Remember when the Chessie System had a steam program? It may not have been as extensive as the Southern Railway steam program or the Norfolk Southern steam program, but for a couple of years in the early 1980s it received a lot of attention.
Here’s a favorite photo of the photographer that you may never have seen. Chessie 614 is eastbound in New Castle, Pennsylvania, on June 27, 1981.
Since former Chesapeake & Ohio No. 8272 showed up at the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North Pennsylvania, wearing its sparkling new Chessie System livery, I’ve managed to photograph it three times in about a month’s time.
First I got it during a night photo shoot, then in less than favorable lighting conditions en route home from a day on the Arcade & Attica, and finally on a recent late Sunday afternoon in the best lighting of all.
And I almost missed that. I was with a group of guys from the Cleveland-based Forest City Division of the Railroad Enthusiasts who were doing a double museum tour.
The first stop was in Conneaut and then it was on to North East.
CSX had been dead while we were in Conneaut. It finally sprang to life shortly after we reached North East, putting through town a steady flow of three westbound intermodal trains and five consecutive eastbounds.
There was a work gang in New York State and it was single-track east of North East.
After the fifth eastbound passed by, we decided to head out to Bort Road, which is, surprisingly, a good place to photograph in late day.
As we were ready to move on I remembered we had yet to photograph No. 8272. We soon remedied that while the light was still good.
Having only photographed two Chessie System locomotives in my life, I’m going to be all over the 8272 even if it isn’t going anywhere.
As seen from the front porch of New York Central No. 2500, which is mid July was still lettered for the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie and numbered 2800.
Getting down low. For some reason I like having the locomotive off kilter.
Looking the kitty right in the eyes. Real cats don’t like it when you do that but this Chessie doesn’t mind.
Here’s another piece of Northeast Ohio history. Baltimore & Ohio 7593 and 4046 lead an eastbound train through Sterling in November 1981. The tower, signal and pole line are all gone now.
I missed the Chessie System era so I took a great interest in the news that the Lake Shore Railway Museum was getting a locomotive wearing Chessie colors. Of course I wanted to photograph it.
Although I was around during the Chessie era, for much of that time I wasn’t into photographing railroad operations and lived in places not served by the Chessie.
I have just two image of the Chessie’s yellow, vermilion and blue Chess-C locomotive livery that was introduced in 1972 and lasted into the early CSX years.
One of those images is a poorly exposed photograph made in Mitchell, Indiana, while the other was a Chessie GP40 (Baltimore & Ohio) locomotive leading Amtrak’s eastbound Capitol Limited east of Pittsburgh in early November 1981.
I was a passenger on the latter train and photographed the freight unit from a window as the train twisted and turned en route to Washington.
I had another reason for wanting to see Chesapeake & Ohio No. 8272.
Jim Mastrommateo’s program at the May Akron Railroad Club meeting featured a number of locomotives still wearing the Chessie livery.
At one point, Pete Poremba tapped me on the shoulder and showed a photograph of C&O 8272 on his tablet that he got off the Internet that showed the unit somewhere in Ohio en route to North East, Pennsylvania.
The top and underframe of the 8272 had a noticeable bluish cast to it whereas in photos that Jim showed those areas appeared to have been painted black.
The dark areas at the top of the locomotives shown in Jim’s program and in photographs that I subsequently reviewed in my book Akron Railroads appear to be much deeper than that of the 8272.
Was the 8272 painted in an authentic Chess-C livery? It didn’t appear to be so.
But I did see some photographs online of Chessie locomotives in which the “black” areas had a bluish cast to them.
It could be that over time the blue paint on Chessie locomotives faded.
News reports about the painting of No. 8272 indicated that the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore provided paint records to personnel at the CSX Huntington locomotive shop where No. 8272 was repainted into the Chessie livery.
Presumably, that meant that the shop forces had the correct blueprint for how the Chess-C livery was applied.
No. 8272 is a GE-built locomotive and all of the images I’ve seen of locomotives wearing the Chess-C livery have been EMD products. Perhaps that is a factor here.
There are railfans who make it their business to “police” whether heritage locomotives are authentic.
There is a guy who lives in Maryland who has posted more than once his view that FPA-4 No. 800 on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad is not an authentic B&O livery because it lacks the wrong shade of blue.
All of that matters little to me, though. Heritage units are as close as I’m going to get to making photographs of locomotive liveries that has long since passed into history.
The latest addition to the collection of the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania, arrived late last week and was the star of the night at the museum event on Saturday.
Chesapeake & Ohio B30-7 No. 8272 was built at the nearby GE Erie locomotive assembly plant in Lawrence Park and has been retired by CSX.
CSX also agreed to have the unit repainted into Chessie System colors at its locomotive shop in Huntington, West Virginia.
After being displayed at the GE Erie plant in a private showing, the unit was moved to the museum where it joins a collection of locomotives built in Erie.
A restored Chespeake & Ohio diesel locomotive painted in the Chessie System livery arrived this week at the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania.
The GE-built B30-7 locomotive was donated by CSX and painted into Chessie colors by the locomotive shop in Huntington, West Virginia.
Built at the GE locomotive assembly plant in Erie in 1980 as C&O No. 8272, the locomotive had been retired by CSX in 2009 as No. 5554.
The museum has seven GE-built locomotives in its collection.
Before being moved to the museum, No. 8272 was displayed at the GE complex in Lawrence Park in a private display.
The factory along with the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore assisted in the restoration by providing paint records, logo/lettering information and paint chips.
Last week Chesapeake & Ohio 8272, which CSX has restored to its Chessie System paint scheme, started its journey to the Lake Shore Railway Museum at Northeast, Pennsylvania.
On Saturday morning it was parked at Willard, where I got these photos. It will arrive at Northeast sometime this week.
The cosmetically restored Chessie System GE B30-7 has been reported to be en route to its new home at the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania.
The locomotive was spotted earlier this week dead-in-tow heading for Russell, Kentucky.
From there it was expected to travel via Columbus, Willard and Cleveland to North East.
The locomotive was repainted into the Chessie livery by the CSX locomotive shops in Huntington, West Virginia.
The unit was built in 1980 as C&O No. 8272 and also was CSX No. 5554.
The Lake Shore Railway Museum has acknowledged that it will be receiving a locomotive painted at a CSX shop in the Chessie System colors.
Former Chesapeake & Ohio No. 8272 received the treatment in Huntington, West Virginia, so that is now resembles the appearance it had when the B30-7 was delivered by GE Transportation in 1980
The Lake Shore museum in North East, Pennsylvania, specializes in collecting retired locomotives that were built at the nearby GE assembly plant in Erie.
No. 8272 will be the eighth locomotive to join that collection.
In a news release, the Lake Shore Railway Historical Society, which operates the museum, said the locomotive is being donated by CSX to the museum. It was retired by CSX in 2009 as No. 5554.
The museum said that GE and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum assisted in the restoration of No. 8272 by contributing historic paint records, logo/lettering information and paint chips.
The museum said that plans to move No. 8272 to the museum are still being worked out.
A locomotive pained in Chessie System colors that is thought to be bound for the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania, has emerged from a CSX shop in West Virginia.
Trains magazine reported that B30-7, ex-C&O No. 8272 and ex-CSX No. 5554 was seen outside the Huntington locomotive shop last weekend.
The museum has thus far declined to comment on reports that the repainted unit will be added to its collection.
Given its proximity to the GE Transportation locomotive assembly plant in Erie, Pennsylvania, the museum has sought to preserve several GE-built engines.
Trains said it is the first time that a Chessie locomotive has been painted at the Huntington shops in more than 30 years.
Huntington was once a division headquarters for the C&O.
No. 8272 was built in January 1980 and retired more than six years ago. It was removed from a dead line in Cumberland, Maryland, and transported to Huntington in 2016.
