Monthly Calendar Report for April 2009

Rockville Bridge. (Photo by Roger Durfee.)

—The April 2009 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees calendar is one of the best Rockville Bridge pictures I’ve ever seen.
Rockville Bridge is the Pennsylvania Railroad’s crossing of the Susquehanna River north of Harrisburg, PA.
The bridge pictured is iteration number-three, opened in 1902, at the time of its completion the longest stone-arch masonry bridge in the world.
It’s comprised of 48 equal length 70-foot limestone arches, and is 3,820 feet long. —That’s almost three-quarters of a mile.
It’s visible in my Google satellite images, a long thin straight line across the river. There is a train on it.
(I suppose I should fly the Google satellite image.)

That’s the Rockville Bridge across the river. (There’s a train on it.) (Screenshot of Google satellite image.)

Iteration number-one was all wood, and opened in 1849, and was only two tracks wide.
It was replaced by iteration number-two, iron, also only two tracks wide.
By the late 19th century, Pennsy was moving mountains of traffic, so a two-track bridge was a bottleneck.
Other bridges had been built, south, mainly to a freight-yard across from Harrisburg on the west bank of the river — Enola (“aye-NOLE-uh”)
Freight from the east would diverge from the old Pennsy main east of Lancaster near Parkesburg (“PARKS-berg”) and cross the river south of Harrisburg. It would then travel north along the west bank of the river to Enola.
The current bridge is 52 feet wide, and accommodated four tracks at first. It was also used as a line from Enola to Williamsport and north. That’s the old Northern Central route from Baltimore, which at first had it’s own river crossing north of Marysville. When Pennsy got Northern Central, nearby Rockville Bridge replaced that old Northern Central river crossing.
Piers still exist, and I think that original Northern Central bridge was covered (only one track). —I’ve seen old photographs.
So Rockville serves two purposes: -a) it’s the old Pennsy main out of Harrisburg west, and -b) it’s also the line north to Williamsport.
Conrail reduced it to three tracks in the ‘80s when the old Pennsy main across Pennsylvania was rationalized and rebuilt.
Norfolk Southern, a successor to Conrail, reduced it to two tracks after a shipping container blew off an intermodal car into the river.
The two tracks are in the center of the bridge, which allows adjacent space for a container to fall into instead of the river.
So Rockville is still wide enough for four tracks, but only has two.
Look at it and you realize probably the only thing that could remove it is a direct hit from a nuclear warhead.
It’s withstood floods, with the river raging.
It’s always been a challenge to photograph.
To get the whole bridge, you have to go far away, in which case the bridge becomes a narrow strip across your photograph.
Another option is to look out across the bridge from an end, in which case -a) the river gets lost from being too high, and/or -b) the bridge is so long the other end disappears. FlickR has a nighttime image taken from the end down alongside an arch — it’s fairly dramatic, but loses the opposite end.
About the only way you can successfully photograph it is what we have here, about five arches of the 48.
The other requirement for a good photograph of Rockville Bridge is to include the river it crosses; which we have here.
This appears to have been shot from upstream. The bridge piers are aimed upriver, and would be illuminated in the late afternoon, as they are here.
The Susquehanna is wide, but not very deep.
It’s not navigable by ocean-going vessels.
Which is why Rockville Bridge doesn’t include a channel crossing, and can be the same height as the railroad on the shore; i.e. not very high.
Rockville is now over 100 years old, and is in effect a dam to upstream navigation by anything other than small boats.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

1937 Talbot-Lago T150C SS.”

—I was originally gonna run the April 2009 entry of my Oxman legendary sportscar calendar last, but every time I look at it I think “Yow-zuh!”
Boobie-prize because it’s a late ‘30s car, and ‘30s cars are usually not inspiring to look at.
Fatuous Hitler Mercedes and such.
But this car is the most successful styling effort of its era; a 1937 Talbot-Lago T150C SS, originally built for the daughter of the Maharajah of Khapurthala.
Talbot-Lago is French, and the car is sweeping and dramatic.
Figoni et Filaschi (the body-maker) crafted a body entirely of aluminum, complete with skirting, even for the front wheels.
It looks great even though it has a flat-glass two-piece windshield, and suicide doors.
The Maharajah’s daughter frequently had the car repainted to match her gowns.
The car eventually made it to America, where it graced the cover of Road & Track magazine in 1952.
They also road-tested it; and it achieved 117 mph, not that fast, but not bad for a late 1930s car.
It’s now owned by the Nethercutt Collection.
Imagine shaping the panels for those front fenders.
And one wonders how much turning-radius it had with those skirts — and the fenders were also quite narrow too.
Talbot-Lago was the French successor when the Anglo-French STD (Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq) combine collapsed in 1935.
The French Talbot company was reorganized by Anthony Lago — an engineer, and quite good.
It lasted for years, and even raced Gran Prix after the war.
The T150C-SS was designed by Walter Becchia, and had significant sporting innovations, namely independent suspension (as opposed to buckboard suspension, as was common at that time).
But most extraordinary is its appearance: rolling sculpture.

The greatest propeller airplane of all time! (Photo by Philip Makanna©)

—The April 2009 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is the greatest propeller airplane of all time, although I think the Lockheed Constellation is comparable.
What would the Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar be without a P51 Mustang in it?
I have to run that incredible sound-file again: P51 sound-file.
Every American, by law, should be required to see, and hear, a P51 Mustang fly.
I did years ago at the Geneseo Airshow, a gathering of classic airplanes.
That thing was doing swooping 500+ mph powerdives, and hammerhead stalls.
I will never forget it.I’m takin’ that thing to my grave!
Pictured is good old “Big Beautiful Doll,” one of the many P51 Mustangs still airworthy.
I think “Big Beautiful Doll” was at that airshow, and may have been the one doing aerobatics.
The P51 Mustang was a response to the fact fighter-planes couldn’t accompany Allied bombers on their runs over Germany.
Not enough range, so the bombers were easy targets for German Messerschmitts.
Needed was a fighter-plane with range similar to the bombers, and that was the P51 Mustang.
The first Mustangs used the Allison V12 motor, which performed poorly at high altitude.
The Mustang was much better with the Rolls-Royce Merlin V12, signed over to Packard for American production.
And Packard made it even better; 1,695 horsepower, as opposed to less.
It’s the incredible unmuffled crackle of that Packard-Merlin that stands out.
And it’s spinning that gigantic four-bladed propeller — although I’ve seen Mustangs with five-bladed props, and counter-rotating double props.
“Big Beautiful Doll” apparently isn’t the original “Big Beautiful Doll” as flown by WWII fighter ace Col. John Landers.
It’s a restoration of a Nicaraguan airplane, although P51s did service in air-forces all over the world.
Landers flew various fighter-planes, including P38 Lightnings, all named “Big Beautiful Doll.”
—Including a P51 Mustang.
Watch, and hear, a P51 Mustang fly, impostor or not, and you never forget it.
But as my friend Tim Belknap (“bell-nap”) says, gorgeous and graceful as they are, they were instruments of death. Their mission was to shoot down enemy planes. They carry machine-guns.

The Dick-Flint Roadster.

—The April 2009 entry in my Oxman hot-rod calendar is perhaps the most famous hot-rod of all time, the fabulous 1929 Model-A track roadster built by Dick Flint.
The car was built in 1950 by Dick Flint of Valley Customs in southern California, first as a lakester.
It was originally raced at El Mirage Dry Lake, which later became Edwards Air Force Base. Sometimes the Shuttle gets landed at Mirage, after which it gets shipped back to Florida atop a 747.
One time the car achieved 143.54 at Mirage.
It achieved 143.4 in 1951 at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.
Flint managed to get three Model A roadsters, out of which he built this one car.
The car was unique in that it had a full aluminum belly-pan, and that nose in the shape of a racecar. —It too was aluminum.
At first the car had a hot-rodded 1940 Mercury Flat-Head, and it appeared on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine in May, 1952.
By then it had been converted back into a street-rod.

The car became part of the National Hot Rod Association moniker, as pictured at left.
Eventually the car changed hands, and a later owner swapped out the Flat-Head for a Small-Block Chevy.
Thankfully, as pictured here, the car has been returned to original specification with a Flat-Head.
The car is now owned by Don Orosco.

Out of the way. (M.D. McCarter Photo Collections©.)

—The April 2009 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs B&W All-Pennsy Calendar is two Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 electric locomotives at Union Station in Washington, D.C. waiting to take trains north on what is now known as “The Corridor.”
The image is 1943.
Anyone who reads this blog knows that I think the Pennsylvania Railroad’s GG1 electric locomotive is the greatest locomotive of all time.
That’s because I saw so many as a teenager, and every time I did they were pushing 90-100 mph.
It’s 1943, so these engines still have the original cat-whisker scheme promulgated by industrial-designer Raymond Loewy.

The painters hadn’t gotten around to this one yet. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with his father’s Kodak Hawkeye.)

I saw only one cat-whisker GG1, in 1960, at Wilmington Station, pictured above.
During the late ‘50s the railroad converted all the GG1s to a single-stripe scheme — with large lettering and a large PRR keystone. Much easier to maintain than five pinstripes.
Railfan scuttlebutt says the cat-whisker scheme is prettier, but I don’t think the single-stripe scheme looks bad.
It’s the same curvature and layout as Loewy.
Every GG1 I ever saw, except the one pictured, was the single-stripe scheme.
The picture is at Washington Union Station. The two trains are about the depart for the charge up to New York City, or maybe just Philadelphia or Baltimore.
WHATEVER, they’ll soon be boomin-and-zoomin’. Out the terminal is the fastest segment.
And ya can be sure if I had ever driven one, them chains on the front man-door woulda been rearranged to hang straight.
They were threaded through rubber hoses, and usually were askew.
BUT NOT WITH THIS KID!
A GG1 blasting past was the ultimate rush, and they had to look the part.

1970 Pontiac G-T-O Judge Ram-Air IV. (Photo by David Newhardt.)

—The April 2009 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1970 Pontiac G-T-O Judge Ram-Air IV.
By 1970 the Pontiac G-T-O was old news.
The G-T-O was introduced in the 1964 model-year, but by 1970 everybody and his brother was manufacturing musclecars much like the G-T-O.
G-T-O stands for Gran Turismo Omologato; the G-T-O name cribbed from Ferrari, who had manufactured a special G-T-O model to meet the G-T-O racing regulations. (The Ferrari is pictured below.)

G-T-O Ferrari.

G-T-O racing was racing with regular cars that had been “homologated” (“huh-MAHL-uh-gated: — “omologato”), although Ferrari was coming about it in a different way than Pontiac.
The Pontiac was also homologated for racing, and one ran fairly successfully in the SCCA Trans-Am series, a car entered by Pontiac engineer Herb Adams and driven by Bob Tullius. (That car is pictured.)

The Gray Ghost.

But Ferrari was modifying racecars to meet the G-T-O specification; mainly accommodation for luggage, although I’m sure more than that was required.
Ferrari would cobble a bin into its sports-racing cars that could take the specified suitcase. It was a joke — hardly acceptable — but it met the rules.
Car & Driver Magazine caused a sensation, and established itself, by comparing a Ferrari G-T-O and Pontiac G-T-O head-to-head.
They also declared the Pontiac G-T-O the winner — sacrilege — although the Pontiac was a cheater.
It had a hot-rodded 421 Pontiac engine instead of the standard 389.
The Pontiac G-T-O became a phenomenal marketing sensation, and extremely successful.
It was the first “musclecar,” a hot-rod you could buy from your dealer. (Although there were earlier factory hot-rods; e.g. the 409-Chevy in the 1961 model-year — and the first real musclecar was the Chrysler 300 in the middle ‘50s, although it was very expensive.)
But as a sportscar the G-T-O was abysmal. A friend at Transit had one, and said it was great in a straight line, but in the turns it spun like a whirling dervish.
Early G-T-Os came with triple two-barrel carbs — impossible to keep synchronized.
The car pictured is rare, a 1970 G-T-O Judge Ram-Air IV convertible, 400 cubic inches, 370 hp.
Ram-Air meant the single four-barrel carburetor was charged by outside air through the hood-scoops. (Outside air is cooler, and therefore denser.)
By 1970 the G-T-O name was ordinary, so Pontiac fielded “the Judge.”
The Judge was a special G-T-O meant to go head-to-head with all the other musclecars on the market, like from Buick, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Plymouth, Dodge and Ford/Mercury.
Of interest to me personally are the Firestone Wide-Oval tires, which I’m sure were stock on the application. (The car was restored to original-stock as delivered by the factory.)
Wide-Ovals were the first attempt by tire-makers to offer a wide tread. I think they were still bias-ply.
My ‘72 Chevrolet Vega GT had them, and they were awful in the rain. If it rained, they were a handful — slippery as the dickens.
So bad I got Pirelli CN36 radial tires — recommended by Car & Driver Magazine as the best.
I also deep-sixed the original shocks, which were so worn out they were spaghetti. I installed Koni® shocks, the best non-gas-pressurized shocks money could buy at that time.
Those tires and shocks made all the difference in the world.
Like all Vegas ya didn’t dare let the engine overheat (since it was aluminum, and would warp); and it rusted to smithereens, so much the front-end collapsed.
But it was a great car; one of the best I’ve ever owned.
I sold it as junk, but kept the rear hatch.
I still have it in my cellar — I was gonna hang it on the wall.
I replaced the windshield on that thing once, and got so I could set the ignition-points by eye. I even rebuilt the carburetor, and replaced the Gilmer timing-belt (it was overhead-cam). —I still have the belt-tensioner in my toolbox.
It handled great, except for jumping sideways in corners.
It would take a set, and dig in.
Rock-solid it was — the car I had before that (a Triumph TR250 sportscar) was as flexible as an aluminum ladder.
Wide-Ovals may be stock on a Judge Ram Air IV, but in my humble experience they were awful. The owner of this car better not drive it in the rain; he’ll be in the trees!
Also interesting to me is that this car has the Endura front bumper.
The 1970 model-year was the first time anyone installed the Endura front-bumper, and it was installed on the G-T-O, but not the Tempest, which the G-T-O is based on.
The Endura front-bumper is body color, and looks almost like the bumperless hot-rods of yore.
Except ya could bump into things without damage. (It’s rubberized foam in a plastic-rubber casing.)
Of course, they couldn’t sustain a heavy impact; steel bumpers can’t either.
The car still has a chromed steel rear bumper, but that Endura bumper looks great.

Train 11 awaits departure in Roanoke for Winston Salem, NC. It’s July of 1957. (Photo by O. Winston Link)

—Sorry Link, but the April 2009 entry of my O. Winston Link “Steam and Steel” calendar gets my boobie prize this time, largely because it’s the standard three-quarter view Link usually eschewed.
I almost didn’t run it, but my railfan readers would be appalled.
A standard three-quarter view is to plop the camera trackside in front of the train, so the locomotive dominates, and the train falls away behind.
Except in this case, the train is standing still, so Link had time to set up his unwieldy view-camera and tripod, and then optimize his picture.
Most standard three-quarter views are of moving trains, and the photographer has to guess the optimal train position.
And then shoot at the right moment.
In my experience ya shoot too early — an error that can be offset with multiple shots.
But Link didn’t have multiple shots back then, nor did anyone else.
Motor-Drive didn’t come into use until the late ‘60s.
Of interest to me is that the humble K2a steam-locomotive, a 4-8-2 Mountain #117, has the same streamlining as the phenomenal Js, 4-8-4.
Usually I don’t like streamlining on a steam-locomotive, as most look awful.
But the streamlining on this locomotive, and the Js, looks great.
The train is Train 11, Roanoke to Winston Salem, NC; over the fondly nicknamed “Punkin’ Vine,” because of all its twists and turns.