Monthly Calendar Report for October, 2011

Tiger-Shark. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The October 2011 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is best this time.
Usually my own calendar renders what I consider the best picture, but not this time.
The October entry of my own calendar is the picture I almost pulled.
See below.
The October 2011 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a fabulous photo of a Tiger-Shark Curtiss P-40.
The P-40 is somewhat a turkey (compare the P-38 Lightning and the P-51 Mustang), but the picture makes it look pretty good.
Photographer Makanna is in the open rear of the cockpit of his chase-plane, and the P-40 is behind.
He’s in radio contact with the P-40’s pilot.
“Now buzz me,” he says.
The P-40 pilot does so, but don’t take Makanna or the P-40 out of the sky.
Makanna gets a fabulous shot, although telephoto probably helped.
The P-40 is right in Makanna’s face!
BAM! Got it.
I know the feeling well.
Life-and-limb risked to get a fabulous shot.
“Just shoot, you idiot!”

Photo by BobbaLew.

The greatest railroad locomotive ever made.

Here comes a GG1 at 90+ mph, 8-10 feet from me.
Arm hooked around a small light-standard, I managed to pull it off without getting sucked in.
Scared me to death, but what a picture!
That whole incident is goin’ to my grave.
The P-40 was not one of the great airplanes of WWII, but its front radiator-scoop was perfect for shark’s teeth.
It had a water-cooled Allison V12 engine.
The Tiger-Sharks were a squadron of P-40s defending the Chinese against Japanese invasion.

Crusader.

The shark’s teeth have been applied to any number of airplanes.
The most ridiculous I’ve seen was a lowly Piper-Cub basic trainer once featured in this calendar.
Vought had a Navy fighter-jet (above) during the ‘60s that has an air-intake up front like the P-40’s radiator-scoop.
The airplane was called the Crusader.
The shark’s teeth don’t look bad on that.

A-10 fires an AGM-65 Maverick missile.

I’ve also seen shark’s teeth on the Republic A-10 ground-attack jet.
The A-10 is crude and slow compared to a fighter-jet, but perfect for its mission: ground-attack.
The A-10 pictured is firing an air-to-surface guided missile.
The Curtiss P-40 WarHawk wasn’t the extraordinary airplane the P-51 Mustang was.
But it was extraordinary for the late ‘30s, when it was developed.
It was eclipsed by the Mustang.



1970 Trans-Am Firebird. (Photo by Ron Kimball©.)

—The October 2011 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is one of the most successful styling jobs ever, a 1970 Firebird.

1970 Camaro Z-28.

I used to think the 1970 Chevrolet Camaro was the most successful styling-job Detroit ever did, but this Firebird makes me reconsider.
The Camaro uses a Ferrari scoop grill, and seems to need those two racing-stripes to make it work.
The Firebird doesn’t use either, yet looks great.
Both the Camaro and the Firebird were too big, the only problem with the design.
The ’72 Vega coupe was another great-looking design, more the right size.
But it too uses a Ferrari grill, and seems to need that racing-stripe. (The Vega only had one, and it was on the “GT” model.)

Vega GT (mine was red with a black stripe).

The Vega was also one of the worst cars ever marketed by General Motors. —It quickly went bad, rusted to smithereens, and fell apart.
I had one, and I babied it and thought the world of it.
And like all Detroit coupes it suffered from large, heavy doors.
The Camaro and the Firebird had the same problem; gigantic doors from a Detroit sedan.
But they both had perfect lines.
GM styling had gone all-out.
No compromises to make the car attractive to practical people.
Proportions triumphed over trunk-space, and rear seating space.
But the Firebird comes off better than the Camaro.
The particular car pictured suffers from the massive, and heavy, 455 cubic-inch Super-Duty engine.
It makes it a musclecar, but throws the balance off.
So much weight — that massive engine — is on the front-end, the car will plow in corners.
It won’t respond to the steering-wheel; it will plow straight-ahead.
It will be dominant in a straight line, but on a typical curvy back-road, a BMW 2002 would beat it.
And goose that gigantic motor on a straight, and the rear-tires would spin.
So little weight is on that rear-end, it would take a while for the tires to hook up.
This car would be better balanced with a smaller V8, perhaps a Pontiac version of a high-output Small-Block Chevy.
It just wouldn’t be a musclecar.
Sports Car Club of America’s (SCCA) Trans-Am series only allowed 305 cubic inches.
Yet a Trans-Am racer would cream a 455 cubic-inch Pontiac Trans-Am Firebird (like this car is).
Of course an SCCA Trans-Am racer would be impossible on the street.



A Pennsy GG1 accelerates a passenger-train west out of Coatesville station. (Photo by Bill Janssen.)

—Can there ever be an All-Pennsy calendar without a GG1 (“Jee-Jee-ONE,” as in “Gee.” —I only say that because a friend was mispronouncing it “Jee-Jee-Eye”)?
The GG1, after all, was the most successful railroad locomotive the Pennsylvania Railroad ever developed.
In my humble opinion, the GG1 is the greatest locomotive of all time.
The October 2011 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is their requisite GG1 picture, this one #4897, accelerating a westbound passenger-train away from a station-stop at Coatesville, PA.
The railroad is Pennsy’s main from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, PA.
It was the original railroad west out of Philadelphia, and soon became part of the Pennsylvania Public Works System, Pennsylvania’s response to the phenomenally successful Erie Canal in New York.
The Pennsylvania Public Works was a combined canal and railroad system, and included an inclined-plane railroad over the Allegheny mountains.
Grading at that time was not what it is today.
The Alleghenies had been a barrier to west-east commerce. There was no way a canal could thread them.
The Pennsylvania Railroad was a private response to the utter failure of the Public Works System, that it was so cumbersome and slow.
The Pennsylvania Railroad eventually put the Public Works System out of business, and that was despite it building new railroad over the Alleghenies that circumvented the inclined-planes.
The Pennsylvania Railroad got the Public Works System for a pittance, and that included the railroad from Philadelphia to the Susquehanna (“suss-kwee-HAN-uh”) river, although first it was to Columbia, PA.
Pennsy built the extension up to Harrisburg.
The line was eventually electrified to Harrisburg — this looks like the electrification Pennsy used in the ‘30s.
Pennsy’s first electrification was its commuter-district around Philadelphia.
It only extended as far west on the main as Paoli (“pay-OLE-eee”), about 30 miles out from Philadelphia.
But Pennsy eventually electrified most of its mainlines east of Harrisburg. Pennsy also electrified other freight lines, e.g. its bypass around Philadelphia, its line to Columbia, PA, and southward along the Susquehanna into Maryland.
Pennsy electrification ended at Harrisburg, and also in Enola yard (aye-NOLE-uh;” as in “hey”), southwest of Harrisburg, where its freight eventually went.
Electrification was needed into New York City, particularly the Tubes under the Hudson river, which couldn’t run steam-locomotives.
And New York City only allowed electrified railroads — steam locomotives were not allowed — too smoky.
The GG1 was Pennsy’s mid-‘30s response to needing a powerful, yet smooth, electrified locomotive.
Pennsy tested two experimentals, the R-1 (4-8-4), sort of an enlarged P-5 (4-6-4), and a GG1 (4-6-6-4; “G” being Pennsy’s classification for its 4-6-0 steam-engines), modeled after a New Haven electrified 4-6-6-4 locomotive.
They expected the R-1 to be dominant, but the GG1 won; it was phenomenal. —The main thing is it tracked better at speed.
The R-1, like the P-5, hunted from side-to-side.
The railroad was so impressed they brought in industrial-designer Raymond Loewy to improve it.
Loewy had already done work for Pennsy, locomotive streamlining, and designing stuff for its New York terminal, e.g. trashcans.
Loewy didn’t do much, just reshape the front door around the headlight, and design the original “cat-whisker” paint-scheme of five gold pin-stripes.
(The GG1 pictured has the single-stripe scheme that replaced it.)
He also convinced the railroad to use a welded shell, instead of a shell riveted together from pieces.
The welded shell looks great, and was cheaper to maintain.
As a teenager, I was fortunate to witness GG1s in action in northern Delaware. (See picture above in Ghosts calendar-entry.)
And it seemed like every time I saw one it was doing 80-100+ mph.


This thing is doing at least 90! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Photo by BobbaLew.

More 90+ mph.

A GG1 could put 9,000 horsepower to railhead.
A modern diesel locomotive is good for about 4,000 or so.
That 9,000 horsepower was temporary. At that rate, the traction-motors would eventually overheat.
But it could do that to quickly accelerate a train out of a station.
Just dump the controller to the last notch, and stand back.
A single GG1 could pull a train from Philadelphia to Harrisburg.
That train might need four diesel passenger-units to continue west.
Harrisburg was where electrification ended. The GG1s had to be replaced.
Years ago my paternal grandfather rode the Congressional Limited, a name train from New York City to Washington DC.
My grandfather was not a railfan, but he was impressed.
We’re driving back up Route 40 in northeastern Maryland from my first foray at a boys summer-camp on Chesapeake Bay in 1954.
A GG1 express flashed south, probably over 100 mph.
“Must be the Congressional,” he said, obvious awe in his voice.
From then on every time we saw or heard a GG1 express, “Must be the Congressional,” he’d say.
My grandfather and grandmother eventually moved to an apartment in Edgemoor, DE, overlooking the Pennsylvania Railroad’s New York City to Washington line (now Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor).
Every time a train roared through he’d hear it, and “Must be the Congressional.”
In 1959, when I was 15, my neighbor (who was also a railfan like me) and I took a train-ride to Philadelphia.

Photo by BobbaLew.

(A Baldwin switcher ruined my picture.)

Back home was on the Congressional Limited, which by then was no longer an all-Pullman luxury train.
We rode coach; it had coaches.
We got on at Philadelphia’s 30th St. Station, and as soon as we left the station, the engineer put the hammer down!
Within minutes we were up to 90+ mph.
That’s goin’ to my grave!
There was nothing like a GG1.
GG1s lasted for years, many over 40. A typical steam-locomotive might last 30 years, a diesel 20.
I used to tell a friend I attended high-school with, a fellow railfan like me, “When the last GG1 is retired, we’ll know we’re getting old.”
I remember he and I were in the back row of a grandstand, at a rainy football-game in Newark, DE. We spent the whole time watching GG1 express-trains on the adjacent New York to Washington electrified line.
The football game, which our high-school lost, was nowhere near as entertaining.
Giant arcs of yellow lightning would flash as the GG1 pantographs (“pant-uh-GRAFF”) bounced off the rain-soaked catenary (“kat-in-AIR-eee;” called that because the overhead trolley-wire, which the pantograph slid on, was suspended on a catenary of cables).
Quite a few GG1s were saved, but none are running.
The GG1’s interior transformers, which stepped down the trolley-current to that of the traction-motors, were filled with a PCB-based fluid.
That fluid was drained (removed), and the transformer housings filled with sand or concrete.
Beyond that, the current via the overhead wire is no longer the voltage it was.
GG1s ran on 11,000 volts. Now it’s 60,000 volts.
About all a GG1 could be to get it running is a modern electric locomotive in a GG1 body.
It wouldn’t be a GG1.
Probably the best is GG1 #4935, owned by Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, PA.


(Photo by Tom Hughes.)

(Tom Hughes is my nephew, also a railfan.)

It was long ago repainted in Loewy’s “cat-whisker” scheme for memorial. Loewy was at the memorial.
It was operated that way for a while.
Most GG1s were painted black for Penn-Central or then Conrail. —Some were painted Conrail blue.
Even Amtrak operated them, and had their own paint-scheme.
I’ve only been through one GG1, #4896, 3 a.m. at Washington Union Station in early 1966.

Photo by BobbaLew.

I only snagged one photo of it, although I saw it many times.
That photo is my computer desktop picture.
The GG1 was the greatest railroad locomotive of all time.



Pennsy Decapod (2-10-0) with a local waits in a siding for a southbound freight to pass. (Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.)

—The October 2011 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is a Pennsy Decapod (“Hippo”) with a local-freight waiting in a siding at Watkins Glen, NY for a southbound freight-train to pass.
Enginemen called ‘em “hippos,” because they were so large compared to usual practice when they arrived.
Their boilers were quite a bit larger.
The Dek was developed in 1916.
Pennsy wanted a powerful drag-engine.
A 10-drivered steam-locomotive could put a lot of tractive effort to the railhead, and a Dek put most of its massive locomotive weight on the drivers.
Heavy weight on the drivers enhanced pulling power.
But the Decapod wasn’t SuperPower.
It only had 70 square feet of firebox grate.
That was somewhat marginal. A Dek could run out of steam.
SuperPower increased firebox grate area to 100 square feet or more.
With that the firebox could keep up with the boiler.
Despite only 70 square feet, even two firemen couldn’t keep up with a Dek wide open.
The Dek was Pennsy’s first application of the mechanical coal-stoker, an appliance Pennsy abhorred.
Pennsy avoided appliances that enhanced steam-locomotive performance. Appliances had to be maintained.
But even two firemen couldn’t keep up with a Dek’s coal-demand.
Pennsy’s abhorrence of appliances, e.g. stokers, was rendering the Decapod unworkable.
Hence mechanical stokers on the Dek.
A 10-drivered steam-locomotive has other detriments.
Primary is massive side-rod weight.
The side-rod assembly for a 10-drivered steam-locomotive is heavy and long.
Rotate that heavy assembly up-and-down and it hammers the rail.
The Dek has massive counterweighting to offset that, but still about 50 mph was the limit.
Vibration was heavy.
Added is dynamic augment, the rail-hammering that comes with drive-piston action.
I could feel it myself behind a steam-locomotive. The train pulls side-to-side as the drive-pistons work.
This is not a problem with diesel-electric (or straight electric) locomotives, where drive-torque is constant.
Diesels (and electrics) don’t hammer the rail; there’s no piston-thrust.
Nevertheless, the Deks had long and storied careers. They lasted until the end of steam-locomotion on Pennsy.
A Dek was extremely well-suited for pulling long and heavy drags over difficult terrain, mainly hilly with grades.
Deks lasted until the end of steam in two applications: -1) heavy ore drags on the Mt. Carmel Division in Pennsylvania, and -2) heavy coal and ore drags on the Elmira Division from Williamsport, PA up to Lake Ontario at Sodus Point, NY.
At Sodus Point the coal or ore would get transloaded to lake steam-ships.
This is what’s happening here, sorta.
Except the Dek pictured was pulling a local-freight, and is waiting in a siding at Watkins Glen, NY for a southbound empty coal-drag.
Deks had gravitated to the Elmira Division, so a Dek was being used on the local-freight.
Most of the Elmira Division is now GONE, as is the wharf at Sodus Point.



Autumn glory. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

―The October 2011 entry of my own calendar is the one I almost pulled, Autumn glory from the Tunnelhill overlook.
Tunnelhill is the tiny burg atop the New Portage Railroad’s New Portage tunnel.
It’s so close to Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”) it melds into it.
Gallitzin is were the original Pennsy tunneled under the summit of the Allegheny front.
Pennsy’s tunnel wasn’t that long, only about 3,000+ feet.
Tunneling under the entire Allegheny front was clearly impossible in the 1850s.
It still is, although doing so would take out the climb to the summit-tunnel, The Hill, about 12 miles of grade averaging 1.75 percent (that’s 1.75 feet up for every 100 feet forward — not that steep, but steep enough to often require helper locomotives).
A tunnel under the entire Allegheny front would probably be over 20 miles long.
It would cost billions, and there isn’t enough rail-traffic to justify such expense, busy as the line is.
We are over Track One through New Portage tunnel.
Pennsy came to own the Pennsylvania Public-Works System, including New Portage Railroad, and rather than abandon New Portage Tunnel, they incorporated it into their summit crossing.
Originally it was two tracks, as was the original Pennsy Allegheny tunnel in Gallitzin.
But as equipment enlarged, Allegheny was converted to one track, and a second tunnel, Gallitzin, was added in Gallitzin.
That tunnel has since been abandoned, and the original Allegheny tunnel enlarged so it could clear doublestacks on two tracks.
Doublestacks need a higher clearance than the original tunnel had.
Enlarging the tunnel was a joint effort between Conrail and the state of PA, to make it so the railroad could clear doublestacks.
At that time the old Pennsy line was Conrail; now it’s Norfolk Southern.
Widening Allegheny tunnel for two tracks permitted abandonment of Gallitzin tunnel (which also wasn’t high enough to clear doublestacks).
New Portage tunnel is slightly higher uphill than the Pennsy tunnel(s) at Gallitzin, so Pennsy had to connect up to it.
This is “The Slide,” a 2.36 percent grade from the tunnel down to the original Pennsy alignment.
Operation is a bit challenging, but not too much trouble. In 1947 a Pennsy passenger-train, the Red Arrow from Detroit, ran away down The Slide, and derailed off a curve down an embankment, killing 24.
But the locomotive-crew (actually there were two K4 Pacifics [4-6-2]) might not have realized where they were, or were asleep.
Heavy coal-trains descend The Slide without problem.
The New Portage Railroad alignment was made into a second crossing of Allegheny summit by Pennsy.
But that line has since been abandoned and partially obliterated by highway construction.
The second crossing was only double-track, but gave Pennsy six tracks approaching the summit: four up on the original alignment to the two single-track tunnels in Gallitzin, and two more up to New Portage tunnel.
(New Portage was reduced from two tracks to one not too long ago.
New Portage was also modified to clear doublestacks by having its floor lowered.)
New Portage and The Slide are Track One, eastbound, and Tracks Two and Three are in Allegheny.
Three is westbound, and Two can be either way.
That leaves three tracks over the summit, which can be a bottleneck. Four might be better.
The summit approaches are also down to three tracks; it used to be four.
Although one short segment on the west side is four tracks — actually five, but one is used for storage.
All the pictures in this calendar are the same used in a calendar I did for Tunnel Inn in Gallitzin, the bed-and-breakfast we stay at in the Altoona area.
Tunnel Inn is the old Gallitzin town offices and library. It was built by Pennsy in 1905. It’s brick, and rather substantial.
It’s also right next to Pennsy’s tunnel-cut, so railfan Mike Kraynyak (“CRANE-ee-yak”) bought it when Gallitzin built new town offices.
Being next to Tracks Two and Three, it’s a great place to stay for a railfan like me.
Plus it’s substantial enough to keep the racket down.
It’s also quite classy. We stayed in another bed-and-breakfast in nearby Cresson (“KRESS-in”) last February, and it was rudimentary compared to Tunnel Inn.
I sent Kraynyak a calendar as a Christmas gift a couple years ago, and he suggested I make a calendar he could sell.
Despite Kodak’s best efforts to foil this, a 2012 calendar with my pictures is available at Tunnel Inn.
This picture is the one I almost didn’t use, because the train is nearly invisible.
But the Tunnelhill Overlook is a great location, and it’s the only fall foliage shot I have.
Which is why it’s October.
I entertained replacing it with another picture, but was advised fall foliage makes the picture.



Next-to-last run. (Photo by Bill Gantz.)

―The October 2011 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a doublestack-train westbound passing New Galilee, PA.
I had to Google-search New Galilee, PA.
It’s west of Pittsburgh, almost to the Ohio border.
The picture looks like Pennsy’s old Middle Division across central PA.
.....The segment between Tyrone (“tie-ROAN;” as in “own”) and the Susquehanna river at Duncannon (“dun-CAN-nin”), where the railroad turns inland westward along the Juniata river (“june-ee-AT-uh”).
The terrain along the Middle Division looked about the same as this picture.
Plus it’s also down to only two tracks.
It used to be four, “the Broad way.” —This looks like it was at least three.
Pennsy’s Broadway Limited was named after “the Broad Way,” not Broadway in New York City.
The railroad was one of Pennsy’s many feeders from the west to Pittsburgh, a “Lines West,” a merged line.
Pennsy only built Harrisburg to Pittsburgh.
Now it’s part of Norfolk Southern’s line from Chicago to the east-coast megalopolis.
It’s October, so the Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is doing a fall-color picture.

Photo by Rich Borkowski.

Last month.

But last month’s entry (at left), a bit premature, was better.
Apparently this picture is a next-to-last run.
The photographer, a train-engineer, set out to get a next-to-last run picture of the engineer friend who convinced him to become a railroader years earlier.
His friend was retiring.
The fact it’s a fall-foliage picture is secondary.
What mattered is the train’s engineer was his friend.
He set up in this location, and included that tree at left.
The train-engineer blew the horn when he saw the photographer.
It’s interesting track-workers seem to also be in the picture, just barely visible, if that’s what they are.
And so the Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest decided to make this a winning picture.
It’s their fall-foliage picture, although I don’t think it’s that good.
October, when the trees turn, is the time to run fall-foliage pictures.
Although last month’s was more spectacular.



Ugh!

—About all I can say about this thing is at least it wasn’t junked.
The October 2011 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is what hotrods were before WWII, before the preeminence and availability of the Flat-head Ford V8 motor.

Photo by BobbaLew.

A Ford Flat-head V8 (note flat cylinder-head casting).

When I was a child, people were doing what we have here, stripping their conveyances to decrease weight.
In my case, stripping my bicycle to make it light enough to enjoy.
People were also stripping their cars, and that’s what we have here.
.....A Ford Model-A stripped to its basic essentials, a buckboard with a seat.
The engine is the Model-A four-banger.
The Flat-head Ford V8 came into prominence after WWII, and to my mind a V8 motivator is central to hot-rodding.
But before the war, Flat-head V8s were relatively unavailable.
So what hot-rodders were doing was stripping their cars down the basics so the humble four-banger wasn’t dragging around so much weight. —No fenders, etc.
This is the Ford Model-A engine, but often more recent hot-rodders, to remain true to the four-banger mantra, will plug in a Chevy Iron-Duke four-banger.
But this car doesn’t have the look; a hyper V8 filling the engine-bay.
And the seating area looks like an amusement-park bumper-car.