The Last Stand of the Chessie Cats
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
- An early autumn 1986 visit to Sand Patch when the Chessie System name was still strong and CSX had not even stenciled those nasty letters on the cabs yet. This video was shot with a portable tube style camera hooked up to a portable VHS VCR, and the quality is what it is. However my enjoyment of shooting railroads on video quickly led to improved equipment.
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Those colors are one of the things that made my childhood happy.
I too remember them too as a kid...Even some of the engines featured a cat's face on the front end of the engine and whiskers on the sides and the engines actually purred like cats, either in motion or idling, and crept quietly late at night like a tomcat on the prowl as it lulled me back to sleep. I lived (and still live) close to the railroad tracks, and hearing them chugging quietly with the occasional horn blaring and bells ringing as if to make its presence known, was like listening to an old friend. I could even set my watch to her due to their comings and goings.
I also felt the same way about the Norfolk Southern Railway, the Thoroughbred, which also passed through my neighborhood. I'd say, "It's the Thoroughbred...by a nose!" LOL
I wonder if anyone has the notion some of those different freight train engines have a distinct and unique type of sound that sets them apart from the others and if anyone has made a video of it.
Used to see these Chessie engines in the 80s when I was a kid. Good video.
I live right off of the old Louisa Railroad which was the first predecessor of the C&O and I wish I could’ve lived to see those C&O engines roar through hauling coal and grain.
This brings back fantastic memories of rail fanning with my Dad in 1986 in the Ashland/Russell, KY area in 1986. I was in 6th grade and still a Chessie System modeler to this day. Thanks for sharing!
I remember in Dayton Ohio seeing Chessie engines along with the B&O signals we had.
One thing I enjoy seeing in videos before the 1990's, is that you hardly if any see graffiti on rail cars at all!!! But today, very hard to see any clean cars period and even some locomotives are getting tagged🥺🥺🥺 Great video my friend thank you for sharing.....
Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it! I do put extra value on all my pre-graffiti era footage!
Kids these days. Amirite Barb?
@@KBuckyRailVideo maybe it’s just me, but I noticed around the place I live I very rarely see graffitied freight cars. Now it’s happened before but it’s not as often as I think most people think it is. The locomotives at least seem to be generally in good shape. I do have to say, however that as far as I have seen when it comes to Amtrak passenger trains, it seems like those are actually pretty neat and tidy on the outside so I am under the impression that either that kind of metal is hard to graffiti anything onto or maybe, they just take better care of their rollingstock because it’s passenger equipment rather than freight equipment
This brought back some great memories of growing up. Thank you for sharing.
Best railroad that ever ran the rails. !! When I was a kid those colors just stimulated my brain and I was hooked. The Cat 🐱 made it fun too! Nothing beat the SOUND of 5 or 8 GP/SD40’s on full throttle going up a grade. I can still hear the roar in my brain ! These days, I don’t even railfan anymore. I get bored really quick! The locomotives are fewer and too quiet ! The removal of the caboose still angers me. It’s like such an incomplete train today. I was lucky to catch this era in railroading as a kid. I’m 50 now and it’s depressing. ! I don’t even understand the word today! And that’s a whole other story!
WORLD 🌎 NOT WORD! Stupid dumb iPhone. See what I mean !?
My feelings as well. I'm 62 and have little interest in modern, generic railroading. Fortunately there's still some interesting stuff on shortline and regional railroads,
Super awesome Video, I love those Chessie system units, I hope to do justice soon and Paint my 2008 Chevy Trailblazer LT in the Chessie system colors and have the C painted on the Hood not sure if it's legal or not but it's in memorial of my Grandfather who was a Chessie system Engineer with the west Virginia division from 1947 to 1983 when he retired.
Thank You! Love the Chessie livery, very nice video to watch, Cumberland only bout an hour from me, Have ridden the Western Maryland scenic, that is nice. CSX now has a decent size yard in Cumberland. Again, thank you for video.
Chessie System and Conrail had the two most striking paint schemes of that era, IMHO. Also, Mid South Rail and Iowa Interstate were very alluring. Isn't Iowa Interstate still operating, with wide cabs now?
i love the old chessie system colors
Love these Chessie videos. Things have changed, old style intermodals, 4 axle power and no graffiti all over everything. 36 years a long time ago. Last of the "glamorous" liveries. CSX's "hockey stick" was attractive too but that's gone as well - mediocrity now🙂. Thanks for the upload....
I’d love to see CSX use the Ches-C in its logo. I think a yellow Ches-C S X on the blue would look epic.
CSX doesn’t seem to like the idea of doing that, but at the same time they put their company logo on a steam locomotive. Makes you wonder...
CSX's next new paint scheme should be Chessie System, lol.
Ore train at 34:00 was the highlight IMO. You can also see the flood scars at Fairhope from the 8/1984 flash flood. Unfortunately everything has changed up there, from the trains to lack of access, no more CPLs, towers gone, etc.
Truly sad.
Thanks for sharing! I couldn't make out what type of automobiles they were carrying. It looked like GM maybe? Does anyone know if they carried Ford, Chrysler, AMC etc?
Herbert "Herb" Dawson was my grandfather. My mom's dad. He was a dispatcher for years right there. First house past the Wills Crick bridge on right. Mechanic St. Great man. He had one hand. Lost the other right by the house he lived his life in.
2nd only to the war bonnets in my book. Loved those kitty catz
So refreshing to see cars without graffiti!
Yes it is. And lots of different road names on the cars!
The church bell does it for me❤/ 💛💙🐈💪🏻
Me too!
It's too bad that CSX doesn't use the Cassie paint Scheme and Logo cuz there's so many more people these days of love cats you could make a really awesome promotional paint scheme heck you can even come out with a motto Chessie system the railroad tat. Roars like a tiger Glides like a jaguar and rides as soft as a kitten and flys bye as fast as a cheetah Chessie the cheetah Road cuz Freight is fast time and money man people would be buying up Chessie t-shirts just because it's Epic anyways thank you for the Chessie video I never saw this Railroad in real life but I remember seeing it as a kid on train videos that I had and I always like that railroad cuz I had a cat on the locomotive awesome colors I like the Chessie paint scheme a lot better than CSX that's just my opinion sorry for the rant
Is it just me, or did the old chessie system units look like off brand Union Pacifics? also I like it that they're yellow like Cheese.
Very cool. I've got a lot like this I need to transfer. My problem now is finding a vcr that works!
Ebay and Reverb...and yard sales, estate sales, good will and Sal Army....🙂
Chessie System was a conglomerate of 8+ Railroad companies. To form Chessie,Seaboard and Management (CSX). I grew up near and live near the old C&O's Cheviot Yard that no longer exists. I miss the old C&O.
Chessie System was C&O, B&O, and Western Maryland. CSX was the conglomerate of the 8.
@@SlapthePissouttayewChessie was also B&OCT, as well as the three that you mention.
Love the old style car carriers at 22:35. Thank you for sharing and great video KBuckyRailVideo, well worth viewing the nostalgic Chessie. Also, sad to know that the caboose was of no longer being used and I guess, end of train telemetry was being used.
Thank you!
I just got a brand new kitten about 3 months ago me being a railroad fan and the cat I decided to name her CHESSIE she is just as rowdy as a train but she likes to sleep in comfort and quiet perrrrrrrrfect transportation
I also named one of my cats "Chessie" back in the 1980s!
Con-gress Rail destroyed my love of trains. My favorite paint scheme and my favorite railroad was the Chessie System and it's sleeping kitty. But then Conrail came along. I recall Chessie actually liked railfans because we gave them positive and free advertisement. Then Conrail came along and they hated railrans. Conrail took the pride Chessie engineers had and one thing Chessie did was it kept the B&O, C&O , WM, SCL emblems on their units to pay tribute to those fallen railroads gone but not forgotten.
Actually Conrail was never involved in the take-over of The Chessie System. It was CSX that took all the railroads that you named. Then CSX took about 40 percent of Conrail while Norfolk Southern took the rest in 1999.
@@KBuckyRailVideo yes I stand corrected. But nonetheless it was Conrail that wrecked my passion
@@captainahab4325 I was OK with Conrail. It ran nearby and I have almost always had friendly interactions with workers. I think the mega-mergers, and then all the class ones becoming generic along with the graffiti made my interest decline. However there's still plenty of great shortlines and regional railroads with some decent power as well!
Conrail didn't hate railfans.
@@KBuckyRailVideo I know your a youngster and all but prior to Conrail running through my back yard there were two companies that had pride. One was New York Central which became the Penn Central. At that time of those companies there was double main lines running past my house it eventually got downgraded from main line to a branch line to become the "Falls Road" branch which Conrail decided to not only downsize to single rail BUT eliminate track between Rochester and Brockport which all but destroyed the history of that rail line. Conrail eliminated a lot of rail as most mergers and acquisitions tend to do but the way they did it was a disgrace and I will never forgive.
I liked Seaboard System's paint, but loved Chessie System's. For most of my life I've had a thing with cats and with trains, so why not meld the two?!
One of the first pet cats I had in my younger days was named "Chessie" (of course!)
The year before I was born!! Wow!!
You know, it's comments like this that make me feel really old! ;-)
@@KBuckyRailVideo exactly 8 months before I was born actually lol. These videos are very special to me
Wonder if any of this rolling stock is still used today.
Were the Clinchfield and L&N hoppers used in 1985 coal drags as well? I’ve just changed my modeling year to 1985 Chessie and I’d love to add some of Tangent’s Clinchfield and L&N coal hoppers to my consists.
I honestly don't know for sure, but would take an educated guess and say yes. You may want to do a little more research to verify.
Yes. CSX was already in existence by then, and the former Chessie and Seaboard car fleets were being mixed together.
So much nicer looking than the endless widecabs of today.
Absolutely! These days I prefer railfanning on the regional and short line railroads where standard cabs are still in use.
@@KBuckyRailVideoSame here. I'm not a fan of widecabs.
@@TK-ec5bv If you haven't looked already I've uploaded a decent amount of non-widecab stuff in the last year or so.
@KBuckyRailVideo I'll check out your videos. I agree that shortlines are where the great non widecab scenes are. This is railroading as I remember it, and the visuals are so much more appealing.
So long for Chessie System I probably think that CSX took over for them or merge with them with other railroad company.
Chessie System merged with Seaboard System sometime in the 80's, created "Chessie Seaboard Consolidated" or now known as CSX.
did you know they couldn’t use the that name CSL (Chessie Seaboard Lines) because it belonged to a trucking company I think
@15:37 there is a blue box car behind the engines with 0 markings. No numbers, stenciling, etc. Never seen one completely BLANK!
Are there still any units out there sporting the Chessie colors excluding the heritage unit or did they get CSX’d ?
Not 100 percent sure, but I highly doubt it. Maybe in a scrap yard somewhere?
Nope, no graffiti here. How sad it is that now a days , it is almost taken as a matter of course that freight cars as well as other private and public property is defaced with graffiti. But, thank you sharing.
Was this taken moments before the CSX Merger?
This was filmed in Jun of 1986. The CSX merger technically happened in 1980, but that was only on paper.
@@KBuckyRailVideo oh ok
Sad 😢
Great vídeo
I grew up with the chessie in central ohio
I didn't live near Chessie, but got a few trips in to Sand Patch (obviously)
Elephant style 👍
no cat anymore? beeg sad
原來美國的鐵路事業早就很發達了！…………🤩🤩🤩
Was this Broken Knuckle?
Yes. So was I, but the business has been sold.
CSX… too corporate sounding still…🤔👎🏻
I nearly gave it a thumbs down due to the video quality. It's barely watchable to me.
You're clearly not a true Chessie fan or you'd appreciate the video for it's historic value instead of worrying about the quality. Sorry I didn't film this in HD for you.
@@KBuckyRailVideo I'm old enough to have filmed in Super8 and video with VHS camcorder. It looks like the video is from a camcorder, and 1986 makes that likely. I just did not think the video transfer from the original transferred well to a TH-cam video. I have digitized my VHS video, and they look like the original. They aren't HD. However, I am a Chessie fan even if you don't think so, as I have had Chessie locomotives and rolling stock for both my N gauge and present HO gauge model railroad. I did appreciate the historic value of the video: that's why I could not give it a thumbs down.
@@tedinohio3981 It's all good but did you read the caption explaining the quality? Tube camera hooked up to a portable VCR, etc. I also did not use the SP speed on many occasions, choosing LP or even SLP, thinking I was doing myself a favor by saving videotape. I learned quickly, but not until after this was shot. By the end of the year I owned my first VHS camcorder.
@@KBuckyRailVideo I did not read the caption because I first watched it on my flat screen TV TH-cam app, and looking at the caption is not an option there. When I made my comment I was at my PC, but didn't think to check out the caption before my comment. When I made my camcorder VHS tapes I thought I was doing it for posterity, and ease of watching in the future. Then DVDs happened and I converted them all to DVD format, for permenance and posterity. Just last month I tried to play one of my DVDs on my pc and surprise! - Windows 10 doesn't play videos on an optical drive, and when my 42 year old daughter mentions having an optical drive to some her younger friends they ask "what's that?" I did find an app for my pc that lets me play the "old" DVDs, and convert them to an mp4 file for a pc, so I have a rainy day (or week) project ahead if I want to convert all my 30+ DVDs. Cheers, Ted
@@tedinohio3981 Hi Ted, Windows 10 with an optical drive should definitely play a DVD. You just need the right software. (I like PotPlayer) Also, I strongly suggest getting the files from the DVD's copied to a hard drive and even backed up on another hard drive. You really don't need to convert to MP4 or anything else. There is free software for Windows 10 that will play the VOB files on the DVD's. My original tape from that 1986 trip still plays, yet I have burned DVD's less than 10 years ago that will no longer play without some sort of issues. I don't trust them and that is why even after transferring VHS, S-VHS, Hi8 and MiniDV tapes to DVD's, I still copy all the files to a hard drive.
CSX… too corporate sounding still…🤔👎🏻