Monthly Calendar Report for April, 2010

South Fork! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—The April 2010 entry of my own calendar is moribund, except South Fork is one of the most scenic locations on the old Pennsy.
The railroad has fallen hard by the Conemaugh River (“CONE-uh-maw”) after coming off the Alleghenies — the summit.
At South Fork the railroad turns northwest, following the river course down to Pittsburgh. It eventually turns west, zigging and zagging to follow the river.
Following a river course was less challenging than tunneling a slew of mountain ridges. Railroads were mid 19th century grading and location. They didn't have modern earth-moving equipment.
South Fork is also where a branch went east toward a coal-loader (or mine).
That branch goes off to the left, and that parallel track visible is part of a wye.
The loaded coal hoppers get parked on that track before getting dragged onto the mainline.
So here comes a heavy unit grain train, upgrade on Track One. Track One is eastbound, and the train is grinding toward the summit.
It's a very scenic location, with that broad sweeping curve and that mountain ridge in the background.
The only thing wrong with this picture is that ex-Conrail SD40-2 helper on the point, still in Conrail paint. —I'd prefer Norfolk Southern.
The SD40-2 helper-sets are finally being retired. #3338 may have been scrapped. —The SD40-2 helper-sets have been in use a long time.
Replacements are downrated SD-50s, SD-40Es.
It's a very scenic shot, but difficult because -a) it's taken from a concrete retaining wall, visible in the bottom left corner, and -b) that row of wooden posts always impinges.
There is a highway overpass up the railroad, but it's too far from the curve.
I always drive down to South Fork during visits to the Mighty Curve. —In hopes of snagging a satisfying picture.
But it's always working against me, scenic as it is......
Horseshoe Curve is on the east slope of the Alleghenies, South Fork on the west slope, and west of the Curve.
It's about 20-25 miles from the Curve.
Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”), west of Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh”), PA, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is 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.
The town of South Fork is a disaster, dying, with little more than the railroad and that coal-loader to justify it.
Streets are cramped, and many are one lane — more like alleys.
That concrete retaining wall was once part of a highway overpass over the railroad, long ago removed.
But very scenic. You can hear trains hammering upgrade toward you on Track One, and there's an interlocking around the curve.
—Also signals, which get called out by the train engineers.
I guess there used to be a signal tower there, but that's gone.
Coal trains off the branch get put on the mainline by a dispatcher far away in Pittsburgh.


Mustang. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The April 2010 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is “arguably the greatest fighter airplane of all time.”
So says some site about the P-51 Mustang.
Well, maybe so, but what about the F-104 Starfighter, and even more recent fighter-jets?
I think if a fighter-jockey had a choice, he'd take a recent fighter-jet.
Speed always trumps maneuverability, which was partly why the P-51 Mustang succeeded. It was faster than most fighter planes.
Despite it not being a jet, a P-51 is worth seeing.
Part of it is its piston engine.
As my friend Matt Ried said: “There's nothing like a big honkin' piston engine.”
Most of all was its sound.
I saw one do aerobatics at the Geneseo Air Show; full-on power-dives at 500+ mph.
And hammerhead stalls.
It's something I'll never forget; it's still in my head.
And the sound was gorgeous.
There's nothing like a Packard-Merlin V12 at full song.
Unmuffled of course.
Every American, BY LAW, should be required to see a P-51 fly.
And above all, hear it.
I can't get the P-51 overfly wav-file.
I guess it's defunct.
The average viewer might be bored. But not this kid.

Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 #4809 rolls north through Monmouth Junction. NJ, with train MD-12 out of Potomac Yard near Washington toward Meadows Yard across from New York City. (Photo by Gene Collora©.)

—The April 2010 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is nothing special, except the GG1 electric locomotive (“Gee-Gee-One”) is the greatest railroad locomotive of all time.
That's my opinion, of course. But I saw many as a teenager growing up in northern Delaware on the Pennsylvania Railroad's fabulous New York City to Washington DC electrified line, now Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.
And every time I saw one, it was doing 80-100 mph!

STAND BACK! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

About 1960 I peddled my ancient balloon-tire RollFast bicycle up to Claymont (“KLAY-mahnt”) station in northern Delaware, my father's 1930s Kodak HawkEye camera in tow.
Claymont station wasn't much. Just a commuter-stop toward Philadelphia on Pennsy's fabulous New York-to-Washington electrified line.
The railroad was four tracks through Claymont; and express passenger trains didn't stop there.
To the south, the express passenger trains ran on the inside tracks. I expected the same at Claymont.
I set up trackside about 10 feet from the outside track, arm hooked around a cast-iron light-standard. —You can see another in the picture.
I could hear a train coming.
WHOA! It's on the outside track!
Boomed past at about 90.
The fastest that HawkEye had was 1/125th of a second, but it stopped it.
WHOOSH! Had I not hooked my arm around that light-standard, I wouldn't be here.
I woulda been sucked into the train.
That experience is still etched on my brain 50 years later.
There's nothing like a GG1.

AEM7.

After my stroke, my brother in northern Delaware took me back to Claymont.
By then the line was Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, the GG1s gone, replaced by the AEM-7.
It was my return to reality. Giant lightning-bolts of electricity arcing between the pantograph (“PANT-uh-GRAFF,” atop the locomotive) and the bouncing catenary (“KAT-in-NAIR-eee,” the trolley-wire).
Just like the GG1s.
#4809 is one of the GG1s regeared down for freight service.
It couldn't boom-and-zoom like the passenger GG1s; 90 mph instead of 110.
Which is why this engine is moving freight.
Probably at a good clip, though; 40-60 mph.
A GG1 could put down an incredible amount of power.



—The April 2010 entry of my Oxman Hot-Rod Calendar is a Model-A Ford hot-rod with a track nose.
In fact, that nose is the only thing wrong with it, although the car's color is questionable too.
Hot-rodders were always doing that; grafting the nose of a racetrack car onto their hot-rod.
Looks okay, but not as successful as the'32 Ford radiator grille.
Which is gorgeous.
But the car is pretty righteous.
It has a '42 Mercury flat-head V8 motor. Hot-rodders usually gave up on them after the Small-Block Chevy debuted for the 1955 model-year.
It got 142 mph at Bonneville, which is extraordinary for Flat-head.
The car is light, and fairly aerodynamic. —It has a full belly-pan.
It was constructed in 1949, and won the “America's Most Beautiful Roadster” trophy at the 1950 Oakland Roadster Show. —The first to ever win that trophy.
It raised the standard for hot-rodding, since it was so much better than earlier hot-rods, which were rudimentary.
Best part is that it's drivable. Set a speed-record, then drive it home.


Norfolk & Western Train 201 leaves Green Cove, VA to begin the climb to White Top. (Photo by O. Winston Link.)

—The April 2010 entry of my O. Winston Link "Steam and Steel" calendar is another Link mood shot.
Link had taken a picture of the train at the rural Green Cove station, then swung his tripod around as the train departed.
Of interest to me is that '56 Ford two-door sedan in the foreground.
Look at the tires on that sucker; mere water-balloons.
I guess it's not Link's car, which was a '52 Buick convertible. The license-plate says Tennessee.
And the license-plate has the trapezoidal shape of the state, available back then.
The Pennsylvania plate was the same thing; shaped like the state.
The Pennsy plate now is no longer the shape of the state; and I bet Tennessee's isn't either.
And tires are much better than the rim-protectors available back then. So good the owners often put more recent tires on their restorations.
The train is apparently a “mixed;” both freight and passenger.
Rural railroad service had denigrated to that; add passenger-cars to a freight-train.
The train is into a three percent grade; torturous.
That's three feet up for 100 feet forward.
But the train is short enough it can do it.
Three percent is about the limit. Four percent is almost impossible.
To climb four percent a train might have to be broken into three or more sections.
Even three percent calls for sectioning a train.
And beyond three percent is begging for wheel-slip.
A diesel-electric locomotive might do it. It's delivering constant drive-torque to the railheads.
A side-rod steam locomotive isn't.
It's delivering intermittent torque pulses to the drivers. With a piston-thrust the drivers might break adhesion.
Go steep enough, and you're begging for this.
Which is why railroads try to not exceed one percent.
Exceeding one percent usually needed helpers; especially during the age of side-rod steam locomotives.
Even diesels often need help to get a heavy train upgrade.
Exceed four percent and ya start needing cogged railways; whatcha see in the Alps.
Logging railroads often exceeded four percent.
But they used Shay steam locomotives, which deliver more constant drive-torque.
They aren't side-rod steam locomotives.
They work a driveshaft.
Western Maryland had a steep branch in West Virginia; six percent.
They had to use Shays.

Photo by Michael Summers©.

Big Six.

Only one is left; Western Maryland's “Big Six.”
It's operated by Cass Scenic Railroad in WV (“Kass”).
I've ridden behind it (actually ahead; it was pushing).
It's almost too big for Cass — some curves are too tight for it. Although the rail is no longer the light stuff used by logging railroads.
Big Six is not a log engine.


1970 Buick Stage One GS convertible. (Photo by David Newhardt.)

—The April 2010 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is what my brother-in-Boston claims is the best musclecar ever, a Buick Grand-Sport (GS).
Well, I guess so, but to me it lacks balance.
What it is is overkill in the motor, but the suspension is not similar overkill.
The engine is 455 cubic-inches of displacement, and the torque is 510 foot-pounds.
Both are HUGE.
Crank that much torque into a standard suspended tractor layout, and the rear axle gets twisted out of line.
The engineers knew this, and did a pretty good job of controlling it.
In fact, the Grand-Sport Buicks were some of the best-handing musclecars, although the 4-4-2 Oldsmobiles were similar.
But still, that's humongous engine-weight on the front end, and rudimentary suspension in the rear.
Stick your foot into it on a curvy road, and ya end up in the weeds.
Bend it into a corner, and it plows straight ahead.
G-T-O Pontiacs were notorious for this.
Great fun in a straight line, but a handful in normal driving.
For that ya need a Ferrari, or a Boss-302 Mustang.
Still, the musclecar concept was popular.
Mind-bending horsepower for not too much money.
Keep the cost down by using the same basic underpinnings as a standard automobile.....
Yet hook up a gigantic high-performance motor.
My brother-in-Boston has a 1971 454 SS Chevelle.
I drove it once; scary.

(Photo by George Krambles.)

—The April 2010 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is the observation-car at the tail-end of the Pennsylvania Railroad's “Broadway Limited.”
The “Broadway” was Pennsy's premier passenger-train; Chicago to New York City.
Not named after the city's “Broadway,” but the fact the Pennsy was mostly a four-track right-of-way, a “broad way.”
The Broadway was all Pullman — first class — no coaches.
It also was fast, trying to better the New York Central Railroad's “20th Century Limited.”
But both railroads were running against impediments; the Century navigating an extreme dogleg via Albany, and the Broadway conquering mountains, and a dogleg north from Philadelphia.

Pennsy “left” is winning.

Both would leave Chicago about the same time on parallel rights-of-way, which led to side-by-side races.
Usually the Century won. It was using J-3 Hudsons (4-6-4), more modern and powerful than Pennsy's K4 Pacific (4-6-2).
But often the Broadway had double-headed K4s, so the Broadway could trump the Century.
Pennsy never really developed a more modern steam-locomotive during the late '20s and early '30s. They were involved in electrification.
Instead, they double-headed the K4s to cover increasing train-weights.
That's two engine-crews per train, an added expense Pennsy could afford.
Double-headed steam-locomotives can't be operated by only one crew, as can diesels.
The Broadway lasted until Amtrak, even into Amtrak; Train 40. Diesel to Philadelphia, and then up the Northeast Corridor to New York City in reverse behind an electric locomotive.
But eventually the Broadway was cut. There's no longer any Amtrak service across PA not subsidized by the state.
The only Amtrak cross-PA train that remains is the “Pennsylvanian,” from New York to Pittsburgh, and that's subsidized by the state.


The “Pennsylvanian” booms west on Track Three through Summerhill, PA, west of Allegheny summit. (Photo by BobbaLew)