Monthly Calendar Report for January, 2009

(It’s beginning to look like I should fly this without footnotes, it already being the end of the month.)

A new year; new calendars.
Although I don’t have one yet, my All-Pennsy Color Calendar, and it looks like I may not get it.
I tried to get it a while ago from its original publisher, Tide-mark Publications, and it was out-of-stock.
I also tried Froogling it, and ran into various out-of-stocks.
Amazon.com has a calendar marketer who is out-of-stock.
I was reduced to bidding on eBay, where I could get it at about 36% of its usual price.
But so far no calendar.

My Stooges calendar is history.
Their movies are great, but a single frame cut out of a movie just doesn’t work.
Only one character may look right.
As I said all last year, this doesn’t matter in a movie.
The other characters may look right in different frames.
But often only one character looks right in a single movie-frame.
As such, the Stooges calendar was frustrating.
Missing was the fabulous movie action.
Single stand-alone movie frames don’t work.

1969 ZL1 Camaro®.

I replaced it with a musclecar calendar from Motorbooks.
Musclecars are the fantastic cars marketed by Detroit in the late ‘60s to middle ‘70s.
The original format was laid down by the Pontiac GTO in the 1964 model-year.
Souped-up mega-horsepower full-size car engines in the lighter-weight mid-sized car-bodies.
My younger brother-in-Boston has one; a 1971 454 SS Chevelle.
He took me for a ride in it once, and let me drive it.
I was in awe.
“People used to race these things!” I thought.
Quaking and shaking and vibrating all over.
That Big-Block was probably putting out at least 350 horsepower — probably more — and gobs of torque.
Every piston thrust shook the ground, and it was idling at over 1,000 rpm.
Like my old Ducati motorcycle, it had no choke.
Ya started it by pumping gallons of gasoline into the intake tracts with the accelerator-pumps.
And then ya let it warm up so it would run.
A choke is only an impediment to intake-air, which you’re trying to maximize.
It only had a single “Demon” four-barrel, but it was HUGE: 750 cubic feet per minute (which isn’t that big, but quite a bit bigger than stock — and will run).
The whole intake paraphernalia wasn’t stock — it was a drag-strip modification, for running in the so-called “modified-street” class.
I.e. it was somewhat streetable, but only barely.
I almost stalled it backing out of a driveway.
It sure wasn’t as pleasant to drive as the cars we now have.
My Muscle-Car calendar has a 1969 ZL1 Camaro (pictured).
It’s not very appealing as a photograph, but it’s a special car, the aluminum Big-Block motor for the Can-Am, in a Camaro.
The aluminum Big-Block weighed about 500 pounds, the normal cast-iron Big-Block over 700.
It was a special application for drag-racing, putting that lighter-weight motor in a stock Camaro.
A drag-racer was harassing Chevrolet for such a car, and knew Vince Piggins (“PIG-ins”), the performance head-honcho at Chevrolet.
A ZL1 cost incredibly; Chevrolet was tacking its development costs (over $4,000) onto each car manufactured, and only 69 were built.
But it’s 427 cubic inches, and put out over 500 horsepower.
The ZL1 was the ultimate drag-racing Camaro.
Of interest to me is that aircraft tailfin that is also in the picture. It appears to be a Beechcraft T-34 trainer.
Some time ago I rode my motorcycle out to see my old friend Charlie Gardiner (“GARD-ner”) in Massachusetts, whom I had graduated with in 1966 from Houghton College.
Another friend was visiting him at that time, and had flown up in a T-34 he owned.
The T-34’s long bubble canopy is visible through the Camaro, as is the three-bladed propeller atop the car’s hood.
Charlie drove us out to the nearby airport, where the guy’s T-34 was parked.
He fired it up and took off back to north Jersey.
The T-34 is based on the fabulous Beechcraft Bonanza, the ultimate private airplane immediately after WWII.
But without the trademark V tail (although the Bonanza is essentially still made, but without the V tail).
The T-34 was such a great airplane, the military was considering mounting machine-guns, but they never did.

Pennsy 4-8-2 M1b Mountain #6729 westbound on the storied four-track Pennsy main through Duncannon, PA adjacent to the Susquehanna River, north of Harrisburg. (Photo by Don Wood© [deceased].)

The January 2009 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs B&W All-Pennsy Calendar is not that special, but I run it high because it’s a Don Wood photograph.
The Audio-Visual Designs B&W All-Pennsy Calendar goes clear back to 1966, the year I graduated college.
My first was 1967 or 1968, and I’ve had it every year since, although apparently it wasn’t published in 1997 and ‘98.
For years it was all Don Wood photographs.
Don Wood was a photographer in north Jersey who chronicled mainly the end of Pennsy steam locomotives.
But he limited his coverage mainly to north Jersey and Pennsylvania.
He wandered all over Pennsy’s lines, but mainly the lines that still used steam.
Pennsy’s famed Middle Division, the mainline from Harrisburg to Altoona, was still using their fabulous M1b Mountain 4-8-2 steam locomotives for freight-trains.
As was the New York & Long Branch commuter line Pennsy ran jointly with Central of New Jersey.
It was a non-electrified commuter line serving the Pennsy main into New York City, and they were still running the Pennsy K4 Pacific 4-6-2 in passenger service.
Pennsy also operated its huge 2-10-0 Decapod steam engines on its Mt. Carmel branch in central PA lugging heavy ore trains up to interchange with Lehigh Valley Railroad.
So there was Wood trackside with his Graphlex 4x5 Speed-Graphic press camera.
The founder of Audio-Visual designs was Carl Sturner, a railfan in upstate New York, and the B&W All-Pennsy Calendar came out of his friendship with Don Wood. (Sturner is now gone, as is Wood, and Audio-Visual Designs has a new owner.)
I can still remember some of the photographs; they were very dramatic.
Best was a shot of the Mt. Carmel ore train in winter, its two lead Deks on the front blasting a giant column of steam and coal-smoke into the frigid sky.
Another was an M1b Mountain rounding the curve on the Middle Division under the Route 22 highway bridge into Huntingdon, PA.
A third was a pan-shot of good old K4 #612 at speed on the New York & Long Branch.
#612 was the only remaining K4 with the front-end throttle modification, as evidenced by a rectangular box atop the cylindrical smokebox.
612 was an exceptional engine, serving many years on the NY&LB.
And then there was the massive coaling facility over the mainline at Denholm, PA; halfway up the Middle Division.
Pennsy steam engines stopped there to coal up, take on water, and service the engines. —It had 12 tracks, and overhead coal delivery.
Wood took photographs there.
About late 1969 I began taking photography courses at Rochester Institute of Technology, and they had equipment for mounting and matting photographs.
Essentially equipment for glued tissue on the back of a photograph, which activated when heated.
It looked nice, so I decided to matte some of the Audio-Visual Designs B&W All-Pennsy Calendar prints for mounting in our apartment.
Some of the greatest photographs Wood ever took graced our apartment; e.g. that Mt. Carmel ore train picture.
In 1970 or ‘71 I attempted to trace the old Pennsy Middle Division from Altoona to Harrisburg, hoping to hit some of the fabulous Don Wood photo locations.
By then the railroad was Penn-Central.
But it was awful. It was raining, and the Middle Division went places the roads didn’t go.
The railroad might be down along the Juniata (“june-ee-AT-uh”) River, and the highway far up the valley hillside.
Worst of all was our experience around Spruce Creek tunnels, the only other tunnels on Pennsy beside the summit of the Alleghenies — one for each direction.
Approaching from the west, the highway paralleled the railroad at first, but then diverged to the south.
The railroad, of course, continued east.
The Spruce Creek tunnels tunnel a narrow ridge the Juniata River hooks around.
But the highway crossed the ridge to the south, far from the railroad.
We managed to find our way back to the railroad at Barre (“bear-EEE”), the eastern approach to the tunnels.
But we had driven all over the state.
The only way to trace the Middle Division is with topo-maps and a Jeep.
Wood’s Huntingdon hangout was especially depressing.
The Route 22 overpass was much different.
Development had extended out east of the overpass.
It was no longer the bucolic rural landscape of the Wood photograph, shot in the ‘50s.
This Wood Duncannon picture is not as dramatic as other Duncannon pictures he took, and that Audio-Visual Designs published.
But it’s the only Wood picture in this calendar.
I guess they don’t want to, or can’t, duplicate earlier work they published.

Tiger-Shark Curtiss P40E “KittyHawk.” (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

The January 2009 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar has a P40 KittyHawk fighter-plane done up in the infamous Tiger-Shark scheme.
It also has Chinese markings, since the Tiger-Shark squadrons were Chinese.
The Tiger-Shark squadrons were one of the first responses to the Japanese in WWII, a response to the Sino-Japanese War. It was actually the American Volunteer Group, mercenaries allied with China.
It was led by Claire Lee Chennault, and trained in Burma. It protected the Burma Road, the only open road into China for war matériel.
The P40 ain’t the fabulous P51 Mustang, but it’s a pretty good airplane.
It was what was available at that time — the P51 came later.
It only has the Allison V12 motor, not the stupendous Merlin of the later Mustangs.
But it’s water-cooled, requiring that giant radiator scoop.
That scoop right below the propeller spinner begged for the shark’s-teeth paint — an idea cribbed from the Germans.
The Tiger-Shark teeth have made it onto innumerable military aircraft since — even a lowly Piper-Cub trainer (what an embarrassment) — but look best on the P40.

1932 Ford roadster hot-rod owned by George Prajin.

Ho-Hum!
Another 1932 Ford hot-rod (in my Oxman hot-rod calendar).
And a roadster, although I prefer the three-window coupe.
But at least it looks realistic.
Last year the Oxman hot-rod calendar (which this is) featured all cars built by hot-rod customizer Chuck Foose (“FOOS”), which hex-KYOOZE me don’t look very realistic.
It even had a customized ‘54 Chevy, for crying out loud.
Foose seems more interested in appearance than functionality. Hood-seams might get closed off, so how do ya access the motor?
The car might be so low it scraped the pavement.
Of course, the car pictured isn’t very functional.
It has the first Hemi motor, which I’m sure weighs a lot more than what was there originally.
Plus that Hemi has Hilborn (“HILL-born”) fuel-injection; more a racing application.
Such a car would never be able to manage a clogged traffic jam.
It wouldn’t idle.
Hilborn fuel-injection can’t be configured for street applications; it’s wide-open throttle.
Better would have been a four-barrel carburetor; but Hilborn injection trumpets look butch.
As I said to my niece’s husband, the chain-saw turkey carver, “a trailer-queen.”

Eastbound Norfolk Southern freight near Louisville, OH. (Photo by William Gantz.)

The January 2009 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees calendar is an eastbound Norfolk Southern freight-train on the storied old Pennsy Fort Wayne Division across Ohio.
My first thought was it looked a lot like a spot on the west slope in Pennsylvania up toward Gallitzin tunnels at the summit of the Alleghenies.
The train is headed toward Conway Yard near Pittsburgh, but it’s eastbound. On the west slope it would be westbound.
Last August me and a railfan tour-guide chased trains all over the west slope, and this looks like a section between Portage and Summerville.
But it ain’t — manifestation that scenery east of Chicago looks all the same.
Ya don’t begin to see a change in scenery until ya hit Kansas.

1938 Alfa-Romeo 8C 2900 B Touring Spyder.

The January 2009 entry of my Oxman sportscar calendar is a 1938 Alfa-Romeo 8C 2900 B Touring Spyder.
As such it’s only passable; guilty of why I tossed my Oxman sportscar calendar last year.
Last year’s Oxman “Legendary Sportscars” calendar was mostly classics from the early ‘30s; the dreaded Hitler Mercedes and even a Duesenberg.
Hardly anything I would call a legendary sportscar; like a Ferrari or XK-E.
I ended up tossing it, and replacing it with an All-Corvette calendar from Motorbooks.
But as my friend Tim Belknap says, Corvettes look more like shampoo-bottles than sportscars.
But better than a Hitler Mercedes.
The 2009 “Legendary Sportscars” calendar has four cars from the late ‘30s, but at least they look better than a fatuous Hitler Mercedes.
The 8C 2900B is significant primarily because it incorporated race-bred technology, especially its 180-horsepower supercharged double overhead-cam straight-eight engine.
It made the car capable of 120 mph.
The body, by Touring, was special in that it incorporated numerous aircraft construction features, that made it extraordinarily light in weight.
Of interest to me is those rear fender-skirts, which I’m sure are removable (they better be), and incorporate farm-gate grating.
I’m sure they don’t make the car faster, and not only that, they look weird.
Beyond that, it’s a ‘30s car.
Next month is a 289 AC Cobra; more like it.

ADDENDUM

Mixed train on the Norfolk & Western Abingdon Branch in Virginia — southbound toward N. Carolina. (Photo by O. Winston Link.)

I gave up on the All-Pennsy Color Calendar; got the O. Winston Link “Steam and Steel” Calendar instead.
O. Winston Link was a Brooklyn photographer that documented the end of steam-locomotive railroad operations on the Norfolk & Western Railroad.
Norfolk & Western was the last major railroad to dieselize, mainly because its primary traffic was coal, what steam-locomotives burn as fuel.
N&W developed its own steam-locomotives, and tried to maximize steam-locomotive technology to out-compete the diesel locomotive.
They were fairly successful, but diesel technology was more appropriate to railroad operations than steam-locomotives.
Even N&W had to switch, but they stuck with steam until 1960.
A diesel-electric locomotive had great tractive-force at low speed; e.g; dragging a heavy train, or climbing hills. More so than a steam-engine.
Where steam excelled was at high speed — but most railroad operations required low-speed dragging.
Furthermore, a steam-engine required coal-tipples and water-tanks along the route: a steam-engine needed water to generate steam. -a) That water could freeze, and -b) the train had to stop to take on water.
A diesel only needed fuel; and it was liquid instead of solid; like coal.
Switch to diesel and you could dispense with all the lineside steam-engine maintenance facilities — like cleaning the fire-grate on a steam-locomotive (i.e. removing clinkers — unburnable rock in the coal).
Furthermore, steam-engines required frequent heavy maintenance; e.g. boiler repairs and inspection. This required added facilities — which diesels didn’t need.
You could also operate diesel-locomotives without a fireman — although the railroad unions held fast to that requirement even in diesels.
You could also operate diesel-locomotives in multiple. Ya can’t do that with steam — or couldn’t at first. (Maybe ya could now.)
Each steam-locomotive was a separate unit requiring a full crew.
Diesel-locomotive units can be MU-ed; the crew in the lead unit operates all the diesels in a lash-up.
Sometimes as many as six or eight units might be MU-ed; yet only the crew in the lead unit is operating them all.
Multiple steam-locomotives meant multiple crews.
Link apparently wrote Norfolk & Western management, and sent samples, proposing he chronicle the end of steam operations on the railroad. Management, to their everlasting credit, went along.
Link’s other angle was mainly nighttime photography, which is where his craft surfaces.
His photographs aren’t that extraordinary, but many were taken at night, requiring mastery of the art of synchronizing shutter-opening with the bloom a flashbulbs.
Ya can’t just open the shutter and fire the flashbulbs at the same instant. The shutter has to be delayed until full flashbulb bloom, which is a few fractions of a second after the flashbulbs are fired.
Plus each nighttime photo shoot had to be set up; plus you’re photographing a large image; a steam-locomotive ain’t your grandson.
89 bazilyun flashbulbs were needed; all wired elegantly to the power-source. They all had to fire together, to stop a speeding locomotive in the dark; and be enough to render a satisfying image.
The train pictured is a “mixed,” meaning part freight, part passenger.
Railroads often did this on little-used lines, to provide so-called “accommodation” passenger-service, as required by their original charters.
The Abingdon Branch was probably originally a different railroad, thereafter got by Norfolk & Western.
Many such railroads were built in the middle 1800s, often with business charters granted by the state requiring regular passenger service.
As autos and highways replaced trains, and as demand for railroad passenger service decreased, a railroad would provide a so-called “accommodation” to fulfill its original charter.
The charter had become a legal requirement even when N&W got control of the railroad.
Sometimes, as in this case, the accommodation was provided by a mixed train.
The railroad was providing regularly scheduled freight service anyway, so passenger coaches were attached.
It’s also worth noting this train seems to have two engines, separated by freight-cars.
And they’re still steam-engines — it’s 1956.