Events & News

The public is invited on Wednesday, May 1 at 7 pm to a talk by Lee Hall Train Station Foundation President Kenneth Jones about the Chessie, a proposed streamlined passenger train developed by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in the late 1940s.  This one-of-a-kind wonder would have transformed American train travel.

The brainchild of C&O executive Robert R. Young, the Chessie was to have operated on a daylight schedule between Washington, DC and Cincinnati, Ohio.  A revolutionary new steam turbine locomotive, the M1, would have provided power, including speeds up to 100 miles per hour, covering the 666-mile route in 12 hours. Passengers would travel in unprecedented comfort: coaches would contain just 36 seats, while standard configurations at the time had between 44 and 60, and the extra space would carry luxury lounge seating. A year before the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad demonstrated its “Silver Dome” dome car, Young had planned to have domes on the Chessie.  A section of the twin-unit dining car on the train’s rear would show first-run movies.  Although the equipment was delivered, a worsening financial outlook led to the cancellation of the train before it operated in revenue service.  The C&O did operate a single test train of the Chessie, but by October 1948 the C&O had broken up the consists and was reallocating the Chessie’s equipment to other trains, if not selling it outright.