“We already have rationed healthcare”

One of the rants of the anti-healthcare-reform crowd is “ObamaCare” (their term) will institute rationed healthcare.
A guy I know of has lung cancer, so his doctor prescribed a PET-scan.
His healthcare insurance disagreed.
Said he didn’t need it.
His doctor said he did, yet his healthcare insurance says he doesn’t, and won’t pay for it.
“We already have rationed healthcare,” my wife declared.

Not worth it!

Continuing Facebook frustration
—1) Dave Wheeler, an editor at the Daily Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost four years ago (best job I ever had), is a Facebook “friend.”
This means he has a Facebook, like me, and that I get notifications of his every rumination.
No problem with that — Wheeler is a bit off-the-wall; but so am I.
My Facebook profile-photo of me sticking my tongue out is by him.
My e-mail is RoadRunner through Netscape; an old way of doing things, but I’ve never got around to G-Mail. And Netscape is adequate.
Facebook sends me e-mail notifications of any comment to anything I said to Wheeler, so something about a “Julie”-post is in my e-mail.
I’ve limited e-mails from Facebook, which means I could probably screen out such-same; but I don’t mind e-mails regarding Wheeler, so I haven’t.
Facebook has e-mailed me a link, I suppose to the actual Julie-post.
“Don’t bother,” I think. I know from prior experience.
Click the link and it fires up the Facebook log-in page in my Netscape browser.
What a pain! I’m already logged in on my FireFox browser; it saves my open tabs, one of which is Facebook.
Okay, suppose I attempt to log in with my Netscape browser.
At this point Facebook displays its dismay with the Netscape browser and hangs.
Okay, switch to FireFox browser and fire up Wheeler’s Facebook.
Root all through it trying to find Julie’s comment; No such luck!
“Not worth it,” I say.
Julie’s comment was listed in the e-mail, and it wasn’t very relevant.
This has happened before — seems like a Facebook thing.
Sometimes I find the comment and sometimes I don’t.
What’s most irksome is Facebook not liking my Netscape browser.

—2) May Rogers, my Aunt May, is 79 years old.
My Aunt May was the last of my paternal grandparents’ spawn; and the last surviving.
She was a teenager when my sister and I were born. I’m 1944, my sister is 1945, and my Aunt May is 1930.
Born in the depths of the Depression, she was always told she was a mistake. It was well before birth-control.
This did wonders for her self-esteem.
Aunt May was sort of an advocate for my sister and I.
She has a Facebook, which may put her in the running as the oldest Facebook user.
But probably not. With 89 bazilyun Facebookers, I bet some are in their 80s.
But I think she may have the fewest “friends.”
Last I knew, she only had one, my brother Bill in northern Delaware, the Facebook evangelist.
Another Facebook e-mail appeared; this one stating Bill has suggested I make Aunt May a “friend.”
Another link.
Engage guile-and-cunning.
Copy link, and paste it into my FireFox.
VIOLA; but Aunt May has two Facebooks.


HMMMMMMMNNNNNNN........... (Screenshot by the mighty MAC.)

I honestly don’t think this was Aunt May’s doing. Her pursuit of Facebook is really my brother Bill.
So I won’t respond to her “friend” request until those all-knowing, ‘pyooter-savvy Delawareans straighten things out.
I also don’t think it’s a Facebook glitch.
But I’m always aware of the seeming superiority of my family’s web-site, which was great until you tried to load a video.
Blew it right up; Facebook can handle a video.
My family’s web-site is an old application; Facebook much newer.
But my family’s web-site didn’t character-limit my posts, nor shower me with reports of every burp and fart.
So I wonder if you could do multiple accounts with the same name on my family’s web-site?
I suppose you could.
So I guess I could have 89 bazilyun Facebooks.

• “FireFox” is a computer application that brings up and displays Internet web-sites; a “browser.” The Netscape computer application has an Internet browser too; plus earlier versions of Netscape have an e-mail application. RoadRunner (Time Warner) is my cable Internet-service-provider (“ISP”), but I can also download e-mail from the PoP-server with my Netscape e-mail program. Or create e-mails to send.
• RE: “Mighty MAC......” —All my siblings use Windows PCs, but I use an Apple MacIntosh (“MAC”), so I am therefore stupid and of-the-Devil.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• RE: “All-knowing, ‘pyooter-savvy........” —All my siblings are tub-thumping born-again Christians. And since I’m not, I’m stupid, technically challenged, inferior and of-the-Devil.
• RE: “Character-limit my posts......” —Facebook has a “character-limit” to posts as text. Much larger than Twitter®; what gets posted is limited to so many characters. Usually what I add is short enough to be within the character-limit, but there have been times I had to divide a comment into two posts, to be within the character-limit.

South Jersey

I am a native of south Jersey.
You’ll note I didn’t say “proud.”
That’s debatable. South Jersey is the gravel-pit capital of the world.
Also the dumping ground for Philadelphia.
(North Jersey is the dumping ground for New York City. There is no middle Jersey, although the dividing line between north and south Jersey starts at Trenton, which is mid-state on the western border.
As a south Jersey native, I retain a vestige of the infamous “Philadelphia accent,” also known as the “Delaware Valley accent.”
Calling it the “Philadelphia accent” is a misnomer. I’ve noticed that accent all the way across the southern half of Pennsylvania.
I knew a lady from Pittsburgh who had the accent.
Defining the accent is hard. I suppose it’s mainly the pronunciation of vowels; particularly the “O.”
I’ve lived in the Rochester area since 1966, but still have a little of the accent. Enough for people to hear it.
The other night I fired up my Google satellite views to get the correct spelling of “Pennsauken”(“penn-SAW-kin”), a small town north of Camden, NJ across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.
I noticed three things:

Screenshot by the mighty MAC.

—1) It looks like the street we lived on may have been renamed — or Google got it wrong.
We lived at “625 Jefferson Ave.,” but actually S. Jefferson Drive.
Jefferson goes west-to-east across Erlton, but then splits into three streets at the east end, N. Jefferson Drive, Jefferson Ave., and S. Jefferson Drive.
But “Jefferson Ave.” was good enough for the post-office, mainly because the even numbers were on the north side of N. Jefferson Drive, and the odd numbers were on the south side of S. Jefferson Drive.
In between north and south was vacant land, known as “the Triangle;” essentially baseball fields.
The straight extension of “Jefferson Ave.” crossed it. No development on it.
It looks like S. Jefferson Drive might have been renamed “Harrison Ave.,” an extension of the original Harrison Ave., which previously ended at Jefferson.
“Or else Google got it wrong,” my wife said.
The three-way split of Jefferson Ave. at the Triangle was always confusing.
I can imagine town-leaders changing it, or maybe not.

Screenshot by the mighty MAC.

—2) An area my Aunt Betty lived near has been named “the Golden Triangle.”
What’s golden about it?
What I remember is a desolate area with ramshackle houses and small businesses here and there.
More upscale development was farther out; farmland converted to bedroom communities in the ‘60s.
—3) East of Erlton was “Ellisburg Circle.”
Years ago, all major intersections in south Jersey were traffic circles; “roundabouts.”
Ellisburg Circle was the intersection of east-west Marlton (“MARL-tin”) Pike with north-south Kings Highway, with Brace Road to the southeast.
Like all traffic-circles, Ellisburg Circle has been converted back to traffic-lights — this despite the drive by local highway authorities to convert all major intersections to roundabouts.
Um, guys; roundabouts don’t work! In south Jersey they all were converted back to cross-street intersections with traffic-lights.
And it looks like Brace Road was getting a lotta use.
The approach of Kings Highway from the south has been ramped into Marlton Pike east, and Kings Highway from the north goes into Brace Road.

Epson Expression 10000 XL.

Our house in 1941. (That garage might swallow the old Chevy pictured, but nothing after the mid-‘50s.)

I’ve been back, and it’s crowded.
Marlton Pike, which used to be the main route east to the Jersey beaches from Philadelphia, is overwhelmed.
Our house is still there. It was built before plywood in 1941.
The addition on the back was designed by my father; correcting the lack of a downstairs bathroom, and doubling the tiny kitchen.
But the backyard is returning into the fetid overgrown swamp it long ago was.

• The capitol of New Jersey is “Trenton.”
• A “Google satellite view” is a satellite photograph that comes up in a Google satellite view search. (“Google” being the computer search-engine.)
• “Erlton” (‘EARL-tin’) is the small suburb of Philadelphia in south Jersey where I lived until I was 13. Erlton was founded in the ‘30s, named after its developer, whose name was Earl. Erlton was north of Haddonfield, an old Revolutionary town.

“For Cryin’ Out Loud!”

John Schnatter reunites with his beloved Z28 Camaro.

Papa John Pizza magnate John Schnatter has reunited with his beloved 1971&1/2 Z28 Camaro from his youth.
The ABC Evening News made it their concluding feel-good story.
But 250,000 smackaroos? For cryin’ out loud! That is just insane.
Granted, the ‘71&1/2 Z28 Camaro is probably the best Camaro, but $75,000 woulda been my limit.
$250,000 is just plain ridiculous.
Prices of all the great old cars are rocketing clear outta sight. $100,000 or more for a ‘57 Chevy convertible.
Gotta be a C.E.O., or perhaps a pizza magnate.
Schnatter had to sell in 1983 when his father’s tavern almost went defunct. He began selling pizzas outta the back. —He couldn’t even look as his car drove away.

As original.

The car still exists, although it’s been tampered with.
That massive power-bulge on the hood is not original (see picture of Schnatter’s original car at left).
And one wonders if it’s the original motor.....
Perhaps. The Z28 was pretty strong, but that motor may have been swapped for a Big-Block.
I wonder if the numbers match?
If not, for $250,000 he got hornswoggled.
In my humble opinion, $250,000 is already a hornswoggle, even if the numbers match.
Only a pizza magnate with stars in his eyes would fork over that much money.







• The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches. 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. 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.
• RE: “Numbers match......” —All the parts of a car (engine, transmission, body, etc.) have matching serial numbers on an original (factory) car. If the engine has been swapped, or the transmission, it won’t have a serial number that matches the rest of the car.

For Wheeler......

Overheard on radio-station WXXI:
“There will never be a better time to support your non-commercial radio-station.......” (My underlining.)
A plea for advertisers. “Exposure, great and growing audience, etc.” All the advantages trumpeted to potential advertisers on the commercial stations.
Well okay, but WXXI was supposed to be a public radio-station.
It is, but as government funding dried up: “This segment brought to you by Velmex of East Bloomfield, makers of rotary positioning systems for science and industry.”
Not too bad; when am I gonna patronize Velmex?
Then it was GoodBelly.com, “a fruit-juice based supplement to improve digestion.”

Overheard on WHAM Channel 13 TV-news:
A motorcyclist was killed.
“He was weaving in and out of traffic to escape the police.
He was killed instantly, and then hit a parked car.”
Okay, “killed instantly” usually means decapitated. I suppose it’s possible to continue riding motorbike without a head.

But something tells me there wasn’t a Wheeler around to catch stuff like this.

• “WXXI”-FM, 91.5, is the classical-music radio-station in Rochester we listen to, publicly supported.
• “WHAM Channel 13” is the local ABC affiliate in the Rochester area.
• “Wheeler” is Dave Wheeler, an editor at the Daily Messenger newspaper in Canandaigua, from where I retired almost four years ago. —Best job I ever had.

“Can ya believe it?”

Yesterday (Saturday, August 22, 2009) was the annual Alumni picnic at Ellison Park.
The so-called “Alumni” are the union retirees (Local 282, the Rochester local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union) of Regional Transit Service in Rochester. (For 16&1/2 years [1977-1993] I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service [RTS].) The Alumni was a reaction to the fact Transit management retirees ran roughshod over union retirees — a continuation of the bad vibes at Transit: management versus union. Transit had a club for long-time employees, and I was in it. It was called the “15/25-year Club;” I guess at first the “25-year Club.” But they lowered the employment requirement, and renamed it “15/25-year Club.” The employment requirement was lowered even more; I joined at 10 years. My employ there ended in 1993 with my stroke; and the “Alumni” didn’t exist then. The Alumni is a special club — you have to join.
This time it was at Hazelwood Lodge on the north side of Blossom Road.
Last year it was at another lodge, perhaps “South Lodge,” on the south side of Blossom Road.
I mention that because I went to South Lodge first, thinking it was Hazelwood; but saw no one I recognized.
Finally I found Hazelwood, and approached tentatively.
“Lotta noisy blustering,” I said as I walked up. “Sure sounds like bus-drivers!”
My attendance at these shindigs is always a bit off-the-wall.
No desire to get drunk; nor yammer incessantly at all and sundry.
I was always sort of a misfit as a bus-driver, but you could say that about most.
I was college-educated (“majored in bus-driving,” I’d say); hardly anyone else was.
But the pay and benefits were good — thanks to the union.
It was supposed to be temporary at first, but I hung around 16&1/2 years; and probably woulda kept at it longer had not a stroke retired me on disability.
And Transit managers were always telling me I was their best employee. That was because -a) I had near-perfect attendance, and hardly ever took time off, and -b) I rarely hit anything, and never was charged with any accidents.
I.e. I was little trouble to management, although I think others qualified similarly.
Surgical strike — in-and-out in about 15 minutes, and then take dog for a long hike.
“Oh, goody! A different park. Squirrels that aren’t hip to a blood-crazed carnivore.”
Finally, return to Hazelwood.
More yammering.
Hardly anyone I knew was there; just a few Alumni officials, and many Alumni I don’t know.
Our union officials were there. Strange, a bit. They’re not retired.
“Cimo” (“see-MOH”), I said; “Dave Cimo; now I recognize the voice.”
We shook hands; first time ever. I avoided Cimo as a driver because he was always fiddling the system to avoid work yet get paid mightily.
Cimo was an “extra” operator, me a “regular.” Work the extra-board, and you could maximize your paycheck — I had other priorities.
“I retired about five years ago,” Cimo said.
We left long before the picnic was over. No reason to hang around. We didn’t even eat anything.
Errand time.
Off to Honeoye (“HONE-eee-oy’) Falls MarketPlace to buy cabbage for coleslaw.
Exit parking-lot to drive home; electronics recycling at the old Ev Lewis Ford dealership.
“Aw man,” I said; “if I’d known they were doing that, they could have my old ‘pyooter monitor.
“Well maybe I could take it back,” Linda says.
Monitor delivered, then downstairs into basement to see what other unused electronics we could recycle — various VCRs, and an old scanner and printer.
It was St. John’s Nursery School in Honeoye Falls.
“We also take old cellphones and printer cartridges.....”
“But there’s a recycling kiosk in the West Bloomfield Post-Office,” my wife said.
“That’s us!” the clerk said.
“But we’d prefer you drop them off directly at the school. The Senior-Citizens pick through the recycling kiosks.
Can you believe that?”

• “Ellison Park” is a large county park in the Irondequoit (“Ear-ahn-dee-KWAT”) Bay defile east of Rochester. It’s at the south end of Irondequoit Bay, and Irondequoit Creek flows through it. Irondequoit Bay used to be the outflow of the Genesee (“jen-uh-SEE”) river, but deposits from the Ice-Age cut it off. Many of those deposits are still in Ellison Park. The river now follows a new path up through Rochester, but Irondequoit Bay remains. “Blossom Road” traverses the park west-to-east. Numerous large lodges and shelters are in the park that can be reserved — and are. (The “Genesee River” is a south-to-north river that flows across Western New York, and empties into Lake Ontario north of Rochester. The vast Genesee valley was the nation’s first breadbasket, primarily because of the Erie Canal, which flowed through Rochester, and a small feeder canal down the valley. Rochester was at first a flour milling town.)
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• “We” is my wife of 41+ years, “Linda,” and I. Like me she’s retired, but she works part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office.
• “Honeoye Falls” is the nearest town to where we live in western New York, a rural town about five miles away. The supermarket therein is “MarketPlace.”
• “Ev Lewis Ford” was the Ford dealershop in Honeoye Falls, now out of business.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.

Eye Care Center

Yesterday (Thursday, August 20, 2009) was my annual eye checkup at the Eye Care Center in Canandaigua.
It’s not the eye care my Transit retirees activist group has arranged, but I’d rather go there, and I will explain why below.
During my employ, I was required to join a health-maintenance-organization (HMO), Joseph C. Wilson Health Center on Carter St. in Rochester.
When we moved to West Bloomfield, I transferred to Folsom Center on Brighton-Henrietta Town Line Road, affiliated and closer.
It seems rules changed and Folsom became a healthcare provider, and that I could go other places.
Folsom did my eye care, until I decided to go someplace closer yet, the Eye Care Center in Canandaigua.
At Folsom I was told I had a minor retinal scar — I hadn’t noticed anything.
I mentioned that to the Eye Care Center, but they went ballistic.
“That ain’t no scar,” they said. “That’s a retinal tear (‘tare’) that needs to be fixed.”
A specialist was trotted in, and this is why I prefer the Eye Care Center.
The specialist was a graduate of the same college I had graduated from, Houghton (“Ho-tin;” as in “oh”) College down the Genesee River.
And I could tell. She had her feet squarely on the ground, and cared about what she was doing.
Houghton people are like that.
Her name was Heidi Piper. She graduated in 1987 — I’m ‘66.
Heidi welded my retinal tear with a laser — nothing to it; although I’m sure she had to be exact about it.
So the Eye Care Center wins, and Heidi is part of the reason.
Yesterday was Dawn Pisello, the O.D. that dragged in Heidi.
I’m 65 years old.
People my age are in the waiting room was various eye ailments.
“Any change in your vision, Mr. Hughes?”
“Nope!”
Dawn poked around and looked at things.
“No discernible changes. See you next year.”

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that — I retired on disability. I belong to a Transit union retirees group called “the Alumni.” (The “Alumni” are the union retirees [Local 282, the Rochester local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union] of Regional Transit Service in Rochester, N.Y. The Alumni was a reaction to the fact Transit management retirees ran roughshod over union retirees — a continuation of the bad vibes at Transit: management versus union. Transit had a club for long-time employees, and I was in it. It was called the “15/25-year Club;” I guess at first the “25-year Club.” But they lowered the employment requirement, and renamed it “15/25-year Club.” The employment requirement was lowered even more; I joined at 10 years. My employ ended in 1993; and the “Alumni” didn’t exist then. The Alumni is a special club — you have to join. —The Alumni tries to negotiate lower pricing for healthcare.)
• We live in the small rural town of “West Bloomfield” in Western N.Y.
• “Brighton-Henrietta Town Line Road” is the road separating the suburbs of Brighton and Henrietta; Brighton southeast of Rochester, and Henrietta south.
• “Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• The “Genesee River” (“jenn-uh-SEE”) is a fairly large river that flows south to north across Western New York, emptying into Lake Ontario after flowing through Rochester. The vast Genesee river valley was the first breadbasket of the nation. It grew a lotta wheat, which was milled in Rochester and then shipped east on the Erie Canal.

“BRAAPAH......”

I pull up to pump #3 at the gas-station up the street to fill the gas-can for my lawnmowers.
Suddenly behind me: “BRAAPAH; BRAP! BRAP! BRAP! BAP-BAP-BAP-BAP-BAP........”
“Uh-ohhhhh,” I think. “Sounds like one a’ that ‘loud-pipes-save-lives’ gang, arriving on his noisy Harley.”
Suddenly, deafening silence. Bap-bap has shut off so he can gas up at pump #2.
I glance over.
Surprise! It ain’t a Harley.
The cylinder-spread on that V-twin looks like 72 degrees; not the 45 degrees of a Harley.
Probably a Yamahopper.
Sure sounded like a Harley.
Harleys pass our house full throttle with no muffling at all! What a statement! “BRAAPAH......”
The speed-limit in front of our house is 40 mph. They’re probably doing 100!
Wide-open State Route 65 does a big turn southward just north of our house. Motorbikers have to slow for that turn, and then loudly assault the heavens.
Once a year the American Legion up the street holds a poker run, or is a stop on one.
89 bazilyun blatting GeezerGlides roar by, most at full song.
A chance to terrorize the cows.
“BRAP! BRAP! BRAP! BAP-BAP-BAP-BAP!” Bap-bap idles outta the gas-station.
“BRAAPAH........ BRAAPAH........ BRAAPAH........ BRAP!”
Out on 5&20 towards town, and up through the gears.

• RE: “Cylinder-spread on that V-twin looks like 72 degrees; not the 45 degrees of a Harley......” —The two cylinders of a V-twin engine are separated by 45 degrees on a Harley-Davidson, 72 degrees on a Yamaha, and 90 degrees on a Ducati (“dew-KAH-tee”).
• “Yamahopper” equals Yamaha.
• We live on NY “State Route 65” in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western N.Y.
• A “poker run” is a run of about 100 miles, with stops where each participant picks up a card to add to a poker hand. The participant with the winning hand at the final stop wins. —“Poker runs” are usually done with motorcycles, and usually benefit some charity.
• “GeezerGlide” is what I call all Harley Davidson ElectraGlide cruiser-bikes. My loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston, who badmouths everything I do or say, has a very laid back Harley Davidson cruiser-bike, and, like many Harley Davidson riders, is over 50 (52). So I call it his GeezerGlide.
• “5&20” is the main east-west road (a two-lane highway) through our area; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live.

VIOLA

Last night (Tuesday, August 18, 2009) I managed to make FireFox® the great Internet browser it was a few weeks ago.
I installed FireFox about two-three years ago. I did so mainly because my BlogSpot blog site was no longer going to support Microsoft Internet-Explorer.
And so it was, I guess. Internet-Explorer wouldn’t even display the add-picture tab for BlogSpot. I had to switch to FireFox.
FireFox was also highly recommended by a friend who’s a Windows PC user (I’m MAC).
At first I was using two browsers at once, then three.
All had different home-pages.
One was Netscape 9.0, which seemed to be a rebadge of FireFox. My family’s web-site was my home-page on that.
Earlier versions of Netscape also had an e-mail program, but 9.0 was just the browser. —My e-mail is in NS 7.2.
FireFox had the web-cam at Horseshoe Curve as my home-page. Horseshoe Curve, near Altoona, PA, is by far the BEST railfan spot I’ve ever been to — I’ve been a railfan all my life.
I installed Flock® when it came out — it seemed to be a rebadge of FireFox. I think my home-page on that was my MyCast® weather-radar.
I think Flock has gone defunct, although I still have it.
I also have Netscape 9.0, although buried.
FireFox would update almost weekly. I’ve installed a slew of updates.
One included a feature that made FireFox superior, my default browser. It shoved all the others aside.
This was keeping all your multiple tabs open for restart.
At shut-down, it would ask if I wanted to do this.
Of course! By doing so I no longer had to log in to sites like Facebook or my family’s web-site.
It also opened the Curve web-cam at the 2X expanded size, where I’d set it earlier.
Recently I’d installed another FireFox upgrade: 3.5.2.
Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.......
It had added an add-tab button, but no more multiple tabs.
“Do ya wanna save all your tabs for reopening on restart?”
“Yes;” but NOTHING. Nothing but home-page.
“What happened to your greatest feature; the time-saver?”
I set about writing a question, but Mozilla.org had a slew of barriers, and no box for technical questions.
I tried an experiment; reconfiguring my FireFox general preferences, but still NOTHING.
Further inquiry suggested FireFox was aware of the glitch, and they had solved it.
Hell-oooo; knock-knock. Anybody home?
My wife came in, and cranked FireFox 3.5.2 into Google on her PC.
A hit. A girl noting the same problem. The girl thereupon began trying a number of changes to her FireFox preferences, and discovered by clicking “remember history” in her security preferences, she got back to square-one.
I tried the same. Fired up FireFox and all my tabs were still there — just like old times.
“It shouldn’t be this hard,” she said.

• “BlogSpot” is this blog site.
• 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. —Horseshoe Curve has a web-cam, but it’s awful.
• My wife of 41+ years is “Linda.”

Mañana

C70651.

I need a few more railroad Christmas cards, so I fire up good old Trumble Greetings in my FireFox® Internet browser.
Should take maybe 10-15 minutes; ain’t technology wonderful?
Plug C70651 into search-window. Whir, click! There it is. Change quantity from one to 15; “add to cart.”
Oh well, “continue shopping.”
Plug C71026 into search-window. There it is. Change quantity from one to 15; “add to cart.”
“Proceed to checkout.” Oh, I forgot. This site doesn’t work with FireFox.
Fire up good old Microsoft Internet Explorer, the Granny browser. Trumble Greetings works with that.
“View cart;” empty!
Interesting; I thought I just put stuff in there with FireFox.

C71026.

C70651 and C71026; 15 cards each.
“Proceed to checkout.
You have qualified for our boobie-prize. Please select.”
“What if I don’t want your boobie-prize?”
“Please select, or else!
Complete order; proceed to checkout.”
“What’s this?” I say. “Around-and-around, and back to ‘proceed to checkout.’”
“Proceed to checkout.” Around we go again, and back to “Proceed to checkout.”
“I seem to be in the same loop I was the other night, and there’s no escape,” I say.
My wife comes in and looks at the display.
“Click here to validate your boobie-prize” — well hidden.
“Change boobie-prize?”
Sure; one of the selections is 10 additional cards — “Buy 20 cards; get 10 more free.”
I select that, but that’s 10 additional cards on top of the 30 I ordered. I’d rather get 30 total; 10 free.
Whoa-whoa-whoa; what was supposed to take 10-15 minutes is turning into a three-hour wrastling match.
Quit; mañana.
Seems every online order turns into an arduous wrastling match.

• RE: “Railroad Christmas cards......” —The Christmas cards I send are of wintery railroad scenes. I’ve been a railfan all my life.
• My wife of 41+ years is “Linda.” Like me she’s retired, but she works part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office. —She retired from full-time employ as a computer programmer.

Personal-Best

(Screenshot of Excel chart with the mighty MAC.)

I’m 65 years old.
I keep telling a friend of mine “We’re not getting any younger.”
He called yesterday (Saturday, August 15, 2009), and I mentioned I wasn’t sure I could keep up with house maintenance any more.
I’ve been mowing lawn almost continuously.
I mow about two acres with a residential zero-turn lawnmower.
It makes quick work of it, and I mow sections.
First the front, then the back, then the north and south wings; often multiple sections.
The front grows fastest, although everything grows pretty fast.
I’m mowing every five-six days; twice a week — every four days for the front.
No desire to farm it out yet. Mowing is just sitting on the mower and letting the Briggs & Stratton do the work.
But I feel bushed; so much I feel like I might hafta sell.
I don’t want to. We designed this house — it’s superinsulated.
So I go out this morning (Sunday, August 16, 2009) and run a Personal-Best.
I still run, despite advancing age. I still can.
I run at the so-called elitist country-club. For some time I’ve been running 2+ miles; from the Boughton (“BOW-tin” as in “wow”) Road parking-lot to the East Pond Sluiceway and back; around 24-25 minutes.
I decided to increase my distance, to almost four-five miles, an additional 15-16 minutes.
I’ve run it twice so far, and attempted again today.
36:57; usually it’s been over 39.
Boomin’-and-zoomin’, and no idea why.
So much for selling the house.

• “Mighty MAC” because all my siblings use Windows PCs, so the fact I use an Apple Macintosh proves I’m stupid, reprehensible, and of-the-Devil.
• Our “zero-turn” lawnmower is our 48-inch Husqvarna riding-mower; “zero-turn” because it’s a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so it can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time in half compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass. —Our Zero-Turn is powered by an 18-horse Briggs & Stratton overhead-valve V-twin.
• “We” is my wife of 41&1/2 years and I. We designed our house, although a contractor built it for us. A HUGE amount of research was required.
• “Superinsulation” is a concept of foot-thick exterior walls, and lots of blown insulation over the ceiling. —Other than that, the house looks pretty standard. Superinsulation minimizes heat- and cooling-load. We also minimized window openings, and airlocked all entrances. —No solar panels, or techno-gimcracks. Just superinsulation.
• “The so-called elitist country-club” is nearby Boughton Park, where I run and we walk our dog. It was called that long ago by an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked, because it will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns. —It used to be the water-supply for the town of Fairport east of Rochester. As such it had two ponds (“East” and “West”) backed up by two large earthen dams. At the end of each dam is a concrete sluiceway. There is a “picnic-pavilion” off the West Pond — I run to that.

BEE-BEEP!

As a retired transit bus-driver from Rochester’s Regional Transit Service, I approach every driving situation with extreme caution; enough to drive the average NASCAR wannabee completely bonkers.
This includes the exit from mighty Weggers onto Eastern Blvd., a location not that intimidating, but it can be.
The exit is essentially a through-street intersection, although most traffic is turning onto Eastern Blvd., east or west.
But it is possible to cross Eastern Blvd. into the old Chase-Pitkin parking-lot across the street, and vice versa.
It’s signaled, so I’m waiting at the head of the Weggers exit lane, signaled to turn left (west) onto Eastern Blvd.
Behind me is a dark-brown Isuzu Rodeo, driven by GrandPa.
No signal, but it looks like he’s gonna turn left too.
Across the street are four cars in the exit lane from the old Chase-Pitkin parking-lot.
The first, third and fourth cars are signaled to turn left.
The second car I can’t see.
The light changes, so I venture gingerly into the intersection.
The cars in the Chase-Pitkin exit begin turning left — all but car #2, which suddenly lurches rightward around car #1 to go straight across the intersection.
All of a sudden, behind me; BEE-BEEP!
I glance in my mirror and GrandPa is going catatonic.
He’s angrily thumping the steering-wheel, and bouncing up-and-down in the seat.
A vision of Rush Limbaugh in highest dudgeon railing against “liberials.”
“Like the guy had his signal on......” Why couldn’t I just charge into the intersection?
Well, HEX-KYOOZE ME, GrandPa; but I drove transit bus, and after nearly having my bus T-boned by a dude with an erroneous signal, I hold back until I actually see the car start turning.
Furthermore, there was that second car I couldn’t see. And guess what, GrandPa; he went straight. If I had charged into the intersection, there woulda been a head-on.
We angle onto Eastern Blvd. GrandPa lunges around me, toots his horn, and gives me the one-finger salute.
No turn signal for the sudden lane change.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.
• “Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua. “Chase-Pitkin” was a home-supply super-store affiliated with Wegmans, but it went defunct. The old Chase-Pitkin across from the Canandaigua Wegmans was parceled out, but the building still exists. Other Chase-Pitkins were sold or turn down.
• “Eastern Blvd.” is a four-lane east-west main road southeast and out of Canandaigua. It’s lined with big-box stores; one of which is Wegmans.
• “Liberial” is how my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston noisily insists “liberal” is spelled. (Recently it’s “liberila” or “libieral.”)

The Granny browser

Relatives and friends know that I send railroad Christmas cards every year.
I have for years.
I’ve been a railfan all my life.
Most years I’ve gotten them from Trumble Greetings (Leanin’ Tree) in Colorado.
Ordered by snail-mail at first; recently online.
Usually their catalog arrives in August. I page through it, and there are the railroad Christmas cards.
Fire up ‘pyooter; fire up FireFox Internet browser.
Key card-number I want into their search-window; there it is, 25 cards.
Usually what cards I order end up being Pennsylvania Railroad, now defunct, but at one time the largest railroad in the world.
Nearly all of my early contact with railroading was mighty Pennsy, and they had some great locomotives; e.g. the E6 Atlantic (4-4-2) and the K4 Pacific (4-6-2), both steam locomotives, and both of which I saw; and the fabulous GG1 (“Gee-Gee-One”) electric locomotive, which I also saw.
And every time I did, it was doing 80-100 mph!
The card I want is Pennsy steam, locomotives rounding the southernmost calk of the mighty Curve, the BEST railfan spot I’ve ever visited.
Begin ordering......
Fill in name and address.
“Continue.”
Ooohhhmmmmmm........
“Looks like this isn’t working,” I shout.
FireFox is fairly dependable, but at railfan sites it bombs.
Fire up Granny browser; good old Microsoft Internet-Explorer.
My siblings loudly assert Internet-Explorer is vastly superior, and my using FireFox is stupid and of-the-Devil.
This is despite my blog-site, BlogSpot, and others, claiming Internet-Explorer is inferior.
And so it is, I guess:
—A) It won’t even display my BlogSpot “add-picture” tab, and;
—B) If I use an HTML picture-table at 5.6 inches wide, the width of the BlogSpot column, Internet-Explorer shoves tiny snippets of text up alongside the table so that portions of what I wrote kind of disappear.
I can use the HTML picture-table here on MPNnow, since the column-width is wider. But at BlogSpot I have to replace the HTML picture-table with a tag I made myself.
So those using the Granny-browser can fully read whatever I posted to BlogSpot.
‘Pyooters are challenging to most people, who have fallen into thinking the solution is Microsoft — much like the cereal maven is General Mills.
All of which is okay, but Internet-Explorer lobs these stinking hairballs at me. BlogSpot suggested I install FireFox, since they no longer supported Internet-Explorer. And I can see why — although their site was written for FireFox, not Internet-Explorer.
My wife uses Internet-Explorer, and hasn’t had any problems. But if she were to blog at BlogSpot, she couldn’t add pictures with Internet-Explorer.
I fiddle MPNnow with FireFox; and was told it was configured for that.
Nevertheless I configure my BlogSpot blog for Internet-Explorer, since that’s the browser most use.

• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• “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 “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 — operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad.
• My wife of 41+ years is “Linda.” Like me she’s retired, but she works part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office.
• The first blog-site I used is this: “BlogSpot.”
• “MPNnow” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper’s web-site, where I worked almost 10 years, and from where I retired almost four years ago. —Best job I ever had. In the end I was doing that web-site myself (although that was iteration #3; they are now probably up to iteration #6). MPNnow has blogs. They recruited me as a blogger.

Order out of chaos!

“Welcome to Tops! If you have a Tops favored-customer card, please scan it now.”
“BIP!”
“Welcome, Tops favored customer!”
Far as I know, Tops is the onliest supermarket in this area with U-scan. Weggers doesn’t have it; nor does MarketPlace in Honeoye Falls.
Wal*Mart may have it, but I don’t patronize Wal*Mart. -A) Too inconvenient, and -B) I got snapped at by store-associates because I had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to interrupt their day-long donut-break to ask where something was.
There also was being kissed by a foul-smelling greeter.
I’ve had success with the U-scan sometimes, but not always.
I’m wrastlin’ that sucker into submission if it’s the last thing I do.
“Please scan first item.”
“BIP!”
“Please place scanned item in plastic grocery bag that clutters landfill 700 years.”
“Oh no ya don’t! I’m beatin’ your system. I’m usin’ my reusable canvas shopping bag I hafta hose out with bleach after each use lest it impregnate my canned goods with deadly toxins.
I’ll just put everything on your silly scale that registers each increase to allow me to continue.
There’s not very much. I’ll just transfer everything to my reusable shopping bag when I’m done.”
Amazing; I actually got past my Tops favored-customer keytag. Often that doesn’t scan.
Bip! Bip! Bip! Bip! Incredible mindbending progress. We’re successfully scanning the entire order — maybe seven items.
Only one item remains: four peaches.
“Produce?”
“BIP!”
“Please key in the produce-code from the sticker, or hit ‘no produce-code.’
Please place item in bag that clutters landfill 700 years.”
“Uh-ohhhh........ Sounds like it priced that first peach before I got the others on the scale.”
Engage guile-and-cunning.
“Produce?”
“BIP!”
“Please key in the produce-code; blah-blah-blah.”
Place remaining peaches on scale before keying in code.
“Please place item in bag that clutters landfill 700 years.
Do you have any coupons?”
“BIP!”
“Please scan coupons and place in drop-slot on front of this unit.”
“Where? I don’t see any drop-slot.
Oh, there it is. It’s well hidden.”
“Select method of payment.”
“BIP!”
Holy mackerel. It looks like I’m actually gonna succeed for once.
“Please collect all your items and visit attendant station to sign your charge-slip.”
Order out of chaos!

• “Tops” is a large supermarket-chain based in Buffalo we occasionally buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
• “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
• “MarketPlace” is an independent supermarket in the small nearby village of Honeoye Falls.
•“Honeoye (‘HONE-eee-oy’) Falls” is the nearest town to where we live in western New York, a rural town about five miles away.

“There will be a quiz!”

“You know what day it is.......” Linda’s 93-year-old mother would say.
“It’s Sunday, the day long-winded Linda calls me and talks for two hours.
I can’t even go to the bathroom!”
“Linda” is my wife of 41&1/2 years.
Like me she’s 65.
She calls her mother on Sunday.
Linda’s mother lives in a small apartment in a retirement center in De Land, FL.
She’s still pretty spry for 93. Macular Degeneration and had a minor heart-attack; but gets around pretty good.
Her apartment isn’t continuing-care.
I’ve been told how it goes.
Linda updates for about 15 minutes, and then her mother takes over yammering for two hours.
Names of people we don’t know get dropped as if we know them, and stories get repeated in the same phonecall.
Plus everything that was in her most recent letter.
Every once-in-a-while she takes a bathroom break, and a long hold ensues.
“Mother, this cellphone is beeping at me that the battery is low.....”
“Yada-yada-yada-yada...... Sylvia this, Flossie that.....”
“Hello? Hello? Still there? I guess my phone died.”
“Yada-yada-yada” at the Ethernet. (There will be a quiz!)

• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY.

Monthly Calendar-Report for August 2009

A-Bone.

—That’s what hot-rodders called ‘em. “A-Bone.”
The August 2009 entry of my Oxman hot-rod calendar is a 1929 Model-A roadster on a 1932 Ford frame.
A fairly standard procedure.
This car also has the doors welded shut, and then smoothed to take out the door creases.
The only way in is to vault the side.
And of course there’s no roof to bang your head, and it better not rain.
I don’t see wipers on this car either.
Apparently this car has been through numerous rebuilds, including changing the front-end.
It had a track-T nose which was swapped to a ‘32 Ford grill-shell, but unfortunately it’s been chopped.
That is, it lacks the bottom.
The complete ‘32 Ford grill-shell is gorgeous.
My friend Art Dana (“DAY-nuh”), the retired Regional Transit bus-driver with fairly severe Parkinson’s, had a Model-A roadster hot-rod, but it was on a heavily altered 1946 Ford chassis.
It was flat-gray, with the full 1932 Ford grill-shell. Gorgeous.
It had a souped-up ‘56 Pontiac V8 — the car pictured has a 327 Chevy.
It also has triple two-barrels. Art tried triple two-barrels on his Pontiac, but had to give up. It kept backfiring through the carburetors. He had to install a Holley four-barrel.
Regrettably, Art had to sell his hot-rod. The car was due for inspection, and the wiring was all screwed up. There also was the impossibility of 6-volt lights on a 12-volt system.
I suppose I should have helped him; I successfully rewired an old Chevrolet pickup once.
But there was no time. Inspection was in two weeks.

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

Pedal-to-the-metal.

Art swapped his hot-rod for the so-called “Cherry-Bomb” pictured at left, a 1949 Ford custom hot-rod.
Art has built many hot-rods, and custom motorcycles, over the years, and always had one cardinal rule:
“The bitch has gotta run!”
Ain’ no fun havin’ a hot-rod, or custom motorbike, if ya can’t use it.
A few weeks ago Art’s Cherry-Bomb was in my garage over my pit.
We were trying to remove the steering-box, so it could be rebuilt.
We were unsuccessful, but a friend familiar with 1949-‘51 Fords removed it.
They eventually got it reinstalled, so Art backed it out of my garage.
Art is a wreck with the Parkinson’s, but he put the hammer down.
“The bitch has gotta run!”
A hot-rod epiphany.


W-30. (Photo by David Newhardt.)

—The August 2009 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1970 W-30 Oldsmobile 4-4-2; one of the most collectible of all musclecars.
By 1970 all the old musclecar names had become rather moribund. The premier G-T-O Pontiac was “The Judge;” and the premier 4-4-2 Oldsmobile was now the W-30.
The original G-T-O and 4-4-2 were still being made, but “The Judge” and the “W-30” were the fastest and most powerful.
Plus Oldsmobile was trying to make the 4-4-2 handle well, as was Buick with its GS-model musclecar.
That’s like trying to get the Queen Mary to pirouette. The average musclecar was rather large; mid-size.
Plus they were saddled with the heavy old tractor suspension layout — a solid rear-axle.
Hit a bump with one wheel of a tractor axle, and the opposite wheel gets effected.
Plus a solid rear axle is heavy. The differential is part of it. Too much vertical momentum to keep the tires in contact with the pavement on a bumpy road.
But add anti-rollbars front and rear, plus chassis tuning, and they could handle fairly well.
But look out if you’re racing it in an MGB — it might plow you into the weeds.
A case of incredible mind-bending power in a heavy, unbalanced car. The sledgehammer approach.
I once witnessed a race at Lime Rock sportscar circuit in Connecticut between a sledgehammer Camaro and a scalpel Porsche 911 (“POOR-sha 9-11”).
The Camaro was an aluminum 427, so was blindingly fast in a straight line.
Throw a corner at it and it was a handful — the Porsche won.
The Camaro also broke in practice; broke its oil-pump. That’s back when the garage-area was a large open grassy field; the “paddock.”
The Camaro’s engine was swapped in the open — no closed garages.
The MGB was tractor-layout too; but not the Lotus Elan (“eee-LAHN”), which would have danced circles around the Olds. —Just don’t expect to buy groceries with a Lotus Elan.
The W-30 Oldsmobile was a fabulous musclecar, but not the GSX or the “Judge.”


Two Pennsy K4 Pacifics (4-6-2) lead the 10-car “Manhattan Limited” into Chicago in 1939. (Photo by Otto C. Perry©.)

—The August 2009 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs All-Pennsy B&W Calendar is two Pennsy K4 Pacifics leading a passenger-train into Chicago.
A track crew is also installing crossover switches; the train has to go slow.
All my train calendars are rather dull, although the Norfolk Southern Employees’ Calendar is fairly dramatic.
I run the Audio-Visual Designs All-Pennsy B&W calendar because it demonstrates Pennsy’s greatest mistake: doubleheading.
The K4 Pacific is a late-‘teens design.
Pennsy steam-locomotive development essentially stopped with the K4.
The were investing HUGE sums into electrification, and the fabulous GG1 (“Gee-Gee-One”) electric locomotive.
Electrification also left them with a surplus of steam locomotives; so many it was imprudent to develop better steam power.
But train weights were getting beyond what a single K4 could successfully handle, so they started doubleheading.
Doubleheading is two locomotive crews; twice the expense.
It wasn’t a single crew controlling multiple units; what you see now with MU-ed diesel locomotives.
But Pennsy could afford it; they were fabulously rich.
So while competitors were fielding better steam locomotives, Pennsy was getting by doubleheading older power on its trains.
From about 1920 through 1940, Pennsy did essentially no steam-locomotive development, so -a) they missed out on Lima (“LYM-uh;” not “LEE-muh”) SuperPower, and -b) they didn’t have a freight steam-engine to deal with the massive WWII carloadings, so had to go with plans for a steam-engine from a competitor (the Chesapeake & Ohio T1 2-10-4, reconfigured as their J1).
They had two excuses: -1) their massive investment in electrification; and -2) the surplus of steam-locomotives electrification left them with.
Their biggest mistake, if there was one, was deciding it was more prudent to doublehead ancient designs. —The K4 was extraordinary when developed, but in a few years it was an antique.
After WWII, Pennsy tried to develop state-of-the-art steam engines, but had little success.
By then diesel locomotives made more sense. The last steam engines Pennsy used were from the ‘20s and earlier — except the Js.
Pennsy made two grievous errors: —1) was holding off on dieselization too long; and —2) was doubleheading.


A Norfolk Southern double-stack train passes the newly restored Southern Railway depot at Anniston, AL. (Photo by Ty Burgin.)

—The August 2009 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees calendar is a Norfolk Southern double-stack train.
Double-stack is the technology railroading gravitated to in the new century — although its an old technology.
It’s a variation of the trailer-on-flatcar (“TOFC”) technology that began after the war.
The first double-stack service was instituted by Southern Pacific Railroad in the late ‘80s.
The containers are the same steel shipping-boxes used on container ships.
Wheel-less, the containers are stacked two high in well-cars, rendering about a 20-foot stack height — usually the loading-height to clear double-stacks is 24 feet or so.
Bridges had to be raised and tunnels opened up to clear double-stacks.
The tunnels on the old Pennsylvania Railroad mainline would not clear double-stacks at first, so were opened up. —There were only a few.
The massive “Heartland Corridor” project across WV and VA is to open up all the tunnels on the old Norfolk & Western mainline to clear double-stacks.
I remember driving a bus out West Ave. along the old Water-Level. The tracks had been visibly lowered under a footbridge to clear double-stacks.
The Water-Level had the earliest double-stack service into the east because of no tunnels. Tracks could be lowered under bridges.
As I recall, the old Erie main, now Norfolk Southern, across the bottom of New York, from Buffalo, also was tunnel-free.
Plus it was originally configured for six feet between the rails, the original Erie track-gauge — so had bigger load-size limits.
By comparison, the old Baltimore & Ohio West End, the original B&O main, is very restrictive. —Most of it is still two tracks, originally it all was, but it’s very tight.
Once B&O accessed Pittsburgh, that became its main. That line is more open. The West End is now mainly coal — plus it has a number of treacherous grades. One that’s especially steep faces loaded coal-trains headed east.
Photographer Burgin is apparently not that serious; i.e. entering a slew of photos into Norfolk Southern’s employee calendar contest every year.
He’s only using a Nikon D80, which probably would have been fine for what I do. (I have a Nikon D100.)
My nephew in northern Delaware has a D80, and does quite well with it.
Burgin’s photo is comparable to anything a D100 could grab.
And the D100 is fairly old. Nikon has fielded updates of the same camera; first the D200, then the D300, and now the D5000. —There may be something even more recent than that.
Supposedly the Canon “Rebel” is the supreme digital camera, although I always felt the Nikons were comparable.
And I don’t know as the D80 was available when I bought my D100, which was at least six years ago.
I also don’t know if the D80 will do multiple frames, although this picture looks like one of multiple frames.
Usually one shoots too early with a single shot.
Filling the frame with an onrushing locomotive is nearly impossible.
You need multiple shots; the equivalent of the old Nikon motor-drive.


Train 201, a peddler, southbound on the Abingdon Branch from Abingdon, VA to W. Jefferson, NC, crosses the Holston River on Bridge 11 — the highest and longest of the 108 bridges on the rugged 55-mile line. It’s October of 1955. (Photo by O. Winston Link.)

—The August 2009 entry of my O. Winston Link “Steam and Steel” calendar isn’t much, but I include it because it depicts the railroad world I was born into — a peddler freight propelled by a wheezing steam locomotive delivering assorted freightcars to sidings out along the railroad.
Truck freight delivery wasn’t as established as it is now, so that more often freight was delivered by placing boxcars on sidings.
The town of Haddonfield, south of where we lived in south Jersey, had a slew of railroad sidings.
Also seen were “team tracks” next to railroad stations. Those stations often had a freight-house. Freight would get unloaded into wagons (propelled by a team of horses — although by the late ‘40s, when I was born, the horse-and-wagon had been replaced by the motor-truck.)
A peddler freight from the yards in Camden, powered by a wheezing Pennsy Consolidation (2-8-0), would trundle out to Haddonfield to place cars on those sidings.
This usually included a hopper-car of anthracite coal, which got shoved up onto a coal-trestle in a coal reseller’s yard. On the trestle the hopper-car could be unloaded down through its hoppers into dump-trucks below, for delivery to customers.
There still were a few houses heated by coal furnaces. And anthracite burned cleaner.
Our house was heated by fuel-oil, but Davidson’s house behind us was still coal.
A dump-truck would back up Davidson’s driveway, and then dump all its coal into a chute into the basement.
My paternal grandfather’s house in Camden had once been heated by coal. It still had the coal chute.
But it had been converted to fuel-oil.
At that time railroads were the main means of shipping freight, even to its final destination.
Peddler freights were expensive and time-consuming.
Railroading has since gravitated to what it does best: move vast quantities of freight over long distances.
A sterling example of this is the double-stack freight-train. 200 or more shipping containers get moved from a loading yard to an unloading yard, usually far from the loading yard. (The loading yard may have been transfer from a container ship.)
Trucks perform what was once the duty of the peddler freight; delivery to final destination.
A fabulous highway system has been built, far more flexible than railroad sidings, but it’s not very good shipping freight over long distances.
Which is where railroads shine. Stick 200 or more shipping-containers on a train, and then drag the whole kabosh from pillar-to-post at highway speeds.
A truck might be able to drag two trailers — over highways two or three times the width of the railroad; often wider.
All a railroad needs is low gradients — 1% or less is good. Anything more than 1% (even 1%) will require additional power. —Exceed 4% and the drive-wheels won’t adhere to the railheads.
The railroad might have to wiggle all over to get that gradient. —Which is why they often follow river valleys.

Neither my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar nor my Oxman legendary sportscar calendar are worth running this month.
—My Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Grumman “Duck” amphibious biplane (“bye-plain”); that is, two wings.
Excuse me, but I’ve never liked multi-winged aircraft — they look ancient compared to some of the fabulous WWII warbirds.
The Duck is all struts and cable-braces. Even on the tail surfaces.
—My Oxman legendary sportscar calendar is a black 1936 Delahaye 135M Competition Convertible.
Fairly dramatic (i.e. not a Hitler Mercedes), but still a 1930s cars. All the ‘30s styling cues. Upright radiator grill, and pontoon fenders.
To my mind sportscars didn’t really start looking good until the ‘50s.
The best was the XK-E Jaguar — although the Lotus Elan looks pretty good too.

“Light Pacific?”

Woo-Woo-Wo-Woo! (Photo by Alex Mayes.)

As a member of the National Railway Historical Society (I’ve been a railfan well over 60 years), I get the NRHS Bulletin.
It had a picture (above) of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s K4 Pacific (4-6-2) #1361 on the back page running an excursion on the Pennsy main near Tipton, PA, which is near Altoona — home-base of the Railroaders’ Memorial Museum.
Altoona is the beginning of the grade into the Allegheny Mountains, and was the main Pennsy shop-town. —It once had over 4,000 employees.
The picture is in 1987, when 1361 was operable.
1361 is the K4 that had been on display at Horseshoe Curve many years (see picture below). It was built at Altoona Shops.


1361 on display at Horseshoe Curve, probably summer of 1968. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Pentax Spotmatic camera.)

Unfortunately it was a mess — the railroad didn’t do much except shove the poor thing into position at the Curve.
They didn’t even cap the stack.
When it was finally pulled out, for possible return to operation, four feet of standing water was inside it.
It gushed out when they removed the smokebox front.
Doyle McCormack (of Southern Pacific #4449 fame, a restored 4-8-4 “Daylight” steam-locomotive — many Southern Pacific passenger trains were called “Daylights”), managed to get it running, despite it being a mess.
But it soon crippled — lunched a drive-axle bearing, and drive-axle shaft.
It was in such bad shape, it was decided a complete rebuild was needed.
So it was sent to Steamtown in Scranton and completely disassembled.
And now it looks like it may never run again.
At Steamtown it’s taking up space.
It’s occupying a stall Steamtown could use.
Steamtown has other operating steam-locomotives that need ongoing maintenance. They’re also restoring Boston & Maine Pacific #3713.
The Railroaders’ Memorial Museum in Altoona, which owns 1361, hoped to get it running again.
But it needed such extensive repair they were running out of money.
I remember seeing a complete new smokebox-saddle outside, fashioned using the old saddle as a pattern.
I bet if I went back today and did the Steamtown shop-tour, I’d probably find 1361 looking the same as five years ago.
Cab off, and I’m not sure the boiler is even on the frame........ And the famous Belpaire (“bell-pair”) firebox backhead is removed. You can see all the internal bracing.
The Bulletin captions 1361 as a “light Pacific.”
Well, I don’t know about that.
It sure ain’t “heavy.” That’s the K5. Only two were built — the massive 2-10-0 Decapod boiler on Pacific running-gear.
Not very successful, but the K4 was. The railroad had hundreds.
To me Pennsy’s “light Pacific” was the K2; a Pacific but a teapot.
The K4 was much stronger, and heavier.
But it’s a late ‘teens design.
Train-weights got to be too much for it.
Pennsy’s solution was to doublehead the K4s.
They couldn’t afford to develop a stronger replacement steam-locomotive. They were investing gobs of money into electrification, which left them with a surplus of steam-locomotives anyway.
New York Central’s “20th-Century Limited” might get by with only one Mohawk (4-8-2) or Niagara (4-8-4), but Pennsy’s “Broadway Limited” needed doubleheaded K4s.
That’s also two engine-crews up front. Steam-locomotives can’t be MU-ed (“multiple unit”) like diesel locomotives — e.g. one crew operating two or more locomotives; often as many as eight or more.
But Pennsy could afford multiple crewing. They were fabulously rich — a torrent of freight was shipping over their line.
Sadly, it sounds like the Railroaders’ Memorial Museum has given up on getting 1361 to run again.
They’re only considering reassembling it and putting it on display — in Altoona.
Much like many of the displayed steam-locomotives at Steamtown, including Reading (“RED-ing;” not “READ-ing”) #2124 (a 4-8-4 used in late ‘60s excursion service), and a Union-Pacific “Big Boy” (4-8-8-4), the largest steam-locomotive ever.
Quietly rusting away.
A K4 ain’t SuperPower, but that red keystone number-late is gorgeous.

• 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.
• “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.
• RE: “‘Old guy’ with the SpotMatic.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). The “SpotMatic” is my old Pentax SpotMatic single-lens-reflex 35mm film camera I used about 40 years, since replaced by a Nikon D100 digital camera.
• Usually steam-locomotives stored outside for display have the smokestack capped, to keep water from entering the insides.
• The “smokebox-saddle” was the stamping at the bottom of the front smokebox (ahead of the boiler) the drive-piston pipes attached to. Exhausts went back into the smokebox aimed toward the stack; the fast-moving exhaust promoting a draft that fanned the fire.
• A “Belpaire firebox” is rectangular in shape. The top of the firebox wasn’t the same curvature as the boiler. Pennsy was the primary user of the Belpaire firebox in this country. A few others used it, but mainly Pennsy. —Adding a Belpaire firebox on the back of a boiler was challenging, since it didn’t match the boiler-barrel.
• The “backhead” is the rear plate of the firebox; often a stamping of heavy steel.
• A small steam-locomotive is often bad-mouthed as a “teapot.”
• The “Big Boy” is an articulated. —An “articulated” steam-locomotive has one driver-set hinged to the other, so the locomotive can bend through sharp turns (e.g. crossover switches). One driver-set (the rear) is attached to the boiler, but the other (front) is hinged, so it can angle off-center.
• “SuperPower” is a concept pioneered by Lima Locomotive Company in Lima, OH (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”) in the ‘20s and ‘30s — mainly increasing steaming capacity enough to keep up with high speeds. —Prior to “SuperPower,” a steam-locomotive would often “run out of steam” at high speed. SuperPower tried to also maximize starting power. It was Lima’s angle into the steam-locomotive market; but not well suited to most railroad operation, which is slow. To increase steam capacity, Lima enlarged the boiler and firebox. It also employed other stationary boiler tricks to increase steam capacity; e.g. feedwater preheating, etc.

“It’s a miracle, Bobby!”

Usual surfeit of errands...... I shall recount two of the four.
Actually five were proposed, but I scotched one -a) for lack of a map, and -b) I was running out of time.
The first was to Lori’s Funky Food Market in deepest, darkest Henrietta to pick up a case of Arrowhead Mills puffed-corn cereal I had ordered, 12 six-ounce bags.
Lori’s is about 25 minutes away, and was 20 minutes from the second errand.
I usually delay a Lori’s trip until I’m headed that way, but they were crying that I pick up my order — threats of Armageddon.
A relative in Florida whose opinion I value suggested getting the puffed corn from Amazon online.
So I researched it; $18.65 per case. Lori’s wants $20.40.
So I ordered from Amazon; drop-shipped at my door by Federal Express.
They slapped on a shipping & handling charge of $12.50.
For cryin’ out loud; are they wrapped in gold foil?
That makes the price over $24 per case.
Back to Lori’s!

A while ago my beloved Verizon Motorola RAZR® cellphone got baptized — so long it rendered it inoperable.
I had to get a new phone — made more sense. The RAZR® was no longer available. It’s a Nokia 6205.
The usual techno-wonder that can start your dinner from across the universe.
Overkill, although -a) I have GPS navigation on it, and -b) it can display weather radar.
It also can be a radio phone; what I really like it for. —Freedom from the landline network.
I had a HUGE contact list memorized into my RAZR, and was told I’d lost it, since my baptized phone was inoperable.
I also was told by various siblings RAZRs had a SIM-chip which could be transferred into an operable RAZR, thus saving my contact list, display, etc.
We researched it, and discovered Verizon (“Version”) doesn’t use SIM-chips; not even in RAZRs.
No great loss; my contact list needed reorganization and updating anyway.
Another relative suggested Verizon could store all your contacts on their own servers; so that was the purpose of this errand.
Pull into Verizon (“Version”) store across from Eastview Mall.
“Uh-ohhhhhh......” I think. “This is the store with the ‘pyooter sign-in. Mano-a-mano with ‘pyooter sign-in.”
“May I help you, sir?” Thankfully accosted by a real human-being. No ‘pyooter sign-in.
“What I’d like to do is transfer all my contacts on this cellphone to the great Verizon ‘pyooter-in-the-sky.”
“Oh; our servers,” he answered. “What you need is ‘backup assistant.’ You can get it free from your MyVerizon account. Do you have a MyVerizon account?”
“Ya mean I could do it from that? I wondered about that.”
He grabbed my phone: “menu,” then “tools-on-the-go,” then “get new applications.”
“Do it from your MyVerizon account and ya get ‘backup assistant’ for free.”
He continues madly fingering buttons, brings up my MyVerizon account, and then cranks in a magical skeleton password — not mine, but works.
BAM! He downloads “Backup Assistant” onto my phone, and then backs up all my contacts to the great Verizon ‘pyooter in the sky.
“It’s a miracle, Bobby!” A techno-geek that doesn’t lord over you about stupidity and cluelessness.
“What if I keep adding contacts? I keep adding contacts almost every day.”
“Just keep backing up with ‘backup assistant;’ it’s automatic.”
I get home; I fire up “backup assistant.”
“Do ya wanna back up?”
BAM! “You don’t have any additional contacts to back up........”

• “The funky-food-market” is Lori’s Natural Foods, south of Rochester in Henrietta — a source for salt-free cereal, sauce, etc.
• “Deepest, darkest Henrietta” is a rather effusive and obnoxious suburb south of Rochester.
• “We” is my wife of 41+ years and I. Like me she’s retired, but her last job was as a computer programmer.
• RE: “Various siblings......” —The one who noisily told me RAZRs had a SIM-chip, was my all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say; and tells me I’m stupid and clueless. —I have other siblings that claim superiority. (I’m the oldest, and not REPUBLICAN.) He’s also the one that mispronounces Verizon.
• “Eastview Mall” is a large shopping mall southeast of Rochester.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• “It’s a miracle, Bobby!” is something my born-again Christian mother said regarding answers to her prayers. —I once had a John Deere riding lawnmower I had to cut the battery-cable on, so I couldn’t use it. I kept hoping for a miracle, but had to fix it myself.

“A true ATU hero”

Jeanice McMillan

As a retired bus-driver from Rochester’s Regional Transit Service, I continue to be a member of Local 282, the local division of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union (“ATU”), my union at Transit.
As such, I get “In Transit,” the national bimonthly union magazine. It comes out of union offices in Washington, D.C.
Usually I just toss it; boring posturing by union officials, and long-winded rendering of national convention minutes.
But an article caught my eye.
“Jeanice McMillan; a true ATU hero,” it blared.
Jeanice McMillan was the operator of that southbound Washington Metro commuter train that rear-ended a stopped train at speed last June, killing nine passengers.
Also killed was Jeanice, a member of Local 689 of the Amalgamated Transit Union.
Immediately the media began circulating accusations of texting while operating, possible impairment, and inexperience.
“Balderdash!” said “In Transit.”
Metro trains are operated by computer. A glitch occurred. The computer was supposed to automatically stop her train, but it didn’t.
Facing certain death, she overrode everything and threw her train into emergency. She never left her post.
Anyone who’s ever worked with computers knows strange anomalies occur. The Metro computers are supposed to offset the possibility of operator error, but what if the computers err?
The operator accusations were found to have no merit, and D.C. officials called her a hero for slowing her train enough to save a few lives.
But the operator accusations continue to circulate, and I know all too well how management likes to blame the hourlies, especially if they’re unionized.

Warren George

Quoting Warren George, President of the Amalgamated Transit Union:
“The preliminary investigation has thus far failed to find any operator error. But it has revealed a technological failure — a track circuit sensor malfunction.
Metro General Manager John Catoe praised Sister McMillan as a hero who saved lives. Bishop Glen A. Staples (at her funeral) said, ‘You’ve got to be a different kind of person to look at death head-on and say, “I’m going to save as many as I can.” We have a debt of gratitude for what she has done for the city.’
Our members are professionals who save lives every day by keeping a watchful eye, by dealing with problem passengers and by preventing serious accidents. When we cannot prevent an accident, we stay calm and, sometimes, as the bishop said about Sister McMillan, we ‘ride that train to heaven.’
That’s why it is so unfair when people blame operators first — particularly when they are not there to defend themselves.
If any good can come out of this tragedy, it is that it has increased awareness that we must provide the funding for transit systems all over the U.S. and Canada to upgrade and the replace the antiquated equipment which can cause terrible accidents.
And, we can resolve to challenge the rush to blame transit operators for any transit accident which may occur.”

• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993).
• “Threw her train into emergency” is to apply full train brakes. Usually this just locks the wheels, and momentum keeps the train sliding forward. It’s hard to stop a train. Ya don’t just stop it on a dime.

“Beats chasing women”

GP9 #7048 (on display) looks on as an SD40E #6306 heads a freight up The Hill at Horseshoe Curve. (That’s Joey!)

Yet again.....the mighty Curve, bar none, the BEST railfan spot I’ve ever been to.
Check in at Tunnel Inn Bed & Breakfast in Gallitzin (“gah-LIT-zin”), PA, right on top of the old Pennsy tunnel exits.
Rumble-Rumble-ROAR!
A train! (We’ve been there all of three minutes.)
Five more minutes; another train.
15 minutes total; three trains.
Drive down to Horseshoe Curve Historic Site.
Ascend steps; 194, can still do it.
A train climbs up as we ascend.
Five minutes pass; one down.
Five more minutes; another down.
15 minutes; another up.
20 minutes; another up.
30 minutes; another up, but it gets stabbed by a restricting signal on the signal-tower at the Curve — wonky signal; nothing in the block.
It slows to a stop on the west leg, and another comes down.
That’s eight trains in a half-hour.
Ain’ nuthin’ like the Mighty Curve!
“You want train frequency?” my friend Tim Belknap (“BELL-nap”) shouts.
“Times Square Station in New York City.”
“Yeah, but that’s subway,” I say. “Mere Tinker Toys compared to here at the mighty Curve.
And climbing they are wide-open; assaulting the heavens!
Down it’s hold back the train; keep it from running away.
And of course the wheels don’t differentiate as ya go around a curve. They scream as they slide on the railheads.”
But “it’s a-rainin’,” as my wife’s relatives said long ago at a family reunion.
My MyCast® weather-radar on my cellphone displayed a lotta green, showing it inundating all of PA, including the Altoony area.
We spend most of our time on a bench under the funicular pavilion.
The place is hopping despite the downpours.
The up funicular is always filled.
A new signal gantry is erected on the east leg of the Curve, up on the hillside.
But it’s not over the tracks, so not in service yet.
It will replace the old Pennsy signal-bridge.
A lull begins, so we go back down.
Another train descends.
We find the infamous “Spaghetti-Joint,” Lena’s Cafè in Altoony.
We order spaghetti with marinara sauce and one homemade meatball, what we always order.
All trips to the mighty Curve include the “Spaghetti-Joint.”
Use rest-room while leaving.
“I could use it too,” Linda says; “but I ain’t sittin’ on that filthy seat!”
“So we’ll go back to Tunnel Inn, and you can use their filthy seat,” I say.
We go up to Brickyard, but a deluge began as soon as I got out of the car.
I had taken along my camera, and unholstered my cellphone to look at my MyCast weather-radar.
Everything was getting drenched.
The signal-lights came on on the old Pennsy signal-bridge nearby: Track Three was clear — a train was coming.
I started back, but it was coming down in buckets, so I got back into the car.
Right about then the crossing-signals started flashing, the bell started ringing (an audio-file), and the gates dropped.
Rumba-rumba-rumba!
Double-stack up The Hill on Track Three with two GEs on the point.
“If it weren’t coming down in buckets, I woulda shot that,” I said. “I don’t wanna soak the camera.”
It was the usual auto-trip down, except was, or was not, the new expressway open over Bald Eagle Mountain?
It was; they’re even rebuilding the segment over Steam Valley.
Southbound traffic was previously on the “old road.”
Northbound was a new section up to Interstate standard.
Southbound wasn’t, and worse yet it passed gas-stations and a restaurant next to a sharp curve at the top.
Downhill after that was zigging and zagging all over, the “old road” alignment.
But it looks like an Interstate-standard southbound segment will open before I kick the bucket.
That will leave only one two-lane segment; the section from the NY/PA state line up to Presho, NY.
Hint-hint; Schumer.
Only Federal funding will get that built, as it probably has in PA.
What happens if the price of gasoline skyrockets?
It sure ain’t the LA Basin. Ya might pass a car occasionally.
Back to Tunnel Inn. At least their viewing deck outside is roofed.
Step outside to go downstairs and install “billy-club” on the van steering-wheel.
A guy is out there with his stringbean son, about 12 or 13.
“I see ya installed your billy-club,” he said.
“Don’t know as I need it out here, but there are senior-citizens around.
I so much as get here earlier, and BAM, a train.
And then another and another.
This place is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to.”
“More scenic, but more trains at Fostoria, OH.
CSX and Norfolk Southern cross at grade in two places. 100 trains a day!”
“I’ve been to Tehachapi (“tuh-HATCH-uh-pee”); I been to Cajon (“kah-HONE”); I been to Helmstetters (“helm-STETT-rrr”), etc., etc., etc. This is the best.”
What about Cass (“KASS;” as in gasoline)? We’re goin’ to Cass tomorrow.”
“By all means, and Cass is one of the best places we’ve ever done — the license-plate surround on the back of that van is Cass.
And ride it all the way to the top.”
“What about Spruce?”
“No! Spruce is okay; a branch to an old Western Maryland connection, the line WM ran Cass’s “Big-Six” engine on.
But it ain’t the top. Ride it all the way to Bald Knob!
They can’t even run “Big-Six” up there. There’s a curve so tight it derails.
And it’s so steep your engines will slip. They may be Shays, but ya hear ‘em slip — 13%.
And they also have to rewater on the way up.
It takes two engines to shove up there; but one is enough coming back down.
Ya end up about 4,000 feet above the valley-floor, and there’s a big wooden observation deck. The climate is Arctic. Wear a jacket.
And crew-members work the brakes manually on each car.
Railroading old style. It ain’t the engineer setting the train brakes.
And the best part is the steam-locomotive whistles echoing through the hollers.”
“What about Tunkhannock Viaduct?” he asks. (“tunk-HANN-nick”)
“Holy mackerel, I say. “I come around a bend, and YOWZA!
Built with private money too.”
“Same thing,” he says. “I did college in Scranton; I’m wandering around one day, and suddenly there it is!”
“It’s all concrete, and it’s HUGE.” I say.
“And it’s actually called ‘Nicholson Bridge’” (“Nick-ul-SIN”), he says; “and the town of Nicholson is hardly anything.”
“Right,” I say; “but it spans the valley of Tunkhannock Creek. The railroad used to have to descend into that valley and climb back out, until that viaduct was built.”
“What about Strasburg (“Strass-burg”); what about Steamtown?” he asks.
“Strasburg is 10 mph; putrid!” I say. “Steamtown is 30.
The best railfan excursion I ever rode was restored Nickel Plate steam-engine #765 up New River Gorge in WV. That thing was doin’ 75 mph! Boomin’-and-zoomin’.
“I don’t know how true this is, but I hear a rumor about Norfolk Southern closin’ the Curve and puttin’ in a tunnel to bypass it.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” I say. “That’s a mighty long tunnel; at least 10 miles.
This is a very busy line, but I don’t know if it’s busy enough to justify that kind of investment.
It’s still wooden ties; they ain’t concrete. And the rail is only 136 pounds per yard — fairly heavy, but the old Pennsy electrified Corridor main was 143 in the ‘60s.
BNSF added just a third track to their ascent of Cajon Pass. Cost a ton of money.
But no long tunnel.
Norfolk Southern may eventually regret that fourth track was removed (by Conrail), but it was always just three tracks over the summit.
The original tunnel was two tracks at first with 1850s equipment; relaid into one when equipment got larger. It was overly wide at that point, but high enough until double-stacks became the norm.
The original tunnel was enlarged; high enough to clear double-stacks, and widened to allow two tracks with current equipment.
That abandoned Gallitzin tunnel was added in 1912 to go from two to three tracks.
The third track is Track One, downhill, through New Portage Tunnel on the other side of town.
And New Portage is higher in elevation because it was a realignment of the old Portage Railway to circumvent the original inclined planes, part of the storied Pennsylvania Public Works System combining canals with an inclined-plane portage railroad.
The Public Works was PA’s response to the hugely successful Erie Canal, although the Erie didn’t have a mountain barrier to cross.
Pennsy got the Public Works System for a song when it was abandoned. Here was that New Portage tunnel, an additional tunnel under the Allegheny barrier. They might as well use it. It was wide enough for two tracks with 1850s equipment, but eventually relaid as one.
But they had to build a ramp up to it. This is ‘The Slide;’ 2.37 %.
New Portage was also enlarged to clear double-stacks.
But it’s only one additional track, and limited to 12 mph on ‘The Slide.’”

DAY TWO: Back to the mighty Curve
“Weren’t you here last year?” some stringbean 14-year-old asks. “Beginning of last August?
I was the one that asked you if knew anything was coming, because you had a scanner.”
“So now you’re a year older,” a stone-face solemnly intoned. “I’m here to direct music for a Bible-conference,” he said. “But I’ve been up here about 15 times.”
“Well, I been here hundreds of times,” I said; “bar none the greatest railfan spot I’ve ever been to.
Smack in the apex of the Curve, and uphill assaulting the heavens!”
By now it was no rain, and no green on my MyCast weather-radar.
At least three up and three down over two hours.
“I really like that SD40,” a little kid said, pointing at 7048.
“It is not,” I said. “It’s a GP9.”
Memories of my B24 incident at Daze Inn in Altoony; now Holiday Inn Express.
A painting of a B24 was on the wall in the lobby. The motel-owner had been a B24 pilot in WWII.
The receptionist identified it as a B52.
“That ain’t no B52,” I said. “That’s a B24!”
“Whatever,” she said.
“SD40s are the helpers ya see on this hill. SDs have six-wheel trucks; this thing has four-wheel trucks — a Geep (“GP” = General Purpose).
The plaque on the other side identifies it as a GP9.”
“It looks like that guy might know more than you do, Joey.”
But at least he’s heard of SD40s, which go back to the ‘80s, well before he was born — he looked about six.
One of the trains down was the Executive Business Train, but it had a single freight-motor on the point; perhaps an SD60.
No Tuxedo Fs. One wonders whether they’re still usable. They are antiques.
Down to Brickyard. Little success. I was trying multiple exposures first time, but it stores image-files in a cache.
Cache filled; no more motor-drive. Maybe four or five frames.
Okay, deal with it!
Back to Tunnel Inn, then off to Lilly, PA west of Cresson on the eastbound slope of the Alleghenies. It’s an overpass right over the tracks.
A train came down, west on Track Three, but the best shot at Lilly is eastbound — it rounds a curve.
This is the place I got two trains at once last year, but that was with Phil Faudi (“faw-dee”), a local railfan extraordinaire.
I paid him for an all-day train chase; I photographed 20 trains over nine hours; including the Executive Business Train with the Tuxedo Fs.
Faudi knows each train by train-number as the engineer calls out the signals, and how long it takes to drive to a location we can shoot at.
Back-and-forth we zigged and zagged in Faudi’s tired Buick, and at Lilly we got two trains at once.
Each wait for a train was about five minutes.
Lilly seemed to be a dead-zone for the scanner. 253.1 (at Lilly), but nothing from the detector at 258.9 down at nearby Portage.
The only way I knew an eastbound was coming (climbing) was hearing it hammering up The Hill.


Eastbound through Lilly up The Hill toward Gallitzin tunnels on Track Two.

More multiple shots; I keep the best, and trash the rest.
We then drove to Summerhill west of Portage, and I also took a few back roads to see if I still knew my way.
A train was going down (west) on Track Three as we drove in, but then a long dry-spell ensued as we got out.
Finally, “Milepost 258.9, Track Three, no defects.”
Wrong way, the most photogenic shot is eastbound (Tracks One or Two), a train under the old Pennsy signal-bridge, which silhouettes against the sky. It has raised signals to be visible to far away eastbound train crews over a highway overpass.
The signal-lights came on on the signal-bridge, but it seemed so short I thought it might only be helpers.
I was about 10-12 feet from the track, at a fence, and could hear it coming behind me; boomin’-and-zoomin’.


Westbound Amtrak through Summerhill. STAND BACK!

All-of-a-sudden it zoomed past, Amtrak doin’ 60-70 or so.
BANG! I only got off one shot, but okay.
It obliterates most of that signal-tower, but that was fading into a rain-cloud.
A shower was on my MyCast, and would soon hit.
“Ever been to ‘the Cut?’” a guy asked. He had just exited the adjacent Summerhill Social Club — I thought he was going to arrest us for parking in their parking-lot.
“No. But I think that’s private property,” I said.
“Well, yes it is. Some guy leased it and put up ‘No Trespassing’ signs.
I used to be the town highway warden, and we put up park benches and trashcans for the railfans.
But is got so messy we stopped.
People stop here all the time. You’re not the first.”
He then treaded gingerly across the tracks; that’s trespassing to Norfolk Southern.
Back to Cresson and Cresson Springs Family Restaurant for my usual Philly Cheese-Steak sandwich — a Curve trip tradition.
Cresson Springs Family Restaurant also gives a discount to Tunnel Inn customers.

DAY THREE: HOME
Home via mighty Weggers in Williamsport.
The Williamsport Weggers because it’s along the way.
The Canandaigua Weggers isn’t. We’ve done it, and it’s an out-of-the-way detour — through Watkins Glen, and over rural two-lanes.
It also delays getting our dog, boarded near Honeoye Falls.
But it’s mostly just a drag. So is the Williamsport Weggers, but not as much.
It’s different, but pretty much the same layout as every Weggers.
Williamsport is the Little-League capitol of the world; the Little-League World Series is held there every year.
The Williamsport Weggers reflects that. Miniature baseball-bats are the order separators on the checkout belts.
They’re also selling Nittany Lions paraphernalia. In Rochester it’s Buffalo Bills.
A Curve trip is about four-and-a-half hours.
Used to be about six, but now it’s nearly all four-lane limited-access expressway.
It was a-rainin’ that morning at Tunnel Inn. My MyCast weather-radar had green all over PA, with occasional splotches of yellow.
For those unfamiliar with weather-radar, green is rain or light rain; yellow a deluge.
Red is a downpour; dark red a gully-washer.
Red and dark red are usually only thunderstorm cells, or a hurricane.
We eat the muffins Tunnel Inn gives us for breakfast, usually outside on the observation-deck if it isn’t frigid.
I pointedly avoided going out on the observation-deck the night before to avoid a 45-minute yammering fest.
Feared the same thing might happen that morning, but all were in a group we could avoid.
My brother Jack would have been in glory.
Jack is a manager at a power-station for Boston; I think it burns coal or natural-gas.
A retired manager for Delaware Power & Light was holding court.
“A nuclear plant takes 10-12 years to go on line; a coal plant 9-10 years.
A lot of people are for wind power, but not-in-my-backyard.”
“They can put it in my backyard!” some guy shouted.
“The neighbors will object,” the retiree declared. “Ya can’t even build a cell-tower.”
My brother woulda loved it. He woulda barged right in.
“Nuclear power generation? I wrote a book about that. It’s in the Library-of-Congress. It’s titled ‘Nuclear Electrical Generation for Dummies.’”
It rained all the way through PA, especially near the Bald Eagle Mountain crossing — a downpour.
But blue skies appeared as we drove into NY.
Down-and-back; a surgical-strike. Down one day, one full day chasing trains, and then back on the third day.
Without train-chasing of any kind.
The imperative is to rescue our dog.
Usually a single day is all I can stand‚ a three-day vacation.
I’ve done longer vacations, but usually only one day at the mighty Curve is all I can take.
And that includes side-trips to other area train-watching sites.
“We’re retirees,” my wife observes; “but we need a vacation.”
....from the blizzard of errands and appointments, and continuous lawn-mowing.
Part of the reason vacations have to be short, is the lawn can get ahead of us.
Returned home, I noticed almost the whole lawn needed mowing; well over an acre.
“So where’s your wife?” I asked the Fostoria guy.
“At home. To her, my chasing trains with my son is a vacation.”
“So where’s your wife?” my wife asked old stone-face. “Back home. She thinks train-chasing is silly.”
“I’ve run across that,” I said.
“Some guy was at Tunnel Inn with his wife, who kept bad-mouthing his enthusiasm.
Take note, people,” I said, pointing at Linda behind me.
“I don’t understand it, but my wife accompanies me on all my train-chases. Not interested, but seems to wanna come along.”
“Didja have any idea this would happen?” old stone-face asked.
“You should admit you’re a railfan before marriage,” he declared.
“Beats chasing women,” Linda said.

• (All photos by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)
• No footnotes for this — there would be too many — except “Linda” is my wife of 41+ years, “Jack” is my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, and “Brickyard” is a railroad crossing in Altoona over the old Pennsy’s ascent of The Hill. The road has another name, but the railroad-crossing is next to an abandoned brickyard.