Monthly Calendar Report for April, 2012

Coal-train 538 climbs eastbound toward the summit, a helper-set on the point. (Another helper-set is on the rear.) (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

—The April 2012 entry of my own calendar is one of the most dramatic photos I snagged last year.
And it's at a location I never thought that much of, what Phil Faudi ("FOW-deee;" as in "wow") calls "High-Bridge" and I call "Five-Tracks."
The original Pennsylvania Railroad alignment is the two tracks at left.
The slightly higher alignment at right, three tracks, is that of the New Portage Railroad, which Pennsy came to own.
Left-to-right are Tracks Four, Three, Two, One, and Main-Eight.
We are shooting from the State Highway 53 bridge, and I've always felt this location wasn't very photogenic.
Although a strong telephoto into the curve at the top would look fine.
Phil had us on an old bridge-abutment to the right of the New Portage alignment the first time we tried here.
To my mind, it didn't work. Anything eastbound was under the highway overpass, and anything westbound on Tracks Three or Four was too far away.
Plus the old signal-tower (at left) distracted.
I've also shot through that signal-tower; it doesn't work.
We had just missed a triple; three trains at once.
Phil was depressed. He said I wasn't driving hard enough, that I had to stop being a hyper-careful ex bus-driver if I wanted to snag trains.
Later I decided more was at play than my having previously driven bus.
It's also that I'm a stroke-survivor, that I have to concentrate extremely hard to not make mistakes. That is, I can't push hard. The mental wherewithal is no longer there. —I drive within my limits.
The New Portage Railroad was new railroad built to bypass an inclined-plane railway over the Allegheny mountains.
Like the inclined-plane railway New Portage was a part of the State of Pennsylvania's Public Works System, a combination canal and rail system to compete with New York State's immensely successful Erie Canal.
The inclined-plane railway was required to cross the Allegheny mountains. There was no way a canal could breach the Alleghenies.
And there had to be inclined-planes because grading at that time was very rudimentary — it wasn't what it is now.
The State Public Works System was ponderously slow.
Canal-packets had to be lifted onto railway flatcars for portage over the Alleghenies.
It was awful with the inclined-plane railway. The trains of packet-loaded flatcars had to be stopped to do the inclined-planes, where they were pulled up the planes by rope-cable winched by stationary steam-engines.
There were 10 inclined-planes. That's 20 change-outs at the ends of each plane, plus taking the packets out of the canal and putting them back in.
The inclined-plane railway went from near Altoona to Johnstown, PA.
22 stops!
The Pennsylvania Railroad, a private effort by Philadelphia capitalists, put the State Public Works System out of business.
Pennsy was a through railroad; no stops except to add helper locomotives to climb the Alleghenies.
The New Portage Railroad was an effort to address the slow operation of the inclined-plane railway.
No inclined planes. Pennsy bought the moribund Public Works System for a song, retired the canal, and added New Portage's tunnel to its Allegheny crossing.
The New Portage tunnel is very near Pennsy's original tunnel, but slightly higher.
To add New Portage Tunnel to Pennsy's Allegheny crossing they had to ramp up to it, the infamous "Slide," 2.36 percent.
That's 2.36 feet up for every 100 feet forward, although trains are usually only operating downhill on it.
The New Portage alignment on the west slope was right next to Pennsy, so Pennsy just added it when they took over.
But those tracks aim at New Portage Tunnel.
Pennsy also rebuilt the New Portage alignment to the east for additional track over the Alleghenies.
538 is climbing the old New Portage alignment up the west slope toward New Portage Tunnel.
At the summit Track One is in New Portage Tunnel, and Tracks Two and Three are in the original Pennsy tunnel, enlarged in 1995 to clear doublestacks and two tracks.
Track Three used to be in another Pennsy tunnel, abandoned when the original tunnel was enlarged.
The New Portage alignment and the original Pennsy tunnel are on opposite sides of a small mountaintop town: Gallitzin ("guh-LIT-zin;" as in "get").
New Portage Tunnel is actually under "Tunnelhill," a tiny village south of and adjacent to Gallitzin.
The eastbound train on Track Three in the distance is stopped to test brakes before entering the old Pennsy tunnel and descending The Hill on Track Two.
The three tracks at right become one to enter New Portage Tunnel.
538 will also do a brake-test before descending "the Slide" on Track One.
The right-most track, "Main-Eight," is a storage-track for coal-trains before descending The Hill toward Altoona.




1969 Cale Yarborough Mercury Cyclone-Spoiler. (Peter Harholdt©.)

—Now, which do I do? My Oxman Hotrod Calendar has a great photograph of a track Model-T roadster, but it has an engine a bit over-the-top.
But the April 2012 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar has a really great car, a 1969 Cale Yarborough Mercury Cyclone-Spoiler.
The Spoiler wins! I'll do that track-T later.
The Cale Yarborough Cyclone-Spoiler is one of the greatest musclecars of all time.
And I had forgot about it.
It was a special model of the Cyclone-Spoiler made to satisfy NASCAR's 500-car requirement.
Ergo, not many were made.
It had extended front sheet-metal and a bluff grille to make it more aerodynamic — and therefore faster.
And it really looks great being a fastback too.

Cale Yarborough in front of his Wood Brothers Cyclone Spoiler.

Cale (“kale;” as in the vegetable) Yarborough is a famous NASCAR-driver who drove for various teams.
One of those teams was Wood Brothers, who raced Ford products, like the Mercury Cyclone.
Yarborough raced various car-brands over the years, and one of his best rides was Wood Brothers.
The last I remember, he was racing Chevrolets for Junior Johnson
The Cale Yarborough Cyclone-Spoiler was available with either the 351-cubic- inch Ford Cleveland Small-Block, or the immensely powerful 428 cubic-inch NASCAR V8.
This car is the 428 engine.
Perish-the-thought such a car showed up at a traffic-light versus a G-T-O Pontiac.
It would probably cream it!

The front-end of the calendar-car.

The Wood-Brothers Cyclone Spoiler with its bluff front-end. (Who knows if this car still exists?)

About the only car that might beat a 428 Cyclone-Spoiler would be a Hemi ("hem- eee;" not "he-mee").
This calendar-car doesn't have the bluff grille of the NASCAR racer, which is devoid of scoopiness. The bluff grille turns the front of the car into a knife.




Three Pennsy E-44s lead a mixed freight east from Enola yard in May 1965. (Photo by Dave Sweetland)

—The April 2012 entry of my AII-Pennsy color calendar is what replaced the tired P-5 electric locomotives, the E-44 rectifier units.
Rectification won in the end. Rectification is to rectify the overhead alternating-current trolley-wire electricity into direct-current electricity for the traction-motors. The traction-motors could be the same items used in diesel-electric locomotives, which use gigantic diesel-engines to generate direct-current for traction-motors.

Photo by Dave Ingles.

E-2bs south of Washington, DC.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Northbound Penn-Central E-33s approach Wilmington, DE from the south.

The E-44 succeeded where previous Pennsy experimentals failed.
The E-44 is really a development of the earlier General Electric E-33, a rectifier unit.
The E-44 is also General Electric, as the E-33 was for other railroads, Virginian at first, then sold to New Haven. When New Haven was incorporated into Penn-Central, the E-33s became Penn-Central.
The first E-44s were built with ignitron-tube rectification. Later E-44s had silicon diode rectification, and eventually all E-44s were switched to silicon diode rectification, as it was more reliable and simpler.
Some E-44s were even upgraded to 5,000 horsepower.
That was a traction-motor upgrade, how much power the traction-motors could put to railhead.
E-44s were normally 4,400 horsepower.
Even 4,400 horsepower is a lot for a single locomotive, but an E-44 had six traction-motors, and the power available over the wire was incredible.
You weren't limited by the power-output of the on-board diesel engine, or how large it could be.
The E-2b wasn't a rectifier unit. It was alternating current. There were other Pennsy experimentals that were rectifier units.
But they all failed compared to the tired old P-5s (4-6-4).
The P-5s weren't replaced until the E-44.
Amazingly the electrification on this line has probably been de-energized, and the wire removed.
About all that remains are those lineside poles.
Electrification requires heavy maintenance. Electrification is more costly to operate than diesels.
Electrification makes sense only if there is heavy train-frequency, which there's not.
About the only Pennsy electrifications that remain are the New York City to Washington DC line, and Philadelphia to Harrisburg.
Both are now Amtrak; and the New York City to Washington DC line, part of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, has heavy train-frequency, passenger-trains. Philadelphia to Harrisburg may not make economic sense — not enough train-frequency.
Electrification from Philadelphia to Paoli ("pay-OLE-eee), halfway out, makes sense because electric commuter-trains are on that line. Beyond Paoli they aren't. Freight no longer runs that line like when it was Pennsy.
There was a lot of other Pennsy electrification, but all that has been removed. I used to think electrification was forever — the locomotives would wear out, but the wire would stay up.
The wire too wears out. The locomotive's pantographs ("pant-uh-GRAFF") were sliding on the trolley-wire, wearing thin the wire. In which case a wire-train has to come out and replace the wire.



The motor in this beautiful thing is overkill — a waste.

—The April 2012 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a 1927 Model-T tea-cup roadster modified to look like a Model-T for the race-track.
“Tea-cup” because it’s a Model-T, and the two-seater roadster body looks like a cup.

The front-end of the calendar-car.

The rear-end of the calendar-car.

It has the racer-nose (see at left), that of a racecar. It's also the perfect rear-end (bottom-left).
I've seen these tea-cup roadsters with a tiny pickup bed; enough to carry perhaps a 100-pound bag of sand. Totally unfunctional, and therefore ridiculous-looking to my mind.
What I usually see when it's this rear-end is only a top-part. A bottom has been added that matches the roll of the top part, it looks fantastic!
The yellow color is also fabulous.
About the only thing wrong with this car is the engine, a four-cylinder Offenhauser racecar engine ("off-in-HOUZE-er").
Offenhausers ("Offys") were usually installed in Indianapolis 500 racecars, or racecars for that series.
Smaller Offys were also made for installation in smaller racecars. Sprint-cars or midget-racers.
An Offenhauser racecar engine is certainly worth saving.
But it should be in a racecar.
I hardly think an Offy-powered hotrod would be drivable on the street.
What this gorgeous car needs is a SmallBlock Chevy, or the small Ford V8.
This 270 cubic-inch Offy powered an Indianapolis racecar in the 1969 Indy 500.
I can hardly see it idling at some traffic-light.
The engine was later installed in a Sprint racer.
Offys are double-overhead camshaft with the cylinder-head integral with the engine-block. The entire engine, head and block, is a single casting — probably a bear to machine.
You'd have to machine the valve-seats up from the bottom through the cylinder-bores.
The cylinder-head isn't detachable.
The combustion-chambers couldn't possibly leak through a gasketed cylinder-head/engine-block interface. This engine ran a compression-ratio of 16-to-one. —It's been "downgraded" to 11-to-one. (?????????; 11-to-one is pretty high!)
A recent hot-rodded stock motor might go as high as 10- or 12-to-one. In 1969 the average compression-ratio of a stock motor was perhaps seven- or eight-to-one.
Any higher and you blow a gasket at that interface.
It looks nice — the concept is nice.
That Offy is a good fit in a Model-T.
But for proper enjoyment a hotrod needs to be drivable.
What we have here is a trailer-queen.
"Offy engine; COOL!"
That Sprint-car nose makes the car. It looks great, but driving is out of the question.
Plus the car has to be push-started. (And the auto-tranny had to be modified to do that.)
People used to race "Track-Ts."
But not with an actual Offy racecar engine.
More-than-likely it was a hot-rodded Model-T four-banger.
This car was an actual Track-T racer years ago.
Does it even run on gasoline? Indy-racers ran on methanol.



Crew-members take in the breeze as a B-6sb switcher backs across State Route 49 in Millville, NJ in the late '40s.

—This picture is not that good, but it's the world I was born into.
The April 2012 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a Pennsylvania Railroad B-6sb (0-6-0) switcher backing light across a state highway in Millville, NJ on the Pennsylvania-Reading ("RED-ing," not "READ-ing") Seashore Lines.
"Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines" (PRSL) is an amalgamation of Pennsylvania and Reading railroad-lines in south Jersey to counter the fact the two railroads had too much parallel track. It was promulgated in 1933. It serviced mainly the Jersey seashore from Philadelphia.
The tender is slope-back, made that way so the engineer could see backing up.
A yard-switcher didn't need the water-capacity of a road-locomotive. It was never far from a standpipe.
The B-6 0-6-0 is the largest switcher Pennsy used in quantity. They did an 0-8-0, but mostly used old 2-8-0 Consolidations to do yard switching.
This switcher is being used on a local, drilling freightcars into factory sidings. The line to Millville is a remnant or branch of the West Jersey & Seashore to Atlantic City from Camden, NJ, across the river from Philadelphia.
West Jersey & Seashore was eventually merged by Pennsy. The segment to Atlantic City was abandoned. Who knows if this line to Millville still exists?
It probably doesn't, unless Millville has a coal-fired electric generating plant.
Whatever freight remains probably ships by truck. New Jersey built an extensive highway-system that put railroad local-freight out of business.
I saw steam-powered local-freights as a child, but usually a 2-8-0 Consolidation.
Short trains with a coal-car or two in the consist would come out to Haddonfield ("ha-din-field;" as in "hah"), the Revolutionary War town south of the suburb where we lived. They drilled loaded coal-cars into the local coal-dealer, who had an elevated coal-trestle siding.
The hopper-cars would get drained into dump-trucks below between the trestle-legs.
By then, heating with coal was just about done. I remember only one house in our neighborhood heated with coal.
A dump-truck loaded with coal would empty its load into the house basement through a coal-chute.
Our elementary-school, built in 1926, had a coal-chute, but its heating-boilers were converted to fuel-oil.
(That elementary-school has since been torn down, including an addition built in 1952 to accommodate the postwar baby-boom.)
My paternal grandparents’ house in Camden also had a coal-chute, but was heated by fuel-oil.
When I was growing up our house was heated by fuel-oil.
The house we currently live in is natural-gas, forced air.
When I was growing up our fuel-oil furnace heated water piped to radiators.
But it wasn't steam-heat.
it was just hot water; it was also our hot-water source.
Heating with coal was dirty, and it left ashes.
I don't think that coal-dealer lasted the entirety of my childhood.
This switcher is chuffing at 10 mph, the railroad speed-limit in Millville.
It's an image I remember all too well. A B6 switcher with a short cut of cars trundling a transfer from yards in south Camden to north Camden.
And I don't remember any slope-back tenders out to Haddonfield.
And how about that '41 Chevy, one of the most popular used cars of all time?
(The others were the '57 and '64, both Chevrolets.)
My parents had a '41 Chevy, although the first car I remember is a '39 Chevy.
The '41, in excellent shape when we bought it about 1949, replaced the '39 when it broke its timing-chain, giving up the ghost. Pistons hit open valves, severely damaging the engine.
That ’41 went to Arkansas a few times, and overheated once on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
My father removed the thermostat (a bad move), and replaced its gasket with a cutout from a Ritz cracker-box.
The radiator had to be boiled out.
The '41 lasted a while, but was replaced by a '53 in 1954. That was the car I learned to drive in. It was also our first car with turn-signals and an automatic transmission — PowerGlide.
We had both the '39 and '41 at first, a two-car family. Both cars were old turkeys — it was the early ‘50s.
The ’41 fit in our garage, but by the middle ‘50s cars became too large to fit garages.
My memory is of giant rear fins sticking out of a garage, and the garage-door partially closed.
For example, the ’57 Plymouth.



Mixed-freight leaves Enola yard for Knoxville. (Photo by Bruce Kerr.)

—The April 2012 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees' Photography-Contest calendar is a nice picture, but not that interesting. Enola is the yard across from Harrisburg, PA ("ay-NOLE-uh;" as in "hey").
Enola was put in years ago by the Pennsylvania Railroad to yard freight for the northeast and west. Harrisburg became a bottleneck, so freight was routed across the river (the Susquehanna — "suss-kwe-HANN-uh;" as in "and").
This photograph is a manifestation of the old saw between photographers that every photograph needs (likes) a foreground, that a photograph needs something to give the viewer perspective.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Amtrak approaches Newark, DE station at well over 100 mph on the Northeast Corridor.

l've done it myself. Used an underpass to give an image a frame.
I got fevered rage from my blowhard-brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, that the photograph was stupid, that I made the mistake of not walking forward to cut out the bridge.
Well, my eye said I could use the bridge as a foreground. The fact I had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to instruct my macho all-knowing brother about color balance, and setting up photos to avoid telephone-poles coming out of people's heads, was Of-the-Devil.
We used to get this at the Messenger newspaper. Somebody might photograph a basketball-game, and in the picture everyone was running to the right.
Such a photograph had to be on a left page to avoid the players running off the page.
I doubt anyone noticed — our readers weren't art-critics. More important to me was good photography.
We had sports-photographers that could do that.
But if an unnoticed water-tower is in the photograph it can distract from your subject.
The camera will see what your eye doesn't notice.
Eons ago I photographed a '56 Chevy Nomad for a guy.

1956 Chevrolet Nomad.

At that time the Nomad was a specially-styled version of the Chevrolet two-door station wagon.
Before shooting its interior, I centered its steering-wheel.
What a revelation that was.
Yes, an uncentered steering-wheel always looked weird.
So this picture has a foreground, but I don't think it works.
The tree is too dominant, and beyond that the tree is a big dark mass.
I offset that some by lightening the shadows of my scan of this calendar-photo with my Photoshop®.
But the calendar-print doesn't have that. It's a gigantic dark mass. The tree frames the train, but the train is too far away.
The old adage about foreground failed. The tree is too dominant.
I suppose an offset would be standing back and using strong telephoto.



Naval Air Factory N3N Canary. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The April 2012 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is Naval Air Factory N3N Canary biplane trainer ("BYE-plane;" since long ago I was mispronouncing it "BIP-lane")
I'll let my WWII warbirds site describe it:
"The N3N was the last biplane to see service with the United States.
Built by the Naval Air Factory, a Navy-run manufacturing complex, it was produced to replace the Consolidated NY-2s and -3s operated in the 1920s.
The N3N would be the last mass-produced aircraft built by the Naval Air Factory.
The N3N was an equal span, metal and fabric biplane. One version was built with wheels and another as a floatplane with center float and wing mounted stabilizing floats. The prototype, the NAF XNN-1 was flown in August of 1935.
The US Naval Academy kept some N3N floatplanes after the war, but the rest were sold as surplus."
The N3N is powered by a 235-horsepower Wright R-760-2 Whirlwind 7-cylinder radial piston engine.
Yrs Trly has never liked biplanes.
They're hardly the elegant hotrods the Mustang and Spitfire were. They are also nothing compared to a Corsair or even a Hellcat.
Even the lowly Douglas Dauntless comes off better.

Douglas SBD Dauntless.

The Dauntless was a slow turkey, but more attractive than an airplane with two wings.
A biplane could be a forgiving trainer, but a monoplane (one wing) was more attractive, even a P-40 Warhawk.
You don't boom-and-zoom in a biplane.