Monthly Calendar Report for January 2010

One new calendar, one dumped, and one no more.
The one dumped is my Norfolk Southern Employees Photo-Contest Calendar, and the one no more is the Oxman “Legendary Sportcars” calendar — I guess they gave up.
I missed the All-Pennsy Color Calendar last year, but snagged it this year.
It replaces my O. Winston Link Steam & Steel calendar, which I still got, and Steam & Steel replaces the Norfolk Southern Employees Photo-Contest Calendar.


Uphill on Track One under the signal-bridge at Summerhill, PA., eastbound up The Hill toward the summit. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—By far the BEST, and the calendar that will win all the accolades, and the one that will usually run first, is my new calendar of my own photos.
It’s Kodak Gallery, and I was expecting a cheap-shot.
I ordered only one, and it was magnificent.
So magnificent I ordered six more to pass out to my railfan friends, one of whom is Phil Faudi (“FAW-dee”) of Altoona, PA, responsible for many of the photos.
Faudi is a railfan extraordinaire who gives railfan tours of the Altoona area.

The mighty Curve.

Altoona is the foot of the old Pennsy grade over the Allegheny mountains, and includes Horseshoe Curve (the mighty Curve), by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a now 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.
It loops across a mountain valley. The grade up (westbound) is 1.75-1.8%; 1.75-1.8 feet up for every 100 feet forward.
A grade, but not impossible.
The railroad is now owned and operated by Norfolk Southern.
Faudi has his radio scanner tuned to Norfolk Southern’s operating channel (160.8), and knows every train as the engineers call out the signals.
Automated trackside defect detectors also call out trains and what track they were on, after they’ve passed.
Track One is eastbound, Track Three is westbound, and Track Two can be either way.
He also knows how long it will take to get to a photo location before the train does.
Railfaning with Faudi is railfan overload.
Last time — last September — I saw 30 trains, and never waited more than five minutes.
By myself I might see 7-10, and wait for hours.
Norfolk Southern’s line over the Alleghenies is quite busy. It used to be a main channel east for Midwestern commerce.
But no more.
Pennsy’s old river of traffic is now that out of Long Beach and the LA basin in southern Californy, commerce from the Pacific Rim.
So The Hill might see 60-80 trains a day, many scheduled, and quite a few extras.
But I don’t know what Faudi knows, like the locations of signals as called out, and how long it would take to beat that train to a photo location.
I usually end up hanging out at a location for hours, and know the locations of defect-detectors.
My indication that a train is coming is defect-detector callouts.
Once at Cassandra Railfan Overlook — an old abandoned highway bridge over the tracks at Cassandra, PA — defect-detectors kept indicating trains were coming; fleeting in both directions. (“Norfolk Southern milepost 258.9, Track One, no defects.” —That’s Portage, PA.)
So I hung around for each train — about five or six. Didn’t leave for well over an hour.
Summerhill is a small town on the western slope about 10-15 miles from the summit.
The approach is from the west; eastbound is uphill,
The train is uphill on Track One.
The train has two SD40-2 helpers on the point. They have probably been there since Pittsburgh.
It may have also had two SD40-2 helpers on the rear.
The eastbound grade up the western slope is not as steep as the westbound grade up the eastern slope, but it’s steep enough to often require helpers.
SD40-2 helper sets were stationed, and maintained, at Cresson, just west (downhill) of the summit of the Alleghenies.
The SD40-2 helper sets have been around for eons.
They are at long last being replaced with SD-40Es, a downrated SD-50.
Helper sets have long been needed on The Hill; both going up and going down.
Helper sets add additional dynamic-braking going down.
The traction-motors are turned into generators, and the current generated goes to giant toaster-grids atop the locomotives.
Using the traction-motors as generators generates additional braking action.
It’s added to the braking of the individual train cars of the train.
A steam-locomotive can’t generate dynamic-braking — although some railroads with treacherous grades fielded a way of generating braking-force from a steam-locomotive.
General Electric has made use of dynamic-braking on its locomotives to charge batteries instead of burn heat off of toaster grids.
Someone finally had to do it.
How successful this is is debatable. Running a locomotive requires a lot of electricity. The massive diesel-engine is generating current for the electric traction-motors. —A diesel-electric locomotive.
The train is coming under a signal-tower; with classic Pennsy target-signals (position-lights).
The signals for the two eastbound tracks are up high to be visible over the highway bridge behind.



Two P-40s. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The January 2010 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is two P40s.
The P40 was what was on hand at the outbreak of WWII.
Some were lost when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
One of the P40s is painted in the famous Tiger Shark scheme. The other isn’t.
The Flying Tigers were a private military contractor, authorized by the United States, to fight the Japanese in China before Pearl Harbor.
Their airplanes, P40s, had Chinese markings, and also that gorgeous Tiger-Shark mouth painted on the radiator scoop.
It looks so great most every P40 still flying has the Tiger-Shark scheme.
Those shark teeth have been applied to other airplanes. I even saw it on a lowly military Piper-Cub once — what a joke!
On a fighter it made sense, but the Piper-Cub was a non-fighting observation plane, or a trainer. It wouldn’t be raining death and destruction. It would be a sitting duck!
Just the same, the shark’s teeth looked perfect on the P40. It’s just that you see it too much.
The P40 is a nice airplane, but it’s not the gorgeous hot-rod the P51 Mustang is.


Pennsylvania Railroad M1b Mountain (4-8-2) #6729 heads priority freight west through Duncannon, PA. (Photo by Don Wood©.)

—The January 2010 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is a classic Don Wood photograph, probably published before, of a daily Pennsylvania Railroad westbound freight marching at good speed up the old Pennsy main through Duncannon (“DONE-cannon”), PA.
It’s behind classic PRR locomotive #6729, an M1b Mountain (4-8-2).
The Mountain was the last PRR steam-locomotive developed until after WWII.
It was developed in the late ‘20s — a melding of a large boiler with a fairly large fire grate with a firebox with a combustion-chamber.
It worked quite well, but sadly Pennsy invested in electrification after that.
No steam-locomotive development was carried out in the ‘30s, when SuperPower concepts came into vogue.
At the outset of WWII, Pennsy was saddled with tired steamers that were behind the times.
They had to shop around, since the War Production Board wouldn’t allow them to develop.
They had to purchase Chesapeake & Ohio’s T-1 2-10-4 SuperPower design, a Lima (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”) product.
(They also compared the fantastic Norfolk & Western A-series 2-6-6-4 articulateds.)
That 2-10-4 was their J-1 series, slightly fiddled, but mainly the Lima design.
As such, it lacked the trademark Pennsy Belpaire firebox.
Pennsy only built one railroad (I think), its main stem from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh.
Up the east bank of the Susquehanna from Harrisburg, across, and then up the west bank to where the Juniata (“june-ee-AT-uh”) River empties into the Susquehanna, then inland and up the Juniata and Little Juniata to Petersburg.
It paralleled the old Pennsylvania Canal to there, and after Petersburg the canal branched west, and the PRR went north to Tyrone.
Then south from Tyrone to Altoona, where it faced the Allegheny mountains.
First it went down to Hollidaysburg, where it intersected with the old Allegheny Portage Railroad, but PRR was intent on building its own railroad without inclined planes.
An 11-mile grade was built up into the mountains, which includes Horseshoe Curve, a trick that allowed Pennsy to surmount the Alleghenies without steep grades.
But a tunnel had to be bored at the top, at Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin”), then it went back down the mountains, eventually following the Conemaugh (“kone-uh-MAW”) River toward Pittsburgh.
Every other railroad in the great Pennsy system was affiliated or merged, although some parts were rebuilt and improved after Pennsy got control.
But only the Harrisburg-Pittsburgh line was built by them.
It was chartered in 1846, a response to the horribleness of the Pennsylvania Public Works System, with its portage over the Allegheny mountains and its inclined planes.
The Public Works was Pennsylvania’s response to the phenomenally successful Erie Canal; and like the Erie, was intended to be a through canal system.
But unlike in New York, an impenetrable mountain range, the Alleghenies, was in the way.
There was no getting through it with a canal.
All the state could do was go over the Alleghenies with a portage railroad.
And grading was so rudimentary at that time, the only way to do so was with inclined planes; grades so steep, ropes and stationary steam engines had to tow cars up the planes.
And canal packets had to be transloaded onto railcars for the portage.
It was so cumbersome and slow, it was an impediment to trade with the midwest.
The reason New York City is now the great city it is, is because of the Erie Canal.
Other east coast ports were falling quickly behind.
Baltimore’s response was the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, opened in 1827, the first common carrier railroad.
Washington DC got no farther than Cumberland, MD, where the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal paralleling the Potomac river ended. The Alleghenies stopped it.
As mentioned, Pennsylvania’s (Philadelphia’s) response was the Public Works System, a combination canal and railroad.
Existing railroad from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, then canal from Harrisburg to the Alleghenies, then portage railroad over the Alleghenies, then canal back down to Pittsburgh.
But the System was so slow and cumbersome, Philadelphia capitalists struck out on their own to build a private through railroad, the Pennsy.
And then a slew of railroads west of Pittsburgh were merged into it to channel huge quantities of freight onto the main stem.
Eventually Pennsy became the largest railroad in the world.
It was phenomenal, but now is gone.
The main stem remains, although no longer moving the river of traffic it once moved.
Rationalization was allowed, and what once was a four-track main is now only two in most places.
Pennsy merged with arch-rival New York Central in 1968, and that soon tanked — eight years.
Most of the old Pennsy lines are now owned and operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad.
The train pictured is expedited freight service, a daily scheduled train west from Enola (“aye-NOLE-uh”) yard near Harrisburg.


1969 Z/28 Camaro. (Photo by David Newhardt.)

—The January 2010 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1969 Z/28™ Chevrolet Camaro, perhaps the finest factory hot-rod to come out of Detroit.
And that’s despite its antique tractor layout; a solid rear axle (non-independent) with heavy integral differential propelled by a central driveshaft, turned by a hot-rodded Chevrolet Small-Block.
At least it’s a Small-Block, which is fairly light.
A heavy cast-iron Big Block would have made it EXTREMELY front-heavy, sending it straight like a snowplow in corners.
With the Small-Block it was fairly well balanced.
It’s interesting where the Z/28 got its name.
Z/28 was the number of the option-code needed to make the Camaro eligible for Sports-Car-Club-of-America (“SCCA”) Trans-Am racing.
Chevrolet was hunting for an attractive name for the car, and various magazines, particularly Car & Driver, suggested they name it the option-code: Z/28.

The earliest Penske/Donohue Trans-Am Camaro.

The first Z/28s were the earliest models, ‘67 and ‘68, raced by Roger Penske (“penn-SKEE”) with driver Mark Donohue (“don-uh-HUE”) in the SCCA Trans-Am series (as pictured at left).
Penske/Donohue also raced a 1969, but switched to AMC Javelin after that.
The Trans-Am concept was attractive; bellowing pony-cars banging fenders; e.g. Mustang versus Camaro.
But engine size was limited to five liters; quite small, 305 cubic inches.
The Mustang and Camaro V8s were at 302 cubic inches, but could be souped up like stink.
Small as they were, the Trans-Am engines were getting over 450 horsepower!
A stock Z/28 was probably good for over 300.
What limited the cars more than anything was brakes.
I certainly watched enough Trans-Am races where the Penske Camaro, among others, lacked brakes.
Detroit braking was still not up to what was being asked of it. Everything would heat up so much, the brake-pistons might fuse in the calipers, or the seals burned up and leaked out all the fluid.
Braking was adequate in the first laps, but shortly faded away.
The jones was to dissipate the gigantic amount of heat generated.
Larger Corvette brakes were tried, and ducting installed to blow cool air on the brakes.
The brakes were fine for the street, but not racing.
The manufacturers had to build so many cars, available to the public, to enter one in the Trans-Am.
Perhaps 500.
Hence the Z/28 option.
The calendar picture is a bit wonky.
The buildings in the picture distract.
But it’s a Z/28, the BEST Detroit hot-rod ever made.

A Pennsy Owl-face. (Photo by Bill Janssen.)

—The January 2010 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a PRR MP54 Owl-face commuter car at Elizabeth station during a blizzard in north Jersey on January 30, 1966.
Probably the same blizzard that dumped a surfeit of snow on my college about that time in my senior year.
Hip-deep snowpack.
It was winter-break, and I couldn’t go home.
What we see here is a Pennsy Owl-face, called that because that was what they looked like.
A motorman would drive the car from behind that right porthole.
It was the standard P54 commuter coach motorized; two electric traction-motors in one truck.
Each motor was essentially the same AC traction-motor used in the fantastic GG1 (“Gee-Gee-One”) electric locomotive, although in the GG1 two motors powered each drive-axle; 12 motors — six drive-axles.
As I recall, many MP54s could drive themselves and a single unpowered car; although here we see all four cars powered. None unpowered.
The train is dealing with a blizzard.
The self-powered MP54 was Pennsy’s first commuter-car.
Large portions of its lines around Philadelphia, and then New York City, were electrified so Pennsy could move its surfeit of commuter traffic — in less expensive self-powered cars. —Negating the need for coaches with a locomotive.
Commuter districts were also electrified around Philadelphia, to allow use of the MP54.

Photo by BobbaLew.

An MP54 baggage-car, about 1960.

Nearly all MP54s, 368, were built as passenger coaches, but apparently a few were otherwise.
I managed to snag a few in the yards in Wilmington, DE about 1960.
The lead car pictured is a windowless baggage car, and it’s followed by two combination baggage/passenger cars.
Passengers grew to hate the MP54s.
Many lasted eons, were old, rode rough, and few were air-conditioned.
If it was hot, passengers opened all the windows.
Eventually Pennsy’s commuter service became an albatross, costly to operate.
The MP54s needed replacement, and the railroad wasn’t financially able to replace them.
Local authorities helped Pennsy begin replacing the MP54, and eventually took over the entire commuter operation; Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), and Jersey Transit in north Jersey.
SEPTA came to operate other commuter operations beside Pennsy, as did Jersey Transit. —SEPTA operates every commuter operation around Philadelphia; including bus-service.
The self-powered car concept was a siren song.
The federal government came to institute high-speed self-powered passenger service on the old Pennsy electrified lines, busy New York City to Washington DC, and also Philadelphia to Harrisburg.
But the self-powered MetroLiners were unreliable. Often a GG1 had to be sent to rescue the train.
Eventually Amtrak went back to locomotive-pulled trains — locomotive-pushed to negate terminal turning. —The opposite car of a locomotive-pushed train had a control-stand for a motorman.
And, of course, Amtrak came to own and operate the old Pennsy electrified trackage from Washington DC to New York City; the vaunted Northeast Corridor.
But it’s a joke. It’s not much of a high-speed railroad. It still has bog-slow terminal trackage in Philadelphia, and the tunnels under Baltimore and the Hudson are small and old.
The MP54 pictured is well before the Northeast Corridor; in fact, when Pennsy still operated the commuter service.
Elizabeth station still stands.
The MP54 train probably is operating to or from New York City via the tunnels under the Hudson.


Deuce with Viper engine.

—The January 2010 entry of my Oxman Hot-Rod Calendar is unfortunately what hot-rodding has become in the new century, a distortion of what it was originally.
What we have here is a 1932 Ford hot-rod roadster with a V10 Viper engine.
Hot-rodding is a phenomenon of the post WWII era, largely based in southern California.
A number of factors were at play:
—1) A surfeit of surplus fittings and exotic hardware that could be picked up for peanuts to make a hot-rod.
—2) The number of old Ford used cars available.
—3) The fact weather in southern California was so fabulous — forever warm and sunny. It allowed open roadster hot-rods. Protection from the elements wasn’t needed.
—4) The old Ford flat-head V8 -a) was so cheap and available, and -b) it responded so well to hop-up, so much speed stuff was made for it.
—5) So many places were nearby for speed competition, particularly the dry lakes out in the California desert.
Mirage ("MERE-ahj") was the best; vast and flat. Although it became the location of Edwards Air Force Base.
Speed competition began on the dry lakes well before WWII. People would hot-rod Model Ts, and race ‘em.
The best post-war hot-rods were ‘32 Ford roadsters with a souped-up flat-head Ford V8.
Later Chevrolet introduced its vaunted Small-Block V8 (1955), another motor that -a) responded well to hot-rodding, and -b) was cheap and plentiful.
It was the motor that put the old Ford flat-head out to pasture.
Small-Blocks replaced the Flatty, but the layout was still classic: a body and motor on frame-rails.
Car-manufacturers were changing to unit-construction; construction that didn’t bend like a ladder.
More-than-likely the car pictured is body-on-frame, not unit construction.
I bet that Viper motor twists it.
A Viper motor in a ‘32 Ford is way too much.
The owner claims 600 horsepower, and 200 mph; although I don’t think I’d wanna try it with the aerodynamic equivalent of a brick.
The Milner coupe from "American Graffiti" is more like it.
A Chevy motor but a car that is driveable; a street-rod, as opposed to someone’s dream, which the car pictured is — a trailer-queen.
Worst of all are the tires and wheels; usually extreme, as they are in southern California.
Giant glittering chromed spider-spokes of perhaps 20 inches in diameter, with super-wide tires of so little sidewall height ya wonder if they can actually damp out bumps.
Hit a curb with such a thing, and ya’ll dent the rim.
A classic hot-rod had 15-inch wheels, maybe 16. And the tires had sidewall height of five or six inches.
Radials made more sense than bias-ply tires, but 20-inch wheels on a hot-rod?
WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOOO!

Photo by BobbaLew.

I saw such a car, pictured at left, at a local car show a year ago. Recent tires on giant wheels; plus tiny taillight slits cut into the rear body panel.
It could probably be driven from its enclosed trailer to the display area, but beyond that it was a dreamcar; only for show.
Another mistake — to me personally — is that two-piece windshield.
The stock ‘32 Ford roadster has a flat one-piece windshield that looks much better.
Supposedly this car was named 2010’s Most Beautiful American Roadster, but I don’t think so.


HO-HUM. (Photo by O. Winston Link.)

—We’re running out of material.
The January 2010 entry of my O. Winston Link "Steam and Steel" calendar, and boobie-prize, is Norfolk & Western Mountain (4-8-2) #104 riding the turntable at Bristol, VA, while J #606 (4-8-4) passes eastbound in the background with a passenger train; the “Pelican.”
This year will probably be my last “Steam and Steel” calendar.
Link took lotsa photographs, many at night, but all the good ones ran in last year’s calendar.
Some are nice this year, but none are extraordinary.
This one is moribund.
What’s notable is the turntable cut Link’s flash wiring.
He had to splice it all back together.
And Norfolk & Western may have been the last steam operated mainline railroad in America, but many of its engine classes looked awful.
The only ones that looked great were the Js (4-8-4), and some of these Mountains, which had the same streamlining as the Js.
Its A (2-6-6-4) was incredible, but not as good-looking.
Contrast that with Pennsy, where everything looked great except the early streamliners.
And they were Raymond Loewy, whose later T-1 (4-4-4-4) duplexes looked fabulous.