Monthly Calendar Report for January, 2012
(Another year, and another occasion to ask whether I continue doing this.
Last May it became questionable.
My wife was in the hospital, and in bad shape.
She has cancer, but supposedly not fatal, at least not yet.
Actually, she has two cancers: -a) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and -b) metastatic breast-cancer.
The Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma appeared about three-and-a-half years ago as a hard tumor in her abdomen.
That was poofed with C-H-O-P chemotherapy.
The metastatic breast-cancer did not have a primary site; it never appeared in her breasts.
It was first noticed in her bones, where breast-cancer metastasizes.
We knocked that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Femara is an estrogen inhibitor. Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive.
Her breast-cancer just about disappeared, but has since reappeared in her bones. (No Letrozole for a while. —And now the Letrozole is generic.)
She was in the hospital because of side-effects.
Her cancer was blocking her kidney-drains, and blood-return from her legs.
Her legs and abdomen swelled.
Her doctor seemed unaware of what was happening — politics.
So I was alone in our house, and had to do everything.
My daily blogging became impossible, except I was making time for it, sorta.
There were 89 bazilyun things to do, beside walking the dog, and mowing lawn.
Working out at the Canandaigua YMCA became impossible, mostly because of not wanting to abandon the dog.
But I kept doing these calendar-reports.
I happened to visit my lawnmower guy, a fellow railfan to whom I e-mail my Monthly Calendar Reports, mostly because they’re of interest to him.
I explained my wife being in the hospital, “but I can’t put my pen down,” I told him.
So my wife may expire this year — and I don’t look forward to it.
She’s the BEST friend I ever had.
But knowing how things were when I was alone, these Monthly Calendar Reports will probably continue.
Daily blogging probably won’t — already it’s no longer daily.
But I can’t put my pen down.
1964 G-T-O. (Peter Harholdt©.)
—Quite often my own calendar renders the best picture.
But not this time
My Motorbooks Musclecars calendar presents the greatest G-T-O of all, the 1964 model, the first one.
The G-T-O was first marketed as a Pontiac Tempest option.
Simple formula. Shoehorn gigantic engine from a full-size car unto the smaller midsize car.
In this case a 389 cubic-inch motor from a full-size Pontiac into the midsize Tempest, and hotrod the engine: triple deuces.
(Three two-barrel carburetors in a row. —An option; standard was a single four-barrel.)
It was a gamble.
Hope the bean-counters at General Motors don’t go ballistic.
After all, the G-T-O at first was just an option-package.
But it sold like hotcakes, 32,450 units for the 1964 model-year, 10,000 before 1964 began.
G-T-O stands for Gran Turismo Omologato, nomenclature for a Ferrari racecar meaning it was homologated for Grand Touring racing.
Being homologated, a ’64 G-T-O was raced in the SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) Trans-Am series for pony cars in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
It almost won a race once, competing against much newer cars.
But it was limited to 305 cubic inches, not 389.
It rendered hope for us ’55 Chevy fans.
It was called “the Gray Ghost” because it was painted gray.
And so began the musclecar phenomenon.
Full-size hot-rodded engines into midsize cars.
Sadly, Pontiac (General Motors) restyled its midsize cars for 1965, and in so doing lost a great-looking car.
I remember a guy at my college got a ’65; it was ugly.
I scrawled “cheap American trash” in the winter salt-spray encrusted on the side of his car.
Thus causing a great conflagration. The guy was the Dean’s son — I almost got canned.
The musclecar concept went crazy later. Ever more hot-rodded engines were getting stuffed into midsize cars.
Hood-shakers lacking balance, and chassis and suspension that didn’t seem to keep up.
I remember a guy putting a 454 BigBlock Chevy in a ’55 Chevy convertible. It was just about undriveable. It would twist the whole back end. —All he could do was pussyfoot!
As the years passed, the musclecar concept became a frightening parody of the original concept, as Detroit crammed ever more displacement and horsepower into their cars.
Although from what I hear the original G-T-O was a bad handler.
Too much horsepower in an inadequate chassis.
The midsize Pontiac was hardly a handler, hardly a Ferrari.
Stuff all that power into it, and you’re into the trees!
About all musclecars were good for was straight-line acceleration and burning up tires.
Supposedly Buick and Oldsmobile made an effort to make musclecars handle.
But what can you do with an unsophisticated chassis design and all that engine-weight?
Yet of all the musclecars, this is the one I’d want.
The first G-T-O, the 1964 model. —The best-looking musclecar.
Crew-change at Rose. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
―The January 2012 entry of my own calendar is a crew-change at Rose, northern Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”).
None of my calendar-pictures are reruns. Some are extraordinary, but not this one.
I only ran this picture in my calendar because it’s not too bad for a snow-picture. The train is M0N, with GEs on the point.
M0N is an advance section of train 10N, a mixed freight. Grain cars are a big segment of the 10N’s consist.
Rose is a regular crew-change point. We are looking down from a highway overpass.
Altoona was the center of Pennsy (Pennsylvania Railroad) operations. They had gigantic mechanical facilities, and used to manufacture locomotives therein.
Altoona was also a major classification point. Massive yards were in place, now mostly abandoned.
Even now the railroad still divides into two sets of through tracks, one set for expedited trains, and the second set for drags.
M0N is on the expedited tracks.
Altoona is also the base of the 12-mile Allegheny mountain grade, less than 1,200 feet above sea-level at Altoona, up to 2,191 feet on Track One, and 2,161 feet on Tracks Two and Three.
Helper units get added to many trains at Altoona to assist up The Hill, and add braking descending.
The helper-sets used to be two EMD (General Motors’ Electro-motive Division) SD40-2s. Now they’re two SD40-Es, EMD SD-50s modified and downgraded horsepower-wise by Norfolk Southern for helper-service.
Norfolk Southern now owns and operates the old Pennsy lines. Norfolk Southern is a 30-year-old merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway.
Norfolk Southern got the old Pennsy lines when Conrail was broken up and sold in 1999.
(CSX [railroad] got Conrail’s old New York Central Water-Level route across New York state. —”Water-level” because it followed rivers, and had easy river gradients. It more-or-less paralleled the Erie Canal.)
The picture was taken February 13, 2010.
It had snowed some before this trip, especially in higher elevations, like the Allegheny mountains.
The trip down was easy, but up in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”) the snow was 3-4 feet deep.
Gallitzin is top of The Hill, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s old crossing of the Allegheny mountains, what had previously been a barrier in PA to west-east commerce.
Horseshoe Curve was completely snowed in.
I tried to walk in, but found myself hip-deep in a snow-berm left by plows.
By now we were chasing trains (“Tours”) with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”)
I’m a railfan, and have been since age-two (I’m 67).
I’ve written up Phil so many times it would be boring.
If you need clarification, click this link, and go toward the end of the post.
The snow was so deep we weren’t sure Phil could get us trackside, but he said there were plenty of grade-crossings, etc. we could go.
So off we went, and Rose was our first stop.
Train M0N needed a crew-change, and it would be done at Rose, the regular crew-change point.
The crew had probably started outside Pittsburgh, and come all the way east.
It had probably taken less than 12 hours, the working limit for locomotive crews.
Often a train gets delayed, and the crew runs up against the 12-hour limit.
In which case the train stops, and a replacement crew gets taxied out.
Large Chevrolets vans were on-hand to taxi crews.
M0N probably came down Track Two, to avoid the steeper grade at the top of Track One.
The Powhatan Shuttle. (Photo by Bill Gantz.)
―The January 2012 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is the “Powhatan Shuttle,” passing frozen Captina Creek west of Alledonia, OH.
I’ll let the calendar explain things:
“Bill Gantz, a 14-year veteran of Norfolk Southern, knows this location well. He has been a locomotive engineer on this 17-mile run from the New Century and Powhatan-6 mines for the past ten years.
‘We had a snowfall during the night, and I wanted to get out there and get a photo while it was still pristine,’ Gantz says. ‘Obviously, I knew when the train would be coming, so I hiked through knee-deep snow and waited about 15 minutes for the train to come out of the New Century load-out.’”
3332 is an SD40-2.
You can tell by looking. It has the shortened hood, yet the long frame of an SD-45.
This is how SD-40s were built, they used the long frame of an SD-45, yet had extended porches in front of and behind the hood.
Dash-2s had modern modular electronics, that could be easily replaced.
SD40-2s are only 3,000 horsepower, yet are one of the most successful railroad locomotives ever made.
Many are still in service. (The last ones for this nation were built in August 1984.)
SD-45s generated 3,600 horsepower, but with 20 cylinders had a propensity to break their crankshaft.
SD-40s were only V16.
Most railroads didn’t think 3,600 horsepower was worth it, even after EMD redesigned the engine-block to solve the breaking crankshaft problem. (Earlier blocks would flex.)
This train has only one unit, which means the train is short or downhill.
The coal-cars are Norfolk Southern “Top-Gons,” rotatable cars converted from regular hopper-cars. “Rotatable” in that the cars can be flipped to dump their contents. The Top-Gons don’t drain their coal through bottom hoppers like a regular hopper-car.
So in essence they’re a gondola-car (“Top-Gon”), except they have high sides so they can carry lots of coal.
Top-Gons are also steel; similar coal-cars are aluminum to be lighter.
In all cases the composition of a coal-car depends on how acidic the coal is.
Both steel and aluminum corrode.
Aluminum is also more brittle; steel can be banged around.
It probably cost less to convert old hopper-cars into Top-Gons than capitalize brand-new aluminum cars.
I’ve seen hundreds of Top-Gons, but I don’t know about aluminum cars.
(Although I’m told I have, and I faintly remember it. —It’s just that aluminum cars look so much like Top-Gons.)
The core of an old hopper-car is halfway to a Top-Gon.
The major modification is rotating couplers.
Plus you’re getting rid of hoppers that often have to be thawed or banged open. —Then the coal has to drain through the hoppers. I.e. it has to not be frozen.
Rotatable cars work better at unloading coal.
The “Powhatan Shuttle” sounds like a small train to service those coal load-outs.
I’ve seen similar coal-trains on Norfolk Southern’s Pittsburgh Division. But more locomotives are needed. The trains are long and heavy, and also uphill.
The coal-trains run as extra on the Pittsburgh Division.
One wonders if the “Powhatan Shuttle” is a similar challenge.
Coal-trains on the Pittsburgh Division are Run-Eight (wide-open) climbing, six or eight or more locomotives.
A lot of coal gets moved on Norfolk Southern; at least on the old Pennsy lines thereof.
Jugs! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)
—The January 2012 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is three Jugs flying in echelon formation.
The Republic Aviation P-47 Thunderbolt was a gigantic fighter-plane.
It had a single two-row 18-cylinder Pratt & Whitney R-2800-59W Double-Wasp radial piston engine of 2,535 horsepower, 2,804 cubic-inches displacement, which is incredibly powerful.
A P-51 Mustang had only 1,695 horsepower, powerful for its size, but a smaller airplane.
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site explain it.
“First flown on May 6, 1941, the P-47 was designed as a (then) large, high-performance fighter/bomber, utilizing the large Pratt and Whitney R-2800 Double-Wasp engine to give it excellent performance and a large load-carrying capability.
The first deliveries of the P-47 took place in June 1942, when the U.S. Army Air Corps began flying it in the European Theater.
Though it was an excellent airplane, several improvements were made as production continued, with each improvement adding power, maneuverability and range.
As the war progressed, the Thunderbolt, or ‘Jug,‘ as it was affectionately called, gained a reputation as a reliable and extremely tough airplane, able to take incredible damage and still return its pilot home safely.
P-47s logged almost 2 million flight hours during the war, during which they were responsible for the destruction of over 7,000 enemy aircraft in the air and on the ground in the European Theater alone.
Later in the war, Jugs served as escort fighters for B-29 bombers in the Pacific.
Mostly, though, they excelled in the ground-attack role, strafing and bombing their way across the battlefields of Europe.”
“Echelon formation” is what we see here, airplanes side-by-side, but flying behind the wing of the airplane in front. (From the front, “echelon formation” presents a step formation.)
By doing so the airplanes can fly tightly, so are hard to attack.
Although it was very difficult to take a P-47 out of the sky.
Like most military airplanes they had self-sealing fuel-tanks, so they sealed if shot up.
The P-47 could sustain incredible damage, yet still return home.
The Double-Wasp was American airplane engine development at its apogee, incredible horsepower out of the internal-combustion engine.
It’s part of the reason our nation won the war.
Technical savvy was being thrown into engine development, the sort of savvy the Germans and Japanese could only mimic.
Once everything got going, the Germans and Japanese were left in the dust.
Part of it was our railroad system, its incredible ability to move freight — especially war materiel.
And the fact cargo-ships were being mass-produced.
Also the fact our continent was more-or-less immune from attack.
That railroad-system could move mountains of freight without damage. European railroads were being bombed to smithereens.
Incredible horsepower from an air-cooled radial airplane engine was mainly the Navy, their desire to advance air-cooled radial engine development.
Air-cooling obviates a liquid cooling system, which can be shot up and made inoperative.
The Army Air Corps allowed liquid cooling; the P-38, P-39, P-40 and P-51 are liquid cooled.
So much horsepower was developed the Army Air Corps had to climb on board.
Ergo, the P-47.
A gigantic fighter-bomber with a HUGE payload.
A P-47 had eight machine-guns. I think a P-51 had only six.
The diesel locomotive everyone venerates. (Photo by John Dziobko, Jr.)
—The January 2012 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is two coupled Pennsylvania Railroad Alco PAs at South Amboy, NJ, across from New York City.
The Alco PAs were downgraded to service on New York & Long Branch, a joint commuter railroad operation in northern NJ with Pennsy and Jersey Central.
At South Amboy the diesels would be switched out and replaced with Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 electric locomotives for the trip into New York City.
“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 changing to, and changed its name to “Alco.”
Alco tanked a while ago; they never competed as well as EMD.
The Alco PA is declared the prettiest diesel railroad locomotive ever.
It’s a first-generation unit, meaning it was among the first diesel railroad locomotives the railroads dieselized with. —Although not Alco’s passenger locomotive, the DL-series.
It’s a passenger version of the Alco FA, which has the same lines, but not the PA’s lanky proportions.
The PA was long to accommodate six-wheel passenger-trucks; the FA is only four-wheel. (Although only four of those six wheels per truck were powered.)
General Motors Electro-motive Division (EMD) did pretty much the same thing; lengthen the bulldog-nosed F-unit to accommodate six-wheel passenger-trucks. (Same thing, only four wheels powered out of six per truck.)
Such was their E-unit, although the E-unit goes back before the F-unit; for example the longer-nosed EA and E-6.
But EMD put two engines, two V12s, inside the carbody.
The Alco PA stuck with only one, a massive turbocharged V16 that could push 2,000 horsepower worth of traction-motors.
Pretty as they were, the Alco PAs were unreliable. It was their new 244 engine, rushed into service, and poorly developed.
Unreliability could be a bugbear.
If a locomotive cripples, it and its train tie up the railroad. Nothing can move until the cripple is rescued.
It isn’t like highway vehicles that can just drive around the cripple.
Trains are using the same pathway. A cripple blocks it.
Turbocharging uses exhaust-gases (through a turbine) to spin superchargers.
The turbo could burn out, starving the engine for intake-air.
EMD’s first locomotives weren’t turbocharged.
Their superchargers were driven directly.
They weren’t subject to their turbo burning out, or becoming sickly.
Alcos were notorious for pouring gobs of black smoke out of their exhaust; i.e. the turbo was sick, so the engine was running too rich.
If the turbo blew, you might get flames out the exhaust.
Like most railroads, the Pennsylvania Railroad was at first using PAs in passenger service.
But unreliability required downgrading.
So PRR took the PAs off cross-country passenger service, and put them in north Jersey commuter service instead.
Which is what we see here.
Two Alco PAs are about to be coupled onto a north Jersey commuter-train, replacing the GG1 electric that brought it from New York City.
The New York & Long Branch is actually a Jersey Central line, but began joint operation with Pennsy after Pennsy threatened to build a competing line.
But the NY&LB was never electrified, although some of it now is (at taxpayer expense).
South Amboy (across from New York City) was the original engine-change.
Pennsy electric locomotives to-or-from New York City would get swapped for non-electrics, what we have here.
And NY&LB was where many Pennsy passenger locomotives served their final days; e.g. the K4 Pacific steam-locomotives (4-6-2).
—And then diesel locomotives unsuited for high-profile passenger service, for example the Alco PA.
A hot-rodded 1933 Ford roadster.
—My first thought was the January 2012 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar was a hot-rodded 1934 Ford roadster.
But it’s not. It’s a 1933 with the ’34 Ford grille.
There are people that love the ’34 Ford as a hotrod.
Not me; I prefer the 1932 (the Deuce).
People like the laid-back snarling lines of a ’34 Ford, but I prefer the vertical lines of a ’32.
The ’34 Ford is okay — better than the ’33, which it looks like.
But the vertical lines of a ’32 are perfect for a hotrod.
One of those ’34 lovers is hotrod builder and stylist Chuck Foose, so smitten with the ’34, he designed his Plymouth Prowler to look like a ’34 Ford.
It comes off as a joke meeting the federal bumper-height requirement.
But behind that ridiculous bumper is a radiator-grille that pays homage to the ’34 Ford.
The motor in a Prowler is a joke too. It isn’t a V8; it’s a V6.
Who ever heard of a hotrod with a V6?
I’m sure there have been a few. After all, hot-rodders were souping up inline sixes as well as the Ford Flat-head V8.
But a hotrod with anything other than a V8 motor?
No wonder the Prowler tanked! — Although that ridiculous bumper didn’t help. I’m sure Foose was appalled.
This car began life as a coupe, but was converted to a roadster.
Okay, except to my mind, a hotrod looks better as a coupe, and a coupe can be driven in rain.
With a roadster ya hafta put the top up (if it has one), or garage it.
It also suffers from what all early-‘30s Ford roadsters suffer from, too much back-end.
The customizers also used special headlight nacelles that look silly compared to bullet headlight nacelles from that era.
It’s an old car. Modern headlight nacelles look out-of-place.
The color is also a bit strange. Too muted compared to the Milner coupe above.
This car is also displaying another problem with post-’32 Fords.
Take off the hood to expose that engine, and you get all that strange firewall paneling.
The ’32 was the first Ford with its gas-tank no longer in front of its windshield — to drain gasoline by gravity down to the engine. It was between the frame-rails in the rear of the car, behind the trunk.
It needed a fuel-pump, probably Ford’s first application thereof, over Old Henry’s dead body.
But Ford hadn’t yet gotten away from that earlier styling.
So a ’32 Ford firewall was still squared off in front of the windshield. The hood didn’t reach back to the windshield.
A Pennsy Alco FA and two FBs. (Bob’s Photo©.)
—So here we have the Alco FA freight-unit, as opposed to the lanky and beautiful Alco PA passenger-units pictured above.
The January 2012 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is three Alco freight-units, an FA and two cabless FBs, heading a merchandise freight west out of Crestline, OH.
When railroads began dieselizing, railfan photographers often refused to photograph diesels.
Or maybe they did because that was what came into view, which may be what happened here.
Were it not for the fact the PA is more gorgeous still, the FA would have been assayed as gorgeous.
But gorgeous doesn’t get a railroad’s imprimatur, not when an FA might cripple and tie up the railroad.
Yet a less-attractive bulldog-nosed EMD F-unit wouldn’t cripple.
A railroad is quite justifiably more interested in reliability.
Attractive as the Alcos were, they weren’t reliable.
(Baldwin diesels were worse yet.)
A freight like the one pictured was a crap-shoot. You hoped the FAs didn’t cripple.
The FAs had the Alco 244 engine, fielded too quickly and not properly developed.
Pennsy had to purchase from all the diesel manufacturers, including the poor ones (e.g. Baldwin and Alco), since Pennsy dieselized late. EMD couldn’t meet their sudden and incredible demand.
Pennsy was a coal-carrier. They long hung onto steam.
But the pressure to dieselize was enormous. Diesels cost less to operate and maintain.
Other Alco diesels were better developed. Their 251 engine was more reliable.
But Alco’s reputation for unreliability was set by the 244.
Railroads even swapped out the Alco diesel for an EMD engine.
An EMD engine in an Alco car-body.
Lehigh Valley Railroad swapped out the engine in an Alco RS-3 road-switcher, creating “Old Hammerhead,” a locomotive never scrapped, now owned and operated by the nearby Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum.
“Hammerhead” because of that short hood raised to the cab-roof top. If I’m right, the short hood had to be raised to accommodate a passenger-car steam-heat boiler.
A typical RS-3 doesn’t have that raised short hood. It’s the same height as the long engine-hood.
The Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum used to be the long-running Rochester Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society (NRHS), since 1937.
But the group recently split from NRHS. NRHS wasn’t doing them much good.
Railroads continued to use the Alco FA.
VIA, the Canadian equivalent of Amtrak, kept running them, even in passenger service.
I remember the Ontario Midland shortline, which exclusively used Alco power, having ex-VIA FAs, still fully Alco.
We rode a fall-foliage excursion behind one once.
But railroads gave up on Alco.
In fact, Alco locomotive production in this country ceased in 1969.
EMD became the primary supplier of railroad diesel locomotives in North America. —That is until recently, when General Electric became dominant.
Alcos might have looked prettier, but they could tie up a railroad, and often did.
I’ve seen trains limp in with only two units running out of three. What if it’s one out of three, or none?
Last May it became questionable.
My wife was in the hospital, and in bad shape.
She has cancer, but supposedly not fatal, at least not yet.
Actually, she has two cancers: -a) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and -b) metastatic breast-cancer.
The Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma appeared about three-and-a-half years ago as a hard tumor in her abdomen.
That was poofed with C-H-O-P chemotherapy.
The metastatic breast-cancer did not have a primary site; it never appeared in her breasts.
It was first noticed in her bones, where breast-cancer metastasizes.
We knocked that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Femara is an estrogen inhibitor. Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive.
Her breast-cancer just about disappeared, but has since reappeared in her bones. (No Letrozole for a while. —And now the Letrozole is generic.)
She was in the hospital because of side-effects.
Her cancer was blocking her kidney-drains, and blood-return from her legs.
Her legs and abdomen swelled.
Her doctor seemed unaware of what was happening — politics.
So I was alone in our house, and had to do everything.
My daily blogging became impossible, except I was making time for it, sorta.
There were 89 bazilyun things to do, beside walking the dog, and mowing lawn.
Working out at the Canandaigua YMCA became impossible, mostly because of not wanting to abandon the dog.
But I kept doing these calendar-reports.
I happened to visit my lawnmower guy, a fellow railfan to whom I e-mail my Monthly Calendar Reports, mostly because they’re of interest to him.
I explained my wife being in the hospital, “but I can’t put my pen down,” I told him.
So my wife may expire this year — and I don’t look forward to it.
She’s the BEST friend I ever had.
But knowing how things were when I was alone, these Monthly Calendar Reports will probably continue.
Daily blogging probably won’t — already it’s no longer daily.
But I can’t put my pen down.
1964 G-T-O. (Peter Harholdt©.)
—Quite often my own calendar renders the best picture.
But not this time
My Motorbooks Musclecars calendar presents the greatest G-T-O of all, the 1964 model, the first one.
The G-T-O was first marketed as a Pontiac Tempest option.
Simple formula. Shoehorn gigantic engine from a full-size car unto the smaller midsize car.
In this case a 389 cubic-inch motor from a full-size Pontiac into the midsize Tempest, and hotrod the engine: triple deuces.
(Three two-barrel carburetors in a row. —An option; standard was a single four-barrel.)
It was a gamble.
Hope the bean-counters at General Motors don’t go ballistic.
After all, the G-T-O at first was just an option-package.
But it sold like hotcakes, 32,450 units for the 1964 model-year, 10,000 before 1964 began.
G-T-O stands for Gran Turismo Omologato, nomenclature for a Ferrari racecar meaning it was homologated for Grand Touring racing.
 |
| The Gray Ghost. |
It almost won a race once, competing against much newer cars.
But it was limited to 305 cubic inches, not 389.
It rendered hope for us ’55 Chevy fans.
It was called “the Gray Ghost” because it was painted gray.
And so began the musclecar phenomenon.
Full-size hot-rodded engines into midsize cars.
Sadly, Pontiac (General Motors) restyled its midsize cars for 1965, and in so doing lost a great-looking car.
I remember a guy at my college got a ’65; it was ugly.
I scrawled “cheap American trash” in the winter salt-spray encrusted on the side of his car.
Thus causing a great conflagration. The guy was the Dean’s son — I almost got canned.
The musclecar concept went crazy later. Ever more hot-rodded engines were getting stuffed into midsize cars.
Hood-shakers lacking balance, and chassis and suspension that didn’t seem to keep up.
I remember a guy putting a 454 BigBlock Chevy in a ’55 Chevy convertible. It was just about undriveable. It would twist the whole back end. —All he could do was pussyfoot!
As the years passed, the musclecar concept became a frightening parody of the original concept, as Detroit crammed ever more displacement and horsepower into their cars.
Although from what I hear the original G-T-O was a bad handler.
Too much horsepower in an inadequate chassis.
The midsize Pontiac was hardly a handler, hardly a Ferrari.
Stuff all that power into it, and you’re into the trees!
About all musclecars were good for was straight-line acceleration and burning up tires.
Supposedly Buick and Oldsmobile made an effort to make musclecars handle.
But what can you do with an unsophisticated chassis design and all that engine-weight?
Yet of all the musclecars, this is the one I’d want.
The first G-T-O, the 1964 model. —The best-looking musclecar.
Crew-change at Rose. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
―The January 2012 entry of my own calendar is a crew-change at Rose, northern Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”).
None of my calendar-pictures are reruns. Some are extraordinary, but not this one.
I only ran this picture in my calendar because it’s not too bad for a snow-picture. The train is M0N, with GEs on the point.
M0N is an advance section of train 10N, a mixed freight. Grain cars are a big segment of the 10N’s consist.
Rose is a regular crew-change point. We are looking down from a highway overpass.
Altoona was the center of Pennsy (Pennsylvania Railroad) operations. They had gigantic mechanical facilities, and used to manufacture locomotives therein.
Altoona was also a major classification point. Massive yards were in place, now mostly abandoned.
Even now the railroad still divides into two sets of through tracks, one set for expedited trains, and the second set for drags.
M0N is on the expedited tracks.
Altoona is also the base of the 12-mile Allegheny mountain grade, less than 1,200 feet above sea-level at Altoona, up to 2,191 feet on Track One, and 2,161 feet on Tracks Two and Three.
Helper units get added to many trains at Altoona to assist up The Hill, and add braking descending.
The helper-sets used to be two EMD (General Motors’ Electro-motive Division) SD40-2s. Now they’re two SD40-Es, EMD SD-50s modified and downgraded horsepower-wise by Norfolk Southern for helper-service.
Norfolk Southern now owns and operates the old Pennsy lines. Norfolk Southern is a 30-year-old merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway.
Norfolk Southern got the old Pennsy lines when Conrail was broken up and sold in 1999.
(CSX [railroad] got Conrail’s old New York Central Water-Level route across New York state. —”Water-level” because it followed rivers, and had easy river gradients. It more-or-less paralleled the Erie Canal.)
The picture was taken February 13, 2010.
It had snowed some before this trip, especially in higher elevations, like the Allegheny mountains.
The trip down was easy, but up in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”) the snow was 3-4 feet deep.
Gallitzin is top of The Hill, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s old crossing of the Allegheny mountains, what had previously been a barrier in PA to west-east commerce.
Horseshoe Curve was completely snowed in.
I tried to walk in, but found myself hip-deep in a snow-berm left by plows.
By now we were chasing trains (“Tours”) with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”)
I’m a railfan, and have been since age-two (I’m 67).
I’ve written up Phil so many times it would be boring.
If you need clarification, click this link, and go toward the end of the post.
The snow was so deep we weren’t sure Phil could get us trackside, but he said there were plenty of grade-crossings, etc. we could go.
So off we went, and Rose was our first stop.
Train M0N needed a crew-change, and it would be done at Rose, the regular crew-change point.
The crew had probably started outside Pittsburgh, and come all the way east.
It had probably taken less than 12 hours, the working limit for locomotive crews.
Often a train gets delayed, and the crew runs up against the 12-hour limit.
In which case the train stops, and a replacement crew gets taxied out.
Large Chevrolets vans were on-hand to taxi crews.
M0N probably came down Track Two, to avoid the steeper grade at the top of Track One.
The Powhatan Shuttle. (Photo by Bill Gantz.)
―The January 2012 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is the “Powhatan Shuttle,” passing frozen Captina Creek west of Alledonia, OH.
I’ll let the calendar explain things:
“Bill Gantz, a 14-year veteran of Norfolk Southern, knows this location well. He has been a locomotive engineer on this 17-mile run from the New Century and Powhatan-6 mines for the past ten years.
‘We had a snowfall during the night, and I wanted to get out there and get a photo while it was still pristine,’ Gantz says. ‘Obviously, I knew when the train would be coming, so I hiked through knee-deep snow and waited about 15 minutes for the train to come out of the New Century load-out.’”
3332 is an SD40-2.
You can tell by looking. It has the shortened hood, yet the long frame of an SD-45.
This is how SD-40s were built, they used the long frame of an SD-45, yet had extended porches in front of and behind the hood.
Dash-2s had modern modular electronics, that could be easily replaced.
SD40-2s are only 3,000 horsepower, yet are one of the most successful railroad locomotives ever made.
Many are still in service. (The last ones for this nation were built in August 1984.)
SD-45s generated 3,600 horsepower, but with 20 cylinders had a propensity to break their crankshaft.
SD-40s were only V16.
Most railroads didn’t think 3,600 horsepower was worth it, even after EMD redesigned the engine-block to solve the breaking crankshaft problem. (Earlier blocks would flex.)
This train has only one unit, which means the train is short or downhill.
The coal-cars are Norfolk Southern “Top-Gons,” rotatable cars converted from regular hopper-cars. “Rotatable” in that the cars can be flipped to dump their contents. The Top-Gons don’t drain their coal through bottom hoppers like a regular hopper-car.
So in essence they’re a gondola-car (“Top-Gon”), except they have high sides so they can carry lots of coal.
Top-Gons are also steel; similar coal-cars are aluminum to be lighter.
In all cases the composition of a coal-car depends on how acidic the coal is.
Both steel and aluminum corrode.
Aluminum is also more brittle; steel can be banged around.
It probably cost less to convert old hopper-cars into Top-Gons than capitalize brand-new aluminum cars.
I’ve seen hundreds of Top-Gons, but I don’t know about aluminum cars.
(Although I’m told I have, and I faintly remember it. —It’s just that aluminum cars look so much like Top-Gons.)
The core of an old hopper-car is halfway to a Top-Gon.
The major modification is rotating couplers.
Plus you’re getting rid of hoppers that often have to be thawed or banged open. —Then the coal has to drain through the hoppers. I.e. it has to not be frozen.
Rotatable cars work better at unloading coal.
The “Powhatan Shuttle” sounds like a small train to service those coal load-outs.
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| Photo by BobbaLew. |
| Train 538 (a coal-extra) climbs the Allegheny mountains. (The coal-car is not a Top-Gon. It’s aluminum.) |
The coal-trains run as extra on the Pittsburgh Division.
One wonders if the “Powhatan Shuttle” is a similar challenge.
Coal-trains on the Pittsburgh Division are Run-Eight (wide-open) climbing, six or eight or more locomotives.
A lot of coal gets moved on Norfolk Southern; at least on the old Pennsy lines thereof.
Jugs! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)
—The January 2012 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is three Jugs flying in echelon formation.
The Republic Aviation P-47 Thunderbolt was a gigantic fighter-plane.
It had a single two-row 18-cylinder Pratt & Whitney R-2800-59W Double-Wasp radial piston engine of 2,535 horsepower, 2,804 cubic-inches displacement, which is incredibly powerful.
A P-51 Mustang had only 1,695 horsepower, powerful for its size, but a smaller airplane.
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site explain it.
“First flown on May 6, 1941, the P-47 was designed as a (then) large, high-performance fighter/bomber, utilizing the large Pratt and Whitney R-2800 Double-Wasp engine to give it excellent performance and a large load-carrying capability.
The first deliveries of the P-47 took place in June 1942, when the U.S. Army Air Corps began flying it in the European Theater.
Though it was an excellent airplane, several improvements were made as production continued, with each improvement adding power, maneuverability and range.
As the war progressed, the Thunderbolt, or ‘Jug,‘ as it was affectionately called, gained a reputation as a reliable and extremely tough airplane, able to take incredible damage and still return its pilot home safely.
P-47s logged almost 2 million flight hours during the war, during which they were responsible for the destruction of over 7,000 enemy aircraft in the air and on the ground in the European Theater alone.
Later in the war, Jugs served as escort fighters for B-29 bombers in the Pacific.
Mostly, though, they excelled in the ground-attack role, strafing and bombing their way across the battlefields of Europe.”
“Echelon formation” is what we see here, airplanes side-by-side, but flying behind the wing of the airplane in front. (From the front, “echelon formation” presents a step formation.)
By doing so the airplanes can fly tightly, so are hard to attack.
Although it was very difficult to take a P-47 out of the sky.
Like most military airplanes they had self-sealing fuel-tanks, so they sealed if shot up.
The P-47 could sustain incredible damage, yet still return home.
The Double-Wasp was American airplane engine development at its apogee, incredible horsepower out of the internal-combustion engine.
It’s part of the reason our nation won the war.
Technical savvy was being thrown into engine development, the sort of savvy the Germans and Japanese could only mimic.
Once everything got going, the Germans and Japanese were left in the dust.
Part of it was our railroad system, its incredible ability to move freight — especially war materiel.
And the fact cargo-ships were being mass-produced.
Also the fact our continent was more-or-less immune from attack.
That railroad-system could move mountains of freight without damage. European railroads were being bombed to smithereens.
Incredible horsepower from an air-cooled radial airplane engine was mainly the Navy, their desire to advance air-cooled radial engine development.
Air-cooling obviates a liquid cooling system, which can be shot up and made inoperative.
The Army Air Corps allowed liquid cooling; the P-38, P-39, P-40 and P-51 are liquid cooled.
So much horsepower was developed the Army Air Corps had to climb on board.
Ergo, the P-47.
A gigantic fighter-bomber with a HUGE payload.
A P-47 had eight machine-guns. I think a P-51 had only six.
The diesel locomotive everyone venerates. (Photo by John Dziobko, Jr.)
—The January 2012 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is two coupled Pennsylvania Railroad Alco PAs at South Amboy, NJ, across from New York City.
The Alco PAs were downgraded to service on New York & Long Branch, a joint commuter railroad operation in northern NJ with Pennsy and Jersey Central.
At South Amboy the diesels would be switched out and replaced with Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 electric locomotives for the trip into New York City.
“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 changing to, and changed its name to “Alco.”
Alco tanked a while ago; they never competed as well as EMD.
The Alco PA is declared the prettiest diesel railroad locomotive ever.
It’s a first-generation unit, meaning it was among the first diesel railroad locomotives the railroads dieselized with. —Although not Alco’s passenger locomotive, the DL-series.
It’s a passenger version of the Alco FA, which has the same lines, but not the PA’s lanky proportions.
The PA was long to accommodate six-wheel passenger-trucks; the FA is only four-wheel. (Although only four of those six wheels per truck were powered.)
General Motors Electro-motive Division (EMD) did pretty much the same thing; lengthen the bulldog-nosed F-unit to accommodate six-wheel passenger-trucks. (Same thing, only four wheels powered out of six per truck.)
Such was their E-unit, although the E-unit goes back before the F-unit; for example the longer-nosed EA and E-6.
But EMD put two engines, two V12s, inside the carbody.
The Alco PA stuck with only one, a massive turbocharged V16 that could push 2,000 horsepower worth of traction-motors.
Pretty as they were, the Alco PAs were unreliable. It was their new 244 engine, rushed into service, and poorly developed.
Unreliability could be a bugbear.
If a locomotive cripples, it and its train tie up the railroad. Nothing can move until the cripple is rescued.
It isn’t like highway vehicles that can just drive around the cripple.
Trains are using the same pathway. A cripple blocks it.
Turbocharging uses exhaust-gases (through a turbine) to spin superchargers.
The turbo could burn out, starving the engine for intake-air.
EMD’s first locomotives weren’t turbocharged.
Their superchargers were driven directly.
They weren’t subject to their turbo burning out, or becoming sickly.
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| Santa Fe Warbonnet PA. |
If the turbo blew, you might get flames out the exhaust.
Like most railroads, the Pennsylvania Railroad was at first using PAs in passenger service.
But unreliability required downgrading.
So PRR took the PAs off cross-country passenger service, and put them in north Jersey commuter service instead.
Which is what we see here.
Two Alco PAs are about to be coupled onto a north Jersey commuter-train, replacing the GG1 electric that brought it from New York City.
The New York & Long Branch is actually a Jersey Central line, but began joint operation with Pennsy after Pennsy threatened to build a competing line.
But the NY&LB was never electrified, although some of it now is (at taxpayer expense).
South Amboy (across from New York City) was the original engine-change.
Pennsy electric locomotives to-or-from New York City would get swapped for non-electrics, what we have here.
And NY&LB was where many Pennsy passenger locomotives served their final days; e.g. the K4 Pacific steam-locomotives (4-6-2).
—And then diesel locomotives unsuited for high-profile passenger service, for example the Alco PA.
A hot-rodded 1933 Ford roadster.
—My first thought was the January 2012 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar was a hot-rodded 1934 Ford roadster.
But it’s not. It’s a 1933 with the ’34 Ford grille.
There are people that love the ’34 Ford as a hotrod.
Not me; I prefer the 1932 (the Deuce).
People like the laid-back snarling lines of a ’34 Ford, but I prefer the vertical lines of a ’32.
The ’34 Ford is okay — better than the ’33, which it looks like.
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| The Milner coupe from American Graffiti. |
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| A Prowler. |
One of those ’34 lovers is hotrod builder and stylist Chuck Foose, so smitten with the ’34, he designed his Plymouth Prowler to look like a ’34 Ford.
It comes off as a joke meeting the federal bumper-height requirement.
But behind that ridiculous bumper is a radiator-grille that pays homage to the ’34 Ford.
The motor in a Prowler is a joke too. It isn’t a V8; it’s a V6.
Who ever heard of a hotrod with a V6?
I’m sure there have been a few. After all, hot-rodders were souping up inline sixes as well as the Ford Flat-head V8.
But a hotrod with anything other than a V8 motor?
No wonder the Prowler tanked! — Although that ridiculous bumper didn’t help. I’m sure Foose was appalled.
This car began life as a coupe, but was converted to a roadster.
Okay, except to my mind, a hotrod looks better as a coupe, and a coupe can be driven in rain.
With a roadster ya hafta put the top up (if it has one), or garage it.
It also suffers from what all early-‘30s Ford roadsters suffer from, too much back-end.
The customizers also used special headlight nacelles that look silly compared to bullet headlight nacelles from that era.
It’s an old car. Modern headlight nacelles look out-of-place.
The color is also a bit strange. Too muted compared to the Milner coupe above.
This car is also displaying another problem with post-’32 Fords.
Take off the hood to expose that engine, and you get all that strange firewall paneling.
The ’32 was the first Ford with its gas-tank no longer in front of its windshield — to drain gasoline by gravity down to the engine. It was between the frame-rails in the rear of the car, behind the trunk.
It needed a fuel-pump, probably Ford’s first application thereof, over Old Henry’s dead body.
But Ford hadn’t yet gotten away from that earlier styling.
So a ’32 Ford firewall was still squared off in front of the windshield. The hood didn’t reach back to the windshield.
A Pennsy Alco FA and two FBs. (Bob’s Photo©.)
—So here we have the Alco FA freight-unit, as opposed to the lanky and beautiful Alco PA passenger-units pictured above.
The January 2012 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is three Alco freight-units, an FA and two cabless FBs, heading a merchandise freight west out of Crestline, OH.
When railroads began dieselizing, railfan photographers often refused to photograph diesels.
Or maybe they did because that was what came into view, which may be what happened here.
Were it not for the fact the PA is more gorgeous still, the FA would have been assayed as gorgeous.
But gorgeous doesn’t get a railroad’s imprimatur, not when an FA might cripple and tie up the railroad.
Yet a less-attractive bulldog-nosed EMD F-unit wouldn’t cripple.
A railroad is quite justifiably more interested in reliability.
Attractive as the Alcos were, they weren’t reliable.
(Baldwin diesels were worse yet.)
A freight like the one pictured was a crap-shoot. You hoped the FAs didn’t cripple.
The FAs had the Alco 244 engine, fielded too quickly and not properly developed.
Pennsy had to purchase from all the diesel manufacturers, including the poor ones (e.g. Baldwin and Alco), since Pennsy dieselized late. EMD couldn’t meet their sudden and incredible demand.
Pennsy was a coal-carrier. They long hung onto steam.
But the pressure to dieselize was enormous. Diesels cost less to operate and maintain.
Other Alco diesels were better developed. Their 251 engine was more reliable.
But Alco’s reputation for unreliability was set by the 244.
Railroads even swapped out the Alco diesel for an EMD engine.
An EMD engine in an Alco car-body.
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| Old Hammerhead. |
“Hammerhead” because of that short hood raised to the cab-roof top. If I’m right, the short hood had to be raised to accommodate a passenger-car steam-heat boiler.
A typical RS-3 doesn’t have that raised short hood. It’s the same height as the long engine-hood.
The Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum used to be the long-running Rochester Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society (NRHS), since 1937.
But the group recently split from NRHS. NRHS wasn’t doing them much good.
Railroads continued to use the Alco FA.
VIA, the Canadian equivalent of Amtrak, kept running them, even in passenger service.
I remember the Ontario Midland shortline, which exclusively used Alco power, having ex-VIA FAs, still fully Alco.
We rode a fall-foliage excursion behind one once.
But railroads gave up on Alco.
In fact, Alco locomotive production in this country ceased in 1969.
EMD became the primary supplier of railroad diesel locomotives in North America. —That is until recently, when General Electric became dominant.
Alcos might have looked prettier, but they could tie up a railroad, and often did.
I’ve seen trains limp in with only two units running out of three. What if it’s one out of three, or none?
Labels: Monthly Calendar Report
posted by BobbaLew at 12:00 PM
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