AVAILABLE AS A PRINTED BOOK OR A DIGITAL DOWNLOAD
The Basement Subdivision - The 2006-2007 COHS Modeling Column
by Karen Parker and Russ Hass
The recent revitalization of the "Basement Subdivision" section in our C&O Historical Magazine brought to mind the book we published back in 2007 entitled The Basement Subdivision - The 2007 COHS Modeling Column.
This 138-page softbound book brings together 22 excellent modeling articles that appeared in our magazine around that period, many of them by our last modeling editors, Karen Parker and the late Russ Hass. It has been available on chessieshop.com since then, but I thought to bring it to attention now that we are trying to add emphasis to the modeling aspects of C&O.
The articles are fully illustrated both with prototypes and models. Some are "how-to" scratch-build material while others are about kit-bashing. Some feature reviews on how to build commercially available models. In all, it is a good compendium of material that will appeal directly to modelers of all interests.
You will find a small coaling station, a branchline turntable, passenger stations, diesels, steam, freight cars, and interesting small structures. These are mainly things that are fairly easy to do and add to the realism of a C&O layout. Speaking as a non-modeler, but as one who has catered to modeling interests for half a century now, I believe it is a very good handbook and I highly recommend it. If I were a modeler it would be very appealing--well, I'm not a modeler and it's still very appealing to me to learn more about the C&O through models.
If you don't have this book, it's still available. It's a "print-on-demand" publication, it is well worth the price and your time to read it.
---Tom Dixon
COHS Digital Archives
