Monthly Calendar-Report for September, 2008

(AT LONG LAST; this Monthly Calendar-Report has been done for weeks, but my e-mail crashed mightily in flames.)

The most collectible of all Corvettes; a ‘65 Fuely. (Photo by Richard Prince.)

None of my September calendars are artistic triumphs, but the best is my All Corvette calendar, which is the most collectible Corvette of all time, a ‘65 Fuely.
In 1965 a gigantic number of options were available.
You could specify a cushy boulevardier, or a true sportscar.
The cars were styled by Bill Mitchell, and were extremely attractive.
Also available were fourwheel disc brakes (revolutionary at that time), and knockoff wheels.
Most triumphant was the engine, a fuel-injected 327 cubic-inch Small-Block of 375 horsepower.
The Small-Block was almost European in character, and would rev to the moon.
375 horsepower out of a stock motor is phenomenal.
But the car could also be ordered with air-conditioning, power-steering, power-brakes, and auto-tranny — all the marks of a cushy Detroit sedan.
Steps toward mediocrity; what my friend Tim Belknap calls a car for divorced dentists.
The Sting-Ray also had independent rear suspension, although it was kind of rudimentary.
It used spider universal-joints instead of constant-velocity joints, but was independent rear suspension, a revered icon of sportscar design at that time. GM didn’t make constant-velocity joints at that time that could withstand that much power.
What stood out, as has been the case with most Corvettes, was that motor.
The latest Corvettes are almost as collectible, although by now the Small-Block, though vastly improved, is a bit dated.
Styling also looks pretty good, now that ‘Vette has advanced from the bloated C5 to the smaller C6.
But in the words of Tim Belknap: “It looks like a shampoo bottle!”

Three B1 electric switchers at Harrisburg, 1957. (Photo by John Dziobko.)

SIGH!
My All-Pennsy Color Calendar is another Dziobko picture.
Dziobko has five of the 12 pictures in the calendar.
Well, I for one am glad he was out there; shooting color of the Pennsy in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s when everyone was shooting black & white.
So far we’ve seen an I1s Decapod, the Alco PAs, a K4 Pacific, and next month will be the small B6 0-6-0 switcher with its slope-back tender.
September is the B1 electric switcher, an application special only to Pennsy, since so many of its railroad-lines in the east were under wire.
The B1 is a box-cab design, and I’ve seen a few, primarily at Philadelphia’s 30th St. Station.
The B1s are long-gone, and I don’t think any remain. All were scrapped — which is sad.
These three are in Harrisburg’s station, where electrification ended for Pennsy in Pennsylvania.
West of Harrisburg was never electrified, although it was proposed.
A passenger train from New York City or Philadelphia or Washington would pull into Harrisburg behind a GG1 electric locomotive, and the B1s went to work shuffling cars.
Trains left Harrisburg west with non-electric engines; steam at first, then diesel.

The Thomas, Walsh, Walsh & Cusack speedster at Bonneville Salt Flats. (Photo by Peter Vincent.)

The September entry of my All-1932 Ford calendar has a true speedster, a Bonneville Salt Flats record car.
And it’s on the Bonneville Salt Flats, as are many of the ‘32 Fords in this calendar.
This car is an actual record holder at Bonneville Salt Flats, and has been competing since 1991.
232.621 mph!
It’s amazing to get that kind of speed out of essentially what is a brick.
A 1932 Ford hi-boy roadster may look great, but not to the wind.
This car has had various motors, including a Ferrari V12.
But this appears to be a blower application, probably a blown Chevy.
This is hardly a car for the street, but it’s very definitely a 1932 Ford.
It’s the gorgeous ‘32 Ford grill-shell, and the ‘32 Ford roadster body. And it’s on a frame, just like hot-rods of old.
The front is so lowered it wouldn’t clear a driveway, but you have to do that for speed.
As little frontal-area as possible.
Those headlights are probably required by the rules.
How many headlights have watched the ground go by at 232.621 mph?

North-American “Texan.” (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

The September 2008 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Texan trainer.
Ho-hum!
How many Texan trainers are still extant?
Probably hundreds.
I’ve certainly seen enough. —Often two or more flying in formation.
The Texan is a great airplane, but hardly the flashy hot-rod that a Mustang or P38 or Grumman Bearcat is.
I guess the Texan was the final step before a real fighter-plane; like a Mustang.
Basic training for flying began in a Stearman biplane, or perhaps a Ryan STM or Piper-Cub.
Next step was the Texan; faster and more powerful than a basic trainer, but not a Mustang.
I’ve seen 89 bazilyun Texans.
My all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston and I were once driving through Letchworth Park, shortly after the Geneseo Air Show last year, and “I hear a radial engine,” I said.
We both looked and looked, and it was two Texans flying overhead.

Norfolk Southern auto-train through Port Allegany, Pa. (Photo by Jared Hopewell.)

My Norfolk Southern Employees calendar has published a fall-foliage shot for September.
Well excuse me, but I bet it was shot in October — the leaves in Port Allegany would turn in October.
New York is north of Pennsylvania, and the leaves turn here in early to mid October.
Our reservation for leaf-change at the mighty Curve is late October.
Port Allegany is northwest Pennsylvania, but is the climate of here in West Bloomfield.
Which means the leaves would turn in October.
Also of note is that only one locomotive is pulling the train, instead of two or three in multiple.
Diesel-electric railroad locomotives have gotten powerful enough to where -a) one engine is often enough, and/or -b) helpers aren’t needed to surmount a grade.
I’m sure the train pictured is light too.
If the train is all auto-racks, it’s light.
A loaded coal-train of 100 hopper-cars, might need more locomotives.
And the line through Port Allegany isn’t easy.
It’s the old Pennsy line to Buffalo via Olean; very scenic, but difficult, as it’s through the Allegheny mountains.

“Wub-wub-wub.........”

I only fly the September entry of my Three Stooges calendar because it’s stupid.
The idea is that Moe and Larry are hanging Curly over a yawning precipice, the top edge of a tall skyscraper.
Except it’s obviously a movie set, and Curly is looking at a drop of maybe a foot.
All one has to do is look at the shadows.
The shadow of Curly is prominant on the set-drawing behind them.
I get the same effect with camera flash.
People shoot camera flash toward a mirror or window, and then are surprised to find the flash reflected.
My wife got this the other day photographing our newly painted bathroom.
Her flash had reflected off the medicine-chest mirror onto an adjacent wall.
My D100 has a small camera-top flash I can turn on if I flip it up.
But if I use it I get the shadow of my lens at the bottom of my picture if I shoot close up.
I aim down so I can crop out that shadow with Photoshop, and still get what I want.

My Audio-Visual Designs black & white All-Pennsy calendar, is another Jim Shaughnessy shot, but it ain’t much.
Not good enough for the Monthly Calendar Report.
It might have been better if it were steam, but it’s EMD F-units.
The picture is titled “choo-chew,” because the train is passing a barn painted with a giant “Chew Red-Man Tobacco” ad.
Okay, but only steam-locomotives “choo.”
Reminds of the model train circling the bulk-food department of the Pittsford Wegmans.
Wegmans-lettered model F-units are circling on track suspended above the bulk-food department.
“Chuff-chuff-chuff-chuff,” chants an on-board audio.
My jaw dropped. No diesel railroad-locomotive ever made that sound.
“Oh look, Mommy. A choo-choo train.”
“That’s right, Damon; hear that sound?”
These people have probably never even heard a steam locomotive, no less a diesel.
Shaughnessy is one of the chroniclers of the end of steam locomotion in the ‘50s.
He was based in Binghamton, N.Y., so photographed on Pennsy’s now abandoned Elmira branch, which this shot is.
He also photographed the shot that appeared in my July Calendar Report, a classic; also on the Elmira branch.
This is one of his bombs.

“Fuely” is fuel-injection. At that time nearly all cars used carburetion to mix gasoline with air; but Chevrolet introduced “fuel-injection” in the 1957 model-year, mainly to allow better engine-breathing. Fuel was injected directly to the cylinder-ports with nozzles, the amount metered by air-flow. Chevrolet continued fuel-injection as an added-power option until it was phased out in the middle ‘60s. Most auto-mechanics couldn’t understand or work on fuel-injection. —Now all auto manufacturers use fuel-injection, but primarily to more precisely meter fuel-flow to minimize emissions. Carburetors were too sloppy.

“Bill Mitchell” was the head of General Motors Styling from 1958 through 1977.

“Knockoff wheels” use a threaded central spindle to locate the wheels; instead of mounting-studs (4-6; usually five) arrayed around the center. The central knockoffs have two or three wings that can be spun with a hammer. “Knockoffs” are much faster to mount and dismount — racing practice.

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.

“Auto-tranny” is automatic car transmission — as opposed to standard transmission with a clutch. At that time, “auto-tranny” was not as fast as standard transmission.

“Tim Belknap” was an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked; one of about seven. Belknap like me is a car-guy, so we continue to keep in contact. He has retired.

“Spider universal-joints” versus “constant-velocity joints:” —The spider universal joint is what has been used for years to allow angle turning in power transmission; like in a car driveshaft. But the spider universal joint becomes erratic when turned too sharply. I delivers power in thrusts; it’s not constant. The constant-velocity joint is more internalized. Instead of a central spider, the bending is accommodated by balls in channels, so is more constant. Most front-wheel-drive cars use constant-velocity joints (“CV-joints”) to allow wheel steering of powered wheels.

Various Corvettes have been marketed over the years; 1953-1962; the Sting-Ray from 1963-1967; the mako-sharks (also Sting-Rays) from 1968-1982; the C4s from 1983-1996; the C5s from 1997-2004; and currently the C6 (2005-to date). Earlier Corvettes didn’t go by the “C” nomenclature, and “C” nomenclature is essentially a fan thing. Ergo, C1 is 1953-1962; C2 is 1963-1967; and C3 is 1968-1982. The car pictured is therefore a C2.

“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.

The “I1s Decapod” (2-10-0), the “K4 Pacific” (4-6-2), and the “B6” (0-6-0), were all Pennsylvania Railroad steam-locomotives; the “Dek” the standard Pennsy freight locomotive, the “K4” the standard passenger locomotive, and the “B6” the standard yard-switcher (although Pennsy kept many of its 2-8-0 Consolidations for switching service). —The “Alco PA” was an American Locomotive Works (“Alco”) diesel-electric passenger locomotive; very attractive, and perhaps the most beautiful diesel locomotive of all time.

A “slope-back tender” is the coal-tender attached to a steam-locomotive, although in this case with a sloped water-cistern to permit better backing visibility.

RE: “Under wire......” —Most of Pennsy’s east-coast mainlines were electrified, under overhead wiring suspended between steel poles. I.e. they used electric engines instead of steam (then diesel) locomotives.

The Pennsylvania Railroad’s terminal in Philadelphia was 30th St. Station, at 30th and Market Sts. Pennsy’s first Philadelphia terminal was downtown at Broad St., but after that burned down in the late ‘40s, 30th St. became the main terminal. It was along the Washington-New York mainline, so trains direct from New York to Pittsburgh-and-west have to back into the terminal. (30th St. is not on the mainline west from New York City.)

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

RE: “A blower application......” —The motor has an engine-driven supercharger to force more air/fuel into the cylinders; and thereby make more power.

A “Mustang” is a North-American P51 Mustang fighter-plane; a “P38” is a Lockheed P38 twin-engine fighter-plane; the “Grumman Bearcat” is the Navy Grumman Bearcat (F8F) carrier-based fighter-plane. All were fabulous propeller fighter-planes used in WWII.

“Letchworth Park” is a large park in western New York. The Genesee River flows through a scenic gorge it carved, and there are three large waterfalls. It was first owned by William Pryor Letchworth, who bequeathed it to the state. The park was mainly developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the ‘30s. —The “Geneseo Air Show” nearby is an annual get-together of still flyable WWII warbirds at the Geneseo Airport near the town of Geneseo.

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.)

We live in the tiny rural town of “West Bloomfield” in western New York.

The “D100” is my Nikon digital D100 camera.

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

“F-units” are the first freight diesel railroad locomotives EMD manufactured. They have full car-bodies that cover everything; as opposed to a “hood-unit” (e.g. a “Geep”) that doesn’t. —An F-unit has the operating cab at one end, so that operation is difficult in reverse. A “hood-unit” renders a better view. F-units aren’t manufactured any more.

“Wegmans,” is a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at.