Monthly Calendar Report for February, 2011

Trash-Train west on Track Three at Summerhill. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

―The February 2011 entry of my own calendar is one of my better snow-shots, the one my wife always says is best.
It’s the Trash-Train coming down The Hill through Summerhill, PA on Track Three of Norfolk Southern’s Pittsburgh line, the old Pennsy four-track main.
One track was removed years ago by previous owner Conrail.
We had driven to Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”), PA, last February intending to do a train-chase with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”).
I have written up Phil so many times I’m gonna abstain this time. —If you need clarification, click this link. Read the first section of the January calendar-report.
Getting to Altoona, the location of Norfolk Southern’s Allegheny Crossing, was easy. It had snowed, but only lightly. The roads were clear and dry.
Where the snow was heavy was west of Altoona, up in the Allegheny mountains.
We found Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin”), the top of the The Hill, and the location of Tunnel Inn, the bed-&-breakfast we stay at in the area, under 3-4 feet of snow.
The owner of the Inn was trying to blow out his tiny parking-lot with a snowblower.
We were ramming around with Faudi.
About the only place from which we could photograph were highways next to the tracks; e.g. grade-crossings.
Every place else was snowed in.
I didn’t want Phil to get stuck, even though we had brought along our giant coal-shovel.
We were on Route 53 near Summerhill, and the Trash-Train was coming down The Hill.
We drove into Summerhill and up on the overpass over the railroad.
You can see a small truck on the bridge-lead to the right.
It started snowing heavily, a squall-burst.
Everything socked in, but I ain’t missin’ this!
I keep my camera inside my coat until the last second.
The train burst into view; camera-on — got it!
As you can see, the lights on the signal-bridge are on — I think they always are — the signals for eastbounds are up high to be visible over the highway bridge.
The Trash-Train is a train of purple trash-containers, each about the equivalent of a highway container, but only about 20 feet long (instead of 40 or more).
Four containers fit on a standard trailer-flat.
The Trash-Train (65J, actually construction-debris) runs daily. It’s easy to recognize; those purple containers.
I’ve seen it hundreds of times, often on the Horseshoe Curve webcam, now defunct.
This train was probably running half a day late, or worse.
It’s scheduled for 11:30 P.M.
Snow had slowed railroad operation.
All the times I’ve seen the Trash-Train were in daylight, probably way late.
The Trash-Train is not priority.
I have another photo of it with not much power.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Another Trash-Train (that’s a GP38 on the point; one of only two units on the train).

1939 Ford coupe.

―The February 2011 entry of my Oxman Hot-Rod Calendar is a hot-rodded 1939 Ford coupe, five-windows (minus the windshield).
The ’39 and ’40 Ford coupes are the most successful Fords ever styled, and that was without a styling-department like General Motors.
In fact, the ’39 and ’40 Ford coupes are one of the prettiest automotive styling jobs ever marketed.
Compare Chevrolet’s ’39 coupe, which looks douty.
The difference between a ’39 and ’40 Ford coupe is the grille. They used identical bodies, but the ’40 Deluxe had a different grille. The ’40 Standard (cheaper) used the ’39 Deluxe grille, which looks better.
But the ’39 and ’40 Ford coupes are not pretty enough for me to buy.

This is an actual Willys. Stone-Woods-Cook did a later dragster with a much lighter fiberglass reproduction body of the same car. This first Stone-Woods-Cook Willys had a hot-rodded Oldsmobile engine.

That would be the Willys coupe (pictured at left), of about the same vintage.
The Willys coupe is a tiny bit smaller, therefore lighter, and is three-window instead of five, plus it’s a one-piece windshield.
Basic as it is, the Willys is not as pretty as this Ford.
Just more attractive as a hotrod.
It’s the fenestration — the windows.
The Ford is a two-piece split windshield, and five windows instead three (actually the Ford is six; since the rear-window is two pieces — the Willys is actually four; it’s also a two-piece rear-window.)
I.e. There’s that tiny side-window behind the door-post. The Willys, a three-window, didn’t have that. (Anything with that tiny side-window is called a “five-window,” no matter the actual number of windows.)
It’s also the grille, which on the Willys is more modern.
But the grille on the ’39 and ’40 Ford coupes looks more right.
The stock ’39 and ’40 Ford coupes were attractive to hot-rodders. They were available with Ford’s famous Flat-Head V8 engine.
With a Willys, you’d have to swap in a V8 motor. They were only available as a four.
Most Willy’s hotrods I’ve seen have the Chevrolet Small-Block V8.
Willys hot-rods are rather recent.
People often wrench the Chevy Small-Block into the ’39 and ’40 Ford coupes.
The car pictured has a Chevy Small-Block, and I saw one years ago in south Jersey painted pearlescent green.
Never in a million years would Old Henry paint anything that color.
Most ’39 and ’40 Ford coupes I’ve seen were black, or dark blue or brown.
I remember, behind a house, a gorgeous black ‘40 Ford coupe where I grew up as a teenager.
It was up on blocks, devoid of wheels and the complete front clip.
Reports were the owner was saving it for an Oldsmobile V8 motor.

My calendars are rather moribund from here on; interesting, but not extraordinary.



Engine-change at South Amboy. (Photo by Jerry Landau.)

—Is there ever an All-Pennsy calendar without a GG1 (“Jee-Jee-ONE;” I only say that because a friend was mispronouncing it “Jee-Jee-Eye”)?
The February 2011 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is this engine-change at South Amboy in north Jersey, where a non-electrified engine, in this case a Pennsy Baldwin “Shark,” is swapped for an electric locomotive, a GG1.
For years, the Pennsylvania Railroad ran commuter-service into New York City jointly with Central of New Jersey (railroad).
Pennsy got trackage-rights over the CNJ line after threatening to build a competing railroad of their own.
Bullies.
The line into north Jersey was one of CNJ’s most successful, and by connecting to and operating from it, Pennsy could provide commuter-service from north Jersey into New York City.
Pennsy was electrified from South Amboy to its New York-to-Washington main, a short distance.
From South Amboy east the railroad was not electrified, necessitating this engine-change.
CNJ provided locomotives through 1957.
Electrification has since been extended east of South Amboy, but the line is still not fully electrified.
New Jersey Transit now operates the line with its own locomotives.
For years the line was the final stomping-ground for mainline Pennsy passenger power.
First K4 Pacific (4-6-2) steam locomotives, then early diesels from Baldwin, Alco, and eventually General Motors’ Electromotive Division (EMD).
The electrified portion was the final stomping-ground for the legendary Pennsy GG1 electrics, which by then were ancient and worn out.

Photo by Charles Anderson©.

Big Red.

One (illustrated at left), #4877, affectionally called “Big Red,” was restored to the Pennsylvania Railroad’s tuscan-red (“tuss-kin;” not “Tucson, AZ”) paint-scheme with gold cat-whisker pin-stripes.
But it broke down on its final run.
By then, the Gs were Jersey Transit.
The GG1 was the most successful locomotive Pennsy ever had.
In fact, I always say they were the greatest railroad locomotive ever produced.

Acme Photo.

January’s picture.

It’s no wonder every All-Pennsy calendar has at least one GG1. Last month my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar was a GG1, as illustrated at left.
I was lucky enough to grow up in northern Delaware as a teenager, late ‘50s and early ‘60s.
The GG1s reigned supreme at that time on Pennsy’s New York-to-Washington DC line; now Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
Every time I saw one it was doing 80-100 mph!
They could put 9,000 horsepower to the railhead.
One GG1 could pull what required three or four diesel locomotives.
I rode behind a G in 1959, Philadelphia to Wilmington, DE; 17 cars.
Within minutes we were doing 80 mph!
The Baldwin Sharks were gorgeous, but turkeys.
They were unreliable, and a single Shark wouldn’t pull a standard north Jersey commuter-train.
So here we are, a Shark being changed out for a GG1.
The Shark appears to be single, which means it probably struggled to bring the train in.
The GG1 takes over the train, and whisks it to New York City.
“Would that we could have an engine like that into South Amboy,” the passengers probably said.
A locomotive-engineer brought a Pennsy GG1 passenger-train into Harrisburg, PA, from Philadelphia long ago.
Harrisburg was where Pennsy’s electrification ended, where the GG1 would be swapped for four EMD E-units.
“I don’t know what they got those things for, with an engine like this,” the GG1 engineer commented.
But of course the line wasn’t electrified west of Harrisburg, although Pennsy considered it.



(Photo by Jim Haag.)

―The February 2011 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern freight on the Lurgan branch in PA.
I had to look it up; and had little success.
I found a “Lurgan Station” near Shippensburg, and Lurgan far northwest of that.
No railroad near Lurgan, but two railroads near Lurgan Station, one abandoned.
The so-called Lurgan branch may be the old Pennsy line from Harrisburg to Hagerstown, MD; once a busy connector from the south.
The abandoned railroad was an old Western Maryland line to a Reading (“REDD-ing;” not “READ-ing”) connection to Harrisburg at Shippensburg. Reading thereafter had its own lines to Philadelphia, and New York City via a connection to Central of New Jersey (CNJ).
Everything was part of the so-called Alphabet-Route, competition from Chicago and St. Louis to Pennsy and New York Central.
The route was an “alphabet” of different railroads, including Nickel Plate, Western Maryland, Reading, and others.
Reading accessed Philadelphia, and also New York City via CNJ as mentioned earlier. Other railroads were used to access Boston, namely Lehigh & Hudson River, and New Haven. New Haven had a giant viaduct over the Hudson at Poughkeepsie, that burned but still stands. (It’s inoperable.)
Quite a bit of the Alphabet-Route was abandoned. Some was lost due to merger; e.g. Western Maryland into what eventually became CSX, and Nickel Plate into Norfolk & Western, what eventually became Norfolk Southern, after N&W merged with Southern Railway.
There are two things I notice about this photograph:
—1) Is the fact the original was rather bluish, as is usually the case with photographs in the snow.
Bluish in the tree shadows.
The light-color reflects the blue sky in the snow — this is especially true if its cloudy.
Your brain corrects the light-color you see, but a camera doesn’t; although digital color-correction can be done — it used to be done with filters.
I also can color-correct with Photoshop, which I tried here.
Reducing bluishness made the photo too greenish, so I tried reducing green too.
That took it back to bluish, although not as blue as it was.
I stopped at that, so the photograph is still slightly bluish.
—2) It looks like the photographer should have let the train come a little closer; “fill the frame.”
It’s a problem I’ve often had.
I’ve resorted to multiple shots; take the closest, and trash the others.
But even then I often start my multiple shots too early, and end up not filling the frame.
After which I resort to cropping.
The Trash-Train at Summerhill is probably cropped a bit — probably the last of 3-4 multiple shots, but still not close enough. Better would have been 10-15 feet closer.
Haag was probably doing multiple shots himself, but ended up not filling the frame.



Hurricane. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The February 2011 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a dramatic photograph of an uninspiring airplane.
It’s not the fabulous Supermarine Spitfire (pictured at left), but I’m told the Hawker Hurricane won the Battle of Britain.
Hitler was sending his bombers to rain death and destruction on Britain, especially London, but the Hurricane could parry them.
Every time I see that fabric covering on the fuselage behind the cockpit, I think Piper-Cub from the ‘50s, the most rudimentary of airplanes.
But fabric covering had an advantage.
Bullets could tear the fabric, but pass right through.
A Hurricane could be shot up, yet emerge relatively undamaged.
It could still do battle.
The Hurricane had an early version of the Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 engine, only 1,280 horsepower.
The Merlin V12 was developed into a hotrod motor in the Spitfire. It was rated at 1,478 horsepower.
In the North-American Mustang it was 1,695 horsepower, as developed by American car-maker Packard.
The first P51s had the American Allison V12; okay, but not the Merlin.
The Merlin is what made the Mustang the great airplane it is.
Roll-Royce liked what they saw in Packard, and Packard got even more horsepower out of the Merlin V12.
So far I’ve encountered two WWII veterans who flew Mustangs. Both were awed.
One flew treetop strafing raids with it.
Compared to the Mustang, the Hurricane was old and slow and douty.
But it turned back Hitler’s bombing raids.


Crossover at Banks interlocking. (Photo by Don Wood©.)

—The February 2011 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is another Don Wood photograph.
When the Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar was first published in the late ‘60s, it was all Don Wood photographs.
This is not one of Wood’s best photographs.
His best pictures are the Mt. Carmel Ore-Train, and K4 Pacific (4-6-2) #612, panned at speed on the New York & Long Branch.

Photo by Don Wood©.

The Mt. Carmel Ore-Train.

The Mt. Carmel Ore-Train picture is illustrated at left.
My picture of #612 at speed is probably upstairs in my attic, stored with other great Wood photographs from the ‘70s, matted and mounted.
I used to have them on my walls.
So in other words, 612 at speed is not readily available, but I do have another Wood photo of 612, the so-called “Queen of the New York & Long Branch.”
(The Mt. Carmel Ore-Train picture came out of a book.)

Photo by Don Wood©.

Not the right picture, but #612.

That’s 612 at left on its final run, a fan-trip.
612 had a front-end throttle, enclosed in the rectangular box atop the round smokebox casing.
A front-end throttle is at the superheater head.
Earlier practice put the throttle in the steam-dome atop the boiler.
But a front-end throttle was more efficient.
Earlier steam-locomotives weren’t superheated. They used the steam generated by the boiler, which is at 212 degrees.
With superheat, the steam is circulated back in the firebox flues through the boiler, to raise the temperature of the steam much higher than 212 degrees.
Superheat increased locomotive efficiency.
Superheat came into use about 1900; front-end throttles in the ‘30s.
Few K4s had the front-end throttle.
It was a modification of standard K4 practice.
The K4 is a fairly old design, about WWI.
Pennsy never developed a more modern ‘30s steam-locomotive.
Their investment was poured into electrification.
Competing railroads developed more modern steam-locomotive designs, which Pennsy offset by doubleheading the K4s.
That’s two locomotive crews, but Pennsy could afford that.
They were making money hand-over-fist.
Pennsy served the east-coast megalopolis, and also the midwest.
They were a giant conduit for freight.
The New York & Long Branch (NY&LB) is an old Central of New Jersey line, on which Pennsy got trackage-rights.
Pennsy got those trackage-rights by threatening to build a competing railroad.
Bullies, as noted above.
By using the NY&LB, Pennsy could supply commuter-service from the north Jersey seashore into New York City.
Commuter-trains would run non-electric to South Amboy, south of New York in north Jersey, at which point they hooked on an electric engine, often a GG1.
My All-Pennsy color calendar above illustrates this engine-change, although it’s not a steam-locomotive.
Wood ranged all over the northeast recording the drama of the final days of Pennsy steam, which ended in 1957.
Pennsy was one of the late converts to dieselization; they were still using steam-locomotives in New Jersey, in northeast Pennsylvania, and even on the mainline, Harrisburg west.
And there would be Wood with his 4-by-5 Speed-Graphic, recording the drama of Pennsy steam.
I had to look up Banks interlocking. I think it’s in Jacks Narrows, a cleft in the Appalachians Pennsy used to get its railroad west. (The Pennsylvania Canal also went through there.)
The Juniata river also flows through. The railroad is hugging the river-banks.
The locomotive is an M1b Mountain, 4-8-2, but only 72-inch drivers — the K4s were 80-inch, as were the E6 Atlantics (4-4-2).
The Mountains were mainly fast-freight, used on the mainline across Pennsylvania, clear to the end of steam.



1971 Plymouth RoadRunner. (Photo by Ron Kimball©.)

―The February 2011 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1971 Plymouth RoadRunner.
Supposedly this car is sleeker and more aerodynamic than earlier RoadRunners — lessons learned from the NASCAR tracks.
But in my humble opinion the earlier RoadRunners looked better.

1969 RoadRunner.

It was a great concept; musclecar performance for a bargain price.
A 300-horsepower 383 RoadRunner could be had for about $3,200; perhaps $20-25,000 in today’s dollars.
Much less than a G-T-O Pontiac.
Such a car could send souped-up ‘50s Tri-Chevy Small-Blocks trembling.
I remember a friend telling me of street-racing his ’56 Chevy with 350 Small-Block against a RoadRunner.
He won, but couldn’t stop afterward.
Back then was the time of drum-brakes, which faded when used hard.
My neighbor next-door in Rochester had a RoadRunner but it got totaled. She used to park on the street, a main thoroughfare in front of her house.
It got hit by a staggering drunk in a large Pontiac. He stumbled onto our porch at 3 a.m. bleeding.
He pounded on our door, loudly demanding we call an ambulance. (But not the Police.)
Not the first time. At least two other cars got similarly creamed by drunks.
It sounded like hitting a barrel.
A gorgeous red Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, which had just had extensive body restoration, got similarly creamed, as did a black Dodge Omni.
My neighbor’s RoadRunner was automatic-transmission, not the four-speed floor-shift.
But it was the hotrod four-barrel 383 motor with dual exhausts.
A ’69, like the ’69 illustrated; a two-tone dark olive green color with creme vinyl top.
The crash shortened it three feet.
Her car wasn’t the ’71 in this calendar, which suffers from that chrome grill surround.
The ’71 RoadRunner was a better car, but with that new version I felt the concept was faltering.