Leslie Chevaliér came by her love of trains quite naturally. Her father has always been an avid train enthusiast and took her on many trips throughout the West chasing railroad history. Some of Leslie's earliest memories involve pouring over Lucius Beebe books, ever present in their home. Marrying David Chevaliér, Leslie joined a family even more railroad obsessed than her own. Though she had spent the majority of her adult years working with children and youth, she found working outside the home difficult with two little girls of her own to raise. David knew that his wife was artistic, and he prophetically asked, "Can you draw trains?"

Leslie picked up the challenge, uncovered her own smoldering passion for the iron giants and the men that built them and a career was born. The year was 1998. Leslie chose pen and ink as her medium for several reasons. She had honed her skill with it while working in a print shop during college and just plain old prefers drawing to painting. She felt that pen and ink captured the antique air of the era. And finally, she hoped that working in her beloved black and white might save her from being swallowed up in a sea of railroad artists working in color.

THE ARTWORK--Pen and Ink is the most unforgiving of all artistic media. When a line is put to paper, there is no erasing, no using "White Out," and no turning back. Lines need to be drawn by freehand so as not to lose the artistic quality and look too mechanical. Also, ink has been known to bleed under rulers; usually as the artist nears the finish line (no pun intended). There's also no stopping and starting midline-disgusting blobs can result.

So when Leslie is in the middle of placing long stretching roof lines on a depot (equidistant at that) and her five-year-old bounces up for a kiss or her cat decides to jump up to check the picture's progress, disaster may be on the horizon. Leslie has developed several strategies to ward off such heartbreak. The most effective is to exclaim loudly when any living thing breeches a 20 foot perimeter, "Don't touch me now!" Pen and Ink work is a painstaking labor of love.