Monthly calendar report for March 2008

None of my March 2008 calendar pictures really stand out, but they’re all pretty good, or at least notable enough to depict every one.

Pennsy SD40 in Chicago, 2/20/1966. (Photo by Karl Henkels.)
—1) My March 2008 All-Pennsy Color Calendar is a Pennsy SD40.
EMD made two SD40s, the SD40 and the SD40-2.
The original SD40 had the old-style mechanical electronics; the SD40-2 has updated (more modern) transistorized electronics.
The generator (or alternator) of a diesel-electric locomotive sends current to traction-motors on the wheel axles.
How, and how much, is sent to these traction-motors is determined by the switching.
Switching governs what current is sent to what traction-motor wiring.
The SD40 did it with the mechanical switching that was on the earliest diesel-electric locomotives, although modernized some over time.
Dash-2 locomotives (like the SD40-2) use electronical switching.
By now these SD40s are retired, or rebuilt into SD40-2s (or something else, probably derated).
A diesel-electric railroad locomotive lasts 15-20 years — the old steam-locomotives might last 30+ years.
The “SD” (Special-Duty) was a larger six-axle variation of the four-axle “Geep” (GP) hood-unit road-switcher; e.g. the GP40. There were SD7s and 9s, and SD35s, like their GP counterparts.
Four-axle units are no longer offered, since railroads prefer six-axle units.
Six-axle units might be the same horsepower (and motor) as four-axle (e.g. the SD40 and GP40), but that power is divided between six axles instead of four.
Trouble is, a six-axle truck is harder on the railroad than a four-axle truck.
There is no differentiation. The two wheels are solidly connected to the axle, so as a train negotiates a curve, one wheel slips a little.
All that squealing as a train negotiates Horseshoe Curve is wheels slipping on the railheads (this happens on freight-car trucks too).
The center axle of a six-axle truck doesn’t have much lateral motion; in fact, it may not have any at all.
So as a six-axle truck negotiates a tight curve (like a switch turnout), the wheel-flanges work against the rail side; wearing both the flanges and the rail. (Of course, the wheels of the center axle of a three-axle truck may not be flanged.)
This isn’t as pronounced with a four-axle truck.
Curvature is pretty open on railroad mainlines, and crossover switches can be made long to ease curvature.
So most railroads can accommodate six-axle power, although six-axle power is still rough on rail.
But factory sidings and switches thereto are still fairly tight — tight enough to require four-axle power.
SD40s are used as helpers on the mighty Curve, which is part of The Hill over the Alleghenies, but they are SD40-2s.

Goodyear FG-1D Corsair. (Photo by Philip Makanna.)
—2) My March 2008 Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Corsair, in this case an FG-1D Goodyear iteration thereof. The original Corsair fighter-plane was the Chance-Vought F4U, although other manufacturers, like Goodyear, were roped into the World War Two production effort.
The Corsair is a hot-rod, the barest essentials with a big motor; although this Corsair has only the three-bladed propeller.
The ultimate Corsair hot-rod airplanes had a four-bladed prop, 2,450 horsepower.
This airplane has 2,300 horsepower.
The Corsair was developed in 1938, and the prototype was rated at 1,850 horsepower. —The original F4U-1A at 2,250 horsepower.
The Corsair also had the famous inverted gull-wing; a trick by its designers to allow short, stubby landing-gear with that huge propeller.
Landings on an aircraft-carrier flight-deck are slam-bang affairs, so the landing-gear had to be short and stout.
Corsairs were known as “Whistling Death” by Japanese fighter-pilots because of the noise they made through their wing-mounted oil-coolers.

Inaugural run of Vulcan Materials unit stone-train near Spartanburg, S.C. on the Norfolk Southern Railroad. (Photo by Jim Crawford.)
—3) My Norfolk Southern Employees calendar has a Norfolk Southern unit stone-train near Spartanburg, S.C. taken by Jim Crawford.
What’s amazing is that it was taken with a Kodak EasyShare C643, which as far as I know is a point-and-shoot camera, more-or-less, now discontinued.
This shows how far point-and-shoot technology has come.
Years ago my mother used an Instamatic point-and-shoot that only had a clear plastical lens.
The idea was the lens was small enough to pretty much be in focus whatever the shooting-distance was.
The low light it allowed could be offset with fast film — and the film was designed to get an image no matter what the exposure was. I don’t think it had aperture-control, or even variable shutter-speed.
Crawford’s EasyShare was probably auto-focusing, the same thing I usually do with my D100, and probably setting the aperture and shutter-speed automatically, like I also do with my D100, although I can make it aperture- or shutter-priority when I want (like to increase focal-length, or stop a train).
This picture also displays the importance of lighting and composition, although they were probably defaults by the photographer.
Crawford had a lot to do with setting up this business, so got up at 3 a.m. to photograph the train’s first run.
So here he is at sunup to photograph his baby pulling out, and thereby gets a fantastic shot with his point-and-shoot.

Dennis Varni’s 1932 Ford Tudor sedan built by Rolling Bones Garage. (It has a Hemi.). (Photo by Peter Vincent.)
—4) My ‘32 Ford hot-rod calendar has a rather pedestrian car, but it is the best photograph of the month, mainly because of its setting.
The ‘32 Ford Tudor sedan is rather ordinary, but photographer Vincent shot it next to a rusting corrugated steel warehouse, not the Bonneville Salt Flats, where he shot so much else.
Bonneville is dream-like, and a good setting for hot-rod photography, but there are other shots in the calendar beside Bonneville, and this is the best one.
The car also has a Hemi motor, one of the most phenomenal motors of all time, but it’s a ‘52, the first iteration.
The Hemi came in three iterations. At the beginning of the ‘50s, Chrysler wanted to build something different (and better) than the new Oldsmobile and Cadillac overhead-valve V8s that debuted in the 1949 model-year, so debuted the Hemi in the 1951 model-year.
It splayed its valves across a hemispherical combustion chamber, so it could breathe better than the Olds and Caddy V8s, which lined their valves in a row.
The Hemi lasted through the 1958 model-year, when it was retired, because it was too costly to produce. (It has two rocker-shafts per cylinder-head; and each head is a large heavy casting.)
The Hemi was replaced by the less costly Wedge motors, which weren’t hemispherical combustion chambers, and use larger displacements to make massive power.
But in the ‘60s it became apparent that a large Wedge couldn’t generate the massive top-end power of free-breathing hemispherical heads, so Hemi-heads were grafted onto the Wedge block, creating the infamous “elephant motor.”
The elephant motor was 426 cubic inches, and dominated NASCAR until it was outlawed.
A Buddy Baker Dodge Daytona winged car powered by a Hemi lapped Talladega Speedway at over 200 mph in 1970, the first NASCAR racer to do so.
The elephant motor was also available as a stock motor; like in the Barracuda and the Dodge Challenger pony cars. NASCAR required it be a stock motor, and it was a monster.
The elephant motor also dominated drag racing.
Iteration number three is the new Hemi motor, that -a) takes advantage of the glorious reputation of earlier Hemis, and -b) also has the hemispherical combustion chamber.
The new Hemis are smaller, but still strong. They’re also fuel-injected, and earlier Hemis mostly weren’t, although Chrysler had a fuel-injection in the late ‘50s (as did Chevrolet).
Varni’s 1932 Ford Tudor is true to the engineering of early hot-rodders. It’s an in-your-face hot-rod; make do with what ya have to go like stink.
Rolling Bones Garage got it right: chop the top 5&1/2 inches, and 89 bazilyun louvers. —Big rear tires and a rudimentary paint-job.

Buffalo Day Express (powered by Pennsy K4 Pacific #1981) pauses at Sunbury station, April 12, 1950. (Photo by Stephen J. Benkovitz©)
—5) My Audio-Visual Designs All-Pennsy B&W calendar has the railroad’s Buffalo Day Express, stopped at the Sunbury station in Pennsylvania long ago in 1950.
The railroad’s run to Buffalo was its most scenic, and the Buffalo Day Express ran from Washington D.C. to Buffalo in daylight.
South of Harrisburg it ran the old Northern Central to Baltimore, a line through York, Pa., and tough enough to engender the two K5 Pacifics, which were the massive Decapod boiler on a Pacific wheelset.
Pennsy bought the Northern Central in the late 1800s to expand itself into central western New York.
They eventually built a huge coal pier at Sodus Point on Lake Ontario for transloading coal into large lake boats.
Between Harrisburg and Williamsport, the railroad follows the eastern shore of the Susquehanna river.
North of Williamsport the Northern Central continued to Elmira, N.Y. with a route in the same valley as highway Route 14. That segment has largely been abandoned; and hardly any of the grade remains.
The Buffalo Day Express continued on another railroad to the northwest, through Olean, N.Y. to Buffalo.
It still exists and is very scenic, crossing the Allegheny mountains.
It’s out in the middle of nowhere — very rural. It doesn’t start getting urban until the outskirts of Buffalo. There was little lineside traffic — the only justification for that route was Williamsport to Buffalo.

Heavily modified 1961 Pro Street Corvette drag-racer. (Photo by Richard Prince.)
—6) My All Corvette 2008 calendar has a 1961 Pro Street Corvette — something you’d never wanna throw into a corner.
It’s made for drag-racing only. The front tires are puny, and the rears are HUGE — so big, the back end had to be “tubbed.” That is, giant tubs were installed in the trunk to encase the giant rear tires. They even had to narrow the rear-end, which of course is a tractor-axle.
The earliest ‘Vettes suffered from poor underpinnings — they were little more than the 1953 Chevy sedan chassis; modified to accept the fiberglass ‘Vette body.
All they were, after 1955, was the fabulous Small-Block motor. (Before 1955 it was a souped-up Chevy Stovebolt Six.)
Apparently the 1961 model was the first year with the ducktail (although I thought it was 1962 — last of the earliest Corvettes [C1])
Regrettably the calendar doesn’t have the ‘57 Corvette Fuel-Injection; the most memorable of the early Corvettes.
In the late ‘50s I once was in a parking-lot near a bowling-alley near where we lived in northern Delaware.
Three Corvettes were parked outside: two ‘57s and a ‘56; one ‘57 was fuel-injection. The other ‘57 was dual-quads; and both ‘57s were four-on-the-floor.
Suddenly four young dudes burst from the bowling-alley and got in the ‘Vettes.
I quickly pedaled my balloon-tire bicycle to the parking-lot exit, because I knew I was about to witness an event.
Sure enough, each ‘Vette blew outta the parking-lot and laid down a trail of tire-smoke.
Each car was wound out to about 7,000 rpm in first gear before they shifted, and chirped when they did.
I have never forgotten that as long as I’ve lived, and doubt I ever will.
It determined my predilection for the Small-Block all through high-school and college.

—7) Finally, we have my Three Stooges calendar, or as my mentally retarded kid brother said: “Tree ‘Tooges.”
As a whole, the calendar is forgettable, but most notable about this month’s entry is “Shemp,” the Stooge that was replaced by Curly.
Moe and Shemp were brothers; Moe actually Moses Horwitz, and Shemp actually Samuel Horwitz.
Curly, actually Jerome Lester Horwitz, was the youngest brother, and replaced Shemp fairly early when he left the Stooges.
So Shemp is kind of like the long-lost Stooge, although the essence of the Stooges was Curly (and I’ve never seen Shemp in a Stooges skit).

“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.

“EMD” is Electromotive Division of General Motors, GM’s manufacturer of railroad diesel-locomotives. Most railroads used EMD when they dieselized; although many now use General-Electric railroad diesel-locomotives.

“Geep” is the nickname given to EMD GP road-switchers (four axles).

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 (“The Hill”) without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan.)

The “D100” is my Nikon D100 digital camera. It’s a professional camera; the first Nikon digital at that level, which was upgraded to the D200 and now the D300. Mine is about five years old, and was bought brand-new; and replaced my old Pentax Spotmatic film cameras — which were about 40 years old.

The “K4 Pacific” (4-6-2) is the standard passenger steam-engine the Pennsylvania Railroad used until the end of steam. I was developed in the late ‘teens, and lasted until 1957 or so. Pennsy never developed a replacement in the ‘30s, and the replacement they developed after WWII (the T-1; 4-4-4-4) was more-or-less a failure.

“B&W” equals black-and-white.

“Decapod” (2-10-0) was the massive freight steam-engine Pennsy developed about 1920 — they had many.

The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first at 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. The Small-Block is still produced, more-or-less, although vastly improved.

The “Stovebolt Six” is the inline six-cylinder engine introduced about 1930; that lasted over 40 years. It was significantly re-engineered for the 1937 model-year, and enlarged in the ‘50s. It was revolutionary when introduced, because unlike most motors it had overhead valves. —It was called the “Stovebolt” because bolts could be replaced by stove-bolts bought at the hardware-store.

I had a mentally-retarded kid-brother (Down Syndrome) who lived at home. (He died at 14 in 1968.)