Monthly Calendar Report for August, 2010

Doublestack up The Hill at Brickyard on Track Three. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

―Last summer about this time we roared up to famous Brickyard Crossing in Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh”), PA, with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee,” as in “wow”).
Phil is the railfan extraordinaire who supplies all-day train-chases for $125.
Phil 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.
Trains were coming on Phil’s scanner.
“Brickyard” is the grade-crossing across the old Pennsy main in Coburn, the western outskirts of Altoona.
Actually the grade-crossing is Porta Road, but there was a brickyard adjacent, so the crossing was called “Brickyard” by railfans.
That brickyard is now defunct, but still pretty much there.
“Quick-quick!” Phil said. “I just heard one at Slope on Track Three. We’ll see it shortly.”
“Slope” is the interlocking just east of Brickyard. Track Three is uphill toward the Curve. The train-engineers call out the signals as they pass them. A signal-bridge is at Slope.
We clambered up a narrow embankment next to the tracks.
This was before I began balance-training at the Canandaigua YMCA, so I had to concentrate to avoid falling.
Train passed, “I hear another, downhill on Track Two.”
We clambered back down the embankment, me concentrating heavily.
It’s gravel, but the path is only about two feet wide. —I had to watch every footfall.
Train passing, “I hear another on Track Three.”
Back up the embankment.
We were gonna get what Phil calls a “double,” two trains at once.
The one on Three passing the one on Two.
That’s the August picture in my own calendar, the one on Three passing the one on Two.
Both trains are doublestacks, both hauling doublestacked 53-foot J.B. Hunt containers.
If it’s a J.B. Hunt container, it’s probably product for Wal*Mart.
“Doublestack” is two trailer containers stacked two high without wheels in so-called “wellcars.” —It’s much more efficient than single containers (or trailers) on flatcars, since it’s two containers per car. It’s often the same containers shipped overseas; where they may be stacked three or four high, or even higher if a support deck is under a stack. But “doublestacks” require very high clearance on the railroad; over 20 feet. Bridges had to be raised, and tunnels made larger.
Overseas containers are 40-foot. Domestic containers go clear up to 53 feet.
Those containers can be made into road trailers.
The trains were probably not all J.B. Hunt.
The main thing is 200 or more containers are on a single train, not tying up the highways.
Railroading them requires much less fuel than trucking.


Not a Ford.

―Surprise, surprise; it’s not a Ford.
The August 2010 entry of my Oxman Hot-Rod Calendar is a 1934 Chevrolet three-window coupe.
I had to Goggle-Image a stock 1934 Chevrolet to see what had been done.
Usually hot-rodders picked Fords.
It was the influence of Old Henry’s only son, Edsel Ford.
Despite not having a styling department like General Motors, Ford produced some of the best-looking cars ever, particularly the Model A, the ’32, the ’34, and the 1939 coupe.
GM, on the other hand, despite its vaunted Art and Color Division under Harley Earl, produced turkeys; bloated beetle-bombs always trying to look big.

1934 Chevrolet roadster.

A Chevrolet styled like a Buick or Cadillac looked silly.
The Fords were smallish cars, accepted such, and therefore looked far more successful.
It helped too so many were around as used cars.
But there were many used Chevrolets around too.
The Fords just looked better.
Ford also had a V8, the famous Flat-Head.
Old Henry wasn’t about to do a six.
So he debuted a V8 in the 1932 model-year.
The Ford V8 was a sensation.
Hot-rodders loved it.
An entire industry grew up around souping it up.
Old Henry was so anti-six, he reduced the size of his V8, the tiny V8-60.
But it bombed.
Ford finally had to introduce a six in the 1941 model-year.
And the Chevrolet six was almost equivalent to Ford’s V8.
It was overhead-valve; the Ford Flat-Head wasn’t.
The car pictured is heavily modified.
The top is chopped, more so in the front than in the rear.
This gives the car a rakish look, but you could only go so far doing this.
Parts of the top-posts are hacksawed out, and then everything welded back together.
To make this easy, you hacksawed equal amounts out of front and back.
Different amounts front and back makes welding it all back together, looking right, a challenge.
But they were successful at it.
It looks like the body was sectioned, plus it was channeled, all to sit lower on the frame.
Channeling is to install channels in the body-bottom where it meets the frame, so the body can sit lower.
Sectioning is to cut horizontal sections out of the body-sides.
Running-boards were also removed, as well as fenders.
It looks like the engine compartment was also lengthened, which meant a longer hood.
The motor is insane. A hot-rodded 468 cubic-inch Chevrolet V8; that sounds like a Big Block.
I bet that motor is at least 200 pounds heavier than what was in there in the first place, maybe even 300.
The car is a dragster set up for the street. It has air-conditioning, stereo, and power windows.
I bet it’s an uncomfortable monster to drive.
Cramped into that tiny driving compartment with way too much motor.
But it looks like a trailer-queen.
Best of all was removing that silly medallion from the radiator grill.
The ’34 Ford didn’t have that, and looked much better that it didn’t.
It’s what makes the car as successful as a ’34 Ford.

Everything from now on is rather moribund, equally so.


Waving through. (Photo by O. Winston Link.)

―The August 2010 entry of my O. Winston Link "Steam and Steel" calendar is Agent J.L. Akers waving #17 through the station at Rural Retreat, VA.
Apparently this was uncustomary. Apparently Rural Retreat was a station-stop for years.
From 1857 to 1947 the Baumgardners represented the railroad here.
Rural Retreat is fairly rural, although the soft-drink “Dr. Pepper” was concocted here.
The train is being pulled by a J, 4-8-4, perhaps the greatest steam-locomotive ever built.
I think it’s #603.
Although it has smallish drivers; only 70-inch.
A concession to Norfolk & Western’s mountainous profile.
But it had roller-bearings everywhere, including where the side-rods met the drive-pins on the drive-wheels.
It had so little rolling resistance it could be pulled by humans.
Heavy, but free as the wind.
It’s streamlined, but not much. You couldn’t hide its muscular proportions.
Only one J still exists, #611.
It’s retired at Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, VA.
It used to pull railfan steam-locomotive excursions, but they retired it.
It was just as well.
A derailment occurred behind the locomotive.
Railroad track was no longer configured for steam locomotives.
It wasn’t the locomotive that derailed. Just cars behind it.
After that derailment 611 was limited to 45 mph. It was capable of 100+.
I rode behind it before the derailment. 80 mph cruising!
The J was a monster.
Incredible steam capacity and a HUGE firebox (107 square feet of fire-grate).
But it was nothing compared to diesel locomotives, plus it had to be tended to, and required lineside appurtenances — mainly water-towers.
A diesel didn’t need all that, plus it was better suited to low-speed drag service.
Diesel locomotives generated incredible torque at low speeds; steam locomotives had to get rolling to high speeds. They didn’t perform that well at low speeds.
So even Norfolk & Western, dedicated as it was to the coal-fired steam-locomotive (it served the Pocahontas coal-region), had to convert to diesel.


Firebird. (Photo by David Newhardt.)

―The August 2010 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1969 Pontiac Firebird TransAm.
Looking at this car, I have to remember it’s based on the Chevrolet Camaro.
It looks HUGE. The Camaro is a fairly large car, but not that large.

1971 Z28 Camaro.

One of the most successful styling efforts ever, the 1971 Camaro (at left), suffered only that it was too large.
Pony cars (e.g. the Mustang/Cougar, Camaro/Firebird, Barracuda/Challenger, and AMC Javelin) are also somewhat unsophisticated.
The rear axle was solid, with the heavy differential integral. The tractor layout — goes back to the Model T. (It wasn’t independent rear-suspension, the preferred way to make a car handle.)
Nevertheless, the Good Old Boys of NASCAR, saddled with the tractor layout, made it go pretty good.
Sturdily located, the solid rear axle could handle pretty well.
Not surprisingly, a NASCAR veteran, Bud Moore of Spartanburg, SC, made the Mustang a winning racecar.

1979 TransAm.

The Firebird was a great car, as good as the Camaro.
But in this case poorly styled.
They were trying too hard the align with the G-T-O.
Who needs four headlights on a ponycar?
And that tiny grille, laden with chrome, required by those headlights?
Later TransAms looked much better, e.g. the 1979 pictured above.


P5as (4-6-4). (Photo by Jim Buckley.)

―The August 2010 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a set of P5a engines trundling a freight-train on the Columbia Branch.
The Columbia Branch goes back to the original Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad, part of the Public Works System.
Columbia, south of Harrisburg on the Susquehanna River, was where the Pennsylvania Canal started, also part of the Public Works System.
The Philadelphia & Columbia started a year after the canal, 1834.
Pennsy got the Public Works System, but didn’t abandon the line to Columbia, even though it built its own line east of Lancaster directly to Harrisburg.
The old line to Columbia became the Columbia Branch, and could be used instead of the mainline, particularly to shunt freight west to Enola (“aye-NOLE-uh;” as in “hey”) Yard, west of Harrisburg, and across the river.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Box-cabs at the sanding facility in the Pennsy Shops in Wilmington DE.

Railfans often confuse the P5a and P5b with the box-cabs and steeple cabs. (I did myself.)
The set is a box-cab followed by a steeple cab.
Actually both the box-cabs and steeple cabs are P5a.
It’s the same running-gear in both car-bodies.
Crews preferred the steeple cab since they offered better protection in road-crossing accidents. —The steeple cab was developed because of a grade-crossing accident in a box-cab that killed the crew. (The GG1 [“Gee-Gee-One”] is a steeple cab.)
The crews preferred steeple cab leading, but in this case the locomotives were never turned.
The calendar misidentifies the steeple cab as a P5b.
The P5b was a modification of a P5a with -1) more weight on the drivers, and -2) more powerful traction motors.
The P5b also had more cooling vents.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Steeple cab at the sanding facility in the Wilmington Shops.

Originally geared for 90 mph max, they were designed for passenger service.
The GG1 came on line about the end of P5a production.
The GG1 was a much better engine for passenger service. They were much more powerful, and tracked better.
The P5a fleet was downgraded to freight service. It was geared down to 60 mph max.
A few GG1s were also regeared for freight service — but became the locomotive of choice for passenger service.
The P5a was the preferred freight locomotive; until the E44 came along.
The P5 was an enlargement of the O1 (4-4-4). Only eight O1s were built, two each of various classes.

Photo by BobbaLew.

O1c #7857 at the Wilmington Shops roundhouse. (7857 was the last O1 built.)

The O1s were supposed to replace the E6 Atlantic (4-4-2) steam locomotives as the New York-to-Washington line was electrified.
The O1s didn’t succeed; not powerful enough at sustained speed.
They couldn’t haul much.
The first two P5 experimentals are the O1 extended to permit a third drive-axle.
The P5 was successful, just not the GG1.
The Columbia Branch was electrified, as were many Pennsy mainlines east of Harrisburg.

Louise Overhiser hands up orders to a passing Decapod (2-10-0) at Watkins Glen, returning coal-hoppers from Sodus Point. (Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.)

―I suppose the August 2010 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is their attempt at political correctness.
Deference to the women-folk; except women gravitated into railroad operations during WWII, when men were abroad fighting.
The guys waiting on the platform are the crew of the Elmira Branch local, waiting for the empty hoppers to clear before continuing north.
Louise, the block-operator at Watkins Glen, NY, was a tenured employee of Pennsy, clear back to WWII. The picture is 1956.
Hooping up orders to a passing train was frightening.
You had to get as close as you possibly could.
A Dek bearing down on you was intimidating.
If you missed, the train had to stop and back up.
In which case you got catcalls from the locomotive crew questioning your manliness.
Plus you also got called on the carpet by management for tying up the railroad.
Dispatching became easier as time passed, particularly with radio.
But the Elmira Branch was still written train-orders in 1956.
The Elmira Branch was abandoned some time ago.
Portions are still operated by Finger Lakes Railway, primarily where Pennsy juctioned with the old New York Central line to Corning at Himrod, NY. (The NYC Corning line is now Norfolk Southern, with Finger Lakes trackage rights.)
Finger Lakes operates to Watkins Glen and Penn Yan on the old Pennsy.
Newark to near Sodus is still extant, operated by Ontario Midland.
But the line to Sodus Point was abandoned, and the massive Pennsy coal-wharf there taken down.
From Newark to Penn Yan was also abandoned, an extension of the old Northern Central, which Pennsy acquired in 1861.
But I don’t know if the line to Sodus Point was Northern Central.
The terminus may have been Canandaigua — Baltimore to Canandaigua.
The original Northern Central could deliver coal to Canandaigua, for interchange with the Canandaigua & Niagara Falls Railroad — later the infamous “Peanut.”

Photo by Jack Haley, MessengerPost Newspapers.

Just recently an old railroad overpass was dislodged by a large truck carrying farm-equipment in Flint, NY.
Everyone kept calling it a footbridge, because the old railroad right-of-way had been converted to a walking trail.
It’s the right-of-way of the old Pennsy line to Sodus Point.
That bridge was designed to support Decapod locomotives, 386,000 pounds per engine.
Often the Deks were multipled.


Biplane. (Ugh!) (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

―The August 2010 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Gloster “Gladiator,” a biplane (“BYE-plain”).
I put that pronunciation there because for years I mispronounced it as “BIP-lain.”
I’ve never liked biplanes.
They lack the grace of the WWII monoplanes (single-wing), like the Mustang, the Spitfire, or even the P40 KittyHawk.
One wonders about the Gloster Gladiator, how far it goes back.
It’s a biplane, and its landing-gear isn’t retractable.
I tried my WWII Warbirds site, but it’s not on that.
It’s an antique, but it’s on Wikipedia .
Apparently it was the last British biplane fighter, introduced in 1934.
Which was unfortunate, because better monoplane fighters were being introduced, e.g. the Hawker Hurricane, the Spitfire, and the also the German Messerschmitt Bf 109.
It had four machine-guns, two in the wings, and two more in the fuselage.
Many were still around when the war started, so they were drafted into the war effort.
In Britain they were replaced by the Hawker Hurricane, but they would see service in more peripheral campaigns during the early years of the war.
It also was the most successful British airplane export. 747 airframes were built, with 216 exported, some allotted to the RAF. They were sold to Belgium, China, Egypt, Finland, Free France, Greece, Iraq, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, South Africa and Sweden.
Two squadrons were used in the French and Norwegian campaigns.
But they were doomed. —Out of date when introduced.
A Gloster Gladiator would do 250 mph, which is extraordinary for a biplane.
But monoplane fighters with retractable landing-gear were coming, and would do over 300 mph.
The Mustang would do over 400.
One wonders if the Mustang was as maneuverable as a biplane could be, but given the choice the fighter-jockey always wants speed.