Monthly Calendar Report for March 2009

All seven this time, even though the last three are debatable; even that Hawker Sea-Fury, the fourth pik, that gets by on being a dramatic photograph.

Pedal to the metal! (Photo by John Schlared)

“Put the hammer down!”
That’s what I think of when I see the March 2009 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees calendar.
Photographer John Schlared, a Norfolk Southern conductor from Columbus, OH, sees a closed highway overpass by the exit of the Rickenbacker intermodal terminal where he works, and notices a double-stack being assembled therein.
It’s later in the afternoon; the sun is low.
Finally assembled, the train pulls west out of the yard onto the storied Heartland Corridor, the old Norfolk & Western main.
(The so-called “Heartland Corridor” gets much worse east of here. In West Virginia It’s threading the Appalachians to get to the Atlantic. 89 bazilyun tunnels had to be modified to clear double-stacks.)
The locomotive engineer won’t actually notch it up until his whole train clears the yard.
Trying to boom-and-zoom at this point would only derail the train at the yard throat.
The lead unit is a General Electric ES40DC, 4,000 horsepower Evolution Series, direct current (as opposed to alternating current: “AC”), built in 2007. (Evolution Series is a V12 engine built to meet emission requirements.)
The train appears to have only two units, enough for maybe 60+ mph on the track shown.
The second unit is a General Electric Dash 9-40CW, again 4,000 horsepower, but this time a V16; derated from 4,400 horsepower for Norfolk Southern for longer engine life. Only NS had the derated 9-40CW.
This engine was built in the late ‘90s.
Seeing this pik reminds me of turning our jet onto Runway 22 at Rochester International Airport.
The pilots put the hammer down, and suddenly we’re accelerating quickly.
Finally, after a long takeoff roll, we’re going fast enough for the wings to generate enough lift to get us off the runway.
And on a diesel-engine it ain’t wide-open throttle.
In railroad diesel-locomotives it’s Run Eight; maximum fuel delivery.
Diesel engines are always maximum air intake (unthrottled). Power output is a function of the amount of fuel burned.

The most collectible car of all time.

The March 2009 entry in my Motorbooks Muscle Cars calendar is a ‘69 “Boss-302” Ford Mustang.
The “Boss-302” was only made in 1969 and ‘70.
It’s a special iteration of the Mustang made to meet the rules of the SCCA’s Trans-Am series for pony-cars.
As such the engine is only 302 cubic inches — Trans-Am’s limit was 305 cubic inches; five liters.
But it’s the Cleveland motor, much snappier than the Windsor V8.
It had splayed valves like the Chevrolet Big-Block, an iteration allowed by ball-stud rockers.
The intake and exhaust passageways could be aimed so to maximize gas-flow.
The Cleveland also had large valves.
By comparison the Windsor motor used nails (well, not actually that small, but smaller).
A Cleveland would rev like the dickens. The Boss-302 was rated at 290 horsepower, but was actually generating about 350.
More appropriate to the street was the 351 Cleveland in a Mach 1 Mustang.
To me that’s more collectible. The Boss-302 is a racing motor in a street car.
Although it also had chassis modifications that enhanced handling.
Driving a Boss-302 on the street is an invitation to foul the sparkplugs. It’s meant to be wrung out, not idled.
Years ago (probably 1969) I was at Bridgehampton road-course out Long Island.
The Bud Moore team was racing Boss-302 Mustangs for drivers Parnelli Jones and George Follmer.
Bud Moore was an old stockcar racer based in Spartanburg, SC, and he raced the Trans-Am series first with Cougars, and then Mustangs.
In 1969 he raced ‘69 Boss-302 Ford Mustangs, and as an old stockcar racer, his cars were the fastest cars. (Probably better than even the Penske/Donohue Z28 Camaro; which won the series.)
Parnelli Jones was an old Indianapolis racer who said “if your car is not outta control, you’re not driving fast enough.”
Next to the pits was a long straightaway where the race started.
After that straightaway was a long blind downhill curve. Jones and Follmer were on the front row; Jones on the pole.
Race started, Jones and Follmer dropped into that blind curve flat-out, at least 165 mph.
Neither was giving any quarter.
It’s an image I’ll take to my grave.
The ‘69 Mustang is not as pretty as the ‘70; and in 1970 Moore was racing 1970 Boss-302s.
The ‘69 has four headlights, including two in the grill.
The 1970 has only two — the fender headlights were replaced by twin fake horizontal air-slots, and the grill-intake widened.
Moore’s ‘70 Mustangs were mustard-yellow, the preferred color of a Boss-302 Mustang.
But in 1970 at Bridgehampton it was raining.
They raced in the rain — had to pussyfoot somewhat.
Jones and Follmer charging flat-out into that downhill is something I’ll never forget.
And at the bottom the racers bottomed their rear suspensions, throwing up a shower of sparks hitting the pavement with their trackbars.

The famous Iaeger Drive-In pik. (Photo by O. Winston Link)

The March 2009 entry of my O. Winston Link “Steam and Steel” calendar is his most famous photograph ever, the Iaeger (“eee-AYE-grrr”) Drive-In pik.
A few months ago, my friend Art Dana and I visited George Eastman House in Rochester to see a special show of O. Winston Link photographs.
The famous Iaeger Drive-In pik was one of the many prints.
O. Winston Link isn’t that good a photographer (not in the artsy sense, but a superb craftsman), but there’s a special story behind this pik.
Link is using his 89 bazilyun flashbulbs to extract an image from the night. —It’s a process he specialized in; being able to extract a photograph out of darkness.
Look closely and you can see the flash reflectors at trackside, small black circles in the image.
Link had to spend hours setting up this photograph; miles of wiring.
But 89 bazilyun flashbulbs wash out the image on the movie-screen, so Link had to take a second image of the movie screen that he could superimpose on his train shot.
It’s a trick that could be easily done with Photoshop®, but Photoshop wasn’t around in 1956.
Link had to expose both negatives onto his final print, and correctly register the movie-screen.
89 bazilyun tries were required.
The final print (above) is from a negative of that successful merge.
Of interest to me are the cars depicted in the photograph — it’s 1956.
Visible are a ‘55 Dodge, a ‘55 or ‘56 Pontiac, a ‘56 Chevy, a ‘53 or ‘54 Dodge or Plymouth, a ‘52 Buick convertible with the top up, and a ‘53 or ‘54 Pontiac.
In the foreground is Link’s ‘52 Buick convertible, and the couple are Link’s friends.
“Not only was Link a good photographer,” Art said; “but he had excellent taste in cars.”
The locomotive is #1242, an A-series 2-6-6-4 articulated, the fabulous steam-locomotive Norfolk & Western used in the end of steam to haul freight at speed.
I rode behind #1218, a restored N&W A. It was a railfan excursion, and the engine was so big and heavy the opposing diesel freight-trains had to take siding so 1218 could remain on the main.
The airplane on the movie-screen is a North American Aviation F86 Sabre-jet, and the movie is about the Korean War.

Look at that propeller! (Photo by Philip Makanna©)

The March 2009 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Hawker Sea-Fury, an airplane I’m not familiar with — which is because it’s a British airplane, and brought to production late in WWII.
The Hawker Sea-Fury fighter-bomber design was the result of a British wartime design specification.
It was first designed as “The Fury,” and later adapted to aircraft-carrier use: the Sea-Fury.
It’s a monster of an airplane, powered by a British Bristol Centaurus XII 18-cylinder radial air-cooled engine.
It was such a monster, Sea-Furies gravitated into air-racing; albeit converted to the Wright R-3350 — since the Bristol Centaurus XII was hard to work on, and not as powerful.
The Bristol Centaurus motors are sleeve valve — the Wright R-3350 is poppet-valve; more able to be souped up, and easier to work on.
The airplane pictured has a gigantic four-bladed propeller, and I get Google-images of Sea-Furies with a five-bladed propeller.
Modern touches abound. The cockpit is covered by the bubble-canopy that found use in the Mustang and the Thunderbolt fighter planes.
It has a lotta motor and propeller for an aircraft-carrier, but managed to do all this without dropping the wings, like the Corsair.
Of course, it’s also a horse; like the Thunderbolt not the graceful fighter-planes the Mustang and Spitfire are.
No matter; it can attain similar speeds, often faster. A Mustang doesn’t have 2,480 horsepower. (A Mustang is 1,695 horsepower. —Souped up, ya might bend 2,000 horsepower out of it.)

Ho-hum; now we get into the three final calendar piks, which aren’t very spectacular.

1968 Lamborghini Miura P400 Bertone Spyder “ZN75.”

—The March 2009 entry of my Oxman legendary sportscar calendar is the Lamborghini (“lam-bor-GEE-nee;” as in “get”) Miura sportscar, significant because it’s the first mid-engined supercar, just not much to look at.
It also had its V12 motor mounted transversely, a layout that wouldn’t bias sideways the handling due to longitudinal engine mounting.
First, a little history.
The Lamborghini car company was founded fairly recently, in 1963, out of the fact the founder, Ferruccio Lamborghini, had difficulty with Ferrari concerning a car Lamborghini had.
Ferrari, in essence, told Lambo to get stuffed; that the supposed car ailment was Lamborghini’s fault.
Lamborghini was a tractor manufacturer, and Ferrari told him to go back to tractors.
Lamborghini’s solution was the 350GT (the car pictured is a 400GT), a front-engine Italian super GT with a V12 engine, much like a Ferrari.
The Miura (the calendar picture above) was their first mid-engine supercar, that is the first supercar with a V12 engine mounted amidships.
The mid-engine layout was all the rage, a concept that had overtaken auto racing.
It concentrated engine weight toward the center of the car, instead of out towards the ends, where it can unbalance handling like a pendulum.
The Miura was introduced in 1965.
Corvette was considering going mid-engine, but never did, since engine weight in the front can be brought toward the car center, effecting a similar result.
The effect of engine-weight location can also be worked around with chassis engineering.
I think Lotus was the first manufacturer of a mid-engine car, the Europa. But it wasn’t a V12 super-motor; it was a Renault four-cylinder — although extraordinarily light.
The Miura was the first time a V12 super-motor had been mounted mid-engine; that is, behind the driver like in a racing car.
It was also mounted transversely across the chassis, instead of longitudinally parallel to the chassis.
Supposedly this canceled the torque bias of a longitudinally mounted motor; the rotating mass of the motor effecting the forward directional stability.
Since time immemorial engines have been mounted longitudinally in cars, and bias is slight.
Front-wheel-drive cars encourage rotating the engine 90°, as does mounting the engine behind the driver.
Most racecars still mount the engine longitudinally, even behind the driver (mid-engine), but the mid-engine Pontiac Fiero had it mounted transversely behind the driver.
As does this Miura, although I don’t think it sold well.
Sadly, the Miura doesn’t look that great; just extraordinarily low.
It had those flipper headlights, and the giant airscoops in the B-pillars. (Neither are visible in the picture.)
The scoops looked okay, but the headlights weird.
It was also bucking the long-standing reputation of Ferrari as the supreme Italian supercar.
“ZN75” was a prototype show-car introduced at the Geneva Motor Show in 1966.
It never made it into production, and was later purchased by International Lead Zinc Research Organization.
ZN75 was recently restored to its original specification, but the photo is before that.

“Spirit of St. Louis.” (Photo by Otto Perry©)

—The March 2009 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs B&W All-Pennsy Calendar is the Pennsylvania Railroad’s passenger-train “Spirit of St. Louis,” led by a single K4 Pacific 4-6-2, rumbling down the approach to the bridge over the Mississippi river, into St. Louis.
The train is passing through freight-yards.
What’s interesting to me about this rather plain photograph is that it depicts railroading as it was back in 1932 when it was taken.
The train is passing boxcars that are still 40 feet in length, and have center walkways on top for brakies to walk the car-tops.
Originally the car-brakes were hand-set by brakemen (“brakies”) walking the car-tops.
The train-engineer would whistle for brakes, and the brakies would start individually setting brakes from the car-tops.
The Westinghouse Air-Brake ended that. The train-engineer could set brakes on his entire train.
But those walkways remained for years, although by 1944 when I was born, the walkways were steel grating, not wooden planks as pictured.
(Individual car-braking was also very dangerous to brakies. The brakemen could slip and fall off or between cars.)

Boxcars were starting to push 50 feet when I was born, and now the high-cube boxcars are 80 feet or more.
Boxcars were the norm back then, and got adapted for various uses.
Boxcars were the means of shipping automobiles, but now automobiles are shipped in long car-carriers that hold as many as 21 or more autos.
A 40 foot boxcar might have held five or seven, and had to be loaded through the side door.
Car-carriers get loaded through the car-ends, with the cars just driven on.
Grain used to be shipped in boxcars too; pumped through the doorway.
But now it moves in covered hopper-cars, so it can be quickly unloaded like coal.
And it gets loaded through top hatches; much more efficient.
Railroads also moved to excessive-height. The freight-cars pictured are not excessive-height.
The standard car-carriers mentioned above are excessive-height.
Boxcars expanded to excessive-height with their extended length; e.g. the high-cube car.
Excessive-height used to be marked; a white area atop the car-ends.
Double-stacked freight containers are even higher. Double-stacks need incredible clearances. Bridges had to be raised, and/or the tracks thereunder lowered.
Go out West Ave. in Rochester along the old Water-Level and you can see the tracks were lowered under a walkway overpass.
Tunnels also had to be rebuilt.
The massive Heartland Project across West Virginia and Virginia is opening up the many tunnels of the old Norfolk & Western to clear double-stacks.
Tunnels had to be opened up on the old Pennsy main across Pennsylvania.
The old Pennsy tunnel atop Allegheny summit at Gallitzin had to be completely rebuilt.

“Dynaliner.”

—The March 2009 entry in my Oxman hot-rod calendar is “Dynaliner,” a ‘32 Ford three-window chopped coupe, although that’s not the gorgeous ‘32 Ford grill.
That’s about the only thing wrong.
“Dynaliner” was built by Speed Kings of Cincinnati to replicate an old-time Bonneville speedster.
Bonneville is the giant salt flats next to Great Salt Lake in Utah where top speed runs can be made.
What stands out about this car is its Flat-head engine, which I suppose I should picture.

Ya don’t eat off this.

The Ford Flat-head V8 is the basis of hot-rodding, although it was replaced by the Chevy Small-Block introduced in the 1955 model-year.
This motor is also supercharged — the casing on top.
Backyard tinkerers bent incredible horsepower out of the Flat-head, and that’s despite the limits of the design.
In a Flat-head, the intake and exhaust valves are beside the cylinders instead of atop.
The combustion-chamber has to be large and offset to allow side-valves. It was a design simple and cheap to manufacture, but it discourages free breathing.
Overhead valving vastly improved engine breathing and combustion-chamber shape.
Now you see overhead camshafts and four-valves-per-cylinder to improve breathing and valve actuation even more.
But the lowly Flat-head remained the hot-rodding engine-of-choice well into the ‘50s, even after overhead valving become the norm from Detroit.
This was because such a vast speed-parts industry had built up for the Flat-head.
But the Chevy Small-Block sealed its doom. It was cheap and small, and above-all responsive to hot-rodding.
It’s rare to see a Flat-head any more.
Hot-rodders usually install a Chevy Small-Block.
But the Flat-head was the basis of hot-rodding.
You still see the basic design in small engines, like lawnmowers.