Chesapeake and Ohio modelers traveled from as far away as California and Texas to the beautiful Hawks Nest State Park in West Virginia. The attraction, the third Chesapeake and Ohio Modelers Weekend held at the lodge, March 15-16, overlooking the famous C & O Hawks Nest Bridge across the New River.

The St. Albans Chesapeake and Ohio Modelers hosted the event, which includes instructional seminars on modeling the C & O and field trips to local areas if interest to C & O modelers. The nearly 100 visitors to Ansted, WV were treated to unseasonably warm sunny weather on Friday and a cooler, but still comfortable, rainy Saturday.

This year's keynote speaker was James Eudaly, whose famous O scale layout has been featured in the modeling press countless times, including the cover story of the November 2000 Model Railroader Magazine. Mr. EuDaly gave two presentations, one a slide program of prototype photos on which he based his layout and the second, a slide show depicting his beautiful O scale layout. Mr. EuDaly then fielded questions from the audience on his ideas and modeling techniques.

James EuDaly speaks to an attentive audience at Hawks Nest 02.

Other seminars were presented by Matt Schaffer on Modeling the New River Subdivision in N scale, Bernie Kempinski on C & O signal kit construction, Bill Sparkmon covered modeling the C & O Handly yard, Russ Hass on modeling C & O Shay locomotives, Dan Zugelter on modeling the C & O's Hinton terminal in HO scale, Dick Argo on modeling C & O flat cars and Bill Ford gave a presentation on his HO Paint Creek Division.

Bernie Kempinski demonstrates assembly of his new C & O signal bridge. Watch for these good looking C & O signal bridge to be for sale soon.

In addition to the many informational seminars the Northern Virginia N-Trak Club had their operating DCC controlled layout in the lobby of the lodge. Attendees and other visitors were given the opportunity to run trains on the C&O oriented layout. The N scale layout proved very popular with many visitors including young people.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Society had a sales table set up with tons of C & O books, photos, models and apparel. WV Hobbies, of Scott Depot, WV, had a large sales table on the 4th floor of the lodge selling model railroad items in several scales and the Buckeye Rail Gang had custom painted C & O boxcars on sale.

A CSX train glides along on the Northern Virginia N-Trak layout, on display during Hawks Nest 02.

Nick Smith, Patrick Goodall and Jessica Crouch operate trains on the DCC controled N scale layout in the lobby of Hawks Nest Lodge.

Of special interest to many modelers and a growing part of the Modelers Weekend was the many models brought for display by attendees. Both complete and under-construction models of many scales were on display allowing modelers to take note of techniques used by others.

This great looking O scale snow plow, BL-2 and caboose were built and displayed by Phil Shuster.

This HO model of the Handly coal dock impressed everyone who saw it. It was scratch built and displayed by Larry Olsen.

Between and after seminars people could be heard introducing themselves to new friends or greeting old pals and catching up on life long friendships. Long into the night attendees sat in the lobbies and rooms of the lodge exchanging ideas on the best ways to model the Chesapeake and Ohio. Several people went on loosely organized field trips to Handly, the New River Gorge bottom at Hawks Nest and other areas to take photos, make notes and just get a feel for areas they want to model.

This year's event co-chairmen, Bill Sparkmon and Matt Crouch, produced a weekend of information, relaxation and entertainment not soon to be forgotten.

Once again the Hawks Nest State Park Lodge proved to be nearly as popular with attendees as the seminars, and will be the site of the Chesapeake and Ohio Modelers Weekend for 2003. Hawks Nest 03, as the weekend has become known, will again be hosted by the St. Albans Chesapeake and Ohio Modelers and co-chaired by Jim Pickett, Russ Miller and Greg McCartney. Watch this site for information, as it becomes available.

The view from the lodge at Hawks Nest State Park may be unsurpassed on the C & O and is just one of the reasons the C & O Modelers Weekend is a favorite with C & O modelers.