Monthly Calendar Report for December, 2011

“Home for Christmas.” (Photo by BobbaLew.)

―Here it is! The picture that makes my calendar. Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian at Fostoria, PA. “Home for Christmas.”
The December 2011 entry of my own calendar is one of the best pictures I ever got, perfect for December.
And it’s not a rerun.
But actually it was shot February 13, 2010.
It had snowed some before this trip, but apparently quite a bit in higher elevations, like the Allegheny mountains.
The trip down was easy.
Snow might have been plowed three feet high along the highway, but the pavement was bare.
Not so in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”), top of The Hill, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s old crossing of the Allegheny mountains.
When we arrived at Tunnel Inn in Gallitzin, the bed-and-breakfast we stay at in the Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”) area, owner-proprietor Mike Kraynyak (“crane-eee-YAK”) was blowing out his tiny parking-lot with a snowblower.
The snow was three to four feet deep.
Streets were impassible and being cleared with giant front-end loaders, even the main drag.
Mike’s snowblower seemed overwhelmed, and that’s despite a 2&1/2 foot high front opening.
A friend was trying to hand-shovel giant snowpiles off the outside staircase to his upstairs viewing-deck.
Mike was also trying to clear a path to the staircase. It looked like a trench through the deep snow.
I’ve written up Tunnel Inn so many times, it would be boring to do it again.
If you need clarification, click this link, go slightly down into the first calendar-entry, and read about Tunnel Inn.
Usually Tunnel Inn is closed during winter, but Mike always did a Valentine’s Day special.
He didn’t do it this past year.
What he’d do is open the Inn about Valentine’s Day, take reservations, and turn on the heat.
By then we had begun doing train-chases (“Tours”) with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”)
I’m a railfan, and have been since age-two (I’m 67).
Phil’s another topic I’ve blogged too many times.
If you need clarification, click this link, and go toward the end of the post to read about Phil.
We had supposedly reserved for the Valentine’s Day weekend, but Mike wasn’t sure.
Our usual room was already reserved for someone else, but we could have “AR,” the downstairs handicap suite.
“AR” is an old Pennsy tower in Gallitzin, closed and abandoned, but still up.
The towers were named after their telegraph call-letters, e.g. “AR,” “UN,” “SO,” “MG,” and “MO.”
As mentioned, Tunnel Inn caters to railfans, so the suites are all named after rail things.
There’s an “MO” suite, and “AR” is the handicap suite.
“AR” is downstairs and quite large. All the other suites are upstairs.
“AR” goes at a higher rate, so I told Mike we’d take it if we could have it at the upstairs rate.
Agreed.
So next morning, February 13, Phil arrived to “tour” us.
We wondered if he could actually do it.
Horseshoe Curve was completely snowed in, entirely inaccessible.
I had tried to enter, but ended up hip-deep in a blocking snow-berm left by plows.
Horseshoe Curve is another topic blogged many times. If you need clarification, click this link, go down to the second calendar-entry (Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar), and read around the picture of “the Mighty Curve.”
Phil said there were plenty of grade-crossings he could take us to get trackside.
So off we went, north of Altoona, railroad east.
Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian was coming.
We pulled up to a grade-crossing in tiny Fostoria, and here it came.
BAM! Got it.
Best of all, the ties were covered with snow.
And the light was perfect, muted winter light.
Conditions were fabulous the entire chase.
Squalls and the sun coming out between snow-bursts.



As good as the leader. (Photo by Willie Brown.)

―I try to not put two train pictures next to each other, but not this time.
The December 2011 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is as good as my own picture, in fact I’d say better.
The only reason I made mine number-one is because it was perfect for December.
The Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a better picture.
Apparently this location, Time, PA, is very well known.
The red barn is known as “the red-barn of Time.”
I had to do some serious poking around to find “Time, PA.”
When I cranked “Time, Pennsylvania” into my Google Satellite-Views, it gave me 89 bazilyun hits all across Pennsylvania, from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and Erie.
Time-Warner, time in Philadelphia, Time Restaurant, the New York Times, etc.
WHAAAA.....? Usually Google Satellite-Views is pretty good. What prompted that?
I dragged out my DeLorme Pennsylvania gazetteer.
It had the tiny town of Time in the far southwestern corner of the state, out in the middle of nowhere.
So I set my Google Satellite-Views to that area.
Little made sense.
I couldn’t make highways agree with the gazetteer, although the gazetteer was probably out of date. It’s late ‘80s.
Satellite-Views had the Interstates nearby, including the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
But not in the gazetteer — although the area of the gazetteer may have been much smaller than the satellite-view.
I kept noticing what appeared to be an open-pit coal mine in the Satellite-Views, so I zeroed in on it.
And there did appear to be a railroad coming out of it, just a loading-track circling the mine.
And there appeared to be a train on it.
I never found “Time” on my Satellite-Views, but this was the railroad depicted.
And I noticed a few places that looked like the photo location, curvature that matches what’s depicted.
The photographer said he lives nearby, so has taken this picture hundreds of times.
You’d need a railroad scanner to know what’s happening, plus knowledge of operations.
The track-curvature has the train in full display, snaking the curves.
And it’s coal, what the line would be carrying.
Of course, it’s just a branch specific to that mine.
Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (railroad) built a specific mine-branch nearby, but it’s a salt-mine.
It replaced other salt-mines closed as unsafe.
The salt-mine is new, about mid-‘90s, well after I moved up here.
The railroad branch is also new. Railroad was nearby, but a branch had to built to that salt-mine.
The open-pit coal-mine looks new too.
I can hardly imagine trucks hauling out all that coal when a railroad can haul hundreds of truckloads in just one train.



Mustang! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The December 2011 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a close-on shot of a P-51 Mustang.

Photo by Philip Makanna©.

Curtiss P-40 Warhawk.

Probably shot at the same time, with the same telephoto, as the picture at left.
But I think that picture is better, even though a P-40 isn’t a P-51.
The P-51 Mustang is the propeller airplane everyone venerates, the quintessential hotrod airplane.
Some Navy fighter-planes, e.g. the Grumman Bearcat, may have been better. They had more horsepower, 2,100, versus the Mustang’s 1,695.
I saw a Bearcat do an aerobatics demonstration once. It seemed comparable to anything a Mustang could do.
And every American, BY LAW, should see, and hear, a Mustang fly aerobatics.
I will never forget it. That’s goin’ to my grave!
The Mustang has beauty and grace the Bearcat lacks.
Not only is it a hotrod, it’s a beautiful airplane.
But it has limitations.
It’s a taildragger, and with it’s long nose it has to be taxied side-to-side to see where you’re going.
Plus the machine-guns, in the wings, are aimed a little inside at a convergence zone.
Not like a P-38, where they’re in the nose, aimed straight ahead.
You have to get your target into the convergence zone, lest you waste bullets.

Photo by Philip Makanna©.

A P-38.

It makes you wonder if the P-38 was a better fighter-plane, on tricycle gear with its guns aimed straight ahead.
It also makes you wonder if the P-38 would have been superior with the Packard-Merlin V12 as used in the Mustang.
All the P-38 had were Allisons, although it did quite well.
And the engines in a P-38 were counter-rotating, which offset engine torque.
With its single engine a P-51 would have to be trimmed to offset torque-pull.
Never mind!
The P-51 was phenomenally attractive.
Many are still flying (150), only a few P-38s (around seven).
Some P-51s are raced.
More horsepower can be extracted from the Merlin V12.
Enough horsepower to allow a five-bladed propeller, or even twin propellers.
Yet the airframe might be a half-century old.
Compared to a P-51, a P-40 is an old turkey.
But the P-40 came off better photographed close-on.
It’s almost like you have to see the complete P-51, especially its empennage and bubble canopy.
(The empennage is the tail-surfaces.)
As a child my first flyable model-airplane, string-tethered for circular flight, was modeled after the P-51.
But it was just a solid plastic casting, but redesigned for light weight and maximum wing-surface.
Its proportions were much longer than the P-51, but the wings and empennage were P-51 — although the wings were bigger.
It had a tiny .049 cubic-centimeters (I think centimeters; althought it could be cubic-inches) Cox engine that ran on model-airplane fuel slightly laced with nitromethane.



A-bone. (“A-bone” is a derivation of “T-bone;” a Model-T Ford. The car is a Model-A.)

—The December 2011 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a 1931 five-window Model-A Ford coupe.
Five-window meaning it has five window-lights instead of just three.
That is, a window behind the door-post.
Three-windows don’t have that, and to my mind look better.
If I saw this car in-the-flesh I’d probably be impressed.
After all, I saw a Model-A five-window hotrod in gray primer at a show and was impressed.
It had a souped-up overhead-valve Cadillac V8 engine, and was driven in. Open exhausts, it sounded great.
But this car stops me short.
It’s yellow, a preferred color, but not the color of the Milner coupe from American Graffiti.

The Milner coupe from American Graffiti.

The calendar-car is also a Model-A. The Milner coupe is a ’32 Ford, slightly better looking.
And the top of the calendar-car looks too chopped; the Milner car is just right.
I also have a problem with the flames. They look too orderly, and they’re not needed.
No flames on the Milner car.
But the calendar-car has spun-aluminum Moon hubcaps on the wheels, very much the rage in the early ‘60s when I was in high-school and college.
(I think Moon was the manufacturer,)
Those things are a prize. Where does anyone find such a thing nowadays?
They’re much better-looking than gigantic modern chrome spider alloys with rubber-band tires. Those things on a hotrod look terrible.
The wheels distract from the car.
They especially look terrible on a ‘50s customized car.
At least this thing has a proper hot-rodded V8 engine, a SmallBlock Chevy with triple two-barrels.
A friend of mine, Art Dana, since deceased, tried to put triple two-barrels on a hot-rodded ’56 Pontiac V8, but failed.
It would backfire through the carbs. He had to install a single four-barrel.
The radiator-grill also looks slightly tilted forward at the top.
But that may be the car’s rake; the fact that the rear is at stock height, and the front lowered.
At least the grill is ’32 Ford; much better looking than the Model-A grill.
The shifter-knob in this thing is a miniature skull.
In Art’s car it was a beer-can.
All period pieces, as are those spun-aluminum Moon hubcaps.



There’s an Alco in the lashup. (Photographer unknown.) (“Alco” is American Locomotive Company of Schenectady, NY. For years, American Locomotive Company was a primary manufacturer of railroad steam locomotives. [It was originally a merger of many steam locomotive manufacturers.] —With the changeover by railroads to diesel-locomotives, American Locomotive Company brought out a line of diesel-electric railroad locomotives much like the railroads were switching to, and changed its name to “Alco.” Alco tanked a while ago; they never competed as well as EMD.)

—The December 2011 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a Pennsylvania Railroad freight passing Lincoln Park near Detroit, along Pennsy’s line to Detroit.
It was December of 1964, my junior year in college.
The Pennsylvania Railroad still existed, though foundering.
It hadn’t been folded into Penn-Central yet.
That was 1968, a merger with arch-rival New York Central. The two railroads had many competing lines in Ohio and Indiana.
Penn-Central was of course doomed.
It went bankrupt because of the incompatibility of computer systems, and intransigence of Pennsy management in Philadelphia, plus forced inclusion of New York, New Haven & Hartford (NYNH&H; “New Haven”) by government fiat.
The Pennsylvania Railroad might have done better if it could have merged with Norfolk & Western, but that was not allowed.
Similarly New York Central might have done better with Chesapeake & Ohio, a proposed merger that also was not allowed.
What we have now, by default, is the two mergers proposed long ago: Norfolk Southern, a merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway, operates the old Pennsy lines.
And CSX (railroad), which includes Chesapeake & Ohio, operates the old New York Central lines.
Although Conrail was a step along the way, a government-sponsored merger of all the northeast bankrupt railroads — there were many, including Penn-Central. Conrail eventually went private, and was broken up and sold to Norfolk Southern and CSX.
Norfolk Southern also has a presence in New York, the old Erie mainline across the southern part of the state.
Likewise CSX has a presence in Pennsylvania, the old Baltimore & Ohio line from Pittsburgh.
Northeast rail competition maintained, supposedly.
The train is led by two EMD GP-35s.
“EMD” is Electro-motive Division of General Motors, GM’s manufacturer of diesel railroad-locomotives. Most railroads used EMD when they dieselized. They were more reliable.
Pennsy had 119 GP-35s. 116 survived into Conrail, and the last was retired in 1994.
Many railroads traded their first-generation diesel-locomotives for GP-35s, reusing trucks and traction-motors from their first generation locomotives. Which means some GP-35s had Alco trucks.
The third unit is Alco, probably one of their Century series, probably as good as EMD, but by then GE had entered the locomotive market with its Universal (U-boat) series, and also Alcos had a reputation for being unreliable.
Earlier Alcos were unreliable, and the Century units were a response to GE’s Universal series.
Alcos used turbocharging, exhaust-gases used to spin intake-air superchargers via turbine.
Turbochargers were prone to failure.
Earlier EMDs weren’t turbocharged — they used mechanical supercharging. The reason EMD came to dominate the market was reliability.
This is despite their using more fuel than an Alco.
The Pennsy line to Detroit was a late addition to their system, part of PRR’s Lake Region headquartered in Cleveland.



1968 Camaro RS. (Photo by Ron Kimball©.)

—Ho-hum!
The December 2011 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1968 Camaro RS.
“RS” stands for Rally-Sport.
It could be said that the 1968 model-year was the final year of the introductory Camaro, although the 1969 model-year is pretty much the same car — same roof, etc.
The introductory Camaro, introduced in 1966 for the 1967 model-year, was Chevrolet’s response to the phenomenally successful Ford Mustang, introduced in 1964.
Chevrolet has been caught with its pants down.
The Chevy SmallBlock was a phenomenally attractive engine not available in an attractive car.
The only attractive car the SmallBlock was in was the Corvette, a two-seater, expensive, and impractical.
Also a fiberglass body, like riding in a drum.

A 1962 Corvair Monza coupe. (I had a black one, but it was PowerGlide.)

Chevrolet was selling a car to the sporting-crowd that would eventually buy the Mustang, the Corvair Monza.
Great as it was, it wasn’t the SmallBlock, and it was kind of weird.
There were issues about its rear-suspension and motor-location, which was in the rear (mimicking the Volkswagen Beetle).
The Mustang was very much what the sporting-crowd wanted. It was essentially a Ford Falcon, but with its nose lengthened and rear-deck shortened per sportscar appearance.
That is, its top was moved rearward.
The people at Ford, led by Lee Iacocca, saw a market for sporty cars that no one was filling.
All they had to do was reconfigure the Falcon, and VIOLA! Sporty-car.
The Firebird was Pontiac’s version of the Camaro, and a local radio announcer recently called it a sportscar.
I beg to differ.
The Firebird and Mustang and Camaro are Detroit sedans with sporting pretense.
They had the appearance of a sportscar, but were still a Detroit sedan.
They had the long nose and short rear-deck of a sportscar, but still four seats, and large heavy doors.
Although those rear seats were cramped.
Your knees were into the front-seat backs, and your head was in the roof.
A so-called 2+2, rear seating for munchkins.
Camaro didn’t start looking good until the second generation, introduced for the 1970 model-year.
That’s when GM stylists put looks before practicality.

A 1970 Camaro Rally-Sport Z-28.

Photo by Ron Kimball©.

A 1970 Trans-Am Firebird.

The 1970 Camaro is one of the best-looking cars ever, although it’s too big.
The 1970 Firebird looks even better, since unlike the Camaro it’s not depending on Ferrari styling-licks.
By 1970, Rally-Sport became a special Endura® front-end. (The 1970 Camaro pictured is a Rally-Sport.)
The radiator-scoop was not crossed by the bumper, which was actually split into two sections.
The entire front-end was a special Endura fabrication, individual to only Rally-Sports. —Pontiac’s Firebird had it too.
The introductory Camaros aren’t bad, just not as good-looking as the second generation.
At least they had the fabulous SmallBlock V8, available with four-speed floor-shift, and didn’t cost a fortune like a Corvette, or were as impractical.
I rode in a ’63 Corvette once. There was no trunklid. You shoved luggage between the seats into the trunk-cavity.
The calendar calls an “RS” a musclecar.
I doubt it.
It’s probably the SmallBlock with four-speed. Those ports on the hood are just fake trim. The place to gather air for induction was the base of the windshield; it was high-pressure. —You saw that in later Camaros, especially for racing.
But a first-generation Rally-Sport is not a gigantic 450+ cubic-inch hot-rodded motor that shakes the hood at idle.
It won’t cream everything in a straight line, nor burn up the rear tires.
Although it probably could. Those tires are lightly loaded, and the SmallBlock in a Rally-Sport would be strong.
To be a musclecar it has to have the BigBlock, and I don’t know that 1968 Rally-Sports were available with the BigBlock.
Rally-Sport was apparently a long-running Camaro option, Z-25.
It replaced the “SS” option for Camaros.
Early “RS” Camaros have disappearing headlights, which this calendar-car has.



Two Pennsy M-1s (4-8-2) at Rockville Bridge. (Photo by Don Ball©.)

—Into the doldrums with Don Ball.
The December 2011 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a typical photograph by Don Ball.

Photo by Don Wood©.

Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.

Photo by Phil Hastings©.

Photo by Don Wood©.

Not photogenically dramatic, but full of action.
We have two Pennsy 4-8-2 M1 Mountains, one storming off Rockville Bridge, and the other waiting for it to clear.
Ball was photographing steam-locomotives all over the northeast.
Compare Phil Hastings, Jim Shaughnessy, or Don Wood, who the Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar began with.
Ball managed to snag a lot of steam action, but his many pictures are flat.
Some of Wood’s photographs are the greatest Pennsy steam-locomotive action ever recorded, e.g. the Mt. Carmel ore-train in snow, and K4 Pacific (4-6-2) #612 on a railfan trip.
Shaughnessy is comparable, a Pennsy Hippo (2-10-0) on the Elmira branch.
I’ve seen hundreds of Ball photographs. He was all over snagging steam-locomotive action.
But none are memorable.
Wood’s Mt. Carmel ore-train I’ll never forget.






And now for the addendums; the fact a few of my calendars have additional pictures.



At the Mighty Curve. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—My own calendar has a cover picture, a rerun, but one of the best I’ve ever snagged.
I’ve taken hundreds of pictures at Horseshoe Curve, but only this one seems to have worked, and the train is downhill.
Horseshoe Curve is not very photogenic; you’re inside the Curve.
And no camera can ever do the place justice. A camera flattens it out. You get no idea it’s draped on mountainsides.
Yet this photograph looks pretty good.
It’s pretty much empty of tourists, and GP-9 #7048 is in it.
It’s an old picture, 2005, so 7048, though rusting, still has its red keystone.
7048 has since been repainted, and no longer has its red keystone.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Nope!

So I tried again, 7048 at left, with an approaching westbound Amtrak.
Nope; didn’t work.
The greenery has grown up along the track, and partly obscures the train.
And of course #7048 no longer has its red keystone.
I didn’t have my position exactly right, nor my focal-length, so probably I’ll try again.
But the greenery grows ever higher each year.
In steam days it was kept down by the ash.
This is what photography seems to be for me, a crap-shoot. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t.



The So-Cal lakester.

—My Oxman Hotrod Calendar has one of the most famous racecars ever, the So-Cal belly-tank lakester.
The car was built in 1948 from a surplus P-38 drop-tank (auxiliary fuel).

Photo by BobbaLew.

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

It had a highly-modified Ford Flat-Head V8 in it, unsupercharged.
It was raced quite a bit in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s in southern California dry-lakes speed-trials.
But its greatest achievement came in 1951 at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, 195.77 mph two-way average, and 198.34 one-way.
That is just incredible for an unsupercharged Flat-Head Ford V8.
So the guys at So-Cal Speedshop looked at a P-38 drop-tank and said “yeah, we could get a Flatty in there, and a driver too.”
So began modification of the drop-tank into a car.
This racer is obviously not streetable.
Like dragsters, there’s no radiator.
Run the motor long enough to make the speed-trial, then tow it back to the pits motor off.
It looks like coolant-water was circulated into a holding-tank, but there’s no radiator.
I also doubt there’s any suspension to speak of. Maybe a little up front, but the rear looks hardtail.

I hafta do at least this one.

It’s also extraordinary this car still exists. Usually racers get scrapped. Often parts get recycled into newer racers.
What we have here is a prize. I wish I could run all the photos the calendar ran.



Train 955 westbound on Track three, the Executive Business-train. (Photo by Sam Wheland.)

―My Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar has the Norfolk Southern Executive Business-train.
The picture goes with a 2-year planner I never use.
It’s at a location I know well, Cassandra (“kuh-SANNE-druh;” as in the name “Anne”) Railfan Overlook. I’ve been there many times.
One of my best photographs is at Cassandra Railfan Overlook.
The original Pennsy main used to go through Cassandra.
But there were a lotta tight curves.
So in 1898 Pennsy built a bypass that circumvented Cassandra, taking out curvature.
But it involved a deep rock cut.
State Highway 53 used to go through Cassandra too; now it doesn’t.
The highway had to cross the new bypass to access Cassandra, so the rock-cut was bridged.
Apparently that bridge lasted until Route 53 was realigned to bypass Cassandra.
The highway bridge was removed, but the abutments remained.
It was decided to use the old abutments for a pedestrian bridge, so residents of Cassandra didn’t have to cross the tracks at grade to work east of the railroad.
Railfans began congregating on the pedestrian bridge.
A resident of Cassandra noticed, so put in benches and started mowing lawn.
That resident eventually became Cassandra’s mayor.
And so was created Cassandra Railfan Overlook, one of the best places I’ve ever been to watch trains.
What makes it great is the shade. The benches are under trees. In most other locations you’re under direct sunlight.
And the parade of trains is interesting and constant.
You’re on the West Slope of the Allegheny mountains, uphill averaging about one percent.
Locomotives are hammering. (It goes as high as 1.53 percent at the summit.)
A heavy train might have one helper-set on the front, and an additional helper-set on the rear, if not two sets. —That’s four or six additional locomotives; everything Run Eight. (Wide open!)
You’re also between two defect-detectors, 253.1 toward Lilly, and 258.9 in Portage.
So you can tell with a railroad radio-scanner if something is coming. “Norfolk Southern milepost 253.1, Track Three, no defects.” —That’s an approaching westbound.
One afternoon we couldn’t leave for over two hours. The detectors kept calling out trains; at least eight or ten.
The Executive Business-Train is office-cars the railroad uses to entertain shipper head-honchos.
The office-cars are painted Tuscan Red (“TUSS-kin;” not Tucson, Ariz.).
Tuscan Red was the passenger color both Pennsy and Norfolk & Western used.
(Norfolk Southern is a 30-year-old merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway. NS took over the old Pennsy lines when Conrail was broken up and sold in 1999.)
Norfolk Southern restored four classic diesel-locomotives to pull its Executive Business-Train; EMD F-units.
They are known as the “Tuxedos” because of their paint-scheme.
The Executive Business-Train is stored in Altoona when not in use.