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.