Monthly Calendar Report for March, 2011

Thunderbolt. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The March 2011 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is one of the most dramatic pictures photographer Makanna has ever taken, although his photographs of Lockheed P-38 Lightnings are also dramatic, as illustrated below.

Photo by Philip Makanna©.

Photo by Philip Makanna©.

It’s a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, a concession to the Navy’s having developed so much horsepower out of the radial air-cooled engine.
The P-47 was affectionately known as “the Jug,” primarily because it was so big and sturdy.
The picture was taken at sunset, which allows orangish sunlight to illuminate the underside of the airplane.
The airplane had a double-row Pratt & Whitney R2800-59, 2,804 cubic-inches displacement in 18 cylinders, radially arranged in two rows of nine cylinders each, 2,235 horsepower.
Compare that to the P-51 Mustang, also a hotrod, but not as brutal. —1,649 cubic-inches, 1,695 horsepower.
Both airplanes could do over 400 mph in level flight, but the P-51 was more graceful.
It was the Navy that developed air-cooled radial engines.
Such an airplane would not suffer coolant leaks if shot up.
The Army Air Corps was partial to water-cooled V12 engines.
They don’t cause the aerodynamic drag of an air-cooled radial engine, which is big and bluff.
But the Navy got extraordinary power out of the air-cooled radial engine.
So much the Army Air Corps had to cave.
The Jug was the result.



At “AR.” (Photo by BobbaLew.)

―The March 2011 entry of my own calendar is of a Norfolk Southern freight-train on Track One at the top of The Hill over the Allegheny mountains.
You’ve seen it before. It was the February entry in last year’s version of my own calendar.
That’s because my 2011 calendar is one I did for Tunnel Inn, the bed-and-breakfast we stay at in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin”) when in the Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”), PA area.
Altoona is the location of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s crossing of the Allegheny mountains, including Horseshoe Curve (the “Mighty Curve”), by far the BEST railfan spot I’ve ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is now a national historic site. It was a trick by the railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades — the railroad was looped around a valley to stretch out the climb. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. I am a railfan, and have been since age-two (I’m 67). The viewing-area is smack in the apex of the Curve; and trains are willy-nilly. Up-close-and personal. —I’ve been there hundreds of times, since it’s only about five hours away.
That 2011 calendar for Tunnel Inn crashed; the post-office lost the order.
We did a 2012 calendar for Tunnel Inn with the same pictures they can sell throughout the year.
There is a secret you should know about this picture.
It was taken through a small hole in chainlink fence lining the bridge overpass.
The photograph is cropped some, to crop out blurred fencing bleeding into the image, particularly on the left side.
The muddy blur wasn’t too bad, just there.
What you see is about two-thirds of the recorded image.
My digital camera is recording at 300 pixels-per-inch (“ppi”), a high-quality jpeg.
So I can crop quite a bit, yet get away with those razor-sharp signals depicted far away.
Lower ppi wouldn’t be as sharp.
My camera was helping me — and it’s not state-of-the-art.
It’s only a Nikon D100; Nikon’s first high-end digital camera. It’s almost 10 years old.
Nikon has even better digital cameras available now; I’m considering upgrading.
Yet I’m quite happy with this picture; that faraway signal-bridge is razor-sharp.
The lineside tower is “AR,” its original telegraph address.
Most Pennsy towers had telegraph addresses from the old telegraph communication era.
AR is closed; it has been for some time, but it wasn’t removed.
The building is used for track-maintenance storage.
Dispatching for the railroad is now done out of Pittsburgh.
(The CSX “Water-Level” route across New York is dispatched from Jacksonville, FL.)



Purest of the pure.

―The March 2011 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a classic 1932 Ford hotrod, as first built in the ‘50s.
The only concession to modernity on this car is the SCoT supercharger atop the Flat-Head Ford V8 motor.
Other than that, this is a classic hotrod, as first built after WWII.
Hot-rodding was mainly a southern-California phenomena, because of -a) favorable weather, and -b) the surfeit of fittings, etc., for the Pacific war-effort, available as surplus after the war ended.
These fittings made it possible for people to build hotrods at not much expense, and favorable weather made it possible to tool around unhindered in open roadster hotrods.
The engine-of-choice was the Ford Flat-Head V8, flat-head because the engine was side-valve, like a current lawnmower engine; only it was water-cooled.
The Ford Flat-head V8 goes back to the 1932 model-year.
We can thank Old Henry for being anti-six.
He refused to build a six-cylinder motor, so introduced the Flat-head V8.
The Flat-head was rather sprightly, so hot-rodders started modifying it to bend even more power out of it.
Side-valve means the cylinder-valves are down in the engine-block, parallel to and beside the cylinders.
Breathing passages are contorted; a flat-head can’t breathe as well as overhead-valving.
The cylinder-head casting is flat.
A flat-head is an antique design; overhead-valving was more complex, yet produced more power.
This car is not southern California. Actually, it’s east-coast, debuted in Hartford, CT in 1958.
But it’s a classic hotrod, purest-of-the-pure.
It even has Chevy taillights, the small horizontals from the war era; the ones that look so perfect on a ’32 Ford.
The car is very well detailed, and even has cycle fenders.
Of particular note are the Oldsmobile flipper hubcaps, very much the rage at that time.
The car is a “LoBoy;” the January entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar was a “HiBoy” — illustrated at left.
A LoBoy is a car extensively lowered — it looks like the body-floor might have been channeled to lower the body on the frame-rails.
A HiBoy is at stock ride-height — at least in the rear — body atop the frame-rails as stock ’32 Fords were.
It looks like even the back end of this car was extensively lowered; the frame-rails modified so the rear-axle could sit higher relative to the frame.
The wheel-well curvature is thus obscured by the rear tire, but the curvature of the trunk-lid still matches the tire.
The prize is that motor; a Flatty, foundation of the hotrod movement.
In the ‘60s, rodders often swapped out the Flat-Head for a Chevy Small-Block, the motor that put the Flat-Head out to pasture.
Fortunately, that wasn’t done with this car.
This car is as hotrods were built originally, except for the supercharger.
It was capable of 130 mph in 1958!



(Photo by Don Woods.)

―The March 2011 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern coal-train crossing the Kanawha River (“kuh-NAH-wuh;” as in “not.”)
I wonder if this is the branch that crosses over Chessie at Deepwater, WV, originally Virginian?
If so, I’ve been under it, on a railfan excursion under that branch on Chessie.
I also have driven along it. It goes up into the hills lining the river valley, through a ravine.
Virginian is long-gone; merged in 1959 with Norfolk & Western, which was more successful.
Virginian was built to tap to same coal N&W tapped, although at first it was built to tap coal in rugged southern West Virginia.
It also was partly electrified. (A small portion of N&W was also electrified earlier.)
It was more modern (early 20th century), and had easier grading than N&W.
But connecting railroads refused to give it favorable rates — which explains why it was built all to way across Virginia to the Atlantic Ocean.
When Virginian was bought by N&W, some of Virginian’s lines were used — they were easier to operate.
At first there was Deepwater Railroad, perhaps that very same railroad I paralleled down that ravine to Deepwater, WV.
Deepwater Railroad was very short, and connecting railroads wouldn’t give it favorable rates. Norfolk & Western was the established power in the area.
The expectation was Deepwater Railroad would cave.
It didn’t.
Tidewater Railroad was created to get Deepwater’s coal across Virginia to Hampton Roads on the Atlantic coast.
Hampton Roads is the waterway between Hampton and Norfolk.
Deepwater and Tidewater merged into Virginian Railway which was incorporated in 1907 — the line was completed in 1909.
Virginian was much easier to operate than nearby Norfolk & Western, an amalgamation of earlier railroads in the area, not built like Virginian.
Virginian was much better at taking on the Appalachians. It had a few stiff grades, but they were electrified.
Virginian always made the capital investment necessary to maximize profitability. It ended up being “the richest little railroad in the world.”
Yet Norfolk & Western had the traffic-base.
Virginian became a desirable shipping alternative for Norfolk & Western’s coal.
So eventually Norfolk & Western bought Virginian, although it was more the federal Interstate Commerce Commission letting the merger happen.
Finally the ICC was encouraging railroads, versus competing transport modes, like trucks, barges, and proposed coal-slurry pipelines (none yet).
As originally set up, the ICC was to regulate the monopoly of transportation railroads once had.
The Kanawha River was eventually bridged, and this is it. —A northern outlet for Pocahontas coal.
The line is now Norfolk Southern, a merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway in 1982.
Getting down to Deepwater is steep and arduous.
I don’t think the line interchanges with the old Chessie main (now CSX) along the Kanawha.
Chessie was one of the suitors.



Another hum-drum day on the Pennsy Trenton Cutoff. (Photo by Willis McCaleb.)

The March 2011 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a brace of Pennsy box-cabs leading a freight on the Trenton Cutoff near Norristown, PA.
The 46-mile Trenton Cutoff was a bypass around Philadelphia.
It kept New York City bound freight out of Philadelphia; with its delays and congestion.
It was also called the “Thorndale Cutoff” because it merged with the Pennsy main out of Philadelphia out at Thorndale, PA west of Paoli (“pay-OLE-eeee”).
The Trenton Cutoff was freight-only.
Pennsy electrified most of its mainlines east of Harrisburg, including various freight-only lines.
That included Trenton Cutoff.
The Pennsy main was electrified from New York City to Philadelphia, then west to Harrisburg, and Washington DC to the south.
But other lines were also electrified, e.g. across the Susquehanna river into Enola (“aye-NOLE-uh”) yard west of Harrisburg, and also along the east bank of the Susquehanna down into Maryland.
Enola yard was the main marshaling-point for freight to-and-from the east.
The Trenton Cutoff was also electrified, since it bypassed Philadelphia.
I thought that electrification installation was forever, that it would never be de-energized.
But Conrail de-energized it in 1981, including the Trenton Cutoff.
Conrail succeeded Penn-Central after PC tanked. Penn-Central was a merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad with New York Central Railroad in 1968.
“Conrail” was a government amalgamation of east-coast railroads that went bankrupt pretty much at the same time as Penn-Central. Conrail included other bankrupt east-coast railroads, like Erie-Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley; but eventually went private as it became more successful. Conrail has since been broken up, sold to CSX Transportation Industries (railroad) and Norfolk Southern railroad. CSX got mainly the old New York Central routes, and NS got the old PRR routes, although NS also has the old Erie Railroad route across southern NY.
The old Pennsylvania Railroad New York City to Washington DC line eventually became Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
With that, freight to the New York City area found other routes. Conrail began using its Reading (“REDD-ing;” not “READ-ing”) and Central of New Jersey lines. Reading and CNJ were also a part of Conrail.
Freight via Conrail to New York City out of Harrisburg used the Reading line — the old Pennsy main was now Amtrak.
The Corridor and the line to Harrisburg remain electrified, but the Trenton Cutoff became unnecessary. Freight to New York City was no longer using the old Pennsy main.
Since Conrail was running diesel-locomotives through, electrification became unnecessary.
And so the grand experiment of Pennsy electrification became moribund.
Electrification has the advantage of allowing heavy train-frequency, but railroads weren’t operating that heavily.
Electrification also requires heavy investment in power delivery, and maintenance thereof. The overhead catenary (“KAT-in-air-eee;” called that because the overhead trolley-wire is suspended on a catenary of cables) has to be continually maintained. Amtrak has dedicated wire-trains on the Corridor, just to maintain the catenary.
About the only place electrification makes sense is the heavy train-frequency of the Northeast Corridor.
Freight-trains aren’t that frequent. Electrification may eventually make sense, if they become frequent.
The locomotives are box-cab P5 electrics (4-6-4), the locomotive that was to lead Pennsy passenger-trains on the electrified New York City to Washington DC line.
Except they were nowhere near as successful as the GG1 (“Jee-Jee-ONE;” I only say that because a friend was mispronouncing it “Jee-Jee-Eye”).
To my mind, the GG1 is the greatest railroad locomotive ever made.
I grew up a teenager in northern Delaware, when GG1s reigned supreme on the New York City to Washington DC line.
I saw many, and every time I did it seemed they were doing 80-100 mph!
With the GG1 the P5 became moribund.
But Pennsy couldn’t just scrap ‘em.
Electric freight locomotives were needed, so the P5 could be regeared down for that.
Freight-service was more a P5’s speed.
They weren’t as stable at breakneck speed as a GG1.
I saw plenty of P5s as a teenager, but never on passenger-trains.
A steeple-cab version of the P5 was developed after fatalities in a box-cab in a grade-crossing accident.

Photo by Bert Pennypacker.

GG1 passes Steeple-cab P5.

In a box-cab, the crew was right up front.
Steeple-cabs put the crew behind a long nose.
The GG1 is a steeple-cab.
The drivers of a P5 were larger (72 inches), and they tend to hunt.
P5 drivers are also attached directly to the locomotive frame, so hunting can cause the locomotive to nose off-line.
The drivers of a GG1 (only 57 inches) are in separate articulated subframes under the locomotive body.
If the drivers hunt, the massive momentum of the locomotive body counteracts.


A nice idea that failed. (Photo by Phil Hastings©.)

—The March 2011 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is what I consider a wonderful photograph that failed.
The train is too far away.
Toward the south end of New York’s Finger Lakes are narrow rock-lined glens through the rocky sediment at lakeside in which creeks drain.
They are called the “Finger Lakes” because they look like the imprint of a giant hand.
They were apparently formed as ice-age glaciers receded north.
38 mile-long Seneca Lake is one of two large Finger Lakes, the other being Cayuga. Seneca Lake is the largest, stretching all the way from Geneva at the north end, to Watkins Glen at the south end.
You’re getting into rock in southern New York, the Appalachian mountains.
Watkins Glen is named after a scenic glen that doesn’t actually empty into the lake directly.
I’ve been up it.
Railroads paralleled Seneca Lake, Lehigh Valley on the east side, and Pennsy and New York Central on the west side.
The New York Central line is its old Corning line, now owned and operated by Norfolk Southern as its Corning Secondary.
It ran from Lyons, NY on the cross-state New York Central main south to Corning.
That line crossed Watkins Glen on a large high bridge.
From Corning the line ran south to Williamsport, PA, but some of that was abandoned, and much sold to shortline Tioga Central.
Pennsy also had a line north out of Williamsport, the old Northern Central to Elmira, NY.
Northern Central was an independent out of Baltimore bought by Pennsy in 1861.
Most of that line was abandoned, and is now gone. It’s hard to find even the right-of-way.
North of Elmira the line went to Watkins Glen, and from there north.
Northern Central eventually ended in nearby Canandaigua, and I don’t know who was the builder, Northern Central or buyer Pennsy, but an extension was built north to Lake Ontario at Sodus Point.
There a massive wharf was built to transload iron-ore or coal into lake ships.
All that is gone, and quite a bit of the line is abandoned, although segments are operated by shortlines Ontario Midland and Finger Lakes Railway.
The train pictured is Pennsy, iron-ore north to Sodus Point. It’s powered by a Decapod, 2-10-0.
Pennsy was still using steam on that Sodus Point line clear into the ‘50s.
I have a picture somewhere of a Decapod shunting cars on that Sodus Point wharf.

Photo by BobbaLew.

The long-gone Pennsy wharf at Sodus Point.

I even have a picture (at left) I took of that wharf before it was taken down.
The glen pictured is a scenic location. Go out into Seneca Lake and shoot up into the glen.
It was a nice idea, but you get no inkling of the massive size of the locomotive.
Apparently this railroad still exists, operated by Finger Lakes Railway.
Finger Lakes has trackage-rights on Norfolk Southern’s Corning Secondary down to Himrod Junction, where New York Central crossed Pennsy on a diamond.
From there Finger Lakes operates south to Watkins Glen on the old Pennsy line, and also north to Penn Yan.
I’ve driven next to that railroad to Penn Yan. The railroad is torturous.
There is a salt-mine in Watkins Glen, apparently a source of Finger Lakes car traffic.
South of Watkins Glen the old Pennsy line is gone.
Finger Lakes also operates some of the old Lehigh Valley lines east of Seneca Lake.
So probably the bridge pictured still exists, although about the only way to do it justice is go clear across the lake onto the east bank with a strong telephoto.
Phil Hastings is one of the greats of steam railroad photography.
He took many classic pictures.
But this is one of his lesser efforts; it didn’t work.



1968 AMX. (Photo by Ron Kimball©.)

―What we have here is a really great photograph of what I always considered a dumb car.
The March 2011 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1968 American Motors AMX.
The AMX is essentially a truncated American-Motors Javelin pony-car.

Javelin.

The Javelin was American Motors entry in the pony-car wars, the Mustang, the Camaro, the Plymouth Barracuda, and the Dodge Challenger.
Take a foot out of the center-section, thereby making it a two-seater, and VIOLA; essentially a Corvette competitor.
But only in the sense it was a two-seater. It still was a truncated pony-car.
Although you could get it with a 390 cubic-inch motor, which made it a musclecar.
The AMX was light, so 390 cubic-inches is a lot of motor.
Pony-cars are still essentially American sedans, though smaller and lighter.
Their architecture is that of an American sedan.
Front-engine bolted to a transmission, then a long driveshaft coupled to a differential centered in a heavy solid rear-axle powering solidly-attached rear drive-wheels.
The old Model-T tractor layout. —Front engine, rear-wheel drive.
The entire rear axle, including its heavy center differential, is suspended as a unit. A bump to one wheel effects both wheels. That heavy differential has momentum. The tractor layout can’t respond to bumps as well as independent-rear-suspension (“IRS”).
The Corvette was slightly different.
Front engine and transmission, rear-wheel drive, but the rear-suspension was independent, not tractor layout.


’67 Corvette — a Sting-Ray. (It has IRS, and is the last of that series. Corvette first had IRS in the 1963 model-year.)

The differential was mounted to the car-chassis, and independent anglable half-shafts came out of each side to power each drive-wheel.
A bump to the left drive-wheel did not also effect the right drive-wheel. Those wheels were independently suspended.
Independent-rear-suspension was all the rage back then, which is why Corvette did it. Although the ‘Vette IRS was rather rudimentary.

DeLorean.

Zora Arkus-Duntov.

John Z. DeLorean, head-honcho of Chevrolet at that time, wanted to AMX the Camaro, and market that as the Corvette.
Thankfully, he failed.
If he had succeeded, he would have reversed all the great input of Zora Arkus-Duntov, who made the Corvette the great car it is.
I’ve always thought of the AMX as a joke.
With a 390 cubic-inch motor it’s a musclecar, but I wouldn’t want one.