Chessie Systems

Chessie Systems

Chessie Systems had its inaugural run at the clubs exhibition in October of 2004. And seemed to operate reasonably well given that this was its first big outing and none of the members of the team had operated a layout of this size under exhibition conditions for some time.

We found as usual there were things that we had not considered, such as a few more sections that need isolating. In our hurry to be ready for the exhibition, we had scattered point motor switches around the edges of the boards instead of concentrating them into a central panel. This is now being addressed and when Chessie next appears there will be more operating scope and less walking for the dedicated band of operators.

A new addition on the layout is an extension to the timber yard on the upper level. We hardly used the timber yard. To that end, a new board has been constructed to extend the timber yard in length and depth. This has allowed us to double the number of tracks and we can now use all of the buildings from the Cornerstone range of kits we bought a couple of years ago. We will still need to scratch build a number of smaller buildings and we are on the lookout for some more road vehicles for the yard. Timber for the yard is no problem as the church hall used a on club nights is surrounded by them and the fallen branches and twigs come in very handy

Research is currently under way for the correct style of signalling equipment needed for the viewing areas. Unfortunately, the club committee will not sanction a trip over the pond for me to do this in person, something to do with cost I believe, oh well one can but try.

I think that we have a reasonable number of locomotives. Mainly GP 35s and 40-2s and a couple of SD 40s, there are a few odd visits from the likes of Union Pacific and Santa Fe at the discretion of the management. I am however in a bit of a quandary over one of the locomotives. I have a Proto 2000 GP 9 in S P colours and I want to paint it in Chessie Systems livery but, I rather like the S P scheme as well, the problems of a layout manager are never ending.

The layout consists of eight boards that form the main scenic sections of the layout with a new ninth board under construction to extend the timber yard.

Written by Mike Keeley (Layout Manager) February 2005.

** Photos of the Chessie Systems layout will be added to the site shortly - Webmaster **

Memories of Middlehurst.

Last changed: 28th February 2005

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