Monthly Calendar Report for June, 2011

Double-stack exits Cold Springs Tunnel. (Photo by Ty Burgin.)

―In my humble opinion, the June 2011 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is the best entry in the calendar, even better than my picture (see below), because the light is perfect.
My own calendar-shot is one of the most dramatic pictures I’ve ever snagged, but it’s not as good as photographer Burgin’s picture.
The light in my picture is muted, somewhat bright, but it appears to be cloudy — like the sun may be partially obliterated by high, thin clouds.
Burgin’s picture is fabulous.
A westbound double-stack has just exited Cook Springs Tunnel in Alabama, and is threading its narrow approach.
And it’s single track.
Compare this to a limited-access expressway, which might need right-of-way 12+ times as wide.
And that train is probably moving 200 or more containers.
Trucks on super-wide limited-access expressway only move at the most two containers per driver — usually only one.
Railroading is far more efficient than a highway.
Beyond that, the rolling-resistance of a steel wheel on a steel rail is minimal compared to tires on a highway.
And since everything is following a fixed guideway (the railroad), you can trailer a hundred or more cars.
Exceed two trailers with a truck, and your trailers are crabbing all over the highway.
Lighting is always a pot-shot.
I’ve had similar light at various locations, but clouds might start forming to occasionally block the sun.
Or it might be cloudy-bright, as it is in my picture, but not in Burgin’s picture.



(Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The June 2011 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is the best picture of one of these old turkeys I’ve ever seen.
Which is partially why I run it ahead of my own picture, plus my own picture is too much like photographer Burgin’s picture above.
The B-17 first flew in 1935, and mightily impressed the Army Air Corps — there was no Air Force yet.
It had five machine-guns, which prompted the press contingent to call it “the Flying Fortress.”
In 1935 it was much more maneuverable for a large airplane.
Later versions went to seven machine-guns, and since B-17s were so vulnerable to frontal attack, a chin-turret was added, adding two more machine-guns.
By WWII they were old and slow.
I’ve seen a B-17 fly, and my impression was “what a sitting duck.”
No wonder so many got shout out of the sky. Hitler’s Messerschmitts could run circles around ‘em.
Despite that, the B-17 was the workhorse of heavy bombing-runs over Germany.
Hundreds would fly in formation from England, to drop their heavy payloads on German industry and transportation.
I’ve seen many photographs of B-17s, and even went through a B-17 once.
Photographer Makanna got it right.
Or perhaps things fell into place.
Whatever; I’m sure there’s some Makanna in it.
“Up there, Mr. Jones. I gotta shoot down from on high.”
Makanna’s chase-plane flies over-top the B-17, so Makanna can shoot down.
“This angle is what works, Mr, Jones. I’ve seen it myself. —We’re over gorgeous countryside; I gotta include it.”
My impression of inside a B-17 was “cheesecake.”



Stackers pass at Brickyard. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

―The June 2011 entry of my own calendar is another rerun.
It ran as the August entry in my 2010 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 famous 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’m 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.
This is one of the best railfan photographs I’ve ever snagged.
We were at Brickyard Crossing west of Altoona.
Me and Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”).
Phil is the railfan extraordinaire I’ve written up so many times, I’d be boring constant-readers. 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.
Brickyard isn’t actually Brickyard Road. It’s where Porta Road crossed the old Pennsy four-track main out of Altoona — now it’s three tracks.
But nearby was an old brickyard, so railfans always called it Brickyard Crossing.
The brick facility is kaput. I think it’s being taken down.
But railfans will always call it Brickyard Crossing.
Phil and I had already crossed the tracks — you park on the other side — so we got the eastbound stacker as it came down Track One.
But Phil could hear another train on his scanner uphill on Track Three.
So up the embankment we quickly went, a narrow pathway that parallels the tracks.
We could hear it hammering toward us, two GEs in Run-Eight.
Then it burst into view.
This is what Phil calls a “double,” two trains in the same picture, the eastbound downhill on Track One, and the westbound climbing on Track Three.
But not what I call a “double,” which is two front-ends.
So far I’ve only snagged two, both with Phil.
And if the double-stacked containers are “J.B. Hunt,” as they are on both trains in this picture, it’s probably product for Wal*Mart.
The containers are 53-foot domestic containers, not the 40-footers used in shipping. 40-footers are “international.”
Quite often a 53-footer is double-stacked atop a 40-footer in the well of a flatcar for a 40-foot container.
Quite often the flatcars for containers are three or more cars hitched semi-permanently together.
Stacker-cars are also frequently adjustable well. They can accommodate varying container lengths.
The flatcar decks are open, to allow the bottom container to sit low, and there is enough space above to allow double-stacking 53 foot containers atop the lower shorter containers.



1970 Ford Torino Cobra SCJ. (Photo by Ron Kimball©.)

The June 2011 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a powder-blue 1970 Ford Torino Cobra SCJ.
It’s nice to see Ford products featured in the musclecar calendar; last month was a 1969 Mercury Cyclone 428 Cobra-Jet.

Photo by Ron Kimball©.

Ford was more-or-less the laughing-stock of musclecardom.
This was because their musclecars quickly fell out of tune, or so it seemed.
Ford musclecar engines never got truly gigantic. They never exceeded 429 cubic inches (the displacement of this car).
GM musclecars went to 455 cubic inches, with Chevrolet at 454 cubic inches.
The largest Mopar (Chrysler) engine was 440 cubic inches.
The Torino was Ford’s response to the success of intermediate-sized cars. The Fairlane was deep-sixed (the Torino was an extensive redesign).
I drove a Torino once, but it wasn’t the musclecar version.
It was daily transportation, 302 cubic-inch Windsor V8, with Fordomatic automatic-transmission.
It was our aging landlady’s caretaker’s car.
She’d park her Torino in our driveway, blocking my getting out.
Instead of moving her car, she’d give me the keys, and tell me to run our errands in it.
Her excuse for this largesse was she never drove it much.
It was a nice car, placid and docile; just rather large — about as big as I’d want a car to be.
I remember renting a ’70 Plymouth Fury once. It was huge.
A giant expanse of flat hood was in front of me, big enough to land a carrier-based Navy Corsair fighter-plane.
The caretaker’s Torino reminded that musclecars were also large; an intermediate-sized sedan with a gigantic overkill motor.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Not my brother’s car, but identical (right color).

My brother-in-Boston has one, a 1971 454 SS Chevelle; fairly large, and somewhat intimidating.
Not a tiny sportscar — agile on torturous pavement.
Musclecars were only good for one thing: acceleration in a straight line on smooth pavement.



Pennsy FF-2 electric at Columbia, PA. (Photo by Jim Buckley.)

The June 2011 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is notable for four reasons:
—1) The FF-2 engine is not originally a Pennsy engine. It was delivered to Great Northern Railway through 1929 as its Y-1 for its Cascade Tunnel electrification.
When better tunnel ventilation was installed, allowing diesels, the Y-1s were sold to Pennsy, where they were mostly used as helpers.
—2) The FF-2s are actually motor-generator. The AC current doesn’t power traction-motors. It powers a motor that turns a generator for DC traction-motors.
There were actually two motor-generator sets in each locomotive.
Consequently, it was the only Pennsy electric that had to have both pantographs (“pant-uh-GRAFF”) up.
—3) The FF-2 was a big and extremely heavy locomotive. It was too heavy to be operated to the Wilmington (DE) electric shops. —They had to be taken apart and parts shipped in boxcars for maintenance or repairs.
It was built to larger west-coast clearances. Of east-coast railroads only Pennsy had similar clearances.
I remember surveying Baltimore & Ohio’s famous West End a few years ago.
It certainly wasn’t Pennsy.
It was tight.
And only Pennsy had the track-structure and similar infrastructure to support such a monster.
—4) Columbia, south of Harrisburg, on the west shore of the Susquehanna (“suss-kwee-HAN-uh”) river, was the destination of the original railroad west out of Philadelphia in the early 1800s.
It became part of the Pennsylvania Public Works System, cross-state canals and railroads, and eventually part of Pennsy when it acquired the Public Works System.
Pennsy bypassed the line to Columbia to build directly to Harrisburg, but the original line to Columbia was never abandoned.
Pennsy used it to move freight.
Pennsy also electrified just about all its major lines east of Harrisburg, including the line to Columbia.
So Pennsy felt they could use Great Northern’s Y-1s when they came up for sale.
They ran on Alternating-Current, which Pennsy was using.
There were only eight, Great Northern 1010-1017, which became Pennsy 1-7. (Pennsy kept one unused for spare parts.)
They were scrapped in 1966 (the year I graduated college), when only three were still in service.



Track-T.

―The June 2011 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a really great photograph of what I consider a dumb car.
It’s a rendering of what was very popular after the first World-War, a hot-rodded Model-T-Ford.
That is, well before the post WWII hotrods — usually with a V8 Flat-head Ford motor.
The really great hotrods came after WWII, based on the styling precepts of Edsel Ford, Old Henry’s only son.
Best was the ’32 Ford, and also the Model-A. All had styling licks laid down by Edsel.
The ’32 Fords and Model-As were also cheap and available as used cars.
Hot-rodding was mainly a Southern California phenomenon, because of -a) good weather, and -b) the surfeit of cheap war-surplus fittings, etc. for the Pacific Theater.
Beyond that, after the ’32 model-year Old Henry’s Flat-head V8 motor was available.
Henry refused to build a six. So a Flat-head V8 was brought to market.
People loved ‘em. They were snappy, and a whole industry of hotrod parts arose.
The Flat-head V8 responded well to hot-rodding.
They could be tinkered and improved by backyard mechanics.
But after World War One it was the Model-T that was cheap and available.
A movement arose in Southern California to hotrod the Model-T.
What’s pictured is what often happened.
The T was stripped of just about everything to decrease weight.
About all that’s left is the motor and wheels, plus a place to seat the driver.
And that has been narrowed, as has the windshield.
All that’s left is a Model-T set up for track-racing, a “Track-T,” essentially a buckboard.
It looks like bodywork was added or extended between the hood and the firewall.
That long nose is not Old Henry.
But the radiator is.
One wonders what’s under the hood?
A hot-rodded Model-T four-cylinder engine, or perhaps a recent overhead-valve four.
People do that. Often the four-cylinder is GM’s infamous Iron Duke.


War-baby (no Belpaire).

—The June 2011 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is a rather pedestrian shot of one of Pennsy’s J-1 class 2-10-4 Texas types on the Columbus Division out in Ohio.
It looks like it was shot from the cab of a diesel, probably an F-unit set to help the train it’s approaching.
The J-1 is Pennsy’s war-baby.
Pennsy never really developed modern steam locomotion in the ‘30s; their investment was going into electrification.
So when WWII broke out, they were saddled with old and tired steam-locomotives, unsuited to WWII traffic demands.
The War-Production board didn’t allow the railroad to develop modern steam power, so Pennsy had to shop around.

Photo by C.L. Kayleib.©

A Norfolk & Western A (2-6-6-4).

Norfolk & Western’s fabulous “A” (2-6-6-4 #1218; at left) was tried, along with Chesapeake & Ohio’s T-1 Texas type (2-10-4, below).
The J-1 is essentially the Chesapeake & Ohio T-1, modified slightly to be a Pennsy engine.
(Pennsy was loathe to use articulateds, which the A is.)

A Chesapeake & Ohio T-1 Texas (2-10-4).

But not the square-hipped Belpaire (“bell-pair”) Firebox, trademark of all Pennsy steam locomotion.
The C&O T-1 was SuperPower, a selling-point originally fielded by Lima Locomotive Company (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”).
The main principle of SuperPower was incredible boiler capacity, the ability to run at high speed, yet not run out of steam.
As such, SuperPower was kind of wasted on difficult gradients, like Pennsy, where lugging was more important than high speed.

A Belpaire Firebox on a Pennsy engine.

But the Columbus Division was fairly flat, a place for SuperPower to strut its stuff.
And the J-1 was SuperPower, essentially Pennsy’s only SuperPower locomotive.
It made the railroad dabble in SuperPower principles after the war, since Pennsy steam-locomotives previous were rather moribund.
The J-1 is not the Belpaire Firebox.
The train is probably doing 40 or 50, maybe even 60.
And will hold that speed its entire run.
It could, it’s SuperPower.