It’s hard to know how to rate things, since they’re all kind of plain, except mine, which is one of the BEST shots I ever got.
Upgrade on Track One at Cassandra Railfan Overlook. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
―The April 2011 entry of
my own calendar is a stacker upgrade on Track One at Cassandra Railfan Overlook in Cassandra, PA (“kuh-SANN-druh;” as in the name “Anne”).
Cassandra is just south of Lilly, PA, not far from the railroad’s tunnels through the top of the Allegheny mountains.
The picture is a rerun; you’ve seen it before. It ran as the March entry of my own calendar last year.
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.
You should know this picture was taken with my “Cannon;” a strong telephoto, 70-300 mm zoom.
With the lens-shade installed it’s almost nine inches long. It’s about three inches in diameter.
The ultimate phallic symbol. I always wonder why wannabee photographers use these things, when wide-angle is what matters. —It’s just that wide-angle is not phallic.
I call it the “Cannon” because it’s so big.
I put it on my old Rowi (“ROW-eee;” as in “wow”) shoulder-grip because the lens is so strong.
It’s so powerful it can blur the image if jerked slightly.
It almost needs a tripod, but I don’t wanna limit flexibility.
So I use my old Rowi shoulder-grip — sort of a rifle-stock — so I can hopefully hold it still.
That shoulder-grip is at least 40 years old.
Despite that, I have to prop against something.
There was a small bridge-railing I could prop on when I took this picture.
I now try to shoot shutter-priority; no slower than 1/250th.
Most train-shots are auto-focused at infinity; I can let the lens open up. (I prefer 1/500th with this lens.)
I can also crank up the ISO. ISO is normally at 200 (the lowest), although I’ve cranked it up to 400. —No faster than that. If it’s that dark, it’s not worth shooting.
Yet this photo is
old enough (2007) it was shot “full automatic;” 1/250th at f5.6, ISO=200; i.e. automatic mode had set the shutter-speed.
But I’ve since learned to shoot shutter-priority. If I let “automatic” slow the shutter-speed, it will shoot slow enough to blur the locomotive-front.
Sadly, Cassandra Railfan Overlook is
doomed.
This is a shame, because it’s a great place to watch trains; even better than Horseshoe Curve.
This is primarily because it’s in the shade.
Horseshoe Curve doesn’t have much shade.
A while ago I said the bridge over the tracks at Cassandra was the old highway-bridge, but apparently it isn’t.
It’s very heavily constructed, and wide enough to pass a single Model-A one lane, but it’s not the original Highway-53 road bridge.
Route 53 was rerouted to bypass Cassandra, which meant abandoning the highway-bridge.
The railroad originally went through Cassandra too, but the railroad built a bypass in 1898 to reduce curvature.
That bypass included a deep rock cut.
The cut was deep enough to encourage bridging it, which was done to bring Route 53 into Cassandra from the east.
After the highway-bridge was removed, residents of Cassandra still had to cross the tracks to go east to places of employ.
It’s an active railroad.
So a footbridge was installed on the old highway-bridge abutments.
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| Photo by BobbaLew. |
| Cassandra Railfan Overlook (the bridge). |
That’s what’s pictured at left.
Railfans started congregating on the bridge, so a Cassandra town resident put in tables and chairs, and started mowing lawn.
That guy eventually became mayor of Cassandra.
The location was named “Cassandra Railfan Overlook.”
It’s a great place to watch the passing parade of trains, of which there are many.
You sit in the shade, and it’s between two defect-detectors, 253.1 south of Lilly, and 258.9 in Portage.
One afternoon we were stuck there about 2-3 hours.
Every time we got up to leave “Norfolk Southern milepost 253.1, Track Three, no defects,” or “Norfolk Southern milepost 258.9, Track One, no defects.”
But not too long ago a chunk of concrete fell off the bridge and damaged a passing locomotive.
The railroad owns the bridge, but the town of Cassandra maintains it, a volunteer effort.
The railroad wondered whether it could be repaired. It couldn’t (not by volunteers), so now the railroad wants to remove it.
Take it out, and that viewing-and-sitting area on the other side of the tracks is no longer accessible from Cassandra.
And the parking-area is on the west side of the bridge, the viewing-area on the east side.
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Photo by Roger Durfee, in the Norfolk Southern
Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar. |
| Looking south at Cassandra Railfan Overlook. |
Even with the bridge gone, it still would be a great place to watch trains; photographing north or south (my calendar-picture is looking north — railroad-east).
Looking south is down into that rocky cut, and looking north is into that curve.
But to get to the east side, you’d have to -a) walk in from Route 53, or worse yet -b) cross the tracks at grade.
(From here on they’re all equally plain, although I’ll run the hot-rodded pickup last, even though it’s a great picture; only because I’ve never thought much of hot-rodded pickup trucks.)
(Photo by Mark Shull.)
―The April 2011 entry of my
Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern mixed freight-train passing Landis, NC.
I run it first after me, because it looks like one of my own Norfolk Southern photographs.
Not a cloud in the sky, and fairly well-composed and well-lit.
I certainly have had enough “not a cloud in the sky” days down near Altoona.
And with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”) as my tour-guide, I can get well-composed photographs with excellent lighting.
I’ve written up Phil so many times, I’d only be boring constant-readers (if there are any
at all). If you need clarification, click this
link, my January 2011 calendar-report, and read the first part — the January entry of
my own calendar. It mentions Phil.
Photographer Shull decided to try to get a photograph in the Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar.
What he had previously shot was wildlife photography, and having done well at that, he decided to branch into rail photography.
He also is a railfan.
He says rail photography is always a crap-shoot, which in my case it is.
Just shoot and see what happens!
A certain amount of composition enters on my part, but it often doesn’t work.
And then there are those shots that are
fabulous, full of drama, that invoke memories, lacking input on my part.
Most of what I shoot works that way. Just shoot, and see what I end up with.
Okay, this angle works, so we’ll repeat that — in which case the repeat bombs.
So Shull goes trackside where Norfolk Southern goes through Landis, NC, apparently front-and-center through town.
I see storefronts to the left, and what appears to be a bank-clock.
I bet there was a trackside depot here once — that the railroad was the center of town.
He sets up under a magnolia tree; the light and sky are
perfect.
It’s a dead ringer for something I would shoot, and he managed to get the train close enough.
About all that’s wrong with this picture are two things:
#1) Was a bird flying over the tree next to the parking-lot. —I took that out with my Photoshop, although it wasn’t too distracting.
Shull could have done the same, but didn’t.
To do so would be
not fair; I’ve seen an obvious Photoshop construct that won the Irish-Setter Calendar contest, and it looks like the judges weren’t even aware.
What gives these constructs away is differences in illumination, especially the angles of lighting.
#2) Is the Sheriff cruiser parked in the parking-lot.
It’s 11:30, probably a Sunday morning, and the Sheriff is probably warily eyeing the photographer while glomming donuts.
“That photographer should be in church! Probably a Muslim terrorist.”
Mustang! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)
—The April 2011 entry of my
Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a photograph of two versions of the most desirable propeller airplane of all time, the North American P-51 Mustang.
Below is a P-51C, an earlier version of the Mustang, and above that is a P-51D.
The early versions of the Mustang didn’t have the bubble canopy, as seen on the P-51D.
The earlier Mustangs had a cockpit canopy much like earlier fighter-planes, enclosed, but not the one-piece plexiglass bubble canopy.
The P-51C is as flown by the
Tuskegee Airmen, a squadron of African-American pilots, the first.
Prior to the Tuskegee Airmen, no African-Americans had ever become pilots.
Racial discrimination — the military was also segregated at that time.
The Tuskegee Airmen were notorious. They turned honky-heads.
Perhaps their most famous mission was to accompany bombers on their runs over Germany. They were known as “red-tail angels,” since they protected the bombers from enemy fighter-planes. (Tuskegee Airmen airplanes had red-painted tails.)
Good as it was, the P-51C was not as good as the P-51D, although differences were slight.
According to this calendar, the P-51C is slightly more powerful (1,790 horsepower), and is slightly faster in level flight (439 mph). The P-51D is 1,695 horsepower, 437 mph.
In the distance is a B-17 bomber, what Mustangs were designed to protect.
Previous to the Mustang, American pursuit fighter-planes didn’t have the range to accompany B-17s on bombing-raids over Germany from Britain.
B-17s had to lose their fighter escorts and fly in unaccompanied. The fighters had to turn back. From there on the B-17s were easy pickings for Hitler’s Messerschmitts.
But the Mustang had the range.
They could accompany B-17s all the way over Germany and provide fighter protection.
And Hitler’s Messerschmitts, good as they were, weren’t as good as the Mustang.
Thank goodness photographer McCaleb was shooting stuff like this. (Photo by Willis McCaleb.)
The April 2011 entry of my
All-Pennsy color calendar is two EMD E-units on a passenger-train near Lima, OH, in 1956 (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”).
This is the
way it was, and thank goodness photographer McCaleb was recording it.
 |
| Photo by Willis McCaleb. |
| McCaleb s March 2011 entry in the All-Pennsy color calendar. |
McCaleb’s March 2011 entry in the All-Pennsy color calendar was very similar;
the way it was; not so much a fabulous photograph, but how Pennsy usually was.
Pennsy always painted its passenger equipment “Tuscan-Red” (“TUSS-kin;” not “Tucson, Arizona”)
The only other railroad that used that color was Norfolk & Western, which Pennsy tried to merge with.
N&W also painted is passenger equipment Tuscan-Red.
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| Photo by BobbaLew. |
| The Levin Es. |
Pictured at left are the two EMD E-units restored by the Levin brothers of Baltimore into Pennsylvania Railroad passenger colors, which means Tuscan-Red.
They are pulling a train for railfans through Gallitzin, PA.
Gallitzin is the top of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s crossing of the Allegheny mountains across PA.
The train has just exited Allegheny Tunnel, the top of The Hill.
It’s a railfan excursion operated as part of Altoona’s Railfest.
Altoona was once the base of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s crossing of the Allegheny mountains. Helper locomotives were attached there for surmounting The Hill.
Altoona was also the main Pennsylvania Railroad shop town.
There are locomotive shops still in the area, in Juniata (“june-eee-AT-uh”), just north of Altoona. The shops are Norfolk Southern.
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| A Conrail Executive E on its Business-train. |
The Levin E-units are the old Conrail Executive Es that powered the Conrail Business-train. —With that they were painted goldish brown.
I think one E-unit is actually ex Erie-Lackawanna.
Norfolk Southern sold ‘em when they bought part of Conrail in 1999. They now have their own Executive Business-train, pictured below. It uses restored classic EMD F-units.
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| Photo by BobbaLew. |
| Norfolk Southern’s Executive Business-train, led by their restored EMD F-unit “Tuxedos.” |
Looking at that picture, Norfolk Southern’s Executive Business-train passenger equipment is also painted tuscan-red.
But that’s more homage to Norfolk & Western, a main partner of Norfolk Southern.
As first merged in 1982, Norfolk Southern was Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway.
NS came to own Pennsy by purchasing the Pennsy side of Conrail, at first a government bailout of all the bankrupt east-coast railroads, largest of which was Penn-Central, a merger of Pennsy and New York Central in 1968 that failed.
Conrail eventually went private, but was broken up and sold. Most of the ex New York Central lines went to CSX Transportation (railroad), and the ex-Pennsy lines to competitor Norfolk Southern.
Despite the mountains in Pennsylvania, Norfolk Southern is more successful.
CSX has the easier topography (the old NYC main was known as the “Water-Level Route;” there are no mountains), but can’t seem to succeed as well as Norfolk Southern.
Pennsylvania Railroad was once the largest railroad in the world.
It covered much of the east coast between Washington DC and New York City.
It also went as far west of Chicago and St. Louis.
At the turn into the 20th century it was
immensely powerful, enough to prompt president Theodore Roosevelt to initiate the Anti-Trust act, although that was as much a reaction against Rockefeller’s Standard-Oil.
Railroading was a
great leap forward in technology. It made possible the Industrial Revolution.
Our nation’s early leaders, like president Washington, dabbled in transportation improvements, particularly canals, but it was railroading that made massive overland transportation cheap.
New York’s Erie Canal was revolutionary at first, and made New York City the great port it is now.
But canals were frozen in Winter. Railroads weren’t.
Prior to canals and railroads, overland transportation was stuck with the horse.
Overland trips took
days over horrible roads — usually by pack-wagon or pack-horse.
Railroading changed all that. Suddenly great quantities of freight could be easily moved for peanuts.
Railroading was
so revolutionary it become its own motivation.
Thieves and charlatans tried to cash in.
Everyone wanted the benefits a railroad could bring, mainly shipping out product for little cost.
As originally built, the Pennsylvania Railroad was just Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, but 89 bazilyun lines in the midwest that could feed Pittsburgh were merged into it.
The Pennsylvania Railroad became
phenomenally successful, a product of immense power and savvy business-planning.
The Pennsylvania Railroad threw its weight around so much it got Teddy Roosevelt all bent-outta-shape.
But even mighty Pennsy, like General Motors, would fall.
It was partly a result of government subsidization of competing transportation modes, particularly the airlines and trucking.
Airline terminals were built by government entities; the railroads built their terminals mostly without government help.
In trucking it was improved highways, and the Interstate Highway System; all government funded.
Railroads are most frequently privately owned.
What we see in the calendar-picture is mighty Pennsy in all its post-WWII glory, with photographer McCaleb out there to record it.
Railroading was already falling apart in 1956, but here we have mighty Pennsy putting its best face forward.
A passenger express-train is booming east from Chicago on the mainline racetrack through Ohio, E-units on the point.
Boomin’-and-zoomin’; the line is arrow-straight and flat!
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| Photo by BobbaLew. |
| The way it was, back in 1959. |
1969 SS Chevelle convertible. (Photo by Ron Kimball©.)
―The April 2011 entry of my
Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1969 SS Chevelle convertible.
Normally I don’t think much of ’69 Chevelles, but this is a
great-looking car.
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| Photo by Robert Spinello. |
| A 1964 SS Chevelle. |
The Chevelle was introduced in the 1964 model-year.
I remember it was marketed as a replacement for tired Tri-Chevys: ’55-’57. It was about the same size, and the same format.
You could get it with a Small-Block V8, and the four-speed floor shift; the love of hot-rodders in the Tri-Chevy.
But then Pontiac introduced a more appealing concept, the musclecar, the G-T-O, a four-speed floor shift with a hot-rodded full-size car engine, 389 cubic inches.
 |
| Photo by David Newhardt. |
| A 1966 Chevelle SS 396. |
Chevrolet responded with a musclecar of their own, four-speed floor shift, and a hot-rodded version of the 396 cubic-inch Big-Block motor normally found in full-size cars and trucks.
One is pictured at left, but it’s a ’66. For 1966 and ’67 Chevelle got a new body on the original platform.
It’s
really gorgeous. I featured it in my October, 2010 calendar-report.
Basic car, the lightest possible with a gigantic motor made to utterly
flatten the competition in a straight line.
Chevelle went through two major restylings after that.
The calendar-picture is restyling number-two, not very successful to my mind.
But still a
great-looking car, in this case.
Still the 396 Big-Block, but you could get it rated at 375 horsepower.
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| Photo by David Newhardt. |
| A 1970 454-Chevelle SS convertible. |
To my mind the final restyling is the one that looked best, ’70 and ’71.
I pictured a red 1970 at left, which I think looked better.
My brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, has a ’71, which he thinks looks better.
But I think the ’70 taillights look better, and the four headlights. A ’71 has only two headlights.
By 1970 the musclecar horsepower race was on in earnest.
Chevrolet had upped the displacement of its Big-Block to 454 cubic-inches.
Many of the GM brand were up to 455 cubic-inches, and Chrysler was up to 440 in its wedge-motor.
Better yet was the explosive Chrysler 426 cubic-inch Hemi© motor, which generated
gobs of horsepower at high revs.
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| Photo by BobbaLew. |
| Not my brother’s car, but identical (correct color). |
The big GM motors were
massive torque-generators, explosive from a standing-start.
Try to get one of these things to stop, or handle a curve, and you were over your head.
What they were really good at was creaming the competition in a straight line.
To “da show-ah.” (Photo by Robert Long©.)
—The April 2011 entry of my
Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is Train 1073, Pennsy’s finest from New York City to Atlantic City.
At the point this photo was taken, the train is operating on Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (“REDD-ing;” not “READ-ing”)
“Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines” (PRSL) was an amalgamation of Pennsylvania and Reading railroad-lines in south Jersey, promulgated in 1933, to counter the fact the two railroads had too much parallel track. It serviced mainly the south Jersey seashore from Philadelphia.
By 1933 highway use was beginning to supplant the railroad as a means of getting to the seashore (“Da show-ah”).
Train 1073 was actually two modes of operation.
Out of New York City it would be electric south to Trenton. There locomotives would be changed because south Jersey wasn’t electrified.
Pennsy steam-locomotives would replace the GG1, in this case a K4 Pacific (4-6-2).
South of Trenton Train 1073 ran the old Camden & Amboy, Pennsy’s Bordentown Branch.
Chartered in 1830, Camden & Amboy was the first railroad in New Jersey. Its intent was to move freight between Philadelphia and New York City.
But there were ferry crossings at each end.
Camden & Amboy flourished until Pennsy acquired its mainline in eastern PA, and bridged the Delaware River at Trenton.
That scotched the ferry-crossing at Philadelphia. Into New York City by railroad for freight was never bridged.
Pennsy tunneled under the Hudson to access Manhattan Island, the only railroad to do so. But those tunnels couldn’t pass freight.
The Camden & Amboy eventually become Pennsy’s Bordentown Branch. It was a connection between Trenton and Camden.
Just north of Camden, it crossed under a branch built by Pennsy to access Philadelphia from south Jersey without a ferry-crossing.
It required bridging the Delaware River in north Philadelphia, the
Delair Bridge, built in 1896, the first bridge across the Delaware river from Philadelphia.
Access to this Bridge-Branch allowed trains from Trenton to bypass Camden on their way to the seashore — although not by much.
The Bridge-Branch joined the line to Atlantic City at Haddonfield a few miles east of Camden. From there Atlantic City was still 40-50 miles east.
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| Photo by Frank C. Kozempel. |
| Headed toward the Bordentown Branch. |
Pictured at left is a train threading the junction from the Bridge-Branch.
Involved were a number of south Jersey branches. The Bridge-Branch did not cross the old Camden & Amboy at grade. You had to juke all over to make the elevation-change up to the Bridge-Branch.
An aunt in south Jersey lived not far from the Bridge-Branch.
I remember Pennsy steam-engines on it, K4 Pacifics doing 60 mph or so.
Pennsy was still using steam locomotives in south Jersey in the late ‘40s.
They’re why I’m a railfan.
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| Photo by BobbaLew. |
| Custom Sport Shop. (I think those might be our bicycles, me and Bruce Stewart.) |
I wonder if the calendar-photographer, Robert Long, is the salesman I knew at Custom Sport Shop, pictured at left.
Custom Sport Shop, in northern Delaware, was where my friend and neighbor, Bruce Stewart, bought most of his HO model-railroad equipment.
It also was where Stewart bought his camera, a twin-lens reflex, but not a Rolleiflex. —It was a cheaper model, but German.
It used 120 roll-film with 2&1/4-inch square negatives, I think 12 exposures to a roll.
The salesman was a camera-buff; and also a railfan.
I still have one of his prints of a Pennsy steam-engine with a passenger-train on the PRSL.
Custom Sport Shop is about 1959; a few years after Pennsy ended steam-locomotive operation on the PRSL.
*It wasn’t him. The guy’s name was Bob Harold.
But it’s a truck!
―The April 2011 entry of my
Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a hot-rodded 1933 Ford pickup.
A really nice photograph, but
ho-hum!
I don’t think much of trucks. Too basic and utilitarian.
The potential of cars is sacrificed for utility and carrying-capacity.
Hot-rod a truck, and it becomes appealing, but not as appealing as a car.
This truck has a hot-rodded 302 Ford Small-Block, Ford’s response to the vaunted Chevy Small-Block.
Ford’s first overhead-valve V8 motor, in the 1954 model-year, the Y-block, was a
stone compared to the Chevy Small-Block.
It was called the Y-block because its block-casting extended below the crankshaft, making the casting look like a “Y.”
Ford’s Small-Block was a great concept; 221 cubic-inches at first.
But it wasn’t as great as the Cleveland version thereof, which came later.
Splayed valves like a Chevy Big-Block, which allowed larger valves, encouraging the engine to breathe.
The Cleveland was a massive power-generator and high revver, probably better than Chevy’s Small-Block.
The truck has automatic-transmission, although I’ve always felt a hotrod should have a standard tranny, preferably a floor-shifted four-speed.
There’s always been the visceral appeal of winding a Detroit V8 through the gears.
A guy nearby has one.
An incredibly-lowered ’32 Ford steel two-door sedan in flat gray primer with an unmuffled Chevy Small-Block.
I hear him exercising it. I recognize it unseen by sound as it approaches our house.
Imagine a hot-rodded 302 Ford Small-Block
in a car.
To me, the fact it’s a truck is a waste.
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| Dually by Dodge. |
Trucks have become a symbol of machoness.
Giant turbocharged duallys with diesel engines.
A dually is four rear tires; dual tires at each end of the rear axle.
Such an arrangement in a pickup requires extravagant fender-flares, something to shroud the extra rear tires that stick out beyond the pickup-bed.
This arrangement makes sense for towing a large RV- or horse-trailer, where the trailer-hitch is inside the pickup-bed, centered over the rear axle.
That way, the front trailer-weight is
directly over the rear axle of the truck.
But all that is going to waste if there’s no trailer.
A dually just for driving a dually, is
silly.
Given a choice between the Dodge dually and this old ’33 Ford pickup, the choice is slam-dunk
obvious; I’d take the Ford.
Labels: Monthly Calendar Report
