Kodak Gallery Calendar

Cover-pik: At the Mighty Curve.

Constant readers of this here blog, if there are any at all, know that I get seven calendars per year.
They’re not really calendars — what they are is variable wall-art.
That’s six beyond my Audio-Visual Designs Black&White All-Pennsy Calendar, which I started getting in the late ‘60s.
Some are constant, but some aren’t.
The constants are -1) my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar; -2) and -3) my Paul Oxman Hot-Rod and Classic Sportscars calendars; and, of course, -4) my Audio-Visual Designs Black&White All-Pennsy Calendar.
Semi-constant is an All-Pennsy Color Calendar.
For years, that was CEDco, but they went bankrupt.
Now the All-Pennsy Color Calendar is by Tide-mark Press.
One year I got it el-cheapo from eBay. I guess it was left over stock from the CEDco bankruptcy up for auction.
Another semi-constant is my Norfolk Southern Employees Photography Contest calendar, although I’m thinking of skipping it this year (see below).
That leaves one calendar, so for the past two years I’ve gotten a calendar of classic black&white railroad photos by O. Winston Link.
Link’s efforts are famous, and recently I attended a Link show in Rochester.
Oxman gave up on the Classic Sportscars calendar, so next year’s Link calendar hangs there.
Last year there was no All-Pennsy Color Calendar (I ordered too late), so Link hung there.
Two years ago I had a Three Stooges calendar, but it was a waste.
Before that was -a) train water-colors by Howard Fogg; and -b) railroad paintings by Ted Rose.
Fogg was famous in the railfan community, but most of his art was of Colorado narrow-gauge. And Rose was of all railroads, but I’m partial to Pennsy.
A calendar I got to replace Fogg and Rose (and the Stooges) was a Motorbooks Musclecars calendar.
Okay, but I’ve been tempted to drop it.
The only reason I haven’t yet was to have seven calendars.
I was thinking of giving up on the Norfolk Southern Employees Photography Contest calendar.
It’s impressive, but similar to some of the train photography I take myself.
So I was thinking of getting the Trains Magazine train calendar instead.
But that depicts all railroading — the Ted Rose problem.
Kodak’s online Photo-Gallery can make calendars with your own photos. It’s fairly simple. I tried it with some of my mother’s insane photographs.
My mother, before she died, used to shower all her children with strange photographs of anything and everything, usually taken with her fuzzy-focus InstaMatic.
Giant bull statues, cornfields being gleaned, a model airplane, out-of-focus earrings on my niece.
We used to call her “motor-drive.”
When she died, Kodak stock dropped, and many of the Eckerds nationwide went out of business. (The ones in Florida were purchased by CVS.)
She used to do her photo-processing at Eckerd’s. (They’d cheer when she walked in!)
So I uploaded 12 of her crazy photographs to Kodak Gallery, and set about doing a calendar.
Idea! Forget Trains Magazine calendar, forget Norfolk Southern Employees Photography Contest calendar.
Make my own calendar of my own photographs near Horseshoe Curve.
Following are the 12 photographs I will use — on top is the cover photograph; that makes 13.
Most were taken with Phil Faudi (“FAW-dee”), although a few are mine alone.


January: Eastbound up The Hill on Track One in Summerhill. Two helpers are on the point.


February: Eastbound on Track One at AR tower toward New Portage Tunnel in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin”).


March: Eastbound double-stack hammers upgrade on Track One at Cassandra Railfan Overlook.


April: Eastbound uphill through South Fork on Track One. Two helpers are on the point.


May: Eastbound on Track Two about to enter Allegheny Tunnel. The tunnel visible is “Gallitzin,” abandoned.


June: Eastbound train 14G is about to restart after changing crews at Rose, east of Altoona.


July: The classic Tuxedo F-units head the Executive Business Train west on Track Three through Lilly.


August: Westbound double-stack uphill on Track Three toward Horseshoe Curve; Brickyard Crossing in Altoona.


September: Under the highway overpass near Portage; eastbound uphill on Track Two.


October: Hold back the double-stacks; downhill from the Curve at Slope into Altoona. A track-crew is working on Track Two.


November: Under the six-target signal bridge eastbound at McFarland’s Curve, north of Altoona. The left-most signals are for the left-most track, a siding.


December: The best picture; two trains eastbound through Lilly, Tracks One and Two.

• “Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world. —My first contact with railroading was the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1946 when I was age two. I am a railfan, and have been since then. As a teenager in northern Delaware, where our family moved from south Jersey in 1957, I experienced the phenomenal Pennsy electrified line from New York City to Washington D.C.
• “Norfolk Southern” is Norfolk Southern Railroad, a merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway about 20 years ago. NS has since acquired other railroads, namely all the old Pennsy lines of Conrail. —NS is now a major player in east-coast railroading. (“Conrail” is a government amalgamation of east-coast railroads that went bankrupt pretty much at the same time as Penn-Central. Conrail included other bankrupt east-coast railroads, like Erie-Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley; but eventually went private as it became more successful. Conrail has since been broken up, sold to CSX Transportation Industries (railroad) and Norfolk Southern railroad. CSX got mainly the old New York Central routes, and NS got the old PRR routes, although NS also has the old Erie Railroad route across southern NY.)
• “Narrow-gauge” is three feet between the rails. Most railroads are “Standard-gauge,” 4 feet 8&1/2 inches between the rails. Narrow-gauge could have tighter curvature, allowing less grading, so was often used in confined mountainous territory; e.g. Colorado.
• “Musclecars” are the mega-power cars popular in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s; usually with HUGE incredibly powerful engines; e.g. the Pontiac G-T-O.
• My parents’ final home was south Florida.
• Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use.
• “Double-stack” is two trailer containers stacked two high without wheels in so-called “wellcars.” —It’s much more efficient than single containers (or trailers) on flatcars, since it’s two containers per car. It’s often the same shipping containers shipped overseas; where they may be stacked three or four high, or even higher if a support deck is under a stack. But “double-stacks” require very high clearance; over 20 feet. Bridges had to be raised, and tunnels made larger.
• “Phil Faudi” is a railfan local to the Altoona area, who gives rail tours — train chases. So far I have done two Faudi train-chases; and they are railfan overload — worth every penny. —Faudi monitors only the Norfolk Southern operating frequency, on his radio scanner, and -A) knows every train as the engineers call out the signals, and -B) knows how long it will take to drive to a photo location. The end result is usually more than 20 trains over nine hours. My most recent train-chase, we saw 30!
• Everything but the cover-shot, Cassandra Railfan Overlook, and the tunnels, is at a Faudi picture location; pictures taken by me — although I’d been to Brickyard Crossing myself earlier, and Faudi hits Cassandra.

I voted

Another election drifts into the filmy past.
And with it, I hope, the blizzard of political mailings that clogged our mailbox.
And the forest of political signs that cluttered lawns and every corner where traffic might have to slow.
This area is not as bad as southern California, where I visited a few years ago.
I drove our rental into a suburban development to turn around, and some houseowner had a giant flashing marquee on his front lawn amidst a forest of signage.
It was at least 12 by eight feet.
“Vote for whoever,” it screamed; “who supports Arnold Schwarzenegger, the greatest Governor this state ever had.”
(Weren’t they saying the same thing about Ronald Reagan?)
A couple years ago a small sign for Eric Massa (“MAH-suh”) occupied a corner about a mile from our house.
It stayed there almost a year after the election, which had been won by incumbent Randy Kuhl (“Cool”).
We drove yesterday to the West Bloomfield Fire Department, our new polling-place since the Town Hall had been condemned.
Utterly mal-informed, as usual.
I have voted in nearly every election since college (late ‘60s).
Only missed a couple.
One was after my stroke (I was in the hospital), and it seems there was one just recently, where I ran out of time.
It was an off-year election. I’ve never missed one for president.
We even did the absentee ballot thing once, because we’d be on vacation on Election-Day.
That was Jimmeh Cah-duh.
I studied the ballot on our clunky old election machines.
Is this the best we can do with our fabulous technology?
On the other hand, maybe the old clunkers are more reliable.
If our cars were as reliable as our whiz-bang computers, drivers would be randomly stopped on shoulders scratching their heads.
“Oh well, what the heck?” I said to myself.
I pulled all the Democratic levers.
It’s always like this.
That was including the incumbent West Bloomfield Supervisor, who I wondered about after that proposed sweetheart land purchase.
We (the Town) voted that down, after we got it on the ballot.
Yet despite that I can’t vote REPUBLICAN.
Furthermore, their candidates are stridently against consolidation with East Bloomfield.
It’s at least worth considering.
“Throw the bums out,” a coworker said, referring to Bill Clinton.
“Replace ‘em with another set of bums,” I said.
It’s always Congress sucks, except my Congressman.
“Seems ya gotta be wacko to run for president,” my wife says.

• “This area” is where we live, in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western N.Y., southeast of Rochester.
• “Eric Massa,” a Democrat, is our current Congressman. He replaced “Randy Kuhl,” a Republican, who was our previous Congressman, a long-time incumbent.
• The previous West Bloomfield Town Hall, an old church-building, had been condemned due to dry-rot. The Town Hall was our previous polling-place.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• RE: “Sweetheart land purchase.....” —Some time ago a farmer donated a field to West Bloomfield in honor of his deceased son, who had played there. Since the Town Hall was condemned, the town needed land to build a new Town Hall, so they negotiated a land purchase to buy land adjacent to the donated park. The land-value negotiated was well over the going price-per-acre.
• RE: “We (the Town) voted that down, after we got it on the ballot.......” —The proposed land purchase got put on the ballot last year as a proposal. We could vote for or against.
• RE: “Consolidation with East Bloomfield......” —East Bloomfield is the town adjacent to West Bloomfield. New York State has suggested consolidating the two, but most West Bloomfielders are against; even Democrats. (Within the Town of East Bloomfield is the village of Bloomfield; fairly substantial.)
• My wife of almost 42 years is “Linda.”

“Whoa Nellie”

I dutifully changed all our clocks back to Standard Time last weekend.
As a result I got to the Canandaigua YMCA at 10:15 yesterday (Monday, November 2, 2009), which is 11:15 Daylight Savings Time, the time I usually got there.
10:15 is quite early — early enough to do the Cybex circuit, which I haven’t had time for for months.
The goal is to get out by 1:45. 11:15 to 1:45 was never enough time, not with three 30-minute sessions on the cardiovascular trainers.
Readers will start adding things up.
Three 30-minute sessions an the cardiovascular machines is not two and one-half hours: 11:15 to 1:45.
Two of those sessions are actually 35 minutes each; there’s a five-minute cooldown.
Plus there’s a five-to-eight minute break between each session to -a) wipe off the machine, and -b) use the mens room.
Whatever, I’d usually get out between 1:30 and 2.
So theoretically, if I’d got there at 10:15 instead of 11:15, I’d have an additional hour.
Whoa Nellie!
That’s not the way it works.
With Standard Time the sun sets an hour earlier.
2 to 5 p.m. is not enough time to hit Weggers, drive home (a half-hour), mow some, and walk the dog in daylight.
So no Cybex circuit even though 10:15.
We have to operate on Sky Time.

• I work out at the YMCA in Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• The “Cybex® circuit” is a circuit of 14 strength-training machines. Each machine targets a specific muscle-group. (Cybex is the manufacturer.)
• “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.

“Gonna teach that bladder who’s boss”

Every day I videotape the TV news so we can watch it after it’s off.
To my mind it’s the only TV worth watching; no “Lost,” no “Dancing With The Stars.”
“What I wanna know is why that fat dude never lost any weight?” I always ask.
“Too bad she couldn’t finish her dress,” my wife says, referring to the couples on Dancing With The Stars.
Most days we don’t get around to eating supper until after the news.
So the only way to watch it is to tape it for delayed viewing.
This has the advantage that I can zap the ads — fast-forward.
But lately, as daylight shortens, and lawn mowing ends, we watch some of the news live; i.e. we can’t zap the ads.
“Ever wonder if there’s any water in them bathtubs?” I always ask during the Cialis® ads.
One ad is laughable; it’s an ad for Toviaz™.
“Gonna teach that bladder who’s boss,” the announcer says.
The couple is sitting in lawn chairs at an outdoor concert, violinists merrily sawing away.
Wifey beams at hubby, and later she strides authoritatively through a promenade of tall city buildings.
“Gonna teach that bladder who’s boss,” the announcer says.

• “We” is I and my wife of almost 42 years, “Linda.”

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

We are watching the local TV news last night (Saturday, October 31, 2009).
Apparently October was Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
So they ran a video report of a Domestic Violence conference in nearby Rochester, NY.
My wife bursts out laughing.
This conference is giving instructions in karate.
So I guess the best way to reduce domestic violence is to club someone you love.

• “We” is I and my wife of almost 42 years, “Linda.”
• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western N.Y., southeast of Rochester.

“Nuke the baby-seals!”

My cellphone rings.
It’s the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (“ASPCA”).
They wanna speak to my wife.
This is interesting. My wife has her own cellphone, but they called mine.
They want more money, of course.
A professional fund raiser — she admitted as much. “We got a live one here! Call ‘em up, Dora!”
“I need all the details of your most recent gift,” she says.
“Are you an animal lover?”
“Yes and no,” my wife said.
If she’d thought of it fast enough, she woulda said “Nuke the baby-seals!”

• My wife of almost 42 years is “Linda.”

Monthly Calendar Report for November 2009

When calendar entries are as DROLL as they are this month, the Monthly Calendar Report seems silly.


Ardun heads.

But hands-down, the winning calendar is my Oxman Hot-Rod Calendar, a 1932 Ford Roadster with a supercharged Ardun-headed Flat-head.
The Ardun cylinder-heads were a special conversion for the Ford Flat-head by Zora Arkus-Duntov (and his brother Yura), who later developed the Chevrolet Corvette.
They addressed the two main problems with the Ford Flat-head V8, namely: —1) that it was a flat-head, so therefore it —2) breathed terribly.
But -A) it was a V8, and -B) it responded well to hot-rodding. Plus they were cheap and many were available.
So after WWII, they became the motor-of-choice for hot-rodders, so much that a HUGE industry sprang up to supply parts that would wring more horsepower out of the motor.
But a flatty as a performance motor is all wrong.
A flat-head is side-valve, so that the intake-charge has to negotiate contorted passageways. Down from the intake manifold, and then almost 180° back up toward the poppet-valve, which is along-side the cylinder, and facing up.
A better-breathing arrangement was overhead-valve, wherein the intake manifolds were still on top, but the valves facing down, allowing a more direct path for the intake-charge.
The path of the exhaust-charge in an overhead-valve engine was also more direct, but in a flat-head it was contorted just like the intake path.
Worse yet, on the Ford Flat-head the exhaust was plumbed through the block so it exited at the block sides. Even worse, the center two exhausts were siamesed into a single port.
(Some flat-head V8s exhausted out the top; e.g. the Cadillac V8.)
The Flatty was a chronically poor breather, plus it tended to overheat with its exhaust going through the block.
The Ardun head addressed all that, and beyond that was hemispherical.
The arrangement in schematic looks much like the Chrysler Hemi®. Still a central single camshaft in the crux of the V, with pushrods activating rockers on two rocker-shafts.
Suddenly, four exhaust ports per side (instead of only three), plus four intake ports aimed directly at the intake manifold.
Plus the combustion-chamber was hemispherical, with hemispheric valve location.
The intake valves were actuated backwards by rockers on a common rocker-shaft.
The exhaust valves were actuated by longer rockers on a second common shaft.
Valving was turned 90° relative to the crankshaft.
This is like the Chrysler Hemi®. Most overhead-valve engines line the valves all up in a row, parallel to the crankshaft.
Also like a Chrysler Hemi, the sparkplugs were so deeply recessed in the rocker-covers, to access the faraway combustion-chambers, tubes had to be used.
And the compression-ratio could be much higher, although ya needed leaded gas back then to avoid knock.
The angle between valves was pretty open; almost 90°. Nowadays the combustion-chambers are pretty flat; still hemispherical but the angle between valves is almost flat.
(And by now it’s four valves per cylinder, with overhead camshaft valve actuation.)
And I also see that the pistons look very antique. By now the pistons are little more than a ringland, with shoulders for the pin. —The old-style pistons in the schematic would be too heavy to rev sky-high like recent high-performance motorcycle motors.
And the way to increase compression-ratio in a wide-angle hemispherical combustion-chamber was to cast a pop-up into the piston dome.
But this encourages pre-ignition (knock) at the pop-up edges.
But with a hemi-head, the Ford Flat-head was no longer side-valve; i.e. no longer a flat-head.

The four holes are sparkplug tubes.

But there were problems.
The heads were aluminum castings, and the bronze valve-seats could work loose due to differing rates of heat expansion.
Plus there were weak spots in the aluminum castings.
Another problem was cast-iron pushrods. Later pushrod technology uses tubing. Cast-iron was too heavy, and could bind valve-springing at high engine speed with extreme cams.
The valves were also heavy, and inhibited higher engine speeds.
Many of these problem were solved by C & T Automotive of
N. Hollywood, CA. A second production-run of Ardun heads was produced by Don Orosco, to an improved design.
Later development was done by Don Ferguson Sr. and Jr.
The later heads are the ones to get.
The Ardun head was somewhat experimental, but a vast improvement on Ford Flat-head performance.
The Ardun head is long ago, so they are now pretty rare.
The car pictured has Ardun heads, and also the largest supercharger made by Supercharger Company of Turin (“S.C.O.T.”), which explains the moniker.
So the car pictured is fairly special, even though its color is rather droll.
Plus Ardun heads in a hot-rod are a bit off; they’re more a racing application.


Double water-towers at Buena Vista, VA, March 1956. (Photo by O. Winston Link.)

The November 2009 entry of my O. Winston Link “Steam and Steel” calendar is his famous twin water-towers picture.
Watering steam-locomotives was a time consumer.
And the steam-engines had to be watered, since they were boiling water to make steam.
And the steam was being thrown out the stack. It wasn’t being condensed back into water.
The water was stored in a giant cistern in the locomotive’s tender. From there it was pumped into the boiler, usually injected.
A boiler producing steam worked against adding water — the water had to get past steam pressure of 100-300 pounds per square inch or more.
The water-tank in the tender would empty over time, so had to be refilled. Usually this was done by stopping the train at a water-tower so the locomotive(s) could take on water. Although occasionally ya’d see water-pans between the rails, and a passing locomotive would dip a scoop into it at speed.
But scooping water on-the-fly wasn’t as successful as stopping and refilling at a water-tower. Often the scoop broke off, or the water in the pans watered the lineside foliage more than got into the tender.
So here we see two water-towers, spaced so a train with two locomotives could water both engines simultaneously.
That’s half the time needed to water each engine individually.
Diesel-locomotives dispensed with locomotive watering. Ya hardly see water-towers any more. —Usually just never torn down.
The train pictured has only one engine, a massive Y6 articulated; 2-8-8-2.
It hasn’t stopped to water. It’s just blowing by.


1969 Cougar. (Photo by David Newhardt.)

My Motorbooks Musclecars calendar has a 1969 Mercury Cougar.
HO-HUM!
Not that good a picture, also not that good a car.
The Cougar always played second-fiddle to the Mustang.
It was Mercury’s demand to field a pony-car; based on the Mustang, but with individualized front and rear.
The front clip demonstrates a tendency toward the bloated cruisers that came later.
Cougars were eventually based on the mid-size Torino platform — more like the Buick Riviera.
But the first Cougars were based on the Mustang platform, as is this one.

A Bud Moore Cougar.

The earliest Cougars were raced in the SCCA Trans-Am series by Bud Moore Engineering of Spartanburg, SC; application of stock-car racing tricks by old NASCAR racer Bud Moore.
Moore was an entrant, and previous Indianapolis 500 winner Parnelli Jones was among his drivers.
The old tractor suspension layout isn’t as agile and nimble as independent-rear-suspension (“IRS”), but can be made to handle well if sturdily located.
Moore went on to race Boss 302 Mustangs in the Trans-Am series, and his were the fastest cars.
Years ago I was at Bridgehampton Sportscar Course out Long Island, and the two Bud Moore Mustangs were on the front row; Jones and George Follmer.
Jones and Follmer came flat-out over the crest of a hill into a blind downhill turn, 160+ mph.
Neither was giving an inch, and I will remember it as long as I live.
The Mustangs would bottom their rear-suspensions at the foot of the hill, and throw up a shower of sparks from their track-bars.
As Jones used to say: “If your car isn’t out of control, you’re not driving fast enough.”
But first Moore raced Cougars; hide-away headlights, and sequential taillights.
Although his Cougars probably didn’t have that.
Years later I found Bud Moore Engineering in Spartanburg. I went inside and thanked them for some of the greatest car-racing I ever saw.
But that was the Mustangs, not the Cougars.
Moore even did some bodywork to his Mustangs to reduce their frontal-area. Um, that’s cheating. A NASCAR staple.
The license-plate on the car pictured says “428,” and its surround says something about eating Ferraris for lunch.
Well, yeah; in a straight line.
A 428 is a big and extremely powerful motor, and would indeed skonk a Ferrari.
But don’t throw a corner at it. For that ya need a Ferrari.
Way too much weight on the front-end, and the rear axle is a log on rubber-bands.


I1s Decapods at Weigh Scales, on a Pennsy branch north of Shamokin, PA. (Photo by Lew Bowman©.)

—The November 2009 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs B&W All-Pennsy Calendar is a Pennsy Decapod (2-10-0) pushing (helping) a heavy ore train past Weigh Scales, PA. (Another Dek is waiting for it to pass.)
There’s no date on this picture, but my guess is about 1955, among the final years the Pennsylvania Railroad was using steam locomotion.
Freight locomotives were fielded on Pennsy after the Decapod (nicknamed the “Hippo;” because they were so large), mainly the M1 Mountain (4-8-2) and the J1 Texas (2-8-4). —The Dek is 1916.
The Mountain was a Pennsy design, but mainly worked well at speed over Pennsy’s wide-open mainlines, like its Middle Division between Harrisburg and Altoona (the Allegheny mountains).
The J1 Texas was not a Pennsy design. Pennsy needed new power for WWII, having worn out locomotives.
They had not developed new steam power due to electrification and all the technical input it required.
The War Production Board would not allow Pennsy to design a new freight engine, so the railroad tried a Norfolk & Western A (2-6-6-4), and Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad’s T1 Texas (2-10-4). —The T1 won. (Pennsy abhorred articiulateds.)

No Belpaire firebox; a Pennsy J1.

The J1 was not a Pennsy design. It lacks the trademark Pennsy Belpaire firebox.
It’s essentially Lima Locomotive’s (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”) 2-10-4 SuperPower design.
It has all the appliances Pennsy normally eschewed; like feedwater preheat.
And a trailing-truck booster.
Other engines were designed and used earlier, like a 2-10-2 Santa Fe, and also the L1 Mikado (2-8-2).
But the Santa Fe’s were used mainly west of Pittsburgh.
The J1 was a poor match for Pennsy operations; SuperPower tended to be for high-speed operation.
Pennsy had heavy gradients that made a train run slow.
But the J was powerful, and fit well with moving long trains of loaded coal-hoppers out in Ohio from Columbus to Sandusky.
There it could cruise at a good clip.
They were used on Pennsy’s Hill out of Altoona, but down-and-dirty at a crawl wasn’t what they were best suited for.
But at least, their boiler had fantastic steam-capacity. They wouldn’t run out of steam like a Dek might.
The Decapods hung around and weren’t scrapped. They were well-suited to dragging heavy freight-trains up mountains; like in PA.
A final assignment was to lug heavy ore trains up to an interchange with Lehigh Valley Railroad in Mt. Carmel, PA.
One of the most spectacular train-photographs I’ve ever seen, ran many years ago in this calendar, a Pennsy ore train on the Mt. Carmel branch in the snow.
It was taken by Don Wood, and the lead Decapod is hurling a giant column of backlit smoke and steam into the sunlit sky.
I’m sorry I can’t find it. I’d run it if I could.
“Weigh Scales” because that was where the railroad had weigh scales to weigh the train.
Weigh Scales is on the Mt. Carmel branch.


1937 BMW 328 roadster.

—The November entry of my Oxman Legendary Sportscar Calendar is a white 1937 BMW 328 roadster.
I wouldn’t fly it, except the BMW 328 is a very significant car.
It had a tubular frame, and independent front suspension.
Competitive Alfa-Romeos of that time were still buckboards with a beam axle up front.
The car was light, and had an 80 horsepower six-cylinder engine, which later became a British Bristol engine as a war reparation.
A 328 won the Mille Miglia (“MEE-ya MEE-ya”) in 1940 — a slap in the face to the Italian car-racing fraternity.
In some ways it was revolutionary.
BMW seemed a backwater until the late 1960s, when Car & Driver Magazine began trumpeting the BMW 2002.

A 2002.

It was a great car.
A lowly two-door sedan, but it had independent rear suspension, and a MacPherson strut front end.
Just about everything has come to that chassis layout since — at least the MacPherson strut front end.
The rear axle on many rear-drive Detroit cars is still solid with an integral differential; same layout as a Model T.
And the unpowered rear-axle on a front-drive car is often a solid beam tying the two wheels together; it’s not independent.
But it’s much better located than even a ‘70s musclecar. It won’t bumpsteer.
Even the solid rear-axle on a rear-drive Detroit car is well located. Its only disadvantage is its heavy weight — its momentum,
The 328 was a major step forward for BMW. —A very desirable car.
And now BMW is perceived as a premier car, although I think it woulda failed without Car & Driver Magazine.


A string of Humvees on a Norfolk Southern train. (Photo by Cori Martin.)

—The November 2009 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees calendar is rather dumb, a load of armored HMMWV vehicles on a Norfolk Southern train in Chillicothe, OH.
I suppose the calendar judges were impressed the picture depicted the railroad’s role in our military effort.
That’s always been true, and not just for one railroad.
We probably wouldna won WWII were it not for the railroads.
Eisenhower was so impressed with the German Autobahn system he instituted an Interstate highway system.
But the interstates can’t move freight like the railroads.
I have train videos of old steam engines dragging mile-after-mile of military equipment on railroad flatcars.
Just about every train video I have has a long train of tanks, Stryker vehicles, or military trucks.
I’ve seen military equipment loaded into gigantic cargo jets for transshipment to Afghanistan.
That might be 10 vehicles. One train is carrying hundreds.
Railroading was so instrumental in our war effort in WWII, German saboteurs were sent to blow up the Pennsylvania Railroad’s crossing of the Allegheny mountains.
And many of our bombing runs in Germany were rail yards.
About the only thing interesting in this calendar picture is the lighting, and the fact it was shot from a locomotive.
The lighting is cloudy dawn. The photographer did well to capture it.
But the train could just as well be coal.
I have a train video of loaded coal-hoppers similar to this; the locomotives are pushing.
But being a video, the cars are jukin’ and jivin’ side-to-side.
Ya don’t see that in a still.

I’m not flying my Ghosts WWII warbirds November calendar entry because I think it’s stupid.
It’s only a Hawker Nimrod trainer, a biplane (“BYE-plane”).
Its landing-gear doesn’t even retract.
It’s not one of the fabulous WWII warbird hot-rods, like the Mustang or the Corsair.
The engine is only 600 horsepower! The Mustang is 1,695, a Corsair is 2,000, a Bearcat is 2,100, a P-47 is 2,535.

“Beautiful”

We’re at Strong Hospital yesterday (Thursday, October 25, 2009) for a medical appointment.
“Stick your tongue out,” the Doctor says to my wife.
She does so.
“Beautiful,” the Doctor says.
“That mean you think my wife has a beautiful tongue?” I ask.

• “Strong Hospital” is one of two large hospitals in Rochester city. There are others, but they are in the suburbs. Strong Hospital is in the southeast of Rochester; the other is in the northeast. It has medical office facilities.