Monthly Calendar Report for November, 2011

Potshot. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

―The November 2011 entry of my own calendar is a rerun. It was the May entry in last year’s calendar.
But it’s one of the most dramatic pictures I ever snagged.
And it’s without Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”).
I’ve written up Phil so many times it would just bore constant-readers to do it again.
If you need clarification, click this link, and go toward the end of the post.
That explains Phil.
My 2011 calendar is the same pictures I used in a 2012 calendar I did for Tunnel Inn, the bed-and-breakfast we stay at in the Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”), PA area.
It used to be the old Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”) town offices and library.
It was built by Pennsy 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.
Trains are blowing past all the time.
Three (at left) 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 darkness.
The picture is not recent; it’s July 6, 2005.
The locomotive is a General-Electric Dash8-40CW, what the railroad was often using back then.
4,000 horsepower; a wide-cab version of the Dash-8.
Now ya see Dash9s and Evo-units. They have “pants” on the locomotive trucks surrounding the drive-wheels.
Often ya see EMD SD-70Ms.
The trucks on a Dash8 are much like those used on six-axle EMD units.
2005 is before I started chasing trains with Phil. —Our first “Tour” was 2008.
8372 is restarting next to Tunnel Inn on Track Two after stopping for a brake-test before descending The Hill.
We’re at the summit of the Allegheny Mountains, 2161 feet above sea-level for the railroad at these tunnels; 2191 at New Portage.
The Alleghenies had been a barrier to west-east commerce, which explains the success of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
That barrier had been surmounted by Pennsy with a through railroad, and was fairly easy to operate.
Pennsy essentially parried the Erie Canal.
And Pennsy’s original alignment over The Hill is still in use; opened in 1854.
The Pennsylvania Railroad was once the largest and most powerful railroad on the planet — the so-called “Standard Railroad of the World.”
PRR eventually had to merge with parallel New York Central in 1968; a marriage out of desperation. There was no one else to merge with, and Pennsy was failing.
A proposed merger with Norfolk & Western was not approved.
That merger (Penn-Central) went bankrupt, and the government took part in forming Conrail, a merger of all bankrupt northeast railroads — there were quite a few.
Conrail succeeded and eventually privatized. It was sold in 1999 to CSX (railroad) and Norfolk Southern. CSX got mostly the New York Central lines, and Norfolk Southern the Pennsy lines.
(Norfolk Southern is a long-ago merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway.)
The Hill is now owned and operated by Norfolk Southern.
Also visible is the mouth of old Gallitzin tunnel, built by Pennsy in 1904.
Gallitzin tunnel had been abandoned by then, abandoned when the original Pennsy tunnel, Allegheny (see below), was enlarged in 1995 by Conrail and the state to -a) clear doublestacks, and -b) accommodate two tracks.
Doublestacks need higher clearance than Allegheny originally had.
Allegheny was also two tracks at first, but as equipment enlarged, it was reduced to only one track (see next entry).
And parallel Gallitzin tunnel was later added.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Gallitzin, sealed, at left; Allegheny, enlarged, at right.

Gallitzin tunnel was recently sealed; it still had track inside it.
Snow-melt would cascade down the embankment and freeze, making a dangerous mess.
It’s not sealed in my calendar-picture, but is in my recent picture.



Top of The Hill in Gallitzin, PA. (Photo by Phil Hastings©.)

—The November 2011 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is the best entry in the Audio-Visual Designs calendar, a shot from the middle ‘50s at Gallitzin, PA, the summit of The Hill.
When Pennsy first built their railroad, Allegheny tunnel, at right, tunneled under Allegheny ridge.
The tunnel is over 3,000 feet long, not long for nowadays, but long for the 1850s.
Pennsy eventually built Gallitzin tunnel, at left, in 1904.
A third tunnel had been incorporated earlier, New Portage tunnel for the New Portage Railway, new railroad that skirted the inclined-plane railway that was part of the Pennsylvania Public Works System, a combined canal and railway that was Pennsylvania’s response to the Erie Canal.
Pennsy put the Public Works System out of business. The Public Works System was cumbersome and slow.
Pennsy was continuous railroad.
Allegheny front had been a barrier to west-east commerce from the nation’s interior, and both the Erie Canal and the Pennsylvania Public Works System conquered it.
The Erie Canal took advantage of the fact the Alleghenies don’t stretch into New York state, that the Mohawk river threaded a gap.
But Pennsylvania had to surmount the Alleghenies, and there was no way a continuous canal could do that.
Grading in the early 1800s was not what it is now, which forced PA to include an inclined-plane railroad over the Alleghenies.
The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) was a private response to the inefficiency of the Public Works System.
There were two natural barriers: -1) the Alleghenies, and -2) the wide Susquehanna (“suss-kwee-HA-nuh”) river out of Harrisburg.
The Susquehanna was bridged with a long bridge at Rockville north of Harrisburg (the current stone-bridge, largest stone-arch bridge in the world, is bridge number-three).
And the Alleghenies were trumped with an elegant grading-trick called Horseshoe Curve (actually Pennsy spelled it as two words: “Horse Shoe”).
John Edgar Thomson, chief engineer of the original Pennsy, proposed draping the railroad around a valley to make the grade manageable.
This involved lopping the end off a rocky promontory, and building two gigantic fills across two feeder valleys.
This was done essentially by hand by gangs of drunken Irishmen.
Horseshoe Curve is still in service. Pennsy was so proud of it, -a) they announced it in all passenger-trains, and -b) they built an observation area in the apex of the curve.
The observation area is on what’s left of the promontory.
Horseshoe Curve (the “Mighty Curve”), is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to.
Wait 25 minutes and you’ll see a train, often two or more.
And they’re right in your face!
And uphill they’re wide open, “assaulting the heavens.” Downhill it’s hold ‘em back.
The grade averages 1.75 percent, 1.75 feet up for every 100 feet forward. Not that steep, but steep enough to often require helper locomotives.
At least it isn’t four percent, which would have been near impossible. —That steep you have to break a train into two or more sections.
And there were no switchbacks. It was a through, continuous railroad.
Switchbacks are ponderously slow to operate.
Run the train head-first into the first switchback-tail, where it stops.
A trainman gets off and throws the switch up to the next switchback, and the train reverses up to that switchback-tail.
Then a trainman gets off and throws the second switch, so the train can move forward again.
(Switchbacks usually came in twos, to get the train headed engine-first.)
Perhaps the major engineering triumph of Pennsy is they crossed the Alleghenies without switchbacks.
And at the top of the mountain was Allegheny tunnel, at 3,000+ feet about the limit at that time.
The tunnel was originally two tracks, but as equipment enlarged it was converted to one track.
That’s why the tunnel is larger than the train inside.
Both tunnels are in use in the calendar-picture, Gallitzin at left, and Allegheny at right.
And Gallitzin was built to clear only one track, so is narrower.
Gallitzin has since been abandoned and sealed closed.
Allegheny was enlarged in 1995, -a) to clear doublestacks, and -b) accommodate two tracks.
Allegheny was enlarged as a joint project between Conrail, operator of the railroad at that time, and the state of PA.
Doublestacks (two containers stacked two-high on a flatcar), need higher clearance than Allegheny had originally.
Accommodating two tracks meant Gallitzin could be abandoned. It too wasn’t high enough to clear doublestacks.
(“Conrail” was a government amalgamation of east-coast railroads that went bankrupt pretty much at the same time as Penn-Central.
Conrail included other bankrupt east-coast railroads, like Erie-Lackawanna, Jersey Central, and Lehigh Valley; but eventually went private as it became more successful.
Conrail has since been broken up, sold in 1999 to CSX Transportation Industries [railroad] and Norfolk Southern railroad. CSX got mainly the old New York Central routes, and NS got the old PRR routes, although NS also has the old Erie Railroad route across southern NY. —The current operator of Allegheny Tunnel and the Horseshoe Curve railroad is now Norfolk Southern. It also owns the old NYC Corning Secondary, which runs south from the old NYC main at Lyons, NY.)
Phil Hastings was a giant of late ‘40s and early ‘50s steam railroad photography, the end of steam-locomotive operations.
He did a project for Trains Magazine and its editor David P. Morgan searching for steam-locomotives at the end of steam-locomotive operations.
They had success, Hastings the photographer and Morgan the writer.
What blew Morgan away most was a New York Central Hudson (4-6-4) going like the dickens on railroad that has since been abandoned.
As a railfan, I chase trains that usually have diesel-electric locomotives on the point.
They’re worth seeing too.
But once you’ve seen a steam-locomotive, diesels no longer matter.
I’ve ridden railfan excursions with steam locomotives on the point.

The Queen of the West End.

Most notable to me was Nickel Plate 765, a Lima 2-8-4 Berkshire, up the old Chesapeake & Ohio line through New River Gorge in WV.
765 can run hard. Most of the time we were running 60-70 mph uphill — but a fairly easy grade; one-half percent.
33 cars!
Working steam the whole way.
It had me crying. What an experience! —And I wasn’t leaving that dutch-door.
The locomotive pictured is a Pennsylvania Railroad J1 2-10-4, one of their war-babies.
The Pennsylvania Railroad didn’t develop and/or purchase modern steam locomotives in the late ‘20s and ‘30s.
Their investment was going into electrification.
So when WWII broke out, they were saddled with old and tired steam-locomotives.
Yet the War Production Board wouldn’t let Pennsy develop more modern steam-locomotive replacements.
They had to use an already-proven design (from another railroad).
Pennsy had to shop around, and road-tested the Norfolk & Western A (2-6-6-4), and the Chesapeake & Ohio T-1 (2-10-4) SuperPower locomotive.
“SuperPower” was a marketing ploy by Lima Locomotive Works, of Lima, Ohio. (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh.”)
The idea was to get incredible steam capacity out of a steam locomotive, so it wouldn’t run out of steam at high speed.
This involved “appliances” to enhance boiler performance, but mainly incredible steam capacity from a HUGE boiler and HUGE firebox grate.
The firebox also had a large combustion-chamber to enhance fuel-burning.
The SuperPower 2-10-4 is essentially the SuperPower 2-8-4 Berkshire enlarged.
The C&O T-1 was the Lima design, built by American Locomotive Company of Schenectady, NY.
Pennsy decided to manufacture the C&O T-1, fiddled a tiny bit.
They were loathe to try articulation, which the N&W A was (2-6-6-4). —They had tried articulation earlier, and decided it was too difficult to maintain.
But Pennsy’s dickering did not switch to the square-hipped Belpaire firebox (“bell-pair”), a Pennsy trademark.
They weren’t allowed.
The “J” is the only successful Pennsy modern steam-locomotive.
But it’s not their design.
It’s SuperPower, a concept wasted on Pennsy.
SuperPower is heightened steam-capacity for high-speed cruising.
Pennsy was not a high-speed operation. Too many hills and grades.
Lower-speed drag engines would have made more sense. Perhaps even the N&W A.
Yet the J was incredibly powerful.
This picture is of interest to me, because the old Gallitzin town offices and library, now Tunnel Inn, would be right at right.
The picture was taken off the old Jackson St. overpass in Gallitzin.
That overpass has since been rebuilt.
Tunnel Inn is right next to that tunnel-cut.
And there are now a lot more buildings atop the tunnel-cut than in this picture, which is not that long ago.


Twin-Beech. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The November 2011 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a military version of the famous Twin-Beech, a C-45 “Expeditor,” made by Beechcraft.
This is one of the best pictures in the calendar, but I have a hard time thinking of the Twin-Beech as a military airplane.
It could be said the Twin-Beech was the first executive airplane; a means of transporting company executives privately, instead of on the commercial airlines.
RCA (Radio Corporation of America) had one.
Their’s was milk-chocolate brown.
RCA, in Camden, NJ, which is across the river from Philadelphia, used to be a prime manufacturer of consumer electronics before loss to the Orient.
Our kitchen radio, when I was a child, was RCA, and my mother had worked for RCA.
RCA’s Twin-Beech was hangered at an airport just east of Camden, which I think was the first commercial airport in the Philadelphia area.
But it went moribund because there was no room for expansion, and airlines needed longer runways.
That airport drifted into obscurity, so that by the middle ‘50s, before our family moved to northern Delaware (in 1957), it served only private aviation and RCA’s Twin-Beech.
The Twin-Beech was about as large an airplane as that airport could accommodate, although perhaps it could serve DC-3s.
The larger four-engine airplanes, Douglas DC-4s and on, and the Lockheed Constellations, needed longer runways, which that airport couldn’t build.
But it was fine for a J3 Piper Cub, a banner-towing Stearman biplane (“bye-PLANE; I only say that because for years I mispronounced it “bip-LANE”), and RCA’s Twin-Beech.
That airport was easily accessible by RCA executives.
RCA kept its Twin-Beech in a hanger far away from the others, all of which were in a corner of a main highway intersection, also the location of the so-called “terminal.”
That airport eventually went defunct. Little was flying out of it, and land-values in that area skyrocketed.
The Twin-Beech was a tail-dragger. It didn’t have tricycle landing-gear, although it could be converted.
Conversions were also available to switch out the two radial internal-combustion engines for TurboProps.
As I recall, the nose of a Twin-Beech had to be lengthened to accommodate tricycle gear.
Behind that nose, and cockpit, was a luxurious cabin, which could be fitted for luxurious executive transport.
So too could the DC-3, which became executive transports as the airlines retired ‘em.
TurboProp conversions were also available for the DC-3, along with modifications to the tail control surfaces.
But I don’t remember ever seeing a tricycle-geared DC-3.
The Sky King I remember had a Twin-Beech when I first started watching his TV-program in the early ‘50s.

Sky King’s “Songbird.”

Somebody said he flew a Cessna 310-B named “Songbird,” which may be right, for all I know.
The Sky King I remember traded that Twin-Beech for an Aero Commander, a large modern executive twin, but not radial-engined (nor TurboProp), and not a tail-dragger.
Although it coulda been a Cessna 310.
Aero-Commanders have a higher wing, and are bigger than a Cessna 310.
Cessna 310s are low wing.

At Willow-Grove. (I’m in this picture somewhere. We’re ahead of a Twin-Beech.)

My first up-close-and-personal encounter with a Twin-Beech was at Willow-Grove Naval Air Station northwest of Philadelphia.
I went there on a field-trip with my Cub-Scout troop in 1954; I woulda been 10.
I remember having a hard time thinking of a Twin-Beech as a military airplane.
About all it could be used for is executive transport; carting military brass here-and-there.
It was hardly a B-25 or a fighter-plane.
It was too docile. Ya didn’t fit machine-guns to a Twin-Beech, although I suppose ya could.

1947 V-tail Bonanza.

Beechcraft still exists, although merged with Hawker Aircraft.
After the Twin-Beech came the V-tailed Beechcraft Bonanza, and the T-34 basic military air trainer.
The T-34 was essentially the Bonanza without that funky V-tail, and a two-place bubble canopy.
The Twin-Beech also had a different tail, two vertical rudders at each end of the horizontal stabilizer.
They made higher hangers to store the plane not necessary.
The Lockheed Constellation had three vertical rudders for the same reason.



Pennsy’s first electrification. (Photo by George Krambles.)

The November 2011 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is somewhat a stretch, since it’s not actually Pennsy — it’s Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (PRSL).
The first railroad across south Jersey was Camden & Atlantic, although it could have been West Jersey & Seashore.
Both attained Atlantic City, although Camden & Atlantic more directly.
The idea of Camden & Atlantic was to develop Atlantic City into a seashore resort. Previously it was nothing.
West Jersey & Seashore was more roundabout.
It went south out of Camden, NJ to hit various traffic-generators before turning east toward Atlantic City.
Camden & Atlantic was so successful a competing railroad was chartered, the Atlantic City Railroad.
Atlantic City Railroad ran just south of Camden & Atlantic, much of it within sight of Camden & Atlantic.
Both attracted passengers from Philadelphia, that ferried across the Delaware river to terminals in Camden.
There were at least three ferries at first.
The ferry to Camden & Atlantic’s terminal in northeast Camden eventually folded.
The Pennsylvania Railroad got control of both Camden & Atlantic, and West Jersey & Seashore. Reading (“REDD-ing;” not “READ-ing”) Lines (railroad) got control of Atlantic City Railroad.
At the end of the 19th century, and as the 20th century dawned, Reading and Pennsy raced each other for the seashore trade. —People escaping Philadelphia during the hot summer months.
It was arrow-straight and flat through the south Jersey pine-barrens toward Atlantic City, so speeds went over 100 mph.
Locomotives went to giant 84-inch driving-wheels, so those speeds could be attained. (84 inches is seven feet diameter.)
But as the automobile came into prominence, the two railroads had too much parallel track.
They had gone to other seashore resorts, and were often within sight of each other.
Thus, Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines, an amalgamation in 1933 of Pennsy and Reading lines in south Jersey.
The West Jersey & Seashore line, now Pennsy, was part of this amalgamation.
It was roundabout, and went out of Camden hitting suburbs to the south, in the case of this calendar-picture, Westville.
As the 20th century began, Pennsy began experimenting with electrification.
Their first electrification was the old West Jersey & Seashore, south out of Camden all the way to Atlantic City.
It was more a trolley operation, but with heavier railroad equipment.
Pennsy electrified its passenger service on the line, more a commute to Camden.
But there were many towns in south Jersey far out from Camden — although Westville isn’t that far.
Westville was the location of a Texaco oil-refinery, the oil-refinery my father first worked in.
That job was his first of that sort, and he lasted there about six or seven years.
He went with a new Flying-A refinery in Delaware — started there as an inspector, a move up.
(Which is when our family moved to Delaware.)
I’m sure there was railroad trackage into that Texaco refinery. —Spurs from the old West Jersey & Seashore.
The refinery is still there, but no longer Texaco. I think Texaco went defunct.
The Delaware Flying-A refinery went through a number of owners, including Texaco, which is when they gave up on the Westville refinery.
I remember a high railroad-bridge that separated two traffic-circles.
You had to negotiate both to get to that Texaco refinery.
And the Texaco refinery was on the western outskirts of Westville.
It was along the Delaware river, which attracted many oil-refineries because the river was navigable by ocean-going ships.
Pennsy had to give up on their electrified passenger-service out the old West Jersey & Seashore in 1949, because its cars were embargoed — the same cars pictured.
They were partially made of wood; and all-steel construction was mandated.
By then it was PRSL, which explains the lettering on the cars.
The cars are electric, but doomed.
The cars are owl-face, but not MP54s. MP54s were all-steel, which means they were probably considered for this line.
But this line is different electrification than the MP54s ran on.
I think the cars were burned after retirement; that is, bodies burned leaving the steel underframe.
It’s interesting the cars are the same Tuscan-red (“TUSS-kin;” not “Tucson, AR”) color as Pennsy passenger equipment.
I always got the impression PRSL was dominated by Pennsy.
A lot of it was ex-Pennsy; e.g. the line into Atlantic City was the old Pennsy (Camden & Atlantic); the old Reading line into Atlantic City was abandoned in 1933 when PRSL was founded.
The old Reading line through Haddon Heights, south of Haddonfield, NJ, where I first watched trains, still exists. But halfway across the state, at Winslow, it was junctioned into the old Pennsy line. And east of Winslow to Atlantic City, the Reading line was abandoned.
Winslow also happened to be where a north-south Jersey Central line crossed the railroads to Atlantic City.
That Jersey Central line was abandoned — they didn’t even pull up the track. You can still find it in the Jersey pine-barrens choked and overgrown with pine saplings.
Southeast of Winslow were the Reading lines to Ocean City and Wildwood on the Jersey shore, but Cape May was Pennsy.
The old Pennsy lines to south Jersey seashore points weren’t as good or direct as the old Reading lines, so were abandoned.

Photo by BobbaLew.

The ex-PRSL RDC we rode to Ocean City, NJ, at the Ocean City station.

I remember riding an ex-PRSL RDC to Ocean City years ago. It was the old Reading line, but by then it was New Jersey Dept. of Transportation.
The RDCs were self-propelled rail-diesel-cars (“RDC”) made by Budd Company in Philadelphia.
The cars were self-propelled by two large diesel Army tank-engines, and saved a lotta passenger accommodation.
(Passenger accommodation was usually required by the railroad’s charter; passenger-service had to be provided.
For example, Pennsy built a large bridge over the Delaware river in north Philadelphia in 1896, the Delair Bridge, to avoid ferry service into Camden.
The Delair Bridge was the first bridge across the Delaware river from Philadelphia.
But the railroad still had to maintain service into Camden by charter between Camden and the bridge-line junction west of Haddonfield, about five-six miles.
A perfect candidate for the RDC, so PRSL bought quite a few.
The RDC meant PRSL could ditch locomotive-pulled passenger accommodation from Haddonfield to Camden.)
Even into the ‘60s, traffic on the Atlantic City line was still heavy.
I remember riding a PRSL train to Atlantic City shortly after I got married in December of 1967.
That would have been June of 1968. It was pulled by a diesel-locomotive, probably a PRSL Baldwin road-switcher, what PRSL dieselized with.
But it was Tuscan-red passenger coaches, maybe six or so. It wasn’t a little-used accommodation.
When I first started watching trains in the late ‘40s, PRSL was still steam-locomotives.
With the Atlantic City Expressway, railroad passenger service to Atlantic City became moribund.
It even stopped.
But it was resurrected as the Atlantic City line (the old Camden & Atlantic) as Jersey Transit.
The old PRSL line out of Camden was converted into a rapid-transit line into Philadelphia.
This is PATCO (Port-Authority Transit Corporation), and goes clear out to Lindenwold, NJ on the old PRSL.
In other words, PATCO is using the old PRSL right-of-way, including highway bridges.
Lindenwold is far east of Haddonfield.
When we rode the RDC to Ocean City, we rode PATCO out to Lindenwold, and picked up the RDC there. Lindenwold was the transfer-point where RDC service began.
PATCO is so successful south Jersey politicos are advocating for branches — usually along old PRSL lines.
But so far it’s only the line to Lindenwold.


It’s all downhill from here. The final three entries are rather moribund, except the first, my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar, is a good picture of a dumb car.


1966 Fairlane GTA. (Photo by Ron Kimball©.)

—The November 2011 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a great picture of a dumb car, a 1966 Ford Fairlane GTA.
As Detroit automakers scrambled to cash in on the musclecar market created by the Pontiac G-T-O, Ford probably did worst.
The 1964 Pontiac Tempest, basis of the G-T-O option (and it was an option at first), looked great already. The ’64 G-T-O was a great-looking car.
The concept was very basic. Plunk a hot-rodded 389 cubic-inch engine from a full-size Pontiac into the mid-size Tempest.
Ford tried similar. They plunked a hot-rodded full-size 390 into their lowly Fairlane.
That’s the car pictured, although there were earlier iterations.

1964 G-T-O.

It’s the musclecar concept, but not as great-looking as the original G-T-O.
It wasn’t until the late ‘60s and early ‘70s that automakers got to building musclecars as great-looking as the original G-T-O, even General Motors.
And sadly the best-looking G-T-O is the 1964 model-year. Later looked ordinary.
Ford didn’t look right for some time, not until they ditched the Fairlane moniker and started building Torinos, and Cyclones, which were Mercury versions of the Torino.

Photo by David Newhardt.

1966 SS Chevelle.

Chevrolet did pretty well, a Super-Sport version of the Chevelle with a hot-rodded 396 Big Block in 1966.
The 1966 Fairlane pictured pales by comparison. That Chevelle has it royally skonked.
The Fairlane GTA was Ford’s feeble attempt at a musclecar comparable to the original G-T-O.
It suffers from being a Fairlane.



Close, but no cigar. (Photo by Casey Thomason.)

―The November 2011 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern freight-train crossing a bridge over Lake Martin near Alexander City, AL.
The train is operating from Birmingham, AL to Macon, GA.
It’s quite obvious what the photographer wanted to do.
Snag the train’s reflection on the lake’s glassy surface.
But the lake wasn’t exactly still; it wasn’t offering a mirror surface.
Almost, but not exactly.
So the lights of the train are reflected on the lake surface, but not the train.
It was probably slightly windy, enough to disturb the mirror surface of the lake.
Still, the photographer managed to snag an action photograph out of low-light.
It isn’t even dawn yet. It’s twilight.
To do so you’d have to crank the camera’s ISO (“EYE-so,” not “eye-ess-oh” = International Organization for Standardization = light-sensitivity) way up.
I’ve been advised to never do this. I shoot at ISO 200 on average, ISO 400 if necessary (my ISO can go as high as 1600).
I’ve been told higher invites graininess.
(I think higher ISO invites “noise.”)
So I haven’t tried it. Anyway, in most situations I can get away with ISO 200, the lowest light-sensitivity my camera will do.
Higher speed films are grainy.
But this is digital, not film.
I suppose I should try it, except I’m always tilted toward getting exceptional photographs.
I don’t like to experiment.
I suppose I could crank my ISO way up, and shoot at 1/1000th of a second through a pinhole of an lens-opening.
And see what I get.
Last summer I was at a location where the sun was setting.
I had my ISO up to 400.
I kept cranking down my shutter-speed, and my lens was wide open.
I gave up when I had to go below 1/30th of a second; we walked away.
Nothing was coming anyway, and at 1/30th the train-front would blur — it was a train-picture.
Perhaps with a higher ISO I could have snagged something.



BeetleBomb.

—The November 2011 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is unfortunately one of plainest Fords ever marketed, the war-years Ford, 1941 though 1948, this one a post-war 1946.
This is despite the fact that Ford Motor Company’s puny styling department — 1/10th the size of General Motors’ Art & Colour section, headed by Harley Earl — produced some of the greatest automotive designs of all time.
E.g. the ’32 Ford, the Model-A, and above all the 1939 Ford five-window coupe.
This was mainly Edsel Ford, only son of Old Henry. Old Henry thought styling was ridiculous.
Old Henry thought the Model-T Ford, the car that put America on wheels, more a farm-implement than a car, although roads at that time were awful, requiring more a farm-implement than a car, was better suited to American needs than what Americans were purchasing. (Roads were being improved.)
The Model-A Ford in 1928 was Old Henry’s first cave to market-demands.
It had a three-speed geared transmission and clutch, like other automobile manufacturers were doing, unlike the Model-T with its band transmission.
Old Henry had an awful time bringing the Model-A to market, but it was the car that saved his company.
(There have been others since, e.g. the 1949 Ford [which had modern suspension instead of transverse buggy-springs], and the original Taurus [patterned after the Audi 100].)
No longer could Ford Motor Company build Model-Ts.
The Model-A showed the styling influence of Edsel, who hired E.T. “Bob” Gregorie away from GM’s Art & Colour section.
Edsel and Gregorie worked well together.
Edsel was an artistic car-man; he wanted to build great-looking cars.
Edsel’s first effort was Lincoln, and the Model-A shows Lincoln styling fillips.
The pair went on to style the ’32 Ford, an all-time classic, basis of great-looking hotrods.
The market was demanding annual models, and every year throughout the ‘30s Fords looked pretty good.
Especially the ’34 Ford. —Compare the competition: Chevrolet and Plymouth.
Neither had the elegant proportions, and their radiator-grilles fall flat compared to the Ford.

Photo by BobbaLew.

A Ford Flat-head V8 (note flat cylinder casting on left cylinder-bank. Both head-castings are finned cast-aluminum Offenhouser [“off-in-HOUZE-err”] high-compression hotrod parts — stock flat-head cylinder castings are cast-iron and not finned).

Ford also had a V8, the Flat-head (at left), that became the basis of hot-rodding.
Mainly because -a) it was so cheap and available, and -b) it responded well to hot-rodding.
But above all, Fords had the look. For that we can thank Edsel and Gregorie.
Perhaps their greatest triumph was the ’39 Ford five-window coupe, a car that soundly trumps the competition — e.g. the ’39 Chevy.

’39 Ford five-window coupe.

How could GM’s Art & Colour style so many turkeys?
Earl ladled heavy glitz on GM cars for years, yet never styled cars as successful-looking as the Fords.
Perhaps his only styling triumph was the Buick Y-Job in 1938.
General Motors didn’t get its act in gear until Bill Mitchell in the middle ‘60s, the first Buick Riviera, the second iteration Corvairs, the Corvette, and the second-generation Camaro and Firebird.
The ’39 and ’40 Ford coupes are remarkable, and rightfully became a hot-rodding icon.
Although quite often the original Flat-head was replaced by a modern overhead-valve V8, first Oldsmobile or Cadillac, and then the SmallBlock Chevy.

1941 Ford.

But for the 1941 model-year, Gregorie crashed, in my humble opinion.
They had to keep up with the competition, mainly GM and Chrysler Corporation, who were also redesigning their cars.
So for the 1941 model year, the Ford was redesigned, making it squatter and fatter.
After WWII Ford put a much better-looking grille on it, but even that looked plain.
The ’46 pictured has that grille.

The front of the car pictured.

The WWII era Fords look okay, but nowhere near as dramatic and attractive as earlier Fords.
They’re a Grandma’s car, hardly the inspiration for a hotrod movement like the ‘30s Fords were.
Our neighbor in south Jersey had one when I was a child. —Seemed appropriate, they were very conventional.
Stationwagons had been wood, so this car is “woodie,” the love of California surfers.
And stationwagons were a wood body on a car chassis, constructed by an outside body manufacturer.
Stationwagons got their names from being employed to meet railroad trains at a station, to cart luggage and clients to a hotel. That is, a hotel owned the stationwagon.
Stationwagons saw little use outside the resort trade, a rural resort meeting clients at the train-station.

A ’51 Plymouth suburban.

A ’47 Chevy Sub.

Photo by BobbaLew.

The wagon.

The first all-steel stationwagon was the 1951 Plymouth, although it could also be said the Chevrolet Suburban was an all-steel stationwagon.
The Sub goes back to 1935.
But the Sub was a truck; the Plymouth is a car.
I remember riding in a Plymouth all-steel stationwagon as a child. It was great fun, an adventure in automotive discovery.
Our family purchased a used 1957 Chevrolet stationwagon in 1963.
I drove it quite a bit.
Our wagon was a 283 PowerPak, four-barrel carb and dual exhausts. A great car.
Here was a car I could sleep in, although a bit cramped for that.
I had the rear seats folded down, although I don’t think it was a nine-seater; three rows of seats.
Only two rows; a six-seater.
What I wanted all through college was a ’55 Chevrolet stationwagon with the vaunted Chevy SmallBlock.
I’ve never been in a woodie.
Even more practical was a van, a small house on wheels.
You could almost stand in one.
Better for extended travel than an all-steel stationwagon.
I’ve had a few stationwagons myself, a ’76 Volkswagen Dasher, and an ’89 Honda Civic All-Wheel-Drive wagon.
Compared to our Honda, a ’55 Chevy wagon was a let-down. Too flimsy.
I’m sure this woodie would be worse.
It has modern modifications, a Mustang front-end, and a 450 cubic-inch Chevy motor.
Looks nice, but I’m sure it’d be frightening.
Too much motor in a flimsy old car.