Monthly Calendar Report for February, 2012

Amtrak’s eastbound “Pennsylvanian” on Track Two at Lilly, PA. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

―I guess I’ll make my own calendar-picture number-one for February 2012, even though I’m not happy with it.
It’s best, but only because the others are so middling.
In fact, all my boughten calendars have middling pictures this year, and that’s throughout the year, not just this month. Nothing is extraordinary.

Peter Harholdt©.

The only musclecar I’d want, a ’64 G-T-O.

Photo by John Dziobko, Jr.

The most beautiful diesel-locomotive of all.

About the only photo that is any good is the ’64 G-T-O I ran last month, and it wasn’t that dramatic a picture.
It got by on the fact it was a ’64 G-T-O, the best of the musclecars, the one I’d want.
My Alco PA picture wasn’t bad either.
In fact, one entry in my hotrod calendar is a customized ’51 Buick.
Ugh! What would anyone ever see in such a car?
Okay, I saw enough dumb customs while growing up, e.g. a nosed-and-decked 1952 Chevrolet two-door sedan, and a dark-green ’50 Pontiac convertible.
That guy, whose name was George, two classes ahead of me in high-school, used to sit atop the front seatback top-down, and steer with his feet!
Simple formula: buy a cheap used-car as high-school transportation, then do a little el-cheapo customization — e.g. nosing and decking.
“Nosing and decking” are to remove both the hood and trunk ornaments, and then fill in the mounting holes and repaint. “Nosing and decking” were very much the in thing to do; usually about the extent of customization.
“Nosing and decking” were fairly easy, especially if there were flush mounting-holes. A ’56 Chevy was near impossible, since its hood-ornament was mounted on a quarter-inch emboss.
This picture was taken in February of last year.
We had gone down to Altoona in hopes of repeating the previous February (2010) when the snow was fabulous.
But the snow was almost gone. It had snowed previously, but temperatures rose to almost 50 degrees.
The snow just melted away.
You see a little snow-cover still extant, but the roadbed is almost bare.
In fact, the only snow is on the access-road, where a fourth track used to be. The tracks are bare.
The tracks here are numbered One, Two, and Three, left-to-right. Three is westbound, One is eastbound, and Two can be either way.
My nephew Tom, from northern Delaware, also a railfan like me, had come out to accompany Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”) and I on our train-chase.
I’ve written up Phil so many times to do it again would be boring.
If you need clarification, click this link, and go toward the end of the post.
That explains Phil.
I would be driving with Phil navigating, and Tom in the back seat.
My wife was along, but was having a hard time due to her cancer, and would stay behind at first.
We stayed at Station Inn in Cresson, PA (“KRESS-in”), a bed-and-breakfast for railfans.
It’s not Tunnel Inn in nearby Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”), where we usually stay.
Station Inn is quite rudimentary, but Tunnel Inn wasn’t open at that time.
We had the “Pennsy” suite, which had an extra room for Tom.
Breakfast at Station Inn is pretty good.
Hired help cook breakfast in a kitchen, and you eat together with other patrons at a common-table.
In the so-called “Common Room.”
Tunnel Inn, by comparison, is just muffins and coffee delivered to each suite in a small basket.
It’s not as good as Station Inn, but compared to Station Inn the suites at Tunnel Inn are far better.
Both front the railroad, the so-called “47 miles of the most historic railroad in the United States,” Norfolk Southern’s Pittsburgh Division through and over the Alleghenies, the old Pennsy mainline.
Pennsy is long-gone, and now Norfolk Southern owns and operates the old Pennsy, ever since Norfolk Southern got the old Pennsy lines in 1999 when Conrail was broken up and sold.
Conrail was a successor to Pennsy when Penn-Central failed.
It started as a government operation, but eventually privatized as it became successful.
Conrail succeeded a bunch of northeast rail-carriers that failed about the same time as Penn-Central, a merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and arch-rival New York Central.
And operations on the Norfolk Southern Pittsburgh Division are much like the old Pennsy. Helper locomotives get added to help the trains climb The Hill. The western-slope is not as steep as the eastern slope up from Altoona, but helpers often still get added.
Station Inn is the old Callan House hotel in Cresson. Trains would take vacationers out of Pittsburgh up to Cresson, where they stayed at Callan House.
Tunnel Inn doesn’t have all the tracks, just those at the old Pennsy tunnels.
Station Inn views all the tracks, but they’re across the street. At Tunnel Inn they’re right at your feet.
Sleeping at Tunnel Inn is fairly easy; it’s a heavy substantial brick building.
It’s the old Gallitzin town offices and library, built by Pennsy in 1905.
Trains shake the building slightly as they rumble by.
Tunnel Inn is the top of the grade, so trains are still pulling uphill as they pass.
About all that wakes you is eastbounds on Track Two, which stop at the top of The Hill to do a brake-test before descending.
Track One (also eastbound) is on the other side of town, out of sight and hearing.
The eastbounds whistle off as they restart to descend The Hill down toward Altoona.
At Station Inn the railroad is far away, 75-100 yards across the street.
You can tell a train is passing, especially eastbound, which is uphill; but they’re not that noticeable.
Phil showed up at Station Inn during breakfast, and off we went down to South Fork, just me, Tom and Phil.
South Fork is where the railroad turns west to follow the Conemaugh (kone-uh-MAW;” as is “own”) river down to Johnstown.
The Johnstown Flood, May 31, 1889, started when a dam ruptured above South Fork. 2,209 died.
Trains were coming, and we photographed them in South Fork, then we drove back north toward Cresson, railroad-east.
Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian was coming, so we stopped at the overpass in Lilly.
That’s this picture; the train is climbing the western slope on Track Two.
(It’s passing a westbound stacker on Three.)
Back at Cresson my wife felt well enough to come along, so off we all went, north to Tyrone (“Tie-RONE;” as in “own”) to Plummers Crossing just east of Tyrone.
By then it started to cloud over, and the landscape was pretty much snowless.
It was warm enough to open my down jacket.

Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.

My cover-photo.

Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.

Holy mackerel!

The photo at left was taken at this location during that trip.
It’s the cover of my calendar.
What’s bad about this Amtrak picture is the low February sun.
I’ve done much better at this location in later months, but no snow.
The picture below left was my first “tour” with Phil, August 4, 2008. We snagged a “double;” two trains at once. —First “double” I ever saw!




(Nothing extraordinary from now on.)




1969 Yenko 427 Camaro. (Peter Harholdt©.)

—Here it is, the most desirable Camaro of all, the one everyone wants.

One of the prettiest styling-jobs ever.

Except yrs trly. I think the ’70&1/2 Rally-Sport, first year of the second-generation Camaros, is one of the best styling jobs of all time.
General Motors stylists pulled out all the stops. Practicality was cast to the wind!
The only problem is that it’s rather large (and has large doors).
My Motorbooks Musclecars calendar features a 1969 Camaro — the model-year everyone wants.
And this is a special Camaro; very rare.
It has the 427 cubic-inch Big-Block engine; the result of a COPO #9561 order, the Central Office Production Order system being a way for Chevrolet to produce cars for special-order, for example, taxicabs, police-cars, and el-cheapo strippers for light government duty (meter-readers, etc.).
Various hot-rodders, namely Don Yenko, saw the COPO system as a way to get Chevrolet to build maximum hotrods, like the Camaro with a Big-Block motor.
Seems a while ago I ran another rare Camaro with a Big-Block motor, but the engine was aluminum.
The Yenko Camaros were the cast-iron Big-Block, inordinately heavy.
About all a Yenko Camaro was good for is straight-line acceleration.
Bend it into a corner and you’re into the trees.
An aluminum Big-Block might weigh about the same as a Small-Block. A Camaro with Big-Block performance that might handle as well as a Small-Block Camaro, which could handle pretty well.
COPO 9561 Camaros are extremely rare.
Only 1,015 were built.
The car was a sleeper.
There were no markings.
The hubcaps are the cheapest available, mere pie-plates.
About the only giveaways are the hood and spoilers.
And the Polyglas Wide-Oval tires.
Line up against one at a traffic-light, and you wonder “What’s in that thing?”
This photo is not that impressive.
But it IS a Yenko Camaro, and a ’69.
The ‘69s were the last of the first-generation Camaros, not that good-looking to me.
The ’69 was slightly different-looking, but had the same roof as earlier.
The whole car had to be improved.
A really great-looking Mustang was coming, the 1970, a true fastback.




Pennsy’s first electric locomotive. (Dave Sweetland Collection)

—The February 2012 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a single Pennsylvania Railroad DD1 electric locomotive, actually two semi-permanently coupled D units, 4-4-0, #s 4780 and 4781 (later Penn-Central numbers).
4780 and 4781 were the only remaining DD1; and are the only unscrapped DD1, retained at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, although renumbered as 3936/3937, their original Pennsy numbers.

A D16.

A Long Island Rail Road G5 (Long Island was once owned by Pennsy, so it’s a Pennsy G5).

“D” was Pennsy’s 4-4-0 classification; for example the D16. (1223 at left is a D16, and still exists at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.)
The GG1 is two 4-6-0s on a single underframe. The “G” is Pennsy’s 4-6-0 classification, for example the G5 (#35 is a G5).
Electrification was needed to operate the Hudson River Tubes (tunnels) to New York City.
The DD1 was developed as power for that.
A big electric motor is up inside the body.
An eccentric is at each end of the power-shaft.
It rotates a large rod connected to the wheel side-rods.
So the motor turns at the same rate as the drive-wheels, which are 72 inches diameter. (A Pennsy M-class 4-8-2 has 72-inch drive-wheels. A K4 Pacific [4-6-2] is 80-inch.)
A DD1 operates on direct-current third-rail electrification. Pennsy switched later to overhead alternating-current trolley-wire.
As far as I know, the DD1 was never converted to overhead alternating-current trolley-wire. It was always third-rail direct-current.
Long Island Rail Road had some third-rail electrification, so the DD1s gravitated to it. (Long Island Rail Road was once owned by Pennsy.)
The DD1 pictured has been renumbered into Penn-Central numbers, and was never scrapped.
It was retained for low-priority work-trains.
There once were 33, and they delivered classy Pennsy passenger-trains into New York City.
Long ago the line from Washington DC to Newark was still steam — it wasn’t fully electrified until the middle ‘30s.
Steam engines would pull passenger-trains to Manhattan Transfer in Newark, and then be switched out for a DD1.
The engine is in Sunnyside Yard on Long Island.
Locomotives for New York City-to-Washington DC were often stored and worked on/prepared in Sunnyside Yard, which is accessed directly from Penn Station in Manhattan.




Hurricane. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The February 2012 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a really great photograph of a rather plain airplane.

Spit.

The Hawker Hurricane is not the gorgeous hotrod the Supermarine Spitfire was.
But the judgment is the Hawker Hurricane won the Battle of Britain, that it turned back Hitler’s Luftwaffe.
Hurricanes would swarm like bees.
They put up an intimidating defense.
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site tell it:
“August 1940 brought what has become the Hurricane's shining moment in history: The Battle of Britain. RAF Hurricanes accounted for more enemy aircraft kills than all other defenses combined, including all aircraft and ground defenses.”
The engine is only a 1,280 horsepower V12 Merlin, not what it was in the Spitfire, 1,478 horsepower, 1,695 in the Mustang.
This photograph is the best in the calendar, although a photograph of a B-24 Liberator bomber is almost as good.
Continuing:
“In 1933, Hawker’s chief designer, Sydney Camm, decided to design an aircraft which would fulfill a British Air Ministry specification calling for a new monoplane fighter.
His prototype, powered by a 990 horsepower Rolls Royce Merlin ‘C’ engine, first flew on November 6, 1935, and quickly surpassed expectations and performance estimates.
Official trials began three months later, and in June 1936, Hawker received an initial order for 600 aircraft from the Royal Air Force.
The first aircraft had fabric wings. To power the new aircraft (now officially designated the “Hurricane,”) the RAF ordered the new 1,030 horsepower Merlin II engine.”
But the Hawker Hurricane is not a dramatic airplane.
The empennage, the tail of the airplane, is fabric-covered. In fact, it’s fabric behind the cockpit, a very old way of doing things.
This was an advantage. Bullets would pass right through. A Hurricane could sustain incredible damage, yet return to base.
But the Merlin is water-cooled. The cooling-system had to remain undamaged to sustain flight; that is, not overheat the engine.
But it’s the airplane that won the Battle of Britain, and turned back Hitler’s Luftwaffe.


(Downhill from here.)




A Pennsy K4 Pacific (4-6-2) leads Train #6 (the Allegheny) on Panhandle Bridge approaching Pittsburgh. (Photo by John Bowman, Jr.©)

—The February 2012 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is not much, but it’s historical.
A Pennsy K4 Pacific (4-6-2) leads Train #6, “The Allegheny,” around a curve on Panhandle Bridge towards Pittsburgh.
The K4 is a Lines-West locomotive, meaning it was used on Pennsy lines west of Pittsburgh.
As such it has its sand-dome ahead of the bell. (Lines-West K4s were built that way.)
The tracks and facilities at ground-level are Pittsburgh & Lake Erie (railroad).
The K4 was extraordinary for a Pacific.
Most Pacifics were much lighter, smaller boiler and smaller firebox.
A grate-area of 70 square feet is quite large.
But even then the K4 was not the largest Pacific employed by Pennsy.
That would be the K5, still a 70 square-foot grate, but the boiler of a massive Pennsy Decapod (2-10-0). The Decapod was also only 70 square feet.
Only two K5s were built; crews didn’t like ‘em. They could run fast, but were slippery on startup.
Of interest to me is the Fort Pitt beer billboard’s huge clock saying about 25 after noon.
Fort Pitt beer is defunct, the picture is probably late ‘40s.
Also visible in the background is the Mt. Washington Incline, a funicular (”foo-NICK-yew-ler”) railroad. Kind of like an elevator, except the cars get winched up the tracks.
There are many funiculars in PA to climb mountains.
One was built in Johnstown after the Johnstown Flood.
The bridge also looks familiar, like it might be the one used in the movie “Unstoppable.” There it was called “Stanton Curve,” in the alleged town of “Stanton.”
The curve is posted for 15 mph, yet the runaway train negotiated it at near 70 mph. Tipped onto its outside wheels, clearly impossible, and without pulling out the rail. —And without derailing and crashing in flames into an oil tank-farm below.
Only one side of the bridge remains active; no tracks on the foot of the wye, but the bridge is still up.
A ridiculous movie; it shoulda been named “Unbelievable!”




Vicky!

—The February 2012 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a hot-rodded 1934 Ford Victoria two-door sedan.
The Victoria is a special-model two-door sedan.
It was all-steel, instead of a fabric insert in the top.
As far as I know the Victoria became a part of Ford offerings in the 1920s as a Model-T variant, and lasted until Ford cars became all-steel.

Stock 1932 Ford Victoria

Hot-rodded 1934 Ford two-door sedan (note fabric top insert).

Stamping an all-steel car was difficult at first.
An all-steel top had to be stamped as a separate roof-panel.
Ford sedans didn’t have separate roof-panels at first.
Perhaps the side-stamping curved up into the roof, or a large opening was left in the roof for a fabric insert.
The Vicky had a distinctive shape.
The roof was shorter than a typical two-door sedan with the fabric insert.
As such, it had a bustle-back at first. The typical two-door sedan didn’t.
The rear seat of a typical two-door sedan was over the rear-axle at first, which car-design moved away from, as such a design supposedly rode rough.
(Although my 1979 Ford E250 van was that way, and seemed fine.)
Interior seating was more cramped in a Vicky than the typical sedan.
Vickys are much desired.
This car is extensively hot-rodded.
It has a fully-independent Jaguar XK-E rear-suspension with inboard disc brakes. Very hip in the ‘60s in sportscar circles.
But I wonder if it can stand the torque output of the motor, a much-modified 350 Chevy SmallBlock with Weber carburetors.
Although with that much carburetion I wonder if it runs.......
My friend Art Dana (“day-nuh”), the recently-deceased retired bus-driver from Regional Transit, tried triple two-barrels on his ’56 Pontiac-powered Model-A hotrod.
It wouldn’t run right. All it did was backfire through the carburetors.
Triple-deuces look great. But he had to switch back to a single four-barrel.
Four Webers look great too, but sound like too much for a streetable SmallBlock.
Four Webers on a SmallBlock can be made to work in full-on racing applications.
The Jaguar independent rear-suspension is fairly strong, but it’s not the Corvette independent rear-suspension, which was crude but very strong.
What it sounds like is this car was built to satisfy the show-crowd.
Gee-whiz! Jag rear-end and four Webers.
A trailer-queen.
It doesn’t fulfill the Dana rule, which is “the bitch has gotta run!”
It’s an attractive hotrod, but not as attractive as a 1932 Victoria.

Hot-rodded 1932 Ford Victoria.

But even the ’32 Vicky looks like an old car. Cool, but antique.
Better-looking as hotrods are the ’32 roadster or three-window coupe, really great-looking cars, for which we can thank Edsel Ford.




Auto-racks depart Bellevue, OH. (Photo by Jermaine Ashby.)

―The February 2012 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is the weakest in the calendar.
It’s just a single General-Electric Dash 9-40CW pulling a string of auto-racks out of Bellevue, Ohio.
Norfolk Southern Dash 9s are only 4,000 horsepower. A normal Dash 9 is 4,400 horsepower, Dash 9-44CW.
Norfolk Southern thought 4,400 horsepower too risky.
I can’t make sense of the light-sources.
The moon in the mist seems pretty strong, perhaps full.
If that brightening sky in the background is sunrise or sunset, to be that full the moon has to be behind the photographer.
So perhaps the brightening sky is actually Bellevue, or Bellevue yard.
Bellevue is a storied railroad town.
It was a junction of numerous railroads, where the old New York Central crossed Nickel Plate. —Wheeling & Lake Erie also was there, it’s line to Pittsburgh.
I think it was also the center of Nickel Plate operations, or at least A center.
Norfolk Southern operates the old Nickel Plate line to Buffalo, NY.
That goes way back to Norfolk Southern predecessor Norfolk & Western getting the Nickel Plate in 1964.
Norfolk Southern is a merger of the old Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway in 1982.
One diesel-locomotive for a train might not seem like much, but a string of auto-racks is light.
Of interest to me is that old passenger diesel barely visible to the right.
It looks like an old Penn-Central E-unit.
It’s at Sea Island Passenger Services for restoration.
This picture would have looked better in daylight.
That streetlight at right is what made it possible.
The calendar probably chose it because the photographer pulled it off.