Monthly Calendar Report for August, 2011

High adventure. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

―The August 2011 entry of my own calendar is my shot of the Norfolk Southern Executive Business-train.
High adventure.
It was my first train-chase with Phil Faudi (“FOW-deee;” as in “wow”), Monday August 4, 2008.
Monday is usually a bad day for chasing trains; not much action on Norfolk Southern’s Pittsburgh division.
The Pittsburgh division includes the old Pennsylvania Railroad line over the Allegheny mountains, and includes Horseshoe Curve.
It sees a lotta trains, since it’s a main railroad east.
Horseshoe Curve west of Altoona, PA (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”) is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to.
The railroad was looped around a valley to climb the mountains without steep grades.
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.
Phil is the railfan extraordinaire from Altoona, who supplied all-day train-chases for $125.
He called them “Adventure-Tours.”
Phil would bring along his radio rail-scanner, tuned to 160.8, the Norfolk Southern operating channel, and knew the whereabouts of every train, as the engineers called out the signals, and various lineside defect-detectors fired off.
He knew each train by symbol, and knew all the back-roads, and how long it took to get to various photo locations — and also what made a successful photo — lighting, drama, etc.
I’d let Phil do the monitoring. I have a scanner myself, but I’d leave it behind.
Phil knew every train on the scanner, where it was, and how long it would take to beat it to a prime photo location.
Phil gave it up; fear of liability suits, and a new car he’s afraid he’d mess up.
I was alone, and Phil showed up as scheduled at 9 a.m. at Tunnel Inn, in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin”).
Tunnel Inn is the bed-and-breakfast we stay at in the Altoona area.
It used to be the old Gallitzin town offices and library.
It was built by the railroad in 1905, and is brick and rather substantial.
It was converted to a bed-and-breakfast when Gallitzin built new town offices.
Its advantage for railfans like me — also its marketing ploy — is that it's right beside Tracks Two and Three.
It’s right next to the old Pennsy tunnels through the summit of the Alleghenies. —Hence, “Tunnel Inn.”
Trains are blowing past all the time.
Three is westbound, and Two can be either way. —Track One is not visible; it’s on the other side of town, using New Portage Tunnel.
Tunnel Inn also has a covered viewing deck behind its building, plus floodlights to illuminate trains approaching or leaving the tunnels in the dark.
“Quick, quick!” Phil shouted. “The Executive Business-train is coming up The Hill, and we just might catch it.
I don’t know which direction it’s headed, west or east, so we might miss it if it loops back down at Gallitzin to head east.”
There is a turning-loop at the top of The Hill in Gallitzin, where helpers can turn and go back down to Altoona.
Into Phil’s Buick we leaped, me cramming my camera.
Off we drove west toward Lilly, where a highway bridge goes over the tracks.
36A, the tractor-train, headed east up Track One. (“Tractor-train” because 36A almost always has farm-tractors in it on flatcars [see picture].)
But there it was, the Executive Business-train on Track Three, around the bend onto the straightline approaching us, with its classic F-unit Tuxedos on the point.
“Tuxedos” because of the way they’re painted.
I was in a bad position. Cars on 36A might block the view of the Executive Business-train.
But the light was perfect, morning illumination lighting the side of the train. (That’s Phil.)
I noticed some lower gondola-cars were in 36A, a gap I might be able to take advantage of.
So I let the Executive Business-train come toward me, as 36A continued east up The Hill on Track One.
Finally, it’s in the gap; BAM! Got it!
A fabulous beginning to my first Adventure-Tour.
All four F-units too.


(Everything from now on are nice photographs, just not that interesting as content.)



LedSled.

—The August 2011 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is an example of a good photograph of questionable content.
It’s a customized ’51 Mercury led-sled.
“Led-sled” because at that time most automobile bodywork was done with molten lead paddled into imperfections.
The lead would solidify and could then be ground smooth.
(This is opposed to plasticized bondo.)
The Mercury is chopped, channelled, sectioned and lowered, all to make it lower.
“Chopped” is to lower the roof by taking out metal that positions the roof, the windshield posts, the door-posts, and the rear panels behind the rear side-window and beside the rear window.
Sectioning that rear panel would require a lot of metalwork. It wouldn’t fit. It’s not vertical like an early ‘30s Ford.
The car has also been “hardtopped;” center door-post removed. (Ya don’t see hardtops nowadays — no rollover protection without that door-post. “Hardtops” were like a convertible.)
“Channelling” is to fabricate channels into the body-floor, so the body can sit lower on the frame.
“Lowering” is to make chassis modifications so the car can ride lower.
Usually this involved lowering-blocks on the spring-ends, so the axle would ride higher relative to the chassis.
How the car pictured was lowered up front I have no idea. It depends on the front suspension.
With a front beam-axle, like a ‘30s Ford, it was fairly simple. The ends of the axle could be bent so the wheels rode higher relative to the chassis.
Or you could buy a tube-axle that did the same thing.

The “Rebel” Mercury.

But a ’51 Mercury wasn’t beam-axle.
People used to compress the front coil-springs, which made the car ride like a lumber wagon, but lowered it.
The intent of all those modifications was to make the car extremely low, but a stock early ‘50s Mercury, as exemplified by the car James Dean drove in “Rebel Without a Cause,” looked better.
The ’49 Mercury (’49 and ’50 were nearly identical; ’51 wasn’t much different) was supposed to be the Ford.
But Old Henry’s grandson, Henry Ford II (“the Deuce”) pushed through the ’49 Ford, the Shoebox, the car that saved the company.
“Shoebox” because of its squarish lines.

A Shoebox Ford.

If Ford Motor Company had continued building the antique technology it had been building even after WWII, it would have failed.
So Old Henry’s grandson pushed through “the car that saved the company.”
It still used Ford’s old engines, but otherwise it was a modern car.
No more transverse buggy-springs.
The Mercury used the same chassis as the Shoebox Ford, so it was a modern car too.
But more attractive.
The early ‘50s Mercury, e.g. stock like the James Dean car, was slam-dunk desirable.
All it needed was a modern engine, but it was desirable even with Ford’s antique engines — one of which was the Ford Flat-head V8.

A Flat-head Ford V8; note flat cylinder-head casting.

“Flat-head” because it was side-valve with flat cylinder-heads, like a basic lawnmower engine, except it was water-cooled.
(The Flat-head pictured has Offenhauser [“off-en-HOUZE-rrrr”] cylinder-heads, cast from aluminum to be lighter, with a higher compression-ratio. They also are finned. Stock Ford Flat-head cylinder-heads aren’t finned, and are cast-iron. “Offy” heads were a hotrod option.)
The Flat-head V8 was brought to market in the 1932 model-year because Old Henry refused to build a six.
The Flat-head became quite popular, mainly because it was sprightly, and responded well to hot-rodding. Plus they were cheap and available.
The whole hotrod industry sprang up around the Flat-head.
But a Flat-head isn’t modern. Being a side-valve, it had contorted passageways; it couldn’t breathe as well as an overhead-valve engine.
Modern engines were overhead-valve; the Flat-head was put out to pasture by the new overhead-valve Chevy V8 introduced in the 1955 model-year — which was also cheap and available, and responded well to hot-rodding.
Plus with its light-weight valve-gear it could rev to the moon.
The Flat-head lasted through the 1953 model-year.
The headlights on the calendar-car are also “frenched.”
What this means is building up the fenders at the headlight surrounds to inset the headlights.
It was a customizing given at that time, like “nosing” and “decking.”
“Nosing” and “decking” were to remove any ornamentation from the hood and/or the trunklid, e.g. a hood-ornament.
“Frenching” would take a lotta work, in this case a lotta lead.
“Nosing” and “decking” were easier to do; usually just filling mounting holes.
So much lead was in customized-car bodywork, the cars were called ”led-sleds.”
The car pictured might not have used lead, but is very much a “led-sled” in appearance.
While in high-school about 1961 I saw a Mercury very much like this, chopped, channelled, sectioned, lowered, the whole kibosh.
It mighta been this car, although I don’t remember it being “hardtopped.” It also was in flat-black primer.
It looked great, but was just about undriveable.
The interior floor was halfway up the doors. The driver had to drive from the back seat — sitting on the floor. And scrunching under the roof.
It was very well done. How you could chop that rear roof-panel, yet have it look right, is unfathomable.
Yet driving it was almost impossible. About all you could do is park it to show off your bodywork.
And it was so low it scraped exiting the fast-food parking-lot onto the highway.
The stock early ‘50s Mercury was so cool it invited customization.
This car has the ’54 Pontiac grill centerpiece, a modification that always looked righteous.
Such a modification looked much better on a stock Mercury.
About all the car needed was nosing, decking, and fender-skirts, all of which the James Dean Merc has.



First train on Crescent Corridor realignment through Front Royal, VA. (Photo by Michael Breen.)

―The August 2011 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is the first train over a new bridge and realignment of Norfolk Southern’s so-called “Crescent Corridor.”
I’m not familiar with the Crescent Corridor.
I’m more familiar with the “Heartland Corridor,” the old Norfolk & Western main from Cincinnati across West Virginia and Virginia.
It had to be completely rebuilt to clear double-stacks, and has many tunnels which had to have their ceilings raised.
Actually, the Heartland Corridor is Chicago to Norfolk.
I had to look up Crescent Corridor on Wiki.
It’s a railroad corridor built with public assistance to get trucks off Interstate-81, which it parallels. The idea is to run intermodal north Jersey to Louisiana.
Southern Railway used to run a passenger-train called the “Crescent Limited,” even after Amtrak.
Southern was half the Norfolk Southern merger. The other half was powerful Norfolk & Western. Norfolk Southern also came to own much of the ex Pennsylvania Railroad when Conrail was broken up and sold.
Conrail was a merger of almost all the bankrupt northeast railroads, many beside Pennsy and Central (Penn-Central).
At first Conrail was a government effort, but eventually, as it became profitable, it privatized.
It was broken up and sold in 1998. The two buyers, Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation (railroad) began operating their portions in 1999.
Like CSX, Norfolk Southern covers all the eastern half of the nation.
It’s CSX’s competition, although it’s apparently doing better than CSX.
Realignment of the Crescent Corridor through Front Royal allowed doubling train-speeds from 15 mph to 30.
30 isn’t much, but 15 is bog-slow.
The Crescent Corridor is using old Pennsy trackage from Hagerstown, MD up to Harrisburg. And ex Reading (“REDD-ing;” not “READ-ing”) northeast toward north Jersey.
It also uses ex Central of New Jersey trackage toward the west bank of the Hudson River across from New York City, because the old Pennsy electrified line to New York City is now Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
The locomotive is a GP38-2 rebuilt from a GP-50. Many of the EMD 50-series locomotives have been modified by Norfolk Southern for other service; for example the six-axle SD40E for helper-service. (The SD40E allowed retirement of helper SD40-2s).
A GP38-2 is four axles, aimed at local freight, which this train probably is.
The GP38-2 is only 2,000 horsepower, and is not turbocharged.
The “Dash-2s” have advanced solid-state electronics, not the antique electronics in non “Dash-2” locomotives. There were (are) SD-40s and SD40-2s, plus various Geeps (GP-40 and GP40-2).
Railroads wanted something comparable to a GP-7 and GP-9, not high-stepping turbocharged road power.
Turbochargers can fail.
The GP-38 (unturbocharged) was EMD’s response.



Wildcat. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The August 2011 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Grumman Wildcat.
The Wildcat was the first of a series of airplanes Grumman Aviation designed for the U.S. Navy’s aircraft-carrier duty.
First the Wildcat, then the Hellcat, and finally the Bearcat (there also was the twin-engine Tigercat).
Grumman was taking advantage of leapfrog advances in radial aircraft engine technology, wherein ever more horsepower was extracted from the air-cooled radial design.
Radials arranged their cylinders in a circle. The Wildcat had a 1,830 cubic-inch Pratt & Whitney Twin-Wasp, 14 large cylinders in two rows of seven cylinders each.
The engines are gasoline-powered internal-combustion reciprocating piston engines. Jets and Turboprops came later.
Air-cooling had an advantage over water-cooling, avoiding damage to the water-cooling apparatus, which could cripple an airplane.
Air-cooled radials have the disadvantage of presenting a giant face to the airstream. A water-cooled V-12, e.g. the P-51 Mustang, could be more aerodynamic.
But the Navy kept building more powerful engines, extracting more performance. The war effort was spurring development.
Air-cooled radial aircraft engines became so powerful, even the Army Air Corps (no Air Force until 1947) went with ‘em, the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.
Grumman accommodated by redesigning their airframe to accept and make excellent use of those engines.
The Wildcat had one major disadvantage for aircraft-carrier operations.
It’s landing-gear was narrow, so the airplane could tip on landing.
The airplane is slammed into the carrier-deck on landing, so can bounce.
The Chance-Vought Corsair had much wider landing-gear, so was less likely to tip.
Grumman rectified that in the Hellcat.
Nevertheless the Wildcat was successful. Grumman continued production of the Wildcat, even after the Hellcat debuted, by farming out production to General Motors. —7,885 were built.
It could do battle with Japanese Zeros, but the Hellcat was better than the Wildcat.
The Bearcat used the same engine as the Hellcat, but in a smaller, lighter airframe. It was faster yet, and more maneuverable.



Two E-44s lead mixed freight north on the old Pennsy electrified line through Elizabeth, N.J.(Photo by Tom Desnoyers.)

The August 2011 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is two General Electric E-44 rectifier engines leading mixed freight north on the old Pennsy electrified line.
“Rectified” means the AC current in the catenary (“kat-in-AIR-eee;” called that because the trolley-wire was suspended on a catenary of cables) is rectified into DC current for the traction-motors.
Pennsy was not a trolley-line.
Trolley-lines were direct-current (DC), which can’t be stepped down (“transformed”).
Alternating current (AC) can. And since Pennsy electrified hundreds of miles, high voltage was needed, and needed to be stepped down. (Pennsy’s trolley-wire voltage was 11,000 volts. —Now it’s 60,000 volts.)
There was a problem. The traction-motors in diesel-electric locomotives were direct-current. Those motors worked better than AC, and were easier to maintain and operate.
Pennsy’s catenary being AC, their earliest electric locomotives also had to be AC. The GG1 (“Jee-Jee-ONE;” I only say that because a friend was mispronouncing it “Jee-Jee-Eye”) and P5 were AC.
Pennsy experimented with rectification so they could use direct-current traction-motors.
During the ‘50s they tried three experimentals — two were rectification —the six-motor E3 and E2c, and the four-motor E2b, only 10 units altogether.

Photo by BobbaLew.

An E2b about 1961.

The E3 had three two-motor trucks, and the E2c had two three-motor trucks.
The E2bs were straight four-motor AC, and were updated to MU with the P5.
The six-motor experimentals were ignitron rectifier, rectification via mercury tubes, water-cooled.
The first E44s were also ignitron rectifier, but later E44s switched to solid-state silicon diode rectification. All E44s were converted to solid-state silicon diode rectification, which was less troublesome than ignitron rectification.
“44” stood for the amount of horsepower (4,400) the locomotive could apply to the rail. Although some were uprated to 5,000 horsepower, via higher horsepower traction-motors. —E44s were six-motor.
General Electric also fielded an earlier design, the E33.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Penn-Central E33s.

But that was Virginian and eventually New Haven, not Pennsy. The E33s came into use on Pennsy’s electrification when Penn-Central merged New Haven. (Virginian merged with Norfolk & Western in 1959, at which time the E33s became N&W.)
The New Haven E33s were the Virginian E33s, sold when Norfolk & Western gave up on Virginian’s electrification in 1962.
The E44 saved electrification on Pennsy, and it’s too bad it never got west of Harrisburg.
Pennsy wanted to electrify its original line, Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, but couldn’t. Electrification is a massive capital investment. It was hard on Virginian.
Electrification would have made sense to Pittsburgh. Mountain railroading, where it excels.
Pennsy’s electrification only excelled at increased train-frequency, so that now the only electrification remaining is Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, mostly the old Pennsy New York City to Washington DC electrified line.
Although the old New Haven electrification out of New York City to New Haven was included, with the electrified Corridor recently extended to Boston.
New York City came to allow nothing but electrification into Manhattan.
A lot of the old Pennsy electrification was de-energized by Conrail. It runs diesels.



1970 Barracuda. (Photo by Ron Kimball©.)

The August 2011 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda.

Photo by Paul Balze.

1964 Barracuda.

The ‘Cuda was the first of the so-called “pony-cars;” a fastback roof grafted onto a Plymouth Valiant.
It lacked the proportions of the first Mustang: long hood, short trunk-deck, although the Mustang was the Falcon rebodied. (The Mustang debuted in late 1964.)
Later Barracudas didn’t look so putrid, but still lacked the Mustang proportions.

1968 Barracuda.

While the second iteration of the ‘Cuda looked better than the first, it still lacked the sporting proportions of the Mustang, the elongated hood and the short trunk-deck.
Chrysler decided they had to reconfigure their pony-car, the Barracuda which also became the Dodge Challenger.
The calendar-car pictured is the new configuration. Although as I understand it, it has the mid-size car firewall. The firewall, interior, and roof are all the mid-size car; but the front and back are individual to the pony-cars.
Which means as pony-cars they are rather large and heavy.
Wider than the second-generation ‘Cuda, and also wider than the Mustang and the Camaro.
Obviously Chrysler could’t afford recasting the second-generation ‘Cuda, so what they did was slap-dash the mid-size car into a pony-car.
And it looked successful, although it was rather big.

The Trans-Am Dodge Challenger.

I remember the Mopar pony-cars racing the SCCA Trans-Am series in the early ‘70s, and they looked big compared to the competition.



That’s photographer Jim Shaughnessy to the left. (Photo by Phil Hastings©.)

—The August 2011 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is almost boring.
Audio-Visual included it because so many of their calendar-pictures have been by Jim Shaughnessy.
So here we have Shaughnessy in a picture, although he looks awful young.
The train is bound for the Sodus Point wharf on the Elmira branch.

Photo by BobbaLew.

The Pennsy wharf at Sodus Point.

Quite a bit of the line is uphill, so helpers were needed to push.
The steam-locomotive is probably a 2-10-0 Decapod, the steam-locomotive used by Pennsy at the end of steam-locomotive operations on the Elmira branch.
The diesels look like Alco, probably downgraded from passenger-service. Alcos weren’t reliable enough for Pennsy, so got downgraded almost immediately.
The locomotives may even be PAs, a really great-looking locomotive, but not as reliable as EMD.
So they’d be downgraded from passenger-service to helper-service pushing freights.

Photo by Otto Perry.

Centipede helpers round the Mighty Curve in 1953 downhill for another push.

An example of downgrading is what happened to the Baldwin Centipede, a gigantic two-unit 3,000 horsepower diesel-locomotive essentially built for Pennsy (although Seaboard Airline [railroad] had 14). (Pennsy had 24.)
They were downgraded from passenger-service, for which they were designed, to pusher-service on the grade over the Allegheny front west of Altoona.
They couldn’t MU with anything, so about all they could do was help. —Assuming they kept running. Baldwin diesels were notorious for failing.
The Centipede was Pennsy conservatism at its worst. Diesel locomotives are essentially trolley motors. Their powered wheels, like trolleys, are on trucks that swivel independent of the locomotive frame.
But not the Centipede. The powered wheels were in massive castings part of the locomotive. —But semi-independent, like a GG1.
All diesel-locomotive users quickly discovered the economic sense of MU-ing, multiple units operated by a single crew.
The Centipede, incapable of MU-ing, was mired in the past — that is, one crew per locomotive unit, like steam locomotives.
Although the Centipede was two units semi-permanently coupled.
The Elmira branch, from Williamsport north through Elmira and Watkins Glen to Sodus Point is mostly gone.
Segments are still active operated by shortlines, but the line to Sodus Point is gone, as is the wharf.
The wharf was for transloading iron-ore or coal into lake ships over Lake Ontario.
The Elmira branch is the old Northern Central north out of Williamsport, in which Pennsy got controlling interest in 1861.
The Sodus Point extension was built by Northern Central in 1885.
The line to Canandaigua was originally for shipping Pennsylvania coal toward Buffalo. Pennsy got control of Northern Central partly to offset Baltimore & Ohio, and partly to direct coal to Lake Ontario.
The line to Canandaigua is also gone. It’s now a hiking trail.
Northern Central went from Baltimore north (also a hiking-trail).
Quite a few of the pictures of the Elmira branch have been by Shaughnessy.
The Elmira branch was one of the final bastions of steam-locomotive operation on Pennsy — and Shaughnessy was attracted to steam.
Plus it was very scenic.
Plus they were Pennsy Decapods, one of the railroad’s most awesome steam-locomotives.
The picture is at Trout Run, a bucolic and rural location just past where the branch turned toward Elmira above Williamsport. It’s also where the uphill grade began.

Hippo country

At Trout Run. (That’s Shaughnessy at left.) (Photo by Phil Hastings©.)

An article in the Fall 2011 issue of my Classic Trains magazine attracted my attention.
It’s by Jim Shaughnessy, titled “Hippo Country.”
It details the Pennsylvania Railroad’s use of steam-locomotives on their Elmira branch in the mid-‘50s.


A Dek leading a coal-train receives orders at Newberry Tower leaving Williamsport. (Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.)

The locomotives were their I1 2-10-0 Decapod “Hippos,” called that because they were so big when they debuted in 1916.
The Deks weren’t SuperPower. In fact, they were rather conservative (no appliances). Just upsizing the boiler to give it greater capacity.
In fact, they used the same size firebox grate as the K4 Pacific (4-6-2), 70 square feet. SuperPower is 100 square feet or more.
The Dek was Pennsy’s solution to needing ever more drag power. —A plodder; a 10-drivered Consolidation (2-8-0).


Passing Watkins Glen depot. (Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.)

The Pennsy Dek suffered the bane of all 10-drivered steam-locomotives, the massive weight of its drive-rods.
The offset was massive driver counterweighting.
But still, a Dek hammered the rail.
Plus all that rotating weight translated to heavy vibration at speed.


Rural road-crossing out on the line. (Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.)

50 mph was about all you could stand in a Dek.
Plus at speed they could run out of steam. They weren’t SuperPower, which is mainly incredible steam-capacity at speed.


Two Deks face-to-face. (Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.)

Amazingly, the earliest Deks were hand-fired.
But it was quickly ascertained there was no way even two firemen could keep up with the coal-requirement of a Dek.
The Dek was the Pennsylvania Railroad’s first broad-based application of stokers.


About to cross Lycoming Creek at Cogan Station, eight miles north of Williamsport. (Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.)

The bucolic Elmira branch is mostly gone.
Even some of the right-of-way is obliterated.
But in the middle ‘50s it was a means of shipping coal and iron-ore to a wharf in Sodus Point on Lake Ontario, where it would be transloaded into lake ships.


A Dek positions hoppers on the wharf at Sodus Point. (Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.)

The Elmira branch is the old Northern Central mainline, controlled by Pennsy in 1861.
The line ran north out of Baltimore, and gave Pennsy a lever against Baltimore & Ohio.
Northern Central took over lines north of Williamsport, one of which went to nearby Canandaigua, an outlet for Pennsylvania coal to Buffalo.
Shaughnessy says the Sodus Point extension was built by Northern Central in 1885.
Segments of the Elmira branch remain, operated by shortlines.
Finger Lakes Railway operates an island segment Watkins Glen up to PennYan.
It’s accessed via trackage-rights over Norfolk Southern’s Corning Secondary.
Ontario Midland operates Newark, NY up to interchange with the old New York Central Hojack line. —Ontario Midland also owns the Hojack Webster to Sodus.
(I rode a fall foliage excursion on OMID years ago. The old Pennsy line was a boxcar-sized tunnel of leaves.)
But to Sodus Point is gone, as is the wharf, which burned down in 1971 during dismantling.
The wharf was wood, a wooden trestle.


STAND BACK! (Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.)

The Elmira branch, and its heavy iron-ore/coal trains, was a last stand for the Pennsy Decapod, which was well-suited for operation thereon.

Geezer meeting

Norb Dynski at left, Ron Palermo next to him, Vince Arena at right; all retired bus-drivers. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

The other day (Thursday, July 28, 2011) was a brunch meeting of the Transit retirees group, which I call the Transit geezers club.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs.
My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
Our group is ad hoc; that is, it’s not official.
It’s comprised of both hourlies and management, although it’s low-line management, not the White-Tower elitists.
In fact, one guy isn’t retired. He still works at Transit as management, a radio-controller.
The radio guys kept in contact with bus-drivers, etc via radio, more-or-less dispatching operations.
Nevertheless that guy is from our time; he’s worked at Transit 38 years.
I remember working with him. His feet were squarely on the ground.
Radio-controllers, and bus-drivers, could be jerks.
But we weren’t.
On my end, it was a reflection of the fact I had once been a bus-passenger myself.
On-time performance, and the bus better not cripple. Plus the shortest detours I could find time-wise.
We got those people to work on time, or else I’m losing passengers.
No excuses, no “not my fault.”
The bus-union would have been mad at me.
I carried my own tools.
I wasn’t waitin’ no 35 minutes for a mechanic to tighten a floppy mirror. —Nor floppy windshield-wipers.
I preferred our Flxible (“flix-ible”) buses. They’d run even with the “hot-engine” or “lo-oil” trouble-lights — unlike our GM buses, which shut down.
Nine times out of 10 a sensor was haywire.
We’re gettin’ them passengers home. I ain’t stickin’ ‘em.
I always feel a little out-of-it at these shindigs; like I’m not really one of them.
But I am; and they make really great friends.
Driving bus was dangerous; dealing with psychos.
You could get shot.
And upper management seemed more in it to just collect their bloated paychecks.
It seemed upper management wanted to insulate themselves from the world we dealt with.
Plus upper management and my bus-union were always at war.
The world we dealt with went for all us geezers.
Madness everywhere, and we were always parrying it.
We swapped stories about what it was like to have some passenger puke all over you, or pee on the floor.

• “Flxible” was a manufacturer of transit-buses. They competed with General Motors. RTS had about 75. Flxible is no more.

Reunion

(Left-to-right) Carol Weiss, Joy Slavin, and my wife — at the outdoor campus directory and map. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

For the past few days, two girls my wife shared a small dorm-house (Hazlett [“haze-LET”]) with during her earliest years in college visited us.
The girls are Carol Weiss (“wice”) and Joy Slavin (“slave-in”).
Neither are married.
Weiss lives by herself in her own house in Nyack, NY.
Slavin lives with her family in Manheim, PA. That includes her mother, who is 95, and most of her siblings.
Both were teachers, both retired.
This visit was prompted by my e-mail to them a few months ago, when my wife was at death’s door.
She no longer is; she’s fully recovered.
My wife has cancer, but supposedly it’s not fatal.
It’s treatable.
Actually, she has two cancers: -a) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and -b) metastatic breast-cancer.
The Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma appeared about three years ago as a hard tumor in her abdomen.
That was poofed with chemotherapy.
The metastatic breast-cancer did not have a primary site; it never appeared in her breasts.
It was first noticed in her bones, where breast-cancer metastasizes.
We knocked that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Femara is an estrogen inhibitor. Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive.
Her breast-cancer just about disappeared.
My e-mail made things sound terrible; which they were at that time.
The cancer was growing in her abdomen, and restricting blood and urine flow.
Her legs swelled, she was in pain, and her kidneys began failing.
She also was getting very weak — anemia.
We visited a nearby hospital’s Emergency Room a few times, and she was blood-transfused many times. She was eventually admitted to that hospital.
Meanwhile our cancer-center, which is in another hospital in Rochester, was engaged in a turf-battle.
Since she has two cancers, her two treatment specialists were at each other’s throats — a Three Stooges movie.
“Not my cancer!” “Is too!” “Is not!”
The lymphoma specialist had also been appointed a head-honcho, so he was pulling rank.
They finally began to wake up when I called the breast-cancer doctor myself and said “I hope she lasts the night.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Well, I’m biased of course, but I think so.”
The breast-cancer doctor thereafter called my wife herself at the other hospital.
My wife had her cellphone.
With that call, our breast-cancer doctor could hear how bad my wife was.
Suddenly things began moving — the Stooges movie ended.
My wife would be transferred to the Rochester hospital for treatment.
She was admitted, was there almost two weeks, and is now home fully recovered.
She was also given chemotherapy that snuffed the fire in her abdomen.
Stents were also installed in her ureter-tubes (to flow urine through the blockage); and they have since been removed.
Our college, Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”) in Western NY, was very strict when we were there.
It still is, although not as strict as when we were there, when women couldn’t wear slacks or shorts, and sleeveless dresses weren’t allowed.
Television was also not allowed, so that when President Kennedy was assassinated, we had to hit the homes (and TVs) of professors.
Television was sinful and of-the-Devil.
Plus Kennedy had it coming (a Democrat — gasp!).
Those professors were of-the-Devil too.
The college was founded and run by religious fundamentalists, almost to the point of being ridiculous.
The village is along what once was the Genesee Valley Canal, and the broad fertile Genesee valley was the first breadbasket of the nation.
Wheat would be grown in the valley, shipped to Rochester via the Genesee Valley Canal, and then shipped east on the Erie Canal after milling in Rochester.
The village was a den of bawdy iniquity, brothels, drinking, gambling, and fighting.
The village was named “Jockey Street,” because people would race their horses up the long main drag.
A religious zealot named Willard Houghton arrived, and decided to clean up the town.
He was a Wesleyan Methodist, much stricter than the average Methodist.
A seminary was established in the village in 1883, and it eventually became Houghton College.
By the time I attended, Houghton was thought to be one of the two best religious colleges.
The other was Wheaton College (supposedly the best) outside Chicago, where I was refused admittance.
Houghton only accepted me after I proved I could do college-level work in their summer-school.
My attending Houghton was a compromise with my father. He wanted me to attend Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, where he attended.
Moody Bible Institute wasn’t a college at that time, but is now.
I wanted to do college, the first in my family to get a college degree. (My father could have done it, but never tried.)
Houghton is also a liberal arts college (dread!). “Liberal” is of-the-Devil, and liberal-arts isn’t studying for a specific career.
It’s too general (gasp!), and encourages consideration of the opposite side of an issue (greater gasp!), instead of noisily trumpeting only the side the tub-thumpers think correct.
And loudly browbeating with ad hominem put-downs and name-calling anyone that dares render an opposing argument.
I’ve never regretted attending Houghton, although I graduated somewhat a misfit. And not approved by the college, since I didn’t graduate a zealot.
What I like most about Houghton was that the professors weren’t elitists; and cared about we students.
It was the first time adults actually listened to me, and valued my opinions.
They even used to steal my ideas.
They encouraged questioning — which in my case made me not a zealot.
I went there with no idea what to major in, although I was gonna major in Physics. (The whole idea was to avoid ‘Nam.)
But I ended up majoring in History, because that’s where all the good professors were.
Other majors might have one good professor, but History had two.
Early during my time at Houghton I fell into trying to prove the Founding Fathers of this nation were inspired — that they had faith in the good of mankind, and our nation was a manifestation of this.
One of my two good History professors, who I really respected, and who inspired me to become a History-major, quickly put the kibosh on that, by trotting out the Beardian theory that the American Revolution was economically motivated, and all that high-sounding philosophizing about the good of mankind was pure bunk, mere justification for an economically motivated revolution.
He was just challenging me. The sort of intellectual challenge any scholar would have to endure.
After four years I’d had enough. There were no answers. Most scholarly pursuit seemed mere belly-button picking, and I had a life to live.
“So what brought you to Rochester?” Joy asked.
“Her,” I said, pointing to my wife, who was only my wife-to-be at that time.
My wife had enrolled in a Library Science Masters program at nearby Geneseo State college, but that failed too.
My wife tired of serious discussions about how librarians should dress.
So we both moved to Rochester, me first from home in October of 1966.
I also had been declared 4-F (not draft-able), so I wasn’t going to ‘Nam. —I had a duodenal ulcer.
My wife moved up later, after failing Library School.
I also didn’t wanna be at home with meddling parents, after four years of relative independence.
Our first stop was Letchworth State park, a really great park, perhaps 10-15 miles north of Houghton, where students hung out a lot.
The mighty Genesee (“jen-uh-SEE”) river, which traverses Western New York south to north, has to go from higher elevations in the southern part of the state, to lower in the north.
(The Genesee also passes Houghton.)
There are waterfalls, and a deep gorge carved out of rock, all in Letchworth Park, an area once owned by William Pryor Letchworth, later converted to a state park.
There was desire to harness the power in the waterfalls, but that never happened.
The gorge and waterfalls remained natural.
The only visible incursion of mankind is a huge railroad trestle above the Upper Falls.
At first the trestle was wood, but that burned down.
The current trestle is steel, but I think there was a wrought-iron trestle before that.
The trestle is Erie Railroad, their Buffalo Extension.
The line is now Norfolk Southern, and they will replace the trestle.
The trestle is down to 10 mph, and if a train locked its brakes (“emergency”) it might take down the trestle.
That trestle is part of Norfolk Southern’s railroad from Buffalo toward New York City, motivation to replace it.
We first looked at waterfalls, and then set up a picnic within view of the trestle and Letchworth’s mansion.
The park exists mainly because of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, who built rock walls, overlooks, and carved paths.
They also built giant picnic-tables out of rock, and we set up on one.
The table was a giant slab of flat shale, about four inches thick, perhaps five feet by eight.
Those picnic-tables are forever. The only wood was the seat-benches, twin wooden 2x6 planks.
Our next stop was our college, our alma mater.
“This place lacks the charm it had when we were here,” Carol said.
A gigantic new Fine Arts building was built behind the Chapel-Auditorium, which was a class building.
The Fine Arts building overpowers the Chapel-Auditorium, and makes it look inferior.

Photo by BobbaLew.

John and Charles Wesley Memorial Chapel-Auditorium in 1965.

That Chapel was the classiest building on the campus. It’s a big box, but it still looks right. It was the portico that did it.
We went inside the lobby, and saw the infamous mural of the Biblical passing of time.
We gazed inside the auditorium. It looked great; just like it did when we left.
Although it has new seats, and temporary air-conditioning through removed window-panes from outdoors rental AC units.
The old radio-station control-room had been blanked off.
It looked nowhere near as bad as last time, when columns were on the stage.
An artist’s rendering of how it would look after renovation appeared in our alumni newsletter. It included the columns.
I wrote them a letter: if they included those columns in their renovation they weren’t getting another red cent.
So no columns this time. An empty expansive stage, except a small string orchestra was on it sawing away.
It sounded like Beethoven.
A youth music-camp was on campus, and the orchestra sounded pretty good.
A little murky, but nowhere near as bad as a high-school band, which can be annoying.
We also perused the new Fine Arts building, finding various empty galleries.
I went upstairs (via elevator, of all things.....), and found numerous tiny well-insulated practice rooms. They were inhabited by youngsters, a girl practicing scales on her flute, various pianists, and a soprano voicing scales with piano accompaniment.
It was barely audible.
Totally unlike the old Music Building, where it was so hot inside the students opened their windows, even in winter, and we were greeted with gorgeous cacophony when we exited the Chapel-building.
Trumpets and pianos and cellos, and yodeling sopranos and bellowing baritones — a torrential mishmash of convoluted clashing sound, cascading all over you.
The new Fine Arts building mutes that.
People used to call the old Music Building “Blare Hall.”
We then checked out the Campus Center, unheard of when we were students.
(Ours was nothing.)
Upstairs was the dining-room, and food was apparently served cafeteria-style.
When we were there it was by waiter; a job for students.
And Joy and my wife and Carol and myself all worked in the vaunted dishroom. Do students wash the dishes in this new arrangement?
I’m sorry, but I agree with my wife’s friends.
Houghton had character when we were there.
A character it now seems to lack.
And as we left we were passed by a skinny stick-human earnestly studying his iPhone.
He smiled as we passed, as did most everyone we met.
Do these people have any idea what the real world is like?
I drove city transit bus 16&1/2 years, and found that most strangers frown or snap at you.
Only people that know you smile.
The bell-tower rang three o’clock as we prepared to leave. Just like old times — probably the same recording (over speakers).
“Why was everyone so sincere?” I asked as we departed.
(My wife’s Hazlett dorm was gone, replaced by townhouses with the same name.)

• The upper wall of the Wesley Chapel lobby has a gigantic 150-foot mural titled “Redemption” painted by H. Willard Ortlip, a Houghton faculty member. It traces the entire passing of earthly history, from Biblical Creation to the end of time. (Ortlip took sick while painting the shackling of Satan. —Hmmmmmnnnnn.........)

Cellphone anomalies

The other morning (Saturday, July 23, 2011) I took our dog to nearby Boughton Park (”BOW-tin;” as in “wow”) alone.
I had my cellphone, a Droid-X Smartphone, with me.
I have an “app” on it called “Life-360.”
My wife can log her computer into Life-360 and see where my phone is — me, since I carry my phone.
Life-360 is fairly reliable. It shows where I am via GPS satellite.
It shows where I am in the park; even when I go off the road.
I decided to walk our dog on the paths around the ponds.
Life-360 should show exactly where I am, nowhere near the road.
But no, it was showing me in Victor, which is nowhere near Boughton Park.
My wife had logged in, and I was shown north of the Thruway.
My wife began to think I’d been bopped over the head, and my phone stolen.
She called.
Answering a cellphone while trying to control a charging dog on a leash is almost impossible, but I attempted to answer. The call was ID’ed as her.
On a Droid you get two choices on the display screen, answer and send to voicemail.
I did the answer-swipe and was sent into the ozone.
Some strange anomalous screen appeared; I had no idea if I’d answered at all.
Seconds passed.
Finally “hello-hello” from the earpiece.
Yes, I had answered the call, but I was off in the ozone.
This has happened before.
I attempt to answer a call, and my cellphone jumps into the unknowable.
Or sometimes the answer-swipe doesn’t work.
I follow a previous standard procedure, and off we go!
Beyond that, how are the 911 guys supposed to find you, if your cellphone has you someplace other than where you actually are?

• “Boughton Park” is the old Fairport Water Supply. It has large ponds. (Fairport is a suburb east of Rochester on the Erie Canal.) —It’s a town park, owned by the three towns that bought the water-supply when it was retired. It can only be used by residents of the three towns, and we are residents of one of those towns. It’s sort of a nature-preserve.
• “Victor” is an old farm-town about 10 miles north of where we live, and about seven-eight miles north of Boughton Park. It is now a suburb southeast of Rochester.
• The NYS “Thruway” is Interstate-90 (and I-87 New York City to Albany), the interstate across New York state, also a toll road. —Boughton Park is south of the Thruway. The Thruway is about eight-nine miles north of where we live.

Train-chasing without Faudi

PRAAMP-PRAAMP; PRAMP-PRAAMMPP! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

So concludes our first attempt at chasing trains in Altoona, PA (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”) without Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”).
I have written up Phil so many times, I would just be boring constant readers, if there are any at all.
If you need clarification, click this link, and read the first part. It explains Phil.
I ended up with only three photographs, and we saw seven, maybe eight, trains.
With Phil it’s usually over 20. One time we saw 30 trains in a nine-hour day.
But I don’t think it was lack of Phil.
Hardly anything was running, plus there seemed to be track-work restricting things.
Most of the time my railroad radio scanner was silent; and lotsa times it was maintenance foremen closing track.
There are only three tracks over the mountain, and only two approaching from the east. (It used to be four, “the Broad-Way,” and six over the mountain [six, then down to five and then four, now three].)
It seemed most of the time at least one track was closed — including from the east.
There are a slew of scheduled freight-trains, but only a few were getting through.
And what did seemed to be running late.
Bottlenecks were somewhere.
Well okay, but the whole idea of this effort was to show my sister from south Florida the Mighty Curve (Horseshoe Curve).
Horseshoe Curve is another thing I’ve written up so many times I probably shouldn’t.
If you need explanation, click this link. Find the picture of the Curve; explanation will be around it.
My sister from Florida looked utterly bedraggled — and well she should. She had been driving for days.
First was getting from Fort Lauderdale to my baby sister’s in Lynchburg, VA.
That took two days.
Then to my brother in northern DE, and then my other brother near Boston, the macho Harley-dude who loudly badmouths everything I do or say.
Then it was from outside Boston to Altoona; a drive of seven-to-eight hours.
My brother was leading her on his Harley, and knows fast ways around New York City.
Nevertheless, it’s a day-long grind; something I’d be loathe to do.
My south Florida sister is 65 (I’m 67). —We’re not spring chickens!
My Boston brother and I are both railfans, and we’ve both been browbeating my Florida sister to see the Mighty Curve, by far the BEST railfan spot I’ve ever been to.
The fact my Boston brother was also coming meant train-chasing was a given. My Florida sister had never seen the Curve, and my Boston brother had never seen some of the fabulous places Faudi had showed me.
More importantly, it was a famblee reunion; although not all were present. Missing Altoona were my DE brother and his wife, my Boston brother’s wife, and also my sister from Lynchburg and her husband.
Also missing were their kids, my DE-brother’s only son (a railfan), my Boston brother’s kids, a married daughter and her younger brother, and all my Lynchburg sister’s kids, all boys, all three.
But finally we were getting my Florida sister to see the Mighty Curve.
My wife and I arrived first — we had the shortest drive, only five hours.
We called my sister, who was still at least two hours away.
My wife and I went up to the Curve ourselves, and saw the one-and-only Amtrak passenger-train across PA, the “Pennsylvanian,” westbound.
It goes past about 5:15-5:30 p.m. Eastbound is in the morning.


The eastbound Pennsylvanian, last February. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

It only goes to Pittsburgh, and is subsidized by the state. (PRR had many.) But it also runs the Northeast Corridor up to New York City from Philadelphia.
I called my sister again, but she was still driving — “out in the middle of nowhere.”
So we went to a restaurant we usually patronize in Cresson (“kress-in”).
My sister called as we were cashing out; she was finally in Altoona.
Back to the motel we drove, which was fully reserved, but my sister was one of the reservations.
She had reserved a king-sized bed, but king-size was no longer available, probably because they checked in after 6 p.m.
Oh well, better than nothing. All motels in Altoona were “no vacancy” well in advance; something was going on. (Altoona has a branch of Penn State, and there was thought they were doing something.)
The next morning I suggested we hit Plummers Crossing first, a long drive north of Altoona, just east of Tyrone (“tie-RONE”).
Tyrone is where the railroad turns east toward Harrisburg, through a notch in the mountains.
We set up at Plummers; it’s a dirt-track in.
We waited about 15 minutes, and all-of-a-sudden the lights came on on a nearby signal-bridge, which meant something was in the track-block.
My scanner had been indicating a possible westbound, but no, here it comes, eastbound, charging toward us on Track One.


Yrs trly at left, my brother Jack, Tom Reynders (“Rine-ders;” my sister’s husband), and my sister (extreme right). (Photo by Linda Hughes.)

It blasted past, about 40 mph, blowing its horn for the road-crossing (Plummers is a crossing).
We all shot photographs; mine is the one at the lead of this blog.
My siblings were all ecstatic, even the non-railfans.
Especially my railfan brother: “Bobby, this place is fantastic!”
At Plummers the trains are right in your face.
Our next stop was McFarlands curve, which I think is the most photogenic location Phil has taken me to in the Altoona area.
That’s because an old Pennsy signal-bridge is right on the curve, and can silhouette against the sky.
The signal-bridge has six target-signals on it. They signal each track either way. —They make a nice picture.
The farthest tracks are mainlines One and Two. Nearest is a controlled siding.


A camp-train is on the controlled siding. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

McFarlands is not easy to find.
You access it off a one-lane dirt farm track, which the railroad also uses as a service-road. —Except it has a street name per Google-maps.
You have to know where it is, lest you drive right by it.
There wasn’t much shade, but we found some, and my sister set up folding beach-chairs she had brought.


(Left-to-right) me, my sister, her husband Tom, and my brother Jack, all at McFarlands curve, which is also a grade-crossing to farm-fields across the tracks. (Photo by Linda Hughes.)

Nothing came.
But this is where the great marker debate occurred.
“I see pipeline markers!” my brother loudly bellowed.
“Oh maybe not,” I said. “I know for a fact a fiber-optic cable is buried in the right-of-way all along the tracks.”
“It’s a pipeline, I tell ya!”
I walked across the tracks, and looked at a marker.
“‘Buried fiber-optic cable,’” it says.
“How about that sign on the marker?”
“‘Buried fiber-optic cable.’”
“How about atop the marker?”
“‘Buried fiber-optic cable.’”
“How about that sticker on the bottom of the marker?”
“‘Buried fiber-optic cable.’”
“You’re just givin’ me the business.”
My sister’s husband Tom came across the tracks to look at another marker.
“‘Buried fiber-optic cable,’ it says.”
“I know it’s a pipeline marker. Inspectors fly over it to check for leaks. They got it signed wrong.”
“But it says ‘Buried fiber-optic cable.’
Just face it Jack, you blew it, and ya won’t even cross the tracks.
Increasing your volume doesn’t make ya right.
There may be a pipeline buried here, but the markers say ‘Buried fiber-optic cable.’”
Next stop was Bellwood, where a recent fancy-dan footbridge goes over the tracks.
It’s not that photogenic, but the tracks thread a residential area. It’s also a straight-line (no curvature), which makes it less photogenic.
The segment over the tracks is completely covered with tight chain-link. You have to shoot from the ends; that is, the tracks aren’t under you, and can be partially obscured by trees.
Again nothing, although my scanner seemed to indicate something was coming. But it was also indicating track-closings, in this case Gray Interlocking to “Park.”
I know where Gray is. It’s near Tyrone, and is where the controlled siding ends.
But I’ve never heard of “Park.” I didn’t know east or west of Gray.
No shade at Bellwood, so we left after about 20 minutes.
Next would be Cassandra (“kuh-SANNE-druh;” as in the name “Anne”) Railfan Overlook, a long drive from Bellwood to west of Altoona.
My sister and her husband were fagging out.
Cassandra Railfan Overlook is a fabulous place to watch trains, and is very shady.
My sister needed the shade. (It was very hot.)


Eastbound on Track Two at Cassandra. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


Westbound on Track Three at Cassandra. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Cassandra Railfan Overlook is another location I’ve written up many times. If you need explanation, click this link, and read the first entry. The picture was taken at Cassandra Railfan Overlook, pictured below.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Cassandra Railfan Overlook (the bridge).

The railroad has been threatening to remove the bridge, it damaged a passing train when concrete fell off the underside.
But the bridge was still there.
We saw quite a few trains at Cassandra, but all were unannounced.
Usually my scanner picks up two defect-detectors, milepost 253.1 to the east, and 258.9 to the west.
Cassandra is between both, so can indicate when a train is coming.
But no defect-detectors, and no idea why.
What we heard, if anything, was other railfan scanners.
There also was a signal-bridge far west of Cassandra, but viewable.
If an approaching train was in the track-block, it lit the signals.
I wanted to drive farther out to Summerhill, again one of the most photogenic spots.


At Summerhill, two winters ago. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

But my sister was tired. Summerhill would lack shade, so we stayed at Cassandra.
Cassandra was at least an hour, but we figured we better do the Mighty Curve — via Tunnel Inn in Gallitzin (“guh-LITT-zin;” as in “gal”) at the summit of the Alleghenies.
Tunnel Inn was locked, so down to the Mighty Curve, the whole point of this trip.
We took the funicular railroad (a sort of cable-car) up to the viewing area. Funicular or 194 steps, and my sister has a bad back — I still can do the steps.
We saw a few trains at the Mighty Curve, three or four.
Two were before we left. Amtrak’s westbound “Pennsylvanian” had just left Altoona, and was coming up The Hill.
The funicular was running per a schedule, and would go down about 5:30.
Amtrak appeared, but on Track Three, outside a freight climbing on Track Two.
As Phil would say, “a double,” except the freight was blocking view of Amtrak.
Our next destination was the Olive Garden restaurant in Altoona for supper.
My brother was with me, and I suggested we could hit another photo location, Slope Interlocking, on the way there.
“Let’s do Slope,” he said. “They won’t know the difference.”
Except I wasn’t sure where I was going.
I knew Slope was attainable via a tree-named street, except just about all north-south streets in the area were named after trees; “Oak,” “Chestnut,” “Maple,” etc., etc.
So ziggity-zag, up-and-down, this way and that.
We found it, and my scanner was indicating a train approaching Slope from the west.
I wasn’t allowed to turn toward downtown (a one-way street), so back to Slope we went.
And Altoona is notorious for roller-coaster hills.
Back at Slope, there’s the train, but we didn’t stop.
Finally my sister, who was following, called from behind.
“Can we PUH-LEEZE go to Olive-Garden?”
After dinner at Olive-Garden, which suffers from being a nationwide chain-restaurant, instead of a local Italian restaurant.....
.....My brother and I drove by ourselves (my wife went back to the motel with my sister) to another Faudi-spot, “the Ledges.”
Another dirt-track road, that looks like a driveway, but actually it’s the drive for the Altoona Sportsmen’s Association.
It tunnels under the mainline to the other side of the tracks, and “the ledges” is accessible from a narrow jeep-trail up a hill.
I parked our car, and we hiked up, my brother huffing-and-puffing.
He’s carrying a lotta weight.
The light was fading; the sun had already set behind the mountains.
A signal-bridge is nearby, and the lights came on. My scanner was also indicating something was approaching.
But it was only a westbound helper-set, two SD40Es.
(Helper-sets don’t count as trains.)
It was about 8:30, and the light kept fading.
I was down to 1/30th of a second with my lens wide open, plus my ISO speed was doubled.
We finally gave up.
We all returned to our homes the next morning: —1) my brother on his Harley to his home outside Boston; —2) us to our home in western New York; and —3) my sister and her husband back toward their condo in Fort Lauderdale.
Seven trains, my sister said; “more than we’ve ever seen in a single day.”
My brother and I were hoping for better. It’s a busy line, a main railroad from the nation’s interior.
Even without Faudi you get snowed.
But it seemed nothing was running.
I’m sure we missed some, and my scanner wasn’t helping.
It was the old waazoo though; indiscernible static on the scanner.
I’ve experienced that on a Faudi train-chase.
I hear undecipherable static on Faudi’s scanner, and he identifies a train.
I don’t know how he does it.
I’d say my brother has mellowed some.
Not a lot, but some.
It’s both of us, of course. We are trying to not inflame each other.
Things I’ve said before didn’t start him blustering.
I could see him defer.
Just the same, my sister’s husband Tom, who has slight Parkinson’s, was in the bathroom at the Mighty Curve, and the funicular was about to go up.
My brother started foaming, telling him to get moving.
I glanced in the Mens Room to make sure Tom was all right, yet my brother was going bonkers.
Poor Tom. He told my brother to shaddup.
Good for Tom.
I don’t think my brother has yet attained tolerance for the slightly disabled.
Even though he has a handicap-plate on his Harley.
My brother knows I can hit the jackpot chasing trains.
No argument when I suggested Ledges.
“You lead,” he said.
The other thing is I came away from this reunion feeling I wasn’t in as bad shape as I feel at home.
My brother was huffing-and-puffing to keep up with me, and my sister looked washed out.
Although I think all her driving made a difference. Her husband, with Parkinson’s, didn’t do any of the driving.
I also never fell, and footing in some places was atrocious, particularly the Ledges.

• ”Bobby” is me, Bob Hughes, “BobbaLew.” “Linda Hughes” is my wife.

Harley insurance

An ad (illustrated at left) in the August 2011 issue of my Cycle World Magazine finally attracted my attention.
It first appeared in last month’s issue.
Harley-Davidson doing motorcycle insurance?
Harley manufactures motorcycles. Usually when a company branches into something unrelated to what they do, it signifies trouble.
I doubt Harley is in trouble.
People are buying Harleys left and right.
$16,000+ to wait for antediluvian technology.
Other manufacturers make motorcycles more civilized, and much more state-of-the-art.
What Harley is selling is the bad-boy image. Their motorcycles are heavy and vibrate, and can make torrents of noise.
Although usually that is their owners switching to unmuffled exhaust-pipes.
The ad is obviously aimed at the bad-boy image.
The rider is an evil monster, totally unrelated to reality.
A cartoon caricature, of course.
Behind him is an attractive cutie.
How anyone could be drawn to such a monster is beyond me......
I ride motorcycle myself, which is an adventure in self-sufficiency and independence. But I don’t feel I’m trying to be a bad-boy.
A few months ago we happened to be in north Florida the same time as Bike Week in Daytona.
I was surrounded by blatting Harleys — their riders trying to affect the bad-boy image.
Which I guess means pigging out, among other things.
I happened to patronize a restaurant offering a “Biker Breakfast Special.”
It included steak, sausage, bacon and eggs.
We renamed it “The Cholesterol Special.”

Cars you MUST own

“Imperial Crowns; rare ‘60s Chryslers you must own,” blared the cover (above) on my September 2011 issue of Hemmings Classic Car magazine.
On the cover was a golden ’68 Chrysler Imperial Crown — ho-hum — a car not that notable to me when it was new.
“If I owned every car that magazine says I ‘must own,’ I’d have at least 40 cars, maybe even 50,” I said to my wife.

1970 Dodge Dart.

Corvair.

1959 Lark convertible.

Rambler.

Step-down Hudson (1950).

1956 Caddy.

BeetleBomb. (The beginning of the end for Packard.)

A ‘70s Dodge Dart, a Corvair, a Studebaker Lark, various Ramblers, a Step-Down Hudson.
(“Step-Down” because the body-floor was between the frame rails, which were in the side-sills. You had to step down to get into the car.)
A mid-50s Cadillac, perhaps a ’56. And of course a Packard, the ugly BeetleBombs marketed in the ‘40s.
Personally, I don’t own a classic-car at all. Not even a classic ’55 Chevy, as dreamed about all through high-school and college.
Cars, to me, are always utilitarian. They’re not a statement.
And over the years I’ve owned a few, although not many.
I wasn’t going through cars at a prodigious rate.
I’d own and use a car 6-8 years. Now the average is 10 years or more.
Our ’89 Honda Civic stationwagon went 13 years before it was totaled. And damage wasn’t much; I was tempted to fix it.
My brother-in-Boston, the macho Harley-dude who loudly badmouths everything I do or say, owns a classic car, a 1971 454 SS Chevelle musclecar.
He feeds it hi-test gasoline that costs about $200 per fill-up. That’s about $10 per gallon — 20 gallons.
You can’t buy groceries with it. About all you can do is take it to shows.
He let me drive it once. All I could think was way too much motor in a flimsy old chassis.
This was after him driving me around in it, which I was leery of for fear he’d put the hammer down.
Show me what it could do — which is spin angrily into the boonies.
I watched warily from the passenger-seat as the giant hood quaked.

Photo by Bobbalew.

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

Years ago I rode along in a ’55 Chevy hotrod, the car I always dreamed about through high-school and college.
It had a hot-rodded 400 cubic-inch SmallBlock from a ’70 Monte Carlo.
It was so noisy I was turned off.
And the chassis was as flexible as an aluminum ladder.
It also had the same cheap wire door-locks my parents’ ’57 wagon had.
Where the plastic lock-plungers unscrewed, got lost, leaving you with a flimsy threaded wire to lock the doors.

The car I rode in was similar — same paint (this is stock).

I got back into our humble Honda stationwagon and drove home.
The Honda was slower, but a much better car.
I could throw $35,000 at that ’55 Chevy, and I’d still have an antique.
About the only desirable collectible car I ever considered is the 1967 Corvette StingRay owned by my retired hairdresser.


My hairdresser’s Corvette.

It’s very well done, and has the vaunted four-speed SmallBlock.
He wanted to sell, but I passed.
What, pray tell, would I do with it?
It’s not practical, pillar-to-post.
Cars like that are only a statement; no function.