Monthly Calendar Report for June 2009

It was hard to know which calendar to make first this month.
Most are pretty good, but not extraordinary. Only my Audio-Visual Designs B&W All-Pennsy Calendar falls flat, so gets my boobie-prize. I wouldn’t run it, but my railfan readers would go ballistic.

A ‘40 Ford coupe.

—I guess I’ll make number-one the ‘40 Ford coupe in my Oxman hot-rod calendar.
The ‘40 Ford five-window coupe is one of the prettiest hot-rods of all time.
It’s amazing to think Ford Motor Company, with its tiny styling section, hardly the match for General Motors’ HUGE Art & Color section headed by Harley Earl, produced some of the prettiest cars of all time; e.g. the ‘32 Ford, the ‘34 Ford, and the ‘40 Ford coupe shown here (which was also 1939).
Earl’s Art & Color section was producing glitz-mobiles; okay, but forgettable.
Compare the ‘40 Chevy to this Ford.
Ford styling was essentially Bob Gregorie with his tiny styling department. Old Henry was more interested in function than appearance.
He continued to build the Model T well after better cars had been made available.
His Model A only came to fruition because of the success of the competition; and he refused to field a six, producing his Flat-Head V8 instead.
To counter the sixes, he brought a small V8 to market: the V8-60.
Ford finally had to field a six; stockholders prevailing against Old Henry.
By then he was sort of in eclipse, but Ford stuck to buggy-spring suspension, as used on the Model T, until the 1949 model-year, when Henry Ford II (“the Deuce;” Old Henry’s grandson) brought the revolutionary Shoebox Ford to market. The shoebox wasn’t a Gregorie design (it was George Walker), but the ‘49 Mercury was.
Despite Old Henry’s fustianism, or perhaps because of it, Ford brought some of the prettiest cars ever to market; and the ‘39/‘40 Ford coupe is one.
The car is a lowly Standard, not the DeLuxe model also available.
The “Standard” was usually Ford’s previous-year DeLuxe model; same car as the ‘39 Ford DeLuxe.
To me the Standard, and ‘39 DeLuxe, look better. The only difference is the grill used; a ‘40 DeLuxe is too busy. (Plus the number of taillights — a DeLuxe had two [one per side]; a Standard only one [left side only].)
This car is powered by a Chrysler Hemi, the early Hemi.
It uses Hilborn (“HILL-born”) fuel-injection, which looks great, but is poorly suited to the street.
Hilborn fuel-injection is a racing application — I bet this car is a bear to start; if it’s ever started at all. It looks like a trailer-queen.
When our family moved to northern Delaware in late 1957, somebody nearby had a car like this, although it was only frame-rails ahead of the firewall.
I was told it was awaiting an Oldsmobile V8 engine, ‘49 or up. —Who knows if the car was ever finished?
In 1993 I happened to see a metallic green ‘40 Ford coupe with a Small-Block Chevy V8.
It looked nice, but that paint was hardly stock.
It even had air-conditioning, something Old Henry would have never done. (“Roll down the windows!” he’d bellow.)
My blowhard brother-from-Boston, who’s also a car-guy like me, helped me look it over.
It was being driven on the street, but the poor driver was scrunched inside, and it better not rain.
A few years ago I attended a car-show in nearby Penn Yan, and a pretty red ‘40 Ford coupe was there.
I was thrilled. It had a proper Flat-head V8, although it was ‘50 Mercury.
Ya don’t see Flat-heads often.
Usually they were wrenched out and swapped for a Chevy Small-Block.
The Small-Block has found its way into so many hot-rods, I remember seeing one at a car-show in Canandaigua; black ‘32 Ford roadster pickup with Small-Block Chevy.
The car’s owner had put a Ford medallion on the chromed air-cleaner cover, and a newspaper reporter I knew asked me what the motor was.
“Chevy,” I said. “See those center siamesed exhausts? Fords don’t have that.”
It ran in the newspaper as a Ford motor.
Sadly (although not very much), the ‘40 Ford coupe is five-window, which means it has those tiny windows behind the doors.
Willys (“WILL-eeez”) made a similar coupe — same lines — about that time, that’s three-window, and looks much better.
A three-window doesn’t have those tiny windows behind the doors, so is not as busy.
I don’t think Ford made a three-window coupe in 1940, and the Willys also had a more modern-looking grill.

The famed “Honey-Hole” shot. It’s September of 1958. (Photo by O. Winston Link)

—The June 2009 entry of my O. Winston Link “Steam and Steel” calendar is Link’s famous “Honey-Hole” photograph.
Norfolk & Western Railway would station helpers eastbound at the foot of the long and steep Blue Ridge grade into Roanoke, VA.
The helpers would couple to the rear of long eastbound coal-drags to help them up the grade.
The crews of these helpers would get off while waiting for their train.
The place the helpers based was known as “the Honey-Hole.”
The engine appears to be a massive Norfolk & Western Y6 articulated (2-8-8-2), and the crew that has got off might have built a campfire in the darkness at trackside.
What a shot! Link sets up with his 89 bazilyun flashbulbs, one imitating a campfire.
Although whether it was actually a campfire is debatable — there appears to be a picnic-table.
And coffee was usually warmed in the steam-locomotive cab atop the firebox backhead.

1970 Buick® GSX™. (Photo by David Newhardt.)

—Next of my somewhat droll June 2009 calendar entries is my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar, a 1970 Buick GSX.
It’s run high because my all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, the self-declared authority on “mussel”-cars (and that’s how he noisily insists it’s spelled), claims the 1970 Buick GSX is the best of the musclecars.
I have to agree — at least the best-looking musclecar; although April’s 1970 G-T-O Judge looks pretty good.
But the Judge has those stupid-looking wheel-well scallop decals. The Buick looks better, although it’s pretty large.
Plus shoehorn a giant hot-rodded 455 cubic-inch engine in it, and it will be pretty quick.
The calendar claims 345 horsepower, but my brother loudly disagrees.
“That thing was rated at 360, or maybe it was 360,” he bellows.
A blizzard of numbers have been sprayed at me: 315, 345, 360, 385.
The calendar also implies the car pictured is a “Stage One,” but my brother noisily blusters the GSX was never available as a Stage One.
“Stage One” is a GS option, he claims, not GSX. (The GS was apparently Buick’s entry-level musclecar; GSX the pinnacle.)
Underneath all this is the torque output, a mind-boggling 510 foot-pounds.
No wonder the GSX was stoplight-to-stoplight champion.
Comparable is the 454 cubic-inch SS Chevelle (pictured below).

This is a ‘71, same as my brother’s. But his is dark-green with white stripes.

The maximum motor in a 454 SS Chevelle was the LS6, and my brother’s is a modified LS5.
He noisily claims it dynoed at 535 horsepower.
I did get to drive it, and it was terrifying.
WAY too much motor is a flopsy old chassis.
It quivered and trembled with each piston-thrust as it idled.
“People used to street-race these things,” I cried.
“Pistons the size of paint-cans!” I added.
Modification meant a special non-stock 700 cubic-feet-per-minute four-barrel carburetor, among other things.
700 isn’t that large, but still fairly substantial.
It didn’t have a choke.
Ya lit it with the accelerator-pumps, and then let it warm up.
The gasoline it burned was special high-octane racing gas that cost $7 per gallon — and that was three summers ago, well before $4 per gallon for regular.
He had me back it out of a driveway, so he could pick up his Harley-Davidson.
I almost stalled it; it was sooting the spark-plugs.
The 454 SS Chevelle was essentially the car the GSX Buick was aimed at, but the Buick looks better.
And I don’t know if it could beat the Chevelle in a sanctioned quarter-mile drag-race.

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

—The June 2009 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Grumman Wildcat.
Aim that sucker into the sun and take a close-up of that beautiful radial engine!
I can imagine the sound this thing is making.
I’d run this picture first if it were a Corsair.
But it’s only a Grumman Wildcat, an airplane that first flew in 1937 as experimental.
The Wildcat was Grumman’s response to the Navy’s request for an aircraft-carrier based fighter-plane.
Sadly it wasn’t the agile and faster airplane the Japanese Zero was. Although if I am correct, the Zero lacked armor so was lighter — it also was designed to be as light as possible.
The Wildcat was the first of a series of Grumman fighter-planes, all with “‘cat” in the name.
Each had more powerful radial engines; the Wildcat is only 1,200 horsepower (although the one pictured is 1,350 — see below). —Later ‘cats had as much as 2,100 horsepower.
A radial engine arrays all the cylinders around the crankshaft (the propeller shaft), and the Navy engines were air cooled.
Although the radial cylinders all work the top central cylinder, articulated to its con-rod. The top cylinder also works the crankshaft — the arrayed cylinders do not actually work the crankshaft.
As the war progressed, engineers were bending greater and greater horsepower out of the radial engine design.
Another factor was at play; the Navy’s abhorrence of water-cooled engines — e.g. the Allison and Merlin V12s.
But a radial-engine airplane was less aerodynamic than a water-cooled airplane could be; e.g. the Mustang or the Spitfire.
But a water-cooled engine was more likely to need repair, and could more readily be damaged and shot down.
The Navy preferred air-cooled engines, but had allowed for a water-cooled entry.

N5833.

The airplane pictured in the calendar is N5833 (also pictured at left), operated by the Commemorative Air Force, painted to represent the British designation of the aircraft, the Martlett.
I don’t know what engine we have here (although I see nine cylinders), but as I understand it the Martlett was powered by a different engine, a nine-cylinder Wright R-1820-56 of 1,350 horsepower.
The Martlett was an airplane ordered by the French, but France fell before it could be delivered, so the shipment went to Great Britain.
The Navy Wildcats were the Pratt & Whitney R-1830-36 Twin Wasp two-row radial of 14 cylinders; 1,200 horsepower.
Supposedly 18 or so are still airworthy.
Sadly, the Wildcat had the retractable landing-gear designed by Leroy Grumman, which was narrow and also hand-cranked. —It was poorly suited for aircraft-carrier operation.
With narrow landing-gear, the plane could tip sideways on landing, and dig a wing into the carrier deck.
And the landing-gear had to be hand locked; if it wasn’t locked correctly it could collapse.
The Wildcat suffered many accidents.
All of this was rectified in the Hellcat, the Grumman navy fighter that succeeded the Wildcat, and had wider landing-gear.

Norfolk Southern rock train pauses at Columbus, GA, bound for Macon. (Photo by Casey Thomason.)

—The June 2009 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees calendar is a Norfolk Southern freight-train of rock-filled hopper cars, led by an EMD SD70m-2, and two GE units, pausing at the Columbus, GA railyard, before it continues toward Macon.
Apparently photographer Thomason is a railroad engineer, and has operated this line.
The line is one of many Central of Georgia routes that operated throughout Georgia.
The railroad had planted five palm trees at the Columbus station to tell passengers they were approaching Florida.
Columbus is right at the border with Alabama, and it’s the route of Central of Georgia’s old Man O’ War, Seminole, and City of Miami passenger trains.
Central of Georgia is long gone, as are its passenger trains.
But the palm trees are still there.
Thomason used a star filter on his lens. It exaggerates light-sources.
Lighting gets spread into a star.
The picture was taken at dusk; probably a time-exposure.
Without the stars it would look very pedestrian.
Looks kinna pedestrian even with the stars.
But Thomason managed to pull it off; a shot at dusk that could easily have gone awry.
The exaggerated light-sources allow Norfolk Southern to brag about a torrent of lighting upgrade projects.

The Jaguar D-series sports-racing car “civilized” for street use.

—The June entry of my Oxman legendary sportscar calendar is a 1956 Jaguar (“JAG-you-are”) XKSS.
Throughout the ‘50s, and even well into the ‘60s, car-race sanctioning organizations pursued a silly goal that sports and grand-touring racecars should be available to the average Joe for operating at insane speeds over public highways.
It was inspired by Italy’s Mille Miglia (“MEAL-ya MEAL-yah”) car-race, where sports and grand-touring cars raced at insane speeds over about 1,000 miles of public highway.
(Sportscars were usually open roadsters; grand-touring cars closed coupes with a roof.)
The Mille Miglia was outlawed after the 1957 race due to a surfeit of spectator deaths.
A sports or grand-touring racecar had to be “homologated” (“hum-AHL-uh-gaited”) for racing.
That is, 500 copies of essentially the same car had to be available for purchase.
It became a joke, and Ferrari became the best practitioner.
A few cars might be built similar to the racecar, but rarely 500.
Sanctioning bodies would capitulate, because fans wanted to see the racecars race.
It makes about as much sense as calling NASCAR racers “stock-cars.” Anything similar to a NASCAR racer is NOT available at a dealer as “stock.”
The stupidest rule was the suitcase requirement.
Ferrari might cobble an el-cheapo sheet-aluminum bin into his racecars to meet the suitcase requirement.
But it was nothing you’d ever put a real suitcase in.
The Ferrari G-T-O (“Grand-Touring-Omologato”) was intended to meet the homologation regulations.
Even the first Pontiac G-T-Os (‘64) were homologated for racing — one of the few cars to ever meet the homologation regulations, since so many were sold.
The Pontiac G-T-O was a direct steal of the Ferrari G-T-O name.

Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100 camera.

An XKE coupe at Watkins Glen.

At first I thought the Jaguar XKSS was another homologation special, a street version of the fabulous Jaguar XKD racecar that won LeMans (“Luh-MAH”) in 1955, 1956 and 1957.
But it’s not.
It’s use of the remaining XKD racecar spares; engine, chassis, etc.
The XKD was revolutionary for having a lightweight aluminum monocoque (“mah-noh-COKE”) chassis; that is, the chassis was a lightweight body-width tub everything was attached to. No frame rails.
“Civilized” for street use by adding a windshield and side-windows.
The XKSS is a precursor to the fabulous Jaguar XKE (pictured above), a car my friend Tim Belknap (“Bell-NAPP”) says is the prettiest car of-all-time.
I’ve come to agree.

Compare this with a ‘53 Chevy.

I used to think Raymond Loewy’s 1953 Studebaker Starlight coupe (pictured at left) was the prettiest car of-all-time.
But I saw one recently, and felt like I was looking at a turkey.
It was big and blowsy, and hardly the E-Jag.
The XKE is tiny, and extremely low to the ground.
It’s also monocoque construction.
And the XKSS was the precursor — only 16 were built.

Pennsy M1 (4-8-2) steam-engine tiptoes through wreck cleanup on the Toledo line in 1949. (Photo by Bob Lorenz©.)

—The June 2009 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs B&W All-Pennsy Calendar gets my boobie-prize; not much to look at.
But my railfan readers would go ballistic if I didn’t fly a picture of a steam locomotive.
Railroading is still great fun to watch; gigantic heavy conveyances of incredible weight kept on-path by tiny wheel flanges only an inch-or-two deep following a fixed guideway.
And woe if that train derails, as this picture displays. Mayhem ensues as gigantic pieces of equipment hurtle akimbo into the weeds and dig up the landscape.
Freight-cars stack up and often explode.

Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100 camera.

Once in central California I saw a boxcar body, wheel-less, at roadside, far from the tracks. It probably had tumbled down the mountain after a derailment, and got dragged there by a bulldozer.
It was the Southern Pacific Tehachapi (“tuh-HAH-chuh-peee”) line, a contorted 2.5% grade into the Tehachapi Mountains, up to Tehachapi Pass. The line even loops over itself; the famed Tehachapi Loop, a railfan pilgrimage stop.
The curvature is so tight, and grade so strenuous, trains often derail.
Fun to watch, and 89 bazilyun locomotives hammering up that grade at full throttle is a thrill, but no comparison to steam locomotion.
Fortunately, I was born early enough so that steam locomotion was still in use in south Jersey; 1944.
Steam locomotion in south Jersey ended about 1955 or so. The last steam engine I ever saw was in 1956; probably a Pennsy Consolidation (2-8-0), although it also looked like a Mikado (2-8-2). I also saw a rusty Pennsy K4 Pacific (4-6-2) on a horse race-track special earlier in that year; probably summer. My last steam engine was in snow, that freight-engine; probably December. I was in a Piper Tri-Pacer at about 1,000 feet.
The railroad was Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (PRSL), a 1933 merger of Pennsylvania and Reading (“REDD-ing,” not “READ-ing”) lines into south Jersey, promulgated to offset the fact both railroads had way too much track in south Jersey.
The south Jersey seashore trade had developed into a prolific market.
In the late 1800s, residents of Philadelphia would go to the south Jersey seashore resorts on weekends, or for vacation.

Delair (“del-AIR”) River Bridge.

Crossing the massive Delaware River is required, and at first this was done with ferries, until the Pennsylvania Railroad built its Delair River Bridge (pictured) from north Philadelphia, which opened in 1896.
The Delair Bridge was somewhat a barrier to river navigation to the north. Ships had to clear a draw, and the first bridge was later rebuilt to widen the draw to clear ore-boats headed up river to a new steel-plant.
Delair Bridge was the first crossing of the Delaware River from Philadelphia into south Jersey.
Pennsy had to build a line from Delair Bridge to its ferry-based seashore service.
The first railroad to the Jersey seashore was Camden & Atlantic, from Camden to nascent Atlantic City in the 1850s. C&A soon became Pennsy.
Competing Atlantic City Railroad was built slightly south, and that became Reading.
Pennsy and Reading competed to be fastest to the seashore. The trip was about 50 miles, and trains were doing it in 50 minutes.
This required 100 mph running through the south Jersey pine barrens, but over arrow-straight track with no hills.
Pennsy was slightly more circuitous, but could exceed 100 mph through the pine barrens.
But both Pennsy and Reading were building competing lines to serve every south Jersey seashore resort.
There was so much duplication, neither railroad could make money.
And so, Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines was formed; and much duplicate track was torn up and abandoned.
The old Reading line to Atlantic City was merged into the old Pennsy line at Winslow Junction, halfway across the state, and abandoned and torn up east of there.
Reading lines to other seashore resorts were saved, and the Pennsy lines torn up; e.g. Wildwood, Ocean City, and Cape May. Sea Isle City, tiny that it was, lost its railroad service.
The railroad seashore service became kind of moribund as New Jersey began expanding its highway network in the ‘50s.
A massive highway crossing of the Delaware River opened in 1926 — although ferry service hung on until 1952 (I rode it).
PRSL wasn’t a heavy-duty railroad. The largest steam locomotives I ever saw were Pennsy K4 Pacifics (4-6-2), and perhaps the Pennsy Mikado (2-8-2), which is the same boiler as the K4.
PRSL could not have supported anything heavier, like an I1 Decapod (2-10-0).
But it was fairly straight, and without grades; so could allow fast running.
How many times did I see K4 Pacifics or E6 Atlantics (4-4-2) roar by at 70 mph or more?
And steam hung around for over 10 years after I was born.
The reason I’m a railfan is because of those roaring PRSL steamers, mostly Pennsy. (PRSL didn’t have its own steam-engines; it used Pennsy and Reading steam-engines, although the Reading engines looked awful.)
PRSL became even more moribund after the ‘50s.
Part of the old C&A alignment was converted to a rapid-transit line (PATCo [“PAT-ko”] — Port-Authority-Transit Corporation, a public entity run by Delaware River Port Authority).
That rapid-transit became immensely successful, but primarily because the Delaware River was such a barrier to commuting from south Jersey to Philadelphia. —PATCo crosses the river on the 1926 highway bridge.
Passenger service to Philadelphia ended in the ‘70s, but has since been restarted.
Passenger service to other south Jersey resorts would abut at Lindenwold, the end of the rapid-transit line out in the south Jersey suburbs.
Of interest to me in this calendar picture is the cigar-chomping manager striding off to the left.
Why does every human endeavor require a bellowing manager-type, to do nothing but threaten the hourlies, who are actually doing something, with termination?