So, you have decided to do a little reading about Chessie Railroading. Here are some of the references I use. You don't need to buy all these books, I have found most of the modeling books available through Kalmbach publishing at my local library. Try your local library before you go out and buy a book you may not necessarily need to buy.
Chessie
System: Diesel Locomotives, by Jerry Doyle, 1999, Walsorth
Publishing. (The best book, bar none, on Chessie
Locomotives.
Perfect for the modeler or the railfan. All color
pics. A must
have.)
Chessie
System:
Cumberland Action, by Thomas A. Biery, 1999, The Railroad
Press.
(Great book for Cumberland Area stuff. A must have.)
Chessie
News, Chessie System Historical Society. Fall 2001
issue shown
here. (The only newsletter dedicated to Chessie.
Lots of good
prototype and modeling articles. It comes free with CSHS
membership.
Each magazine is now full color and 28 pages long. A must
have.
Back issues are available through CSHS web site, see links page
for address.
Oct 1997-Winter 2000 are black and white, Spring 2000 is full
color.
Summer 2000-Summer 2002 are color covers with black and white
pages (Winter
2001 and Winter 2002 are full color), and all issues from Fall
2002 to
today are full color.)
B&O
Color Guide, Morning Sun Publishing. (A must have
for the modeler.
Full of photos of B&O equipment. The single best
resource for
what all types of B&O equipment looked like. No
Chessie painted
equipment is included, but many B&O cars still wore the
paint jobs
shown in this book throughout the Chessie Era.)
C&O
Color Guide, Morning Sun Publishing. (A must have
for the modeler.
Full of photos of C&O equipment. The single best
resource for
what all types of C&O equipment looked like. No
Chessie painted
equipment is included, but many B&O cars still wore the
paint jobs
shown in this book throughout the Chessie Era)
B&O
Cabooses, Dwight Jones, TLC Publishing, 1998. (A
great book about
B&O Cabooses. One of the single best source on the
subject.
A must have if you are going to do any accurate B&O
cabeese.)
Cabooses
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Robert Hubler.
(A great book
about B&O Cabooses. One of the single best source on
the subject.
A must have if you are going to do any accurate B&O
cabeese.)
Western
Maryland Cabooses, Dwight Jones, WMRHS publishing,
1991. (The
best caboose book around. This book tells you everything
you wanted
to know and more on WM cabins. A must have.)
East
End:
B&O's Neck of the Bottle, by Hollins and Roberts,
1992, Barnard,
etc. (The only book I know of dedicated to the East
End. Very
rich on history and the actual building of the line. Some
good Chessie
era stuff in it)
Chesepeake
& Ohio Diesel Locomotives, by
Shaver and Gilliland,
1994, McClain Publishing (A one stop shopping book on C&O
locomotives.
Tells just about everything you ever wanted to know about each
specific
locomotive the C&O ever owned. A must have.
Available from
C&O Historical Society)
Chessie
System "All Time" Freight car index, 1997, by Randall
Fields, Broken
Plate Publishing (Lists all the freight cars Chessie owned and
there new
CSX numbers. Available from Chessie System Historical
Society)
Baltimore
&
Ohio roadway maps IV, B&O lines Weverton, MD to
Cumberland, MD,
1988. (Great reference for all the East End track, can get it
through the
B&O Museum)
Western
Maryland Diesel Locomotives, TLC Publishing, 1997, Stakem
and Stakem.
(A good book, but not the greatest. I was hoping for more
when I
got this book. It is written in very choppy sentences and
there really
aren't that many Chessie pics.)
Diesel
Era
Jan/Feb 2000, a magazine that covered all the WM
diesels.
(good one stop shopping on WM locos)
Baltimore
& Ohio Railroad Diesel Locomotive Roster, by James
Mischke, Panther
Hollow Press, 1998. (Excellent reference book on all B&O
locomotives
and their dispositions. Above is a pic of a typical
page. A
must have.)
Chessie's
Road, by Turner, Dixon, and Huddleston, 1986, McClain
Publishing. (OK,
lots of pre-Chessie stuff, a little Chessie stuff)
The
Chessie
System, by Adam Barr, 1997, self published (soft back,
color photos
of all sorts of Chessie stuff, not much writing)
The
Chessie Era, by Thomas Dixon, Jr., 1990, TLC publishing
(OK, mostly
black and white pics)
History
of the Baltimore & Ohio, by Jacobs, Smithmark
Publishing, 1989.
(An OK book. Interesting overall view of the B&O,
little on the
East End or Chessie. You can live without it.)
Chesepeake
& Ohio Historical Magazine, C&O Historical
Society, July/Aug
1999 issue. (Not as good as you might think based on the
pic.
In my one year in the C&OHS this is the only magazine that
came with
Chessie on the cover. Chessie was only mentioned in
passing, with
no real coverage. I dropped my membership due to the lack
of Chessie
coverage. They concentrate on the Steam/Diesel transition
period.)
Diesel
Locomotives of CSXT and Predecessors in Color, by Nuckles
and Dixon,
TLC Publishing, 1993. (OK, not great. Lots of pics
of all the
railroads that make up CSX. Chessie, B&O, C&O, and
WM have
maybe 10-12 pics in the whole book. You can do without
this book.
I think it is available through the C&O historical society.)
Chessie
Timetable
No. 3 Maryland Division, Effective: 12:01am March 1, 1980.
(Not as much info in this as I had thought, but good info on
train speed
limits and restrictions. It does not have a complete
schedule of
trains across the East End like I thought it would)
Chessie
Train Handling Rules, Effective 1980. (Not as much
info here
either as you would think. Good reference on speed
restrictions for
certain types of locomotives. Lots on brake systems and
starting
a locomotive. Some diagrams on locomotives)