Monthly Calendar Report for March, 2012

Train 22W booms east through Altoona. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

—And now my own calendar starts to roll.
The marginal pictures are past, January and February, at least in my humble opinion.
The March 2012 entry of my own calendar is Train 22W charging east through Altoona approaching Eighth Street Bridge, from where we were photographing.
I like this picture because it depicts what Altoona was, the center of the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad, so-called “Standard Railroad of the World.”
Altoona is also the base of the railroad’s assault on the Allegheny mountains, previously a barrier to west-east commerce.
The Pennsylvania Railroad’s breach of the Allegheny-front made the opening of the midwest accessible to Philadelphia.
Previous to Pennsy the Alleghenies made trade with the nation’s interior near impossible.
All that could be done was packhorse over daunting trails, ponderously slow.
Plus a state-sponsored combination railroad/canal system that was also slow. Grading was so difficult at that time the railroad over the Alleghenies had inclined planes.
And Pennsy did it without inclined planes, steep grades or switchbacks.
Switchbacks are ponderously slow to operate. The train operates into the first switchback stub-end, stops, and a crewman gets off and throws the switch to the next switchback. The train backs up to the next switchback stub-end, stops, and a crewman gets off to throw that switch out.
The train can then operate locomotive-first, forward, perhaps to the next switchback, if there is one, or perhaps not (if two switchbacks climbed the hill).
Switchbacks came in twos, so the train ended up locomotive-first.
Switchbacks climb steep grades, like a ridge or mountain-front.
But Pennsy was a through railroad; no delay operating switchbacks, and the Allegheny-front was challenging enough to need switchbacks.
The Allegheny-front was also high enough to need steep grades. The grade up the eastern side of the Alleghenies averages 1.75 percent — that’s 1.75 feet up for every 100 feet forward.
That’s fairly steep, but not very. It’s not four percent, which would have been near-impossible for an adhesion railroad, that is, driving-wheels adhering the railheads without a cogged railway.
A train operating a four-percent climb would have to be broken into short sections, perhaps three or four.
Even 1.75 percent needs additional helper-locomotives.
1.75 percent doesn’t look challenging (“where’s the grade?” a granny once asked), but I once saw a train stall on the grade for lack of enough helpers.
But a single train could operate through the Alleghenies if you added a few helper-locomotives.
Pennsy breached the Alleghenies, opening up the midwest and west.
Trade over the Alleghenies was no longer the slow process it had been prior to Pennsy.
Altoona was where helper-locomotives would get added.
The railroad, when first planned, bought land in the area, and so Altoona was founded.
Altoona became a railroad-town, where Pennsy built and tested locomotives for itself.
Giant shop facilities were also built to maintain locomotives and cars.
The railroad also built a slew of classification-yards, many now gone.
The railroad also split into two alignments through Altoona, express and drag-freight. —It’s still that way.
22W, a stacker, is on the express tracks.
The two tracks to the right of the train are the drag-tracks.
This train was doing perhaps 30-40 mph, and had just descended The Hill (the Allegheny-front), probably on Track Two.
Altoona is no longer what it was.
All that empty space once had buildings and trackage.
And Altoona was two sections, east of the railroad and west.
East was suburban, and west was urban. —It still is.
A number of highway bridges were built over the tracks to motor between the two sections.
One is Eighth Street bridge, where this photograph was taken.
The roofed bridge in the middle distance is a pedestrian walkway to the Altoona railroad station from a railroad museum across the tracks.
Altoona is very proud of its railroad heritage, and has a Railroaders’ Memorial Museum.
The railroad once employed thousands of Altoona residents.
Many houses were painted with Pennsy passenger colors: Tuscan-red (“tuss-kin;” not “Tucson, Ariz.”).




Yak-3. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The March 2012 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a stunning photograph of an airplane I’m not familiar with, the Yak-3 fighter-plane.
That’s because it’s Russian, and American and British fighters, like the P-40 Warhawk and the Hurricane are more familiar.
And Hitler’s Messerschmitt Bf 109.
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site describe it:
“During the final two years of the Second World War, the Yak-3 proved itself a powerful dogfighter.
Tough and agile below an altitude of 13,000 feet, the Yak-3 dominated the skies over the battlefields of the Eastern Front during the closing years of the war.
The first attempt to build a fighter called the Yak-3 was shelved in 1941 due to a lack of building materials and an unreliable engine.
The second attempt used the Yak-1M, already in production, to maintain the high number of planes being built.
The Yak-3 had a new, smaller wing and smaller dimensions then its predecessor. Its light weight gave the Yak-3 more agility.
The Yak-3 completed its trials in October 1943 and began service in July of 1944.
In August, small numbers of Yak-3s were built with an improved engine generating 1,700-hp, and the aircraft saw limited combat action in 1945.
Production continued until 1946, by which time 4,848 had been built.”
This makes the Yak-3 sound like a stellar fighter-plane, in the league of the Mustang and the Spitfire. (The Mustang is 1,695 horsepower, the Spitfire is 1,478 horsepower.)
But I’m not familiar with it.
At least five newly-manufactured aircraft remain airworthy. (The new Yak-3s were built using the plans, tools, dies and fixtures of the original. They were powered by American Allison engines, and given the designation Yak-3UA.)




Two Pennsy E-2b experimentals. (Photo by Dave Ingles)

—The March 2012 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a set of two E-2b experimental electric locomotives in Alexandria, VA.
If I am correct, Dave Ingles succeeded David P. Morgan as editor of Trains Magazine.
Morgan was the reason I subscribed to Trains in the middle ‘60s.
Ingles wasn’t Morgan. Ingles was more a fan, a stickler for detail — into louver-counts. “See that? The number of louvers indicate it’s a GP-9 instead of a GP-7.”
Morgan was more like me. Let the drama of railroading wash over him, and then describe it.
To Hell with louver-counts.
I’ve subscribed continuously to Trains since college.
Editors came and went after Morgan and Ingles.
It’s still not Morgan, but it’s in pretty good hands.
People in awe of railroading, but still slightly tilted toward louver-counts.
You almost have to be.
About the only way to make sense of what you’re seeing is to count louvers, or memorize train and locomotive numbers.
Locomotive use is too similar across railroading.
But I’m still a sucker for the drama.
A train climbing full-throttle up the west slope of the Allegheny mountains is more a thrill than knowing exactly what’s on the point, GE or EMD.
And when my railroad radio-scanner gets a defect-detector calling out an approaching train (“Norfolk Southern milepost 258.9, Track One, no defects”) I don’t care what’s on the point.
I’m like Pavlov’s dogs!
Still, Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”) and I were at a spot on the west slope of the Alleghenies last August, and a train passed underneath us climbing The Hill.
“Did you see that?” I cried.
“An actual SD40-2; I thought those things were retired!”
Phil probably knew what it was by locomotive-number.
“SD40-2” is stenciled in small white letters on the black cab-side. Those letters are what I saw.
The E-2bs were part of a series of electric experimentals Pennsy built to replace the tiring P-5s (4-6-4 electrics).
The E-2bs are alternating-current; the other units, the E-3b and c, are rectifier units, direct-current traction motors. The overhead wire is alternating-current.
As such, the E-2bs could be multipled with the P-5 (which was AC), but the rectifier units couldn’t be multipled.

Photo by BobbaLew.

E-2b #4939 (same as the calendar-picture).

Photo by BobbaLew.

DD-2 (left) and E-3c (right).

I managed to snag an E-2b years ago (about 1960) at the Wilmington (DE) shops.
I also snagged an E-3c, the last letter indicating the number of driving-wheels per truck.
A DD-2 (4-4-0+0-4-4) is also in the photograph of the E-3c. Only one DD-2 was built.
“C” indicated six wheels per truck; the E-3b had three four-wheel trucks per engine.
According to my Pennsy Power Book, which I will never part with, the Es were never replicated in quantity.
There were eight E-2bs, and ten of the E-3 locomotives.

E-44 #4463.

Rectification won in the end. It was the E-44c that replaced the P-5.
It had six diesel-locomotive traction-motors.
Rectification is change of the trolley-wire alternating-current to direct-current for the traction-motors.
Early E-44s had rectification by ignitron-rectifier tube.
Later E-44s used silicon diodes. The early E-44s were later switched to silicon diode, since it was less troublesome.




1969&1/2 Dodge SuperBee. (Peter Harholdt©.)

—The March 2012 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1969&1/2 Dodge SuperBee.
The SuperBee was Dodge’s response to the phenomenal success of the Plymouth RoadRunner.
Dodge dealers were jealous they couldn’t cash in on RoadRunner action.
The Dodge intermediate was the same as the Plymouth intermediate, which had been made into a cheap musclecar with a 383 cubic-inch engine and four-speed floorshift.
The RoadRunner could also be had with the Hemi engine (“hem-eeee;” not “he-meee”), and the giant 440 cubic-inch B-block.
This SuperBee is the 440 engine, a 440 Six-Pack.
That means triple two-barrel carburetion, a monster of an engine, that put fear into a G-T-O owner.
Of course, a 440 Six-Pack would be no good in a corner.
It would lack balance, a giant weight over the front wheels.
About all a 440 Six-Pack would be good for is straight-line acceleration.
Assuming you could hook up the lightly-loaded rear drive tires.
That 440 cubic-inch engine would spin the rear tires.
Your acceleration might go up in tire-smoke!

’69 RoadRunner.

Still, these early Mopar musclecars were the best-looking, although always a bit large.
The first G-T-Os are the best-looking musclecars.
And later Mopar musclecars are like musclecars gone to seed.
The early RoadRunner and SuperBee musclecars are Chrysler’s best-looking iterations.
Spare and lean, even though large.
My friend Kenny Rush was thrilled his 350 ’56 Chevy SmallBlock beat a 383 RoadRunner.




Three Pennsy diesels forward a trailer-train in 1967. (Photo by Gene Collora©.)

—When I first saw this photo I thought Slope Interlocking in Altoona.
But it’s not Slope.
The March 2012 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a trailer-train threading a cut out near Greensburg, PA, almost to Pittsburgh, far west of Altoona.
But Pennsy could not do doublestacks.
Double-stacked trailer containers require overhead clearance Pennsy didn’t have.
In fact, Pennsy’s tunnels weren’t enlarged to clear doublestacks until well after Pennsy was gone (1995).
And double-stacking trailer containers didn’t begin until well after this photo was taken.
That was 1984 out west by Southern Pacific.
The view is quintessential Pennsy, and very similar to Slope.
At Slope a highway-bridge crosses the old Pennsy mainline in a cut similar in depth.
Slope is where the grade over the Allegheny mountains began to the west.
It’s an interlocking because it’s where the Altoona yards began to the east.
It’s also where the main split into the express tracks and drag tracks through Altoona.
There used to be a tower there, but no more. The interlocking is controlled remotely.

Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.

Approaching Slope Eastbound on Track One.

I’ve taken pictures off that highway-bridge myself.
And apparently this cut out near Greensburg may be where a daylighted tunnel used to be.
When first built the Pennsylvania Railroad had a tunnel in this area, and it may have been where this cut is.
It’s quintessential Pennsy, wide four-track main.
The main west of Slope up The Hill used to be four tracks.
One track was removed in the ‘80s.
The calendar-picture is July 16, 1967, shortly before I visited Horseshoe Curve the first time.
The locomotives are what I came to know about then: an SD-35 (#6008), an SD-45, and an SD-40.
The SD-45, 20 cylinders, was easy to identify. It always had the flared hood-end.
The SD-35 only had two large fans atop the hood-end, sandwiching a smaller fan — 16 cylinders.
The SD-40 was also 16 cylinders, but it had three large fans, instead of just two large and one small like the SD-35.
The SD-45 didn’t work out.
They had a habit of breaking crankshafts.
The long V-20 engine is more a marine application (for tug-boats) put in the vibrating railroad environment.
General Motors (EMD) supposedly solved the problem, but the railroads didn’t think they needed 3,600 horsepower, temperamental as it was.
My interest in this sort of esoterica fell apart after these models. I wouldn’t know an SD-50 from an SD-60.
Ductwork on the side of the locomotive was also altered. That large vertical duct was modified into a so-called “laundry-chute;” bigger.
I know it if I see it, but what model it signifies I don’t know — or care.
What I’ve always enjoyed is Run-Eight operation, maximum fuel to the engines.
And wide-open an EMD seemed to be roaring.
Assaulting the heavens!
Recent General-Electric locomotives do that too, but the sound of an older EMD in Run-Eight is what I prefer.




I wouldn’t touch this thing with a ten-foot pole!

—The March 2012 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is great photograph of a hot-rodded 1932 Ford Phaeton (“fay-uh-TIN”).
A Phaeton, otherwise known among hot-rodders as a “Tub,” was among the first offerings of automakers.
And many were purchased, because it was the cheapest and most useful model.
It’s an open four-seater, similar to an open horse-buggy that seats four.
Bundled against cold weather, since it’s an open car.
You also get rained on, unless you put up the available canvas top, which this car has — although it’s been altered to make the car lower.
At least this car has the right motor, a humble Ford Flat-Head V8, but supercharged.
The ’32 Ford was the first cheap car available with a V8 motor. —That was because Old Henry refused to build a six.
It also was extraordinarily well styled, for which we can thank Old Henry’s only son Edsel.
Old Henry is Henry Ford, founder of the company, who thought styling was ridiculous.
He gave Edsel a hard time, but Edsel probably saved Ford Motor Company.
If Ford Motor Company had continued Old Henry’s anti-styling bias, it probably would have failed.
The Flat-Head V8 was a monumental leap, and made Ford attractive to hot-rodders.
The Ford Flat-Head V8 could be souped up by backyard tinkerers. They lost interest in hot-rodding the Model-T and its rudimentary four-cylinder engine.
The engine in this car doesn’t even have the finned high-compression cylinder-heads available from various manufacturers, Offenhauser (“off-in-HOUZE-er), Navarro, etc.
They appear to be stock cylinder-heads, which lack fins.
This car looks roadworthy too, like it could be driven in normal traffic.
(Although I remember following a friend’s ’49 Ford hotrod a couple years ago. It too had a Flat-Head, and spit antifreeze all over the road.)
Most hotrods look like trailer-queens only, monstrous motors that throw off a car’s balance, or engine-modifications that would never work in the real world.
Stuff to attract the show-crowd: “Oooo, a Ford Cammer” (very rare, overhead camshafts), or “four Weber carburetors; cool!” Worse yet is Hilborn Fuel Injection.
Webers and Hilborn Fuel Injection are racing applications, hardly streetable.
And a “Cammer” would weigh much more than the Flatty it replaced.
Not to mention it would probably crank out three times the torque; enough to twist the rear frame-rails, and destroy the rear-axle.
I wouldn’t drive this car even if given the opportunity.
Its appearance is a joke.
The best-looking hot-rods are the two-seater ’32 Fords, the roadster and the two coupes.



“See Rock-City.” (Photo by Doug Brown.)

―The March 2012 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a northbound Norfolk Southern coal train passing a “Rock City” barn at Bulls Gap, TN.
Very few “Rock City” barns are left.
Used to be Rock City barns were all over the southeast.
Rock City, a tourist attraction near Chattanooga, contracted with farmers to paint “See Rock City” on their roadside barns.
About 1953 or ’54, when I would have been nine or ten, my parents took us on a vacation to Arkansas, to visit all the people they came to know when my brother Tommy was taken to a clinic in northeastern Arkansas with leukemia.
My brother died early in ’53.
His leukemia was unbeatable, as it was with others who used the same clinic.
On the way back from Arkansas we visited Rock City.
“See seven states atop Lookout Mountain in Rock City.”
We also rode a cable tramway up Lookout Mountain.
We passed many “Rock City” barns coming and going.
To me this isn’t a very good picture.
The lighting is poor, and the train is too far away.
The photographer was more biased toward getting that “Rock City” barn.
(The train is also lost in the trees.)