Dana

Eastbound Trail-Van comes off the Bypass. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

Yesterday (Sunday, August 17, 2008) I shot two birds with one stone:
—1) For some time I’ve wanted to railfan the Water-Level, which is now CSX, and as busy as the mighty Curve.
My mower-man, who is also a railfan, told me of a place he hangs out along where the Water-Level passes through nearby Fairport.
Fairport is also where the Rochester Bypass merges back into the Water-Level on its eastern end.
—2) Art Dana, a retired bus-driver, car-guy, and dear friend, lives near the Water-Level, and I’ve been promising to visit.
Like me, Dana was one of them lazy layabouts that never did anything, except -a) not get shot, and -b) keep it between the lines in all kinds of weather.
“It was a tough job, Hughsey,” Art said.
“I’d come home and be so wired I couldn’t sleep!” I said. “Granny slamming her K-car outta the mall parking-lot: ‘Oh look, Dora. A bus. Pull out; pull out!’ And I’m supposed to stop nine tons of hurtling steel on a dime without throwing my passengers outta the seats.”
Dana started driving bus a year or two before me, and was sort of a hippie.
He had a ponytail at first.
He ended up being an example for the rest of us; the way to succeed at this job was just go with the flow.
That being the case, it’s depressing to see Dana a little old man hobbled by Parkinson’s Disease.
Not totally crippled. But worse than Betty’s Tom, who isn’t very bad.
But the old fire is still there; the orneriness that defines Dana.
Dana used to live in the city (Rochester), but his wife died, and home-maintenance became impossible.
So together he and his sister bought a house in the suburbs.
“I really like it out here,” he said. “No dribbling basketballs outside at all hours of the night.”
Dana is 67; his sister is 57.
Dana purchased a basket-case of a Model-A roadster body, shortened and narrowed ‘46 Ford frame, early Ford chassis and driveline parts, and a souped-up ‘56 Pontiac V8 engine.
“Art, you can’t put that thing together,” his sister said; “you have Parkinson’s.”
“I’m puttin’ that hot-rod together if it’s the last thing I do!” Art declared.
“Art, maybe we should getcha one of them three-wheel bicycles,” his sister said — the kind Mother-Dear used to ride at the Last Motel, that have a basket in the back, and won’t tip over.
“I wouldn’t be caught dead on one of them things!” Art crowed. “You can buy it if ya want, but I ain’t ridin’ it!”
“Art,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I always felt bus-drivin’ made us this way.”
Or perhaps the shark run-over-by-the-bus has it better: the reason we succeeded at bus-driving is because we were ornery to begin with.
“Much to the dismay of my superior-mouthed brother-from-Boston, who loudly badmouths everything I do or say,” I said.
“There’s one in every family,” Art said.
So here we are sitting trackside on metal boxes where the main drag in Fairport crosses the Water-Level.
I hear a locomotive-horn at a road-crossing nearby.
“Sounds like the Bypass, Art.”
I turn on my camera, and the gates drop at the grade-crossing.
A long eastbound Trail-Van rumbles by (see picture), sounding it’s horn as it approaches.
“Them locos were HUGE,” Art says. —Two General-Electric Dash-9 44Cs.
“Awfully long train too.” Mostly trailer-on-flatcar, but also double-stack.
“There’s a Coke-machine across the street.” —I think maybe I should offer to go get it myself, so he wouldn’t hafta cross the street.
But “no,” I think. I bet he can make it. And he did, with no help from me at all.
We also saw an eastbound Amtraker on the Water-Level doin’ about 65 or so, but it was blocked by the Trail-Van on the Bypass.
That’s all we saw: just the two.
After about an hour, we drove back to Art’s humble abode.
But we swapped old bus-driving stories first.
Most memorable was Art telling how he broke a rear-axle on his bus northbound on Lake Ave.
He calls the radio-man, and reports he is crippled with a broken axle.
“What gives ya the right to think that?” radio-man responds. “You’re just the bus-driver; not a mechanic.”
“Well, Woody; I look in my mirror and I see the rear-duels about five feet out in the road beside the bus; so it looks to me like an axle broke.”
We also swapped stories about brain-injury — which defined is partial death of brain-tissue. A stroke kills part of your brain; as does Parkinson’s.
We talked about poor balance, and compromised speech.
“I know all about it, Hughsey. I also get confused.”
Art’s hot-rod was in the garage, draped with a tangle of wires.
“People ask what color I’m gonna paint it,” Art said.
“DON’T YOU DARE!” I said. “It’s in flat-black primer, the color it should be.”
“Right,” Art said. “It’s a hot-rod.”
“First it was blowing taillights, so people started rearranging wires,” Art said. “Now nothing works. The guy who wired it in the first place is coming next week.”
Art’s not the analytical type. I successfully rewired my 1952 Chevrolet pickup. Art is intimidated by ‘pyooters too.
But he put the thing together, and he’s almost done; his Parkinson’s car.
“I had a lotta trouble with that motor,” Art said.
“We got a gasket-set, but they didn’t take, so I ended up with antifreeze in my oil.”
“Second set didn’t take either; but my fourth set did.”
“Let’s see if it’ll light.”
Rumpeta-rumpeta-rumpeta; tailpipes shake and quiver.
“Too bad the wiring’s a mess, Hughsey; I’d take ya for a ride.”
“I remember you and Jimmy Tranquil in his ‘32 hi-boy, and how you were sittin’ in the shotgun seat grinning from ear-to-ear,” I said.
“Yep, that thing had a 350-Chevy. He sold it.”
“This car had triple-deuces on it at first, but they were a mess, so I put this big Edelbrock four-barrel on it. No more backfiring through the carb, and it runs sweet — just steers like a truck.”
“Wafo?” I asked.
“Well, the front is probably carrying 200 more pounds than before; so the back is too light. The car only weighs 2,300 pounds.”
“And I got them tires from Coker;” bias-ply wide-whites — nothing like you’d see any more, but the proper equipment for an early ‘50s hot-rod.
Lever-shocks too; “original Houdaille; but they don’t do anything. The car is too light.”
And the suspension is transverse buggy-spring, solid beam-axle in the front, and banjo in the rear.
“What are ya lookin’ at, Hughsey?”
“First time I ever saw a banjo; this center-section is a casting,” I observed.
And the front radiator-shell is steel ‘32 Ford, with a ‘32 Ford radiator.
“600 dollars,” Art said.
“But the ‘32 Ford shell is the best,” I said.
“So do I call you the next time I chase trains on the Water-Level?”
“Yep; let’s boogie!”
Hardly can walk, but not dead yet.

RE: “‘Old guy’ with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). I also am loudly excoriated by all my siblings for preferring a professional camera (like the Nikon D100) instead of a point-and-shoot. This is because I long ago sold photos to nationally published magazines.

“The Water-Level” is the old mainline of the New York Central Railroad across New York State, now operated by CSX Transportation. Called “Water-Level” because it followed river-courses, and thereby avoided mountain grades. (The topography of New York State, north of the Allegheny Mountains, made west-east transportation easier.)

“CSX” is CSX Transportation (railroad); a merger of Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad with Seaboard at first, and then other railroads. It is now a major player in east-coast railroading; and has many of the ex New York Central Conrail Lines. (The other major east-coast railroad is Norfolk Southern.)

“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 “mighty Curve” (Horseshoe 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. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.)

“The Rochester Bypass” is the old West Shore line south of the city — it bypasses Rochester; doesn’t go through. The “West Shore” was a line financed by the Pennsylvania Railroad built to compete directly with the New York Central Railroad in New York state in the late 1800s. It was merged with NYC at the behest of J.P. Morgan, who got all the warring parties together on his yacht in Long Island Sound. The NYC got the West Shore for no longer financing the proposed South Pennsylvania Railroad (which was graded but never built, including tunnels, which were incorporated into the Pennsylvania Turnpike). It was called the “West Shore” because it went up the west shore of the Hudson River. It’s been largely abandoned west of the Hudson, although the segment around Rochester became a bypass around Rochester.

RE: “One of them lazy layabouts.......” —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. My all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, claims bus-driving is nothing.

“Betty” is my sister Betty (Elizabeth). She’s second after me, 62 (I’m the oldest at 64). She lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Her husband’s name is “Tom;” and he has Parkinson’s, but not very bad.

“Mother-Dear” was the nickname we children called my mother. The “Last Motel” was the retirement center in Floridy my parents lived in — called that because the halls looked like a motel. (Both parents are dead.)

“The shark run-over-by-the-bus” is my wife, who my macho, blowhard brother-in-Boston claims is a shark for her always teasing him. He also claims I “throw her under the bus;” i.e. blame her for my so-called “mistakes.” For example, she hit a rock with our small mower. My reporting same was “throwing her under the bus.” Of course, it wasn’t me that hit the rock; and I wasn’t angered by it.

A “Trail-Van” is a train of long flatcars with highways trailers on them; often two per car in tandem.

“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.

“Jimmy Tranquil,” like Art, was another bus-driver, and very much into hot-rodding. He got a 1932 Ford hi-boy roadster, which is a roadster at stock height, but without fenders. —A “roadster” is just a small canvas top atop a two-seater body. It’s not closed, and not “convertible.”(“Roadsters” are no longer made; although you do see “convertible-roadsters:” two-seater convertibles.)

A “350-Chevy” is the largest stock displacement for the storied Small-Block Chevrolet V8. —The “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 Small-Block was the choice of hot-rodders. It was very “rod-able,” and replaced the Ford Flat-head V8, the first motor-of-choice of hot-rodders.

“Triple-deuces” is three two-barrel carburetors, usually in tandem front-to-back. (More carburetion increased breathing, and horsepower. —A stock V8 might have only had one two-barrel at that time; with a four-barrel to increase horsepower.)

“Bias-ply” as to the more current “radial-ply” tires. Radial-ply became the norm in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Bias-ply were not as road-worthy as radials; which are more compliant.

“Lever-shocks” as opposed to what is used now, which are concentric tube shocks. The suspension worked a lever, which worked the shock-absorbers. Ford used lever-shocks for years, and our ‘53 Chevy had lever-shocks — I think.

“Transverse buggy-spring” is what usually was found on early Ford products. The spring is a multi-leaf spring at 90° to the frame; i.e. across the frame. —Called a “buggy-spring” because that was what was usually found on horse-buggies.

A “solid beam-axle” is a forged axle-beam with wheels at each end — so that if one wheel is bumped, it effects the other wheel. Front beam-axles are no longer used, except on large trucks. Front suspension is now independent at each end; wheels not connected.

A “banjo” rear axle was a solid rear axle with a banjo-shaped center-section for the differential. Early on, Ford used the banjo-axle for years.