Monthly calendar report

Robert Long.

Where it all began.......

The September entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black & white All-Pennsy calendar is of course the infamous “Where it all began” image above.
It’s the picture that was taken at the exact same location along the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Line in Haddonfield, New Jersey, where my father first took me to watch trains when I was two in 1946.
The picture was taken in late 1953, and depicts a Pennsylvania Railroad K4 Pacific (4-6-2) accelerating east out of Haddonfield station for Atlantic City.
It’s passing the water standpipe at the beginning of the Philadelphia, Marlton & Medford branch (abandoned even then; all that was left was a wye in the woods).
I watched many PRSL steam-engines take water at that standpipe. PRSL didn’t fully stop using steam until 1956-‘57. (I was born in 1944.)
The keystone-shaped number-plate (#1120) on the front smokebox door of that K4 is red.
Pennsy steam was gorgeous, and most noteworthy was that red number-plate. I’d be thrilled when I saw one coming.
The photographer (Robert Long) may have been the guy who worked in the Custom-Sport-Shop in Fairfax Shopping Center, who sold Bruce Stewart his Rolleiflex.
The Custom Sport Shop photographer was also using a Rollei, a twin-lens reflex using Kodak Verichrome-pan 120, 12 square images per roll.
He was also a railfan, and I still have a picture of his of a K4 storming somewhere in south Jersey.

Richard Solomon.

Shark.......

The September entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a picture of a Pennsy “Shark,” BAR NONE the most beautiful diesel locomotive of all time. (Well maybe not; there is the Alco PA).
The “Shark” was part of Baldwin Locomotive Works’ feeble attempt to parry the phenomenally successful diesel railroad locomotives out of General Motors’ ElectroMotive Division (EMD).
Steam was done for.
It was costly and labor-intensive. Massive shop-forces had to be held to maintain it, along with huge lineside coaling and watering facilities out in the boondocks.
All you did was drive a diesel like a truck. Massive coaling-towers got dynamited, although a few still stand empty.
Diesel-electric locomotion was also better-suited for what most railroads were doing: lugging massive loads slowly over hill-and-dale.
A side-rod steam engine couldn’t project the starting torque a diesel-electric could. The steam engine would slip.
A steam engine might generate more horsepower with less fuel once up to speed, but railroading rarely got above 35 mph; often quite a bit slower.
For years Baldwin Locomotive Works had been a major supplier of railroad steam locomotives, but the success of the diesel-electric locomotive made them try diesels, as did long-time rival American Locomotive Company (Alco) in Schenectady, N.Y.
The Shark was one iteration of Baldwin’s effort — although its prettiest.
It was styled by Raymond Loewy (which they of course misspelled as “Lowey”), who did many styling jobs for the Pennsylvania Railroad.
In fact, I can imagine mighty Pennsy wanting Baldwin to have Loewy design a diesel locomotive — although I don’t know if they did. (Other railroads had Sharks — like New York Central.)
The Shark, though pretty, wasn’t very successful.
The motor was fragile, and often crippled a train, thereby tieing up the railroad.
The GM diesels, though not as attractive, were far more reliable; and eventually GM fielded a road-switcher version of the locomotive, the Geep. 7048 is a GP9.
Baldwin also fielded a longish six-axle passenger version of the Shark, but it too was doomed by unreliability.
Baldwin was reduced to building yard-switchers; the railroads were buying GM. Baldwin also built a road-switcher to compete with the Geep (PRSL had a few), but Baldwin was doomed (as was Alco, although it lasted a while).
Eventually Baldwin quit making railroad locomotives altogether; and soon tanked.

Deuce.......

The September entry of my hot-rod calendar is a 1932 highboy roadster built in the middle-‘40s by Doane Spencer; supposedly the first hot-rod ever built.
Well, could be.
‘40s is eons ago, and hot-rodding was mainly a ‘40s and ‘50s thing.
But there were also racing roadsters built before that, mainly stripped cars based on the Model T Ford. They used the Model T engine; a four.
1932 was the first year that Old Henry offered his famous flat-head V8; so the ‘32 is a watershed. (V8s were thereby available to the common folk.)
It still has its original flat-head V8 — many hot-rods were switched to the Small-Block Chevy.
It looks like the real thing. The tires are still the old dreadful bias-plies. (Goose it, and it’s probably all over the road.)
And BAR NONE the 1932 high-boy is the most beautiful hot-rod of all time.

959.......

The September entry of my sports-car calendar is a 1988 Porsche 959.
All I can think of when I see this aberration is the lowly Porsche 911, which has been around since the ‘60s, has been inflated with steroids.
What it reminds me of is the over-fiberglassed Corvettes that John Greenwood fielded in the ‘70s: cars that had so much non-stock bodywork they didn’t look like Corvettes.
—Except for the windshield and top.
Greenwood had completely re-engineered the car to make it a racer.
About all that was stock was the wheelbase, and the windshield and top.
Track was widened front and rear, and bodywork had to be extended to cover everything — e.g. tires.
That being the case, the front-end was reconfigured to not be a shingle that lifted off the pavement at speed.
All this was because the stock Corvette handled like a pig, plus it liked to fly.
So here we have the humble 911 with add-ons that make it look overblown.
A huge whale-tail is grafted on the back, and the car’s footprint significantly widened.
It thereby becomes a supercar, but underneath it’s still a 911: motor still hung out back, and styling-cues laid down about 1962.
Sorry, it looks ridiculous. Put that motor into what it deserves to be in. —At least it’s All-Wheel Drive.

Philip Makanna.

German planes.......

My remaining calendars are insignificant, although I suppose my Ghosts WWII warbird calendar is worth illustration.
Pictured are two German warplanes: a Heinkel bomber and a Junkers tri-motor transport.
If I am correct, the Heinkel was supposed to be the leading arm for Hitler’s Luftwaffe, and was used to bomb London.
But it was no match for the Hawker Hurricane fighter, which is why the British won the Battle of Britain. (Similarly the Messerschmidt Me109s that escorted the bombers were no match for the Supermarine Spitfire.)
The Junkers appears to be a step beyond the Ford Tri-Motor; low-wing instead of high-wing.
But it ain’t the DC3 — not even retractable landing-gear. Many DC3s are still is use.
Apparently the British didn’t get these two airplanes; but I still am more partial to American warbirds than anything foreign.
These things are nothing compared to a Mustang fighter-plane.

My other two calendars are -1) my Howard Fogg railroad calendar, and -2) my Norfolk Southern (railroad) calendar.
-The September entry of my Howard Fogg calendar is an oil painting of a steam-powered Denver & Rio Grande Western narrow-gauge stock-train climbing some mountain grade in the scrubby Colorado outback.
Ho-hummm.
Fogg has done 89 bazilyun illustrations of Colorado narrow-gauge. Seems every Fogg calendar has two or three. (This one has three; plus one standard-gauge.)
-My Norfolk Southern calendar has a Norfolk Southern freight somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginny.
But it’s only one track. It sure ain’t the old Pennsy main.
Last year there were at least three or four illustrations of Norfolk Southern trains on the old Pennsy main; which has at least two tracks — often three or four.
At least a GE wide-cab is on the point.

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in about two years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world.

“Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines” (PRSL) is an amalgamation of Pennsylvania and Reading (“RED-ing”) railroad-lines in south Jersey to counter the fact the two railroads had too much track. It was promulgated in 1933.

The “K4 Pacific” was the most successful steam passenger-engine the Pennsylvania Railroad ever had. It was developed in the late ‘teens, and most were built in the ‘twenties.

“Haddonfield” is an old Revolutionary War town south of the suburb we lived in (Erlton) in south Jersey.

A “wye” is a triangular track arrangement a locomotive or train can be turned on.

“Custom-Sport-Shop” is the hobby-shop where Bruce Stewart and I bought all our model railroad supplies. “Bruce Stewart” was my next-door neighbor; a year-or-two older than me.

“7048” is the railroad-locomotive on display at Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve,”) west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, 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. “7048” replaced a K4 Pacific, #1361, built in Altoona. 1361 was removed years ago and is being restored to operability.

The 1932 Ford is nicknamed the “Deuce.” The car pictured is a roadster “high-boy,” a hot-rodding term. It’s not the stock one-piece windshield.

“Narrow-gauge” is only three feet between the rails. (Standard gauge is 4-feet 8&1/2-inches; what most railroads are.) Narrow-gauge allowed tighter curvature, and was well-suited to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. (There are other gauges: e.g. meter-gauge, and five-foot gauge. The original Erie Railroad was built to a six-foot gauge.)