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Chessie System MBI Railroad Color History by Dave Ori With dust jacket 2006 C&O
Chessie System MBI Railroad Color History by Dave Ori
Hard cover With dust jacket
Copyright 2006
160 pages indexed.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS6
Chapter 1 THE PRE-CHESSIE ERA 8
Chapter 2 THE CREATION OF CHESSIE 22
Chapter 3 FROM THE MIDWEST TO THE ATLANTIC: OPERATING DIVISIONS 32
Chapter 4 MAJOR FACILITIES, FREIGHT YARDS, AND COAL PIERS 104
Chapter 5 TRAILER JETS, FAST FREIGHTS, AND THE DIESEL FLEET 124
SOURCES 159
INDEX 160
This is the story of the Chessie System, the remarkable rail operation created of the merger of three great railroads? the refined Chesapeake & Ohio, the once mighty Baltimore & Ohio, and the small but feisty Western Maryland? in 1972. The book traces the railroad? s origins from the first affiliation of the B&O and C&O in the early 1960s to the inclusion of the WM a decade later, before examining the Chessie System itself, from the details of its operating divisions, major facilities, diesel fleet, and intermodal operation, to the technological advances that distinguished its reign, to its integration in the CSX system in 1987.
Bill Brennan is the kind of friend everyone wishes they could have during their lifetime. In the almost fifty years I have known him, he has always been there - generous, steady, eager to offer assistance in just about anything that might pop up. If there is anyone I can attribute my love of trains to, it has to be Bill, who, growing up across from my house on Hendel Avenue in North Arlington, NJ, guided me through my youthful rail endeavors and photographic education.
William J. Brennan was born July 5,1940 in the Greenville section of Jersey City, NJ. His earliest railroad memories are walking up to the Jersey Central West Side Avenue station in 1945 with his parents to ride the remnant of the old Direct Line into the CNJ Terminal for a quick ferry ride over to the Big Apple. He fondly recalls the hissing and smell of steam emanating from the old Camelback. From these memories, a lifelong love of trains was born. At age 7 a Marx set of tin trains complete with switches and transformer contributed to the dreams of this future mechanical engineer.
At age 10, the Brennan family moved about a dozen miles northwest to North Arlington where Bill's railroad appetite was whetted by the nearby Erie and by trips to Penn Station Newark where the Hudson & Manhattan tubes whipped the eager fan across the Jersey Meadows for quick glances at the PRR and DL&W. As his knowledge of railroading gained, Bill became quite aware of the inevitable demise of steam and ventured down to South Amboy in the summer of 1956 with box camera in hand to shoot the PRR K4's that still abounded there. More notable in his mind was an elegant product of Alco that day, PRR PA 5752.
In 1957 Bill Brennan graduated from Queen of Peace High School and began commuting to Stevens Tech in Hoboken via the Erie Railroad station in Arlington. Now equipped with a Bolsey "Jubilee" - a unique 35mm camera utilizing a French 1/200th of a second shutter, a German f2.8 lens, and an American body, Bill initially only used it with black and white film. His first color slides were taken in the Spring of 1960 - some Erie and DL&W efforts that the reader can see in his book Trackside in the Erie Lackawanna New Jersey Commuter Zone - while on his daily trek back and forth on the Greenwood Lake Line to Hoboken. In 1961, Bill graduated from Stevens and started work as an engineer for the New York State Public Utilities regulatory agency in the electric and gas division.
Now employing a used Voightlander "Vitessa" model with a speed of 1/500th of a second, Bill began to expand from simple roster shots, especially as he witnessed EL diamond decals being applied over the familiar Erie and Lackawanna names he had grew up with. Just like steam, he was always aware that other once everyday aspects of the railroading were quite vulnerable and could soon vanish. And the only thing he could do about it was capture the early cab units, the ferry service, the long distance passenger trains, and the branch line commuter trains on film before they too were just fond memories. By 1964 his photographic technology and skills advanced from a Canon to a Nikon F, and from sunny daylight work to exquisite night scenes. Bill's color night work predated many of the techniques that would only become "standard" years later. Using "fill-in" flash, he became a master of the art of capturing the railroad at work in the darkness, which was often its busiest time.
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