Monthly Calendar-Report for August 2008

(At long last, I am able to fly this Monthly Calendar Report, at almost the end of the month.
It’s been done since the beginning of the month, but I haven’t had time to fly it.)

Norfolk Southern freight on the storied Norfolk & Western main in Hemphill, W. Va. (Photo by Carlos Fink.)

My best August 2008 calendar is my Norfolk Southern Employees calendar.
It depicts the fountainhead of the Norfolk Southern empire, the mighty Norfolk & Western main across Virginia and into West Virginia.
Norfolk & Western was a difficult railroad, but it had the advantage of serving the incredible Pocahontas coal region.
Railroads do extremely well shipping coal, and rivers of coal were being shipped to tidewater in Norfolk.
If I am correct, Norfolk & Western had to cross three mountain ranges in the Appalachians, but was the conduit for all that coal.
So much coal was being shipped, a competing railroad, the Virginian, was built, with easier grades.
But it was eventually merged into Norfolk & Western.
The mainline of Norfolk & Western is torturous, and peppered with 28 tunnels.
The old Pennsy only had a few.
Norfolk & Western traverses some of the most difficult terrain in the country, but there was all that coal to move.
Now railroad technology has advanced beyond the old Norfolk & Western main. The tunnels aren’t high enough to clear double-stacks.
It’s the same problem that hamstrung the old Pennsy main; but they only had a few tunnels.
Viola! The Heartland Project; raising the clearances of all the old Norfolk & Western tunnels.
Like raising tunnel-clearances across Pennsylvania, the Heartland Project is a joint effort of public and private entities.
Norfolk Southern is also the owner of the old Pennsy main, but that’s shipping to Philadelphia and New York City.
Norfolk wants a piece of the action. —It’s the same economic desire that prompted the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and eventually Pennsy, after the incredible success of the Erie Canal.
Norfolk Southern is the private participant, because the Heartland Project gives them another outlet for double-stacks.
But that’s a side-benefit. There’s still all that coal to ship. —Coal-hoppers aren’t as high as double-stacks, which need over 20 feet of clearance.
Norfolk Southern is a December, 1990 merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway, the strongest partner being Norfolk & Western. NS has since merged other lines, including the old Pennsy main from Conrail; so that now NS is a major player in east-coast railroading. Norfolk & Western had also merged a few lines in the midwest, like Nickel Plate and Wabash. Southern served the entire southeast.

Classic 1932 Ford Hi-Boy roadster hot-rod with Flat-head engine. (Photo by Peter Vincent.)

The August entry of my 1932 Ford “Deuce” calendar is a classic of classics, a 1932 Hi-Boy roadster done in the old style, popular in the late ‘40s.
About the only thing wrong is the color, a stock ‘56 Ford color.
Plus that teensy little roadster top; which I think is the stock lines. —The windshield appears to be chopped.
The car was photographed at Bonneville Salt Flats, which has an awesomely beautiful and strange landscape.
Best of all is it has the venerable V8 Flat-Head Ford Motor, the basis of hot-rodding.
It’s Old Henry’s V8 introduced in the 1932 Model-year, although the motor is a 1952 Mercury.
It has a ‘39 Ford three-speed tranny, and an early Halibrand rear.
Four-speed trannies are late ‘50s, but just about everything on this car is prior to 1953.
Also notable are the double-sided wide-whites; that’s whitewall on both sides of the tire.
As time advanced in the ‘50s, whitewalls got narrower and narrower.
Now you can’t even get whitewalls, and I’ve even seen black-painted custom alloy wheels.
But when first introduced, whitewalls were white the whole side of the tire.
They symbolized extravagance and money.
But it’s the Flat-head that stands out.
Backyard mechanics tinkered and bent incredible horsepower out of them.
An entire industry grew up supplying hot-rod parts for the Flat-head.
This car has double carburetors and exhaust headers — all to make it breathe better.
And what appear to be custom-cast aluminum cylinder heads (Navarro), that increased compression-ratio. Stock heads lack finning.
But even hot-rodded, the Flat-head was no match for the Small-Block Chevy.
Thankfully that Flat-head wasn’t swapped out for a Small-Block, as most were.

At long last. (Photo by John Dziobko.)

At last, the K4 Pacific.
My All-Pennsy color calendar has one for August, the icon of icons.
I should note at first that the K4 Pacific was Pennsy’s standard steam passenger engine for years, and that gorgeous red keystone number-plate on the front smokebox door became the first symbolic icon, although at that time it wasn’t thought of as such.
The K4 Pacific wasn’t that advanced — it’s a middle teens design.
But as a Pacific it’s rather large. Many railroads’ Pacifics were only teakettles.
Pennsy never engineered a replacement, but could have — probably should have — had they not been throwing gobs of money at electrification.
Instead of designing a bigger locomotive to handle increased train-weights, they just double-headed K4s.
And they could afford to. Double-heading steam is two engine crews — twice the crew expense. Steamers can’t be MU-ed like diesels.
This engine, #330, is on the turntable at Meadows Engine Terminal in north Jersey, probably in service on the New York & Long Branch, the final stomping ground for many Pennsy passenger engines.
I keep telling people I’m old enough to have witnessed the final days of steam railroading, steam locomotives on the Pennsylvania-Reading (“RED-ing;” not “REED-ing”) Seashore Lines in south Jersey.
My father used to take me trackside in Haddonfield, along the mainline of the PRSL to Atlantic City, and I’ve been a railfan ever since.
My greatest thrill was the onrushing red keystone of a Pennsy K4 or E6.
(And I preferred the E6, which lacked the so-called “beauty-treatment;” which this K4 has. The “beauty-treatment” was to move the headlight from the smokebox-front to the top, and put the generator on the front — and build a platform for servicing that generator. —All to make generator service easier. The K4 also got a cast-steel pilot; the E6 still kept the gorgeous slatted pilot.)
PRSL also used Reading steam, but compared to Pennsy they looked awful; so that red keystone was my indicator.
I was terrified of thunderstorms, but could stand right next to a throbbing, panting steam-engine.
Diesels wide-open are okay, but no match for steam.
In the early ‘90s, I rode behind restored Nickel Plate steamer 765, and ended up crying. That thing was doing 75 mph; rockin’ and rollin’.
Just like the K4s. Stand back! Look out! Comin’ through!

“Lissen, you two.........”

The August entry of my Three Stooges calendar is a quintessential Stooges shot, an outtake of an “all right, you two......”
My first thought was it was an outtake from one of their western flicks, but I don’t think so.
They’re not wearing cowboy garb.
It looks more like they’re being construction-workers.
Larry has a shovel, and Curly is calmly cleaning his fingernails with a giant pickax.
The classic shot of two lazy layabouts dragooned by Moe. “All right you two. We got woik ta do. Why I oughta.......”
Broken from his reverie, Curly utters his infamous “wub-wub-wub-wub!”
Moe pokes Curly in the eyes: “Here, see this?” POINK!
After which Curly scores a few points and says “nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk.....”

1973 454 Corvette. (Photo by Richard Prince.)

I only do the August entry of my All-Corvette calendar because —A) I like the color, and —B) it’s a 454.
The main thing is it’s a 454; were it not for that, I’d be tempted to not run it, despite the color.
The 454 Corvette is one of the most extraordinary Corvettes of all time — also one of the worst.
The 454 motor was monstrously heavy; immensely powerful, but at the expense of balance.
A cast-iron 454 weighed so much it made the front-end plow.
The 454 is a cheap shot: increase the power but unbalance the car.
The Small-Block was a better match. Not as powerful, but easier to drive fast. A 454 Corvette was a handful.
This car is a ‘73.
By then the Corvette was becoming what it is to my friend Tim Belknap: “A car for divorced dentists.”
People were ordering them with air-conditioning, for crying out loud.
That’s hardly a sportscar; more a touring-car.
But at least a Grand Touring car — the Small-Block was still fairly strong. The Big-Block would make it a straight-line monster.
Yet pop the hood on a Big-Block and ya find the same motor that’s in big Chevy trucks.
Hardly the multiple-carbed V12 in a Ferrari, or even the six in a Jag.
Same round air-cleaner found atop the Chevy truck-motor, albeit chromed.
And goose it and it ain’t a high-strung Ferrari or Porsche.
A motor to flash at the drive-in; “My ‘Vette has a 454.”
My brother-in-Boston has a 454 Chevelle, and I drove it once. Rumble-quake. Too much motor in a flimsy old chassis.
I was in awe: “People used to street-race these things. Try to keep it between the lines at 150+ mph.”
Years ago, a team raced 454 Corvettes in SCCA’s A-production class. But the chassis had probably been much-modified to make them handle, and be less scary.

Cat-whiskered GG1 #4839 in 1939 at Washington Union Terminal. (Photo by Otto Perry©.)

The August entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black & white All-Pennsy calendar is “The Federal” entering the throat of Washington Union Terminal in 1939 fronted by GG1 #4839.
GG1 #4839 is painted in the famous five-pinstriped “cat-whisker” scheme pioneered by Raymond Loewy.
The “cat-whisker” scheme was the beginning of Loewy’s storied career with Pennsy, and before Loewy Pennsy was rather moribund. Loewy is a world-famous and influential industrial designer, and Pennsy was only into function, not art.
The first GG1 (#4800) has a riveted car-body, but Loewy convinced Pennsy to go with a welded shell. He also did a few styling fillips; primary of which is the round-topping the end man-doors, so the door tightly surrounded the headlight. #4800 is a rectangle.
The welded-shell GG1 is a stunning success; the prettiest railroad locomotive of all time.
The five-pinstriped “cat-whisker” scheme is also Loewy; much better than the pin-striping Pennsy proposed.
The “cat-whisker” scheme went onto Pennsy diesel locomotives, but was too labor-intensive to paint.
On repainting the Pennsy went to a much wider single-stripe scheme, which looked okay, but wasn’t the “cat-whiskers.”
#4839 also has the “Futura” lettering, which essentially means without serifs.
Most GG1s originally used the same lettering that’s on the K4 tender; but “Futura” was an added variation.
The single-stripe repaint scheme had much larger “Pennsylvania” lettering, and a much larger PRR-keystone, as opposed to the smaller number-plate keystone.
I remember being at Claymont station in northern Delaware in the early ‘60s, when what is now known as the Northeast Corridor was still Pennsy; although electrified as it is now.
Four tracks went through, and I thought the GG1 passenger expresses ran the inside tracks.
Here I am standing trackside next to an outside track, and I hear a GG1 coming.
I set up.
Surprise; it was on the outside track, doing at least 90 mph!
Had I not hooked my arm around a light-standard I woulda been sucked into it — not be here.
That thing was boomin’-and-zoomin’. And it was single-striped.
Greatest railroad locomotive of all time: “Stand back! Look out! Comin’ through!”
(I only saw one cat-whisker GG1.)

For once, the entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar isn’t worth doing.
It’s just the tiny Ryan STM trainer, a classic, I’m sure, but hardly a gorgeous hot-rod.
At least the STM is a low-wing monoplane; “mono” meaning one wing, as opposed to two (a biplane — “BYE-plane”).
But it has cable-braces for the wings, and even the tail-surfaces. And it’s landing-gear is unretractable, although it at least has wheel-pants streamlining.
Little more than a glorified Piper Cub, although at least it’s low-wing. —The Cub was high-wing.
And it appears it’s covering is metal; the Cub was fabric.
I remember seeing some Cubs at the old airport near Airport Circle in Camden, and they had holes in their fabric.
Vandals had punched them through.
Fabric covering was light; but you couldn’t do much with a Cub.
Start doing aerobatics and the wings broke off.
Do that with an STM, and I bet it would break apart too (but maybe not).
It was just a basic trainer; good for little more than takeoffs and landings.
A step above the humble Stearman biplane, which was fabric covered.
But at least the Stearman was sturdy enough to do aerobatics. (Maybe the STM is too.)
At least Ryan made up for it with the Ryan Navion, a hot-rod of early private aviation, although I guess it was a North American Aviation design. (North American is also the fabulous P51 Mustang, and the B25.)
—It was an alternative to the V-tailed Beechcraft Bonanza, another fabulous private airplane; although it took megabucks to own one.
The kind of megabucks that now has private flyers in jets; e.g. the president of Canandaigua National Bank, who’s trying to get the runway lengthened at Canandaigua Airport to allow jets (although it would be small private jets; not jet airliners).

“Main” equals mainline — in this case the mainline of the Norfolk & Western Railroad.

A large portion of Appalachia, particularly in Virginia and West Virginia, is underlied with coal. This area is called the “Pocahontas coal region.”

“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.

“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 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.

“Conrail” was a government amalgamation of east-coast railroads that went bankrupt pretty much at the same time as Penn-Central, a merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York 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.

The “Flat-head” was the V8 motor introduced by Ford in the 1932 model-year. It was a side-valve engine with flat cylinder-head castings. Most automobile engines at that time were side-valve like the Flat-head; as opposed to what many are now: overhead-valve with the valving in the cylinder-head. Many lawnmower engines are still flat-head side-valvers. The advantage to a side-valver is the valving mechanism isn’t turned 180 degrees. But the cylinder-heads of a side-valver are much less efficient than overhead valve. The paths the intake and exhaust charges take are much less direct. —But side-valvers were easier to engineer and manufacture in the early days; so side-valvers were the norm until the ‘50s. (The Flat-head lasted through the 1953 model-year.) Being a V8, the Flat-head was the choice of hot-rodders. Plus it responded well to souping up. But overhead-valving became the norm, particularly Chevrolet’s Small-Block, which was introduced in the 1955 model-year.

“Tranny” equals transmission.

“Chopped” means cutting a portion of framing and glass out of the windshield-sides to lower the top of the windshield. (This was also frequently done to the entire top — cut sections out of the window-posts, so the whole top sat lower.)

“Bonneville Salt-flats,” next to Great Salt Lake in Utah, is a vast open flat area where top-speed runs can be made.

A “Halibrand rear” is a special modification of the Ford rear-axle made at that time by “Halibrand.” It improved performance.

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” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. It was made in various displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation.

Small railroad steam locomotives are called “teakettles.”

The “E6” was the E6 Atlantic, a large 4-4-2. They were first done in 1910, with a requirement to have less drivers (i.e. be 4-4-2 instead of 4-6-2 [a Pacific]). It was the main Pennsylvania Railroad passenger steam-locomotive, until replaced by the larger and more powerful K4 Pacific. (The first K4 was built in 1914.) —Pennsy had earlier and smaller Atlantics, e.g. the E2 and E3. One E6 remains, #460, at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

“765” is a restored Nickel Plate Railroad steam-locomotive; 2-8-4, a “Berkshire.” It is owned and operated (and was restored) by Fort Wayne Historical Society, for steam-locomotive railfan excursion service, and is the best restored steam-locomotive in service, primarily because it can be run like designed: at high speed. (“Nickel Plate” is the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, called the “Nickel Plate” long ago by a New York Central executive because it was so competitive. The railroad renamed itself the “Nickel Plate.” Norfolk & Western Railroad bought the Nickel Plate years ago, and N&W has since merged with Southern Railway, to become Norfolk Southern. Nickel Plate never actually attained New York city; it stopped at Buffalo.)

“Tim Belknap” (“BELL-nap”) was an editor, and fellow car-guy, at the Canandaigua Daily Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. He recently retired too.

“Camden” is Camden, N.J., across from Philadelphia in south Jersey. I was born in Camden. Philadelphia’s first airport was the one at Airport Circle in Camden, until the DC3, which needed longer runways — and there was nowhere to expand. That airport no longer exists.