Monthly calendar report:

Photo by Philip Makanna.

The Jug.

-1) My Ghosts classic WWII warbirds calendar is an improvement for October, 2007.
Gone are the ugly German planes that graced the September entry — a Heinkel He111 twin-engined bomber that participated in the bombing of London, and a Junkers Ju-52 tri-motor — replaced by a Republic P47 Thunderbolt fighter (pictured).
The P47 was a big airplane; it has a wingspan of 40-feet-9 inches, and is 36-feet 2-inches long.
The Supermarine Spitfire has a 36-foot 10-inch wingspan, and is only 29-feet 11-inches long.
A P51 Mustang has a 37-foot wingspan, and is 32-feet 3-inches long. A P40 Warhawk has a 37-foot 4-inch wingspan, and is 33-feet 4-inches long.
The Mustang weighs 7,125 pounds unladen, a P40 weighs 6,200 pounds unladen, and the Spitfire weighs 6,447 pounds loaded.
A P47, by comparison, can weigh 19,400 pounds loaded.
The P47 was affectionately called “The Jug.”
It doesn’t have the grace and panache of a Mustang, but they were hard to shoot down.
That big motor (a twin-row air-cooled Pratt & Whitney radial of 18 cylinders) was good for 2,535 horsepower.
The Mustang only got 1,695 horsepower from its Packard-Merlin water-cooled V12.
American overkill in the sky: the flying equivalent of a 454 SS Chevelle.

Photo from the Al Chione Collection.

E-units.

-2) The October entry of my Charles Ditlefsen All-Pennsy Color calendar is also okay, more-or-less.
It depicts Pennsy E8s (pictured) heading an express-mail train north of Rockville Bridge in 1966.
By 1966 mighty Pennsy was faltering. Too many lines west of Pennsylvania to feed the main-stem in Pennsylvania.
Those lines were being taxed to oblivion; and were no longer generating much revenue.
Freight was transferring to trucks. No longer was it being shipped in railroad boxcars via factory sidings.
And passenger service was being taken over by airplanes. A jet was much faster than a train.
In two years (1968) Pennsy would merge with its chief eastern rival, New York Central, and in two more years even that, Penn-Central, would go bankrupt.
Mighty Pennsy no longer exists. Its main stem still exists, but is now operated by Norfolk Southern.
The onliest Pennsy E-units operating aren’t really Pennsy Es. They’re privately owned, and chartered; painted to look like Pennsy E-units.

Photo by Scott Williamson.

The Boydster I.

-3) The October entry of my hot-rod calendar is a Coddington-Foose dream, so unrealistic and overdone it doesn’t seem much of a hot-rod.
They began with a fiberglass copy of a 1932 Ford highboy roadster, the most beautiful hot-rod of all time.
They installed a laid-back curved one-piece windshield that looks more appropriate to a modern car.
They also took out the hood — all to smooth appearance.
But what if you have to access the motor?
And what if it rains? No wipers; no top.
A trailer-queen — something you'd never operate on the street. (How do you get it in the driveway when it’s that low?)

Photo by Scott Williamson.

1996 Ferrari FX.

-4) The October entry of my sportscar calendar is a Ferrari (pictured) hardly recognizable as a Ferrari.
I suppose if it were blood-red, fire-engine red, or Ferrari-red (a slightly orangish red), it would be more recognizable.
But it lacks Ferrari trademarks like the egg-crate grille.
(The 365GTB4 was barely recognizable too, but at least it had an egg-crate grille.)
Pininfarina (“Pee-nin-far-EEN-ya”), a frequent stylist and body-builder for Ferrari, has also masked that it’s a mid-engined car.
It’s a fabulous styling job, but doesn’t look like a Ferrari.
Paint it silver and it’s a Porsche.

-Other calendars.
-A) The October entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy calendar is a small gasoline box-cab switcher used by Pennsy on Manhattan Island of New York City.
It looks a lot like the tiny box-cab electric switchers Pennsy had.
—Built at Juniata Shops in 1928; one of three, of which one was later converted to diesel (1947).
Manhattan made steam switchers look like coaches so as to not scare horses, then made steam locomotion by railroads illegal altogether.
Even mighty New York Central had to electrify its main-line into Manhattan — Grand Central Terminal.
And its West-Side freight line never really succeeded.
Manhattan Island has never had direct railroad freight service.
Pennsy’s tubes under the Hudson are too small, so most freight gets ferried (now trucked).
CSX has a direct route into the city, but it’s roundabout.
-B) My Howard Fogg railroad calendar has a Burlington Route Hudson (4-6-4) accelerating a mail-train out of an unknown Iowa town.
This is how it used to be — first-class mail was delivered by the railroads.
But it’s a painting, although a rare gem amidst all the Fogg Colorado Narrow-Gauge paintings.
-C) My Norfolk Southern employee calendar is their standard ho-hum autumn leaves picture; Norfolk Southern Geeps emerging from a forest of red, yellow and orange in northwest Pennsylvania.

A “454 SS Chevelle” is a muscle-car from the early ‘70s.

“A trailer-queen” is a car (or motorcycle) that never gets used on the street. They get towed to shows on (or inside) trailers.

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with arch-rival 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.

“Rockville Bridge” was Pennsy’s long crossing of the Susquehanna River north of Harrisburg in central Pennsylvania. The current stone-arch, which replaced earlier bridges, is (or was) the largest masonry stone-arch bridge in the world when it was built in 1902. It still exists, and is comprised of 48 seventy-foot spans.

“Howard Fogg” was attracted to, and therefore painted, many scenes of Colorado narrow-gauge railroading. Narrow-gauge is three feet between the rails. Standard-gauge is 4-feet 8&1/2-inches. Nearly all railroads (all in the U.S.A.) are standard-gauge. Narrow gauge was used years ago in the Colorado mountains; since it allowed tighter curves. No narrow-gauge railroads are left, except for three small tourist operations in Colorado, and one in Pennsylvania.

“Pennsy” was merged into Penn-Central, which was replaced with Conrail when PC (among other eastern railroads) went bankrupt. Conrail was at first a government enterprise, but eventually it went public. It was broken up a few years ago, with most of the ex-Pennsy lines going to Norfolk Southern Railroad, and the ex-New York Central lines going to CSX Transportation.