroad, not a railroad modeling museum.  I go for practicality more than perfection.  Compromises are unfortunately a part of this hobby.  There never is enough time or space to do exactly what you want.
    I model in proportions, which is unique.  I plan on having about 50% Chessie (B&O, C&O, or WM) freight cars and 50% from other railroads.  Of the Chessie freight cars about half will be in Chessie paint and half in the predecessor paint.  That proportion approximately represents the middle of the Chessie Era.  I also proportion each of the type of car.  Coil cars are about 50/50 between C&O and B&O (there were none for WM).  Coal cars are 50% C&O, 40% B&O, and 10% WM.  Boxcars are 40% C&O, 40% B&O, and 20% WM.  Covered Hoppers are about the same as Boxcars.  Locomotives are more slanted to the home road.  B&O 60%, C&O 20%, WM 20%.  Cabeese should be more along the lines of the locomotives to be accurate, but cabeese are my weakness.  I have tons of C&Os since the Athearn kit is 90% accurate and cheap.  Also the Athearn B&O kit is only 70% accurate or so, so I shy away from it.  I only have ones that came prepainted in Chessie Safety paint jobs.
    Thanks for visiting.  Come again.

Jeff
jeffreyhanke@sbcglobal.net

PS-  I would also like to take this opportunity to thank John Whitmore and Matt Foltz for all of their guidance.  Both are members of the Chessie System Historical Society (like me) and have taken way too much of their time to teach me about Chessie.

PPS- I would like to thank Dean Heacock, withouth who's permission much of this site would be without prototype pictures.  Thanks Dean.

PPPS-Thanks too, to Trainweb for letting me put this site up for FREE!  Gotta love a deal like that.
 

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