Monthly Calendar Report for July, 2010

Tuxedos. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

―Two years ago this summer I did my first Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee,” as in “wow”) train-chase.
It was the most mind-blowing experience this old railfan has ever had.
I’ve been a railfan since age-2. —I’m currently 66.
Faudi is the railfan extraordinaire from Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh”), PA, who supplies all-day train-chases for $125.
Faudi has his rail-scanner along, tuned to 160.8, the Norfolk Southern Railroad operating channel, and knows the whereabouts of every train, as the engineers call out the signals, and various lineside defect-detectors fire off.
He knows each train by symbol, and knows all the back-roads, and how long it takes to get to various photo locations — and also what makes a successful photo — lighting, drama, etc.
I let Phil do the monitoring. I have a scanner myself, but leave it behind.
Phil knows every train on the scanner, where it is, and how long it will take to beat it to a prime photo location.
Phil showed up at 9 a.m. at Tunnel Inn, in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin”) in his baby-blue front-wheel-drive Buick.
He now shows up at 8 a.m.
Tunnel Inn is the bed-and-breakfast we stay at in the Altoona area.
It used to be the old Gallitzin town offices and library.
It was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1905, and is brick and rather substantial.
It was converted to a bed-and-breakfast when Gallitzin built new town offices.
Its advantage for railfans like me — also its marketing ploy — is it's right beside Tracks Two and Three.
It’s right next to the old Pennsy tunnels through the summit of the Alleghenies.
Trains are blowing past all the time.
Three is westbound, and Two can be either way. —Track One is not visible; it’s on the other side of town, using New Portage Tunnel. Tunnel Inn also has a covered viewing deck behind its building, plus floodlights to illuminate trains approaching or leaving the tunnels in the dark.
“Quick-quick!” Phil said. “The Executive Business Train is coming up The Hill.
I don’t know which way it’s headed, but if it’s headed west, we can beat it to Lilly.”
Off we went to Lilly. (Faudi moves fast, but he’s not insane like my brother-in-Boston.)
The Executive Business Train is always parked headed west, so it’s always sent up The Hill.
If headed east it loops back down at Gallitzin.
Our hope was it was headed west.
We came to a stop on a highway overpass over the tracks in Lilly.
“You get out, and I’ll park down there,” Phil said.
Faudi walked back just as the Executive Business Train hove into view.
Pay dirt.
That’s the July image of my own calendar.
The Executive Business Train is an assemblage of classic passenger cars, plus restored EMD F-units, called the Tuxedos, because of their tuxedo-like paint scheme.
It’s used to take clients, and potential clients, on rail trips.
Rail accommodations in the classic manor.
The Tuxedos came from a vintage train operator, but were restored at Norfolk Southern’s massive Juniata (“june-eee-AH-duh,” as in “at”) Shops north of Altoona.
Internals were updated; modern technology in the ancient carbody of an F-unit.
I had to wait until an opening in eastbound train 36A; I was standing to the east to allow sunlight to illuminate everything.
No shadows.
The Executive Business Train was indeed headed west, and all four Tuxedos were on it (A-B-B-A).
An ultimate snag.


Willys.

―The July 2010 entry of my Oxman Hot-Rod Calendar is a hot-rodded 1940 Willys pickup truck.
Nice looking — its color is what makes it.
In the middle ‘60s Willys coupes became the darling of hot-rodders.
Mainly because they were lighter than the ’40 Ford coupe.
Plus, in my humble opinion, they looked better; spare and simple.
The Willys has a one-piece flat windshield. The Ford has a two-piece split windshield.
The Willys is three-window; the Ford five, busier.
Later Willys also had a more modern grill.
The Ford is still mired in the late ‘30s.
The ’40 Ford coupe is a great-looking car, but the Willys looks slightly better.

Photo by BobbaLew.

The S&S Willys coupe at Cecil County Drag-o-Way.

Drag-racers were attracted to the Willys’ lighter weight.
They’d wrench giant V8 motors in it, way more horsepower than they started with.
The rear axle would get swapped with one that could stand 89 bazilyun horsepower.
The front was a simple beam-axle, but would get swapped for one with lighter weight.
Ride-height would get raised to transfer weight onto the rear drag-slicks as it lunged forward.
The back end would have to be “tubbed” (as in “rubbed”) — stock wheel enclosures removed, and giant tubs installed.
No way could stock wheel-enclosures fit giant drag-slicks.
Hot-rodders also purchased the Willys pickup truck.

Photo by BobbaLew.

A Willys pickup at Cecil County Drag-o-Way.

Attractive, but not as much as the coupe.
I’ve always thought of the Willys coupe as the hot-rod I’d most want — with a Small-Block Chevy, preferably supercharged.
The calendar picture truck is massively tubbed.
Giant tubs have been built out into that pickup bed, to enclose the gigantic drag-slicks.
The cab and front-end is ’40 Willys, but the pickup bed is modified Chevrolet.
The engine is a 400 cubic-inch Ford V8, and the rear-axle is narrowed Oldsmobile.
Put your foot into it, and hang on for dear life.
But it looks like a trailer-queen.


Flying Fortress. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

―The July 2010 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a great photograph of a B-17 Flying Fortress.
I used to daydream of flying B-17s into the thick of battle over Nazi Germany, dodging anti-aircraft explosions (flak) and strafing Messerschmitts.
Nothing every happened of course; no injuries or fatalities, or my B-17 shot out of the sky in flames.
I was always blasting Messerschmitts, and bombing factories and rail yards into smithereens.
Until I saw one fly.
What a turkey — a sitting duck.
The B-17 was revolutionary in 1935, faster than most airplanes.
But by 1942 it was an old design; not much at evading more modern enemy pursuit fighters.
Nevertheless, the Army Air Corps had many, as did the Royal Air Force in Britain.
They were used for heavy bombing runs over Germany.
The B17 had a crew of nine or 10, and was called the “Flying Fortress” because it had so many defensive machine-guns, in the end 15.
A tail gunner, a top turret, a bottom turret, eventually a chin turret under the bombardier’s post, two additional machine-guns each side of the bombardier’s post, plus two single machine-guns out the sides to the rear.
It could present a massive amount of defensive firepower, but still it was a sitting duck.
The front machine-guns and chin-turret were a later offset to enemy fighters having so much success attacking face-on.

YB-17.

The 1941 Historical Aircraft Group in nearby Geneseo had one, “Fuddy-Duddy,” and I went through it years ago for $5.
Fuddy-Duddy is gone, but they have another.
I saw simple aluminum castings used as fuselage rings.
It was swiss cheese.
My impression was the airplane was far more fragile than I had thought.
The B-17 in the calendar picture has the extended rudder lead-in; earlier B-17s didn’t (above).

B-24.

Later heavy bombers were better; e.g. the B-24 Liberator.
Not until the B-29 Superfortress was the B-17 concept brought up to date.
The “Enola Gay,” the first airplane to drop the atomic bomb, was a B-29.

Two Pennsy I1 Decapod helpers (2-10-0) take a break. (Photo courtesy Bob’s Photo©.)

―The July 2010 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is helper-crews and the caboose crew taking a break on the Mt. Carmel line.
Pennsy used the Deks until the end of steam-locomotive operations on PRR, 1957.
The Dek is an old design, but well-suited for mountain drag service.
They were used on the Mt. Carmel branch in central PA to move heavy iron-ore and coal trains up to an interchange with Lehigh Valley Railroad in Mt. Carmel.
Two would be on the point, with two more shoving on the rear.
They were poorly suited to high-speed operation, but were suited for drag service.
They were immensely powerful, but -a) their drivers were too small, and -b) they didn’t have the boiler capacity to sustain high-speed operation.
When pressed, a Dek might get 50 mph, but it was hang on for dear life.
Their smaller drivers couldn’t accommodate the counterweighting to cut up-and-down vibration.
The train is stopped for whatever reason; perhaps waiting for a signal.
The two pushers have backed away from the train; it looks like they’re clearing a road-crossing.
They crews have got off, as has the caboose-crew, and assembled trackside to chew the fat.
The caboose probably isn’t behind the train; it’s out-of-sight, coupled behind the pushers.
A caboose couldn’t take all that shoving.
The pushers shoved the train directly, it’s caboose trailing.
Signal cleared, or whatever, the train reassembles and starts over.


A new day. (Photo by Bill Janssen.)

―The July 2010 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is one of the cars that replaced the famous old Pennsy Owl-Faces, the self-propelled MP-54 MU coaches (multiple-unit).
“Owl-Faces” because with their round port-hole end-windows, they looked like owls.
I had to get out my Pennsy Power II book by Alvin Staufer, copyright 1968.
I’m not sure the calendar is right. It says car #220 was made by St. Louis Car Company.
The Staufer book says Budd Company in Philadelphia, a “Silverliner” car.
That’s what I remember.
People hated the Owl-Faces.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Owl-Face non-passenger cars — very rare.

They were worn out and slow, and worst of all they lacked air-conditioning.
The Owl-Faces used A.C. motors, the current that came from the overhead wire.
Silverliners used D.C. motors and rectification. They could accelerate quickly.
Pennsy fell into the commuter business, particularly around Philadelphia.
Electrification was a means of transferring commuter business to self-powered trains — no longer trains pulled by individual steam-locomotives.
Pennsy electrified everything out of Philadelphia — electrification of New York City to Washington DC was an addendum. (Worth doing though.)
What mattered is electrification of the commuter business.
It permitted heavy train frequency. (Train frequency was high New York to Washington DC too.)
Powering of the standard MP-54 coach was Pennsy’s way of dealing with commuter service.
But eventually commuter service became an albatross. It cost too much money to operate.
The Silverliner cars were financed by government.
And eventually Pennsy’s commuter service was transferred to SEPTA, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, Philadelphia and environs.
The Silverliners served long and storied careers, but mostly under SEPTA.


SC/Rambler. (Photo by David Newhardt.)

―The July 2010 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a fairly decent picture of a really dumb car; a feeble attempt by American Motors to make a musclecar.
Were Link’s photograph (below) not worse, I would have given it the boobie-prize.
But it’s a fairly good photograph — although blurred by car-motion.
I get the feeling the photographer didn’t try very hard — it didn’t merit that.
Simple musclecar formula: soup up fairly large motor, lever into fairly light sedan, apply strident paint and graphics and large tires, fashion hood-scoop.
Some manufacturers were better at this; e.g. the Big Three; particularly GM, which could be more dedicated to musclecar requirements — like hood-scoops.
And Buick and Oldsmobile, who also tried to make musclecars handle.
American Motors wasn’t one of the Big Three.

Javelin.

The SC/Rambler reflects this. Its hood-scoop looks like it was made with a can-opener.
Yet musclecars were a phenom.
Even American Motors had to have one.
They also did the ponycar gambit, its Javelin (above).
But that was better.
It wasn’t a cheap modification of an existing platform.

AMX.

Stupider yet was the Javelin AMX (at left); sectioning the Javelin to make it a two-seater.
John Z. DeLorean proposed doing the same thing to the Camaro, and calling it the Corvette.
Thankfully, that never happened.



A worthwhile effort that failed. (Photo by O. Winston Link.)

―The July 2010 entry of my O. Winston Link "Steam and Steel" calendar gets my boobie-prize; a worthwhile effort that failed.
Link was trying hard.
Set up children fishing off footbridge over creek; include passing Norfolk & Western passenger train with steam-locomotive #128, a streamlined 4-8-2 Mountain.
It’s the same streamlining applied to the railroad’s later 4-8-4 J series, perhaps the greatest steam-locomotive ever built.
We’re in the Shenandoah valley, near Lithia, VA.
Sorry Mr. Link; it doesn’t work.
Too confusing!
And he managed to snag the locomotive with the rods down; the preferred picture of a steam-engine.
Um, there are people at the other end of the bridge looking at the locomotive; a mother showing her son.