Monthly Calendar Report for June, 2012

28Z westbound on Three at the Secret Location. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

—The June 2012 entry of my own calendar is Train 28Z, looks like solid auto-racks, westbound on Track Three at what I call “the secret location.”
Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”), the Altoona railfan I chase trains with over Allegheny Crossing, tried to introduce me to the “secret location” on our first tour back in 2008.
The “secret location” is a farm-bridge. Pennsy built and agreed to maintain a farm-bridge, for a farmer, when the railroad was built.
The railroad split a farm, so Pennsy agreed to build a farm-bridge.
The farm has stayed in that family for generations. They still need the farm-bridge.
Pennsy of course is long-gone. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern.
This picture is taken off that bridge, but it’s private property.
Faudi didn’t take people to it unless he got permission.
Our first try back in 2008 we were welcomed by two large barking Rottweiler dogs in a kennel.
No one answered the door.
We didn’t go to the bridge.
Years later we got permission and did.
This photo is a result, and it’s a great location.
The lighting is perfect.
But it’s probably the only photo I’ll ever snag at the “secret location.”
Not too long ago Faudi had another client fall at that bridge.
The farmer went ballistic!
No more “secret location.”
Before taking me to it, Faudi had to feel I wasn’t gonna try to find it.
Railfans have a tendency to trample private-property, but I don’t.
Make it possible for other railfans to pursue their interest.
That includes not trespassing on railroad property, and being safe.
Unlike some railfans I don’t feel immune to the law, or the laws of physics.
One time Faudi suggested I photograph from a high old bridge-abutment.
“Oh no ya don’t,” I said. “I had a stroke. My balance is wonky. I ain’t riskin’ it.”
Another time Faudi had me step back from a track a train was on.
I thought the train was on another track.
There’s another secret location on private-property in Cresson (“KRESS-in”). It’s not very photogenic, but we no longer go to it.
I was worried about injuring little kids playing in the yard.




Consolidated PBY Catalina. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The June 2012 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is pretty good.
It’s a PBY “Catalina” amphibian.
What amazes me is the plane actually floats.
It’s apparently not leaky. It’s not sinking.
I’ve seen a PBY myself, and wondered if it was floatable.
It was landing on dry land, as amphibious aircraft could.
But I wondered if it would float.
These old amphibious airplanes develop leaks.
Touch down on water and it sinks.
The 1941 Historical Aircraft Group in nearby Geneseo had one.
I think they sold it.
The PBY was generally a defenseless slow turkey.
It didn’t even have self-sealing gas tanks.
It was used for reconnaissance.
The PBY was also extraordinarily ugly.
Its wing is high above its boat-like fuselage.
It’s on a pillar.
The two engines, 1,200-horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-1830-92 Twin Wasp radials, were close together, right above the fuselage on the wing.
The wing was long, and at each end were retractible pontoons, for landing on water.
I saw the 1941 Historical Aircraft Group PBY flying occasionally. They flew to exercise their airplanes. —At that time they also had a B-17.
It was pleasant to watch, but -a) it was so slow it was a sitting duck, and -b) I wondered if it could float — I never saw it land on water.




Welded-rail train. (Photo by Sam Wheland.)

—The June 2012 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees' Photography-Contest calendar is a welded-rail train negotiating an S-curve on the old Pennsy near Huntingdon, PA.
Railroads no longer use “stick-rail,” 33-foot lengths bolted together.
The rail was 33-foot lengths because that was best for atop the average 40-foot flatcar.
Stick-rail, which prompted the clickety-clack, had a tendency to drop joints as the through-bolt connections wore.
Railhead progression over distance would no longer be smooth. Drop enough at joints and track-speed had to be limited.
Track-crews had to be employed to keep joints from dropping.
Sometimes the whole rail had to be replaced. The bolt-holes had worn too much.
The splice-plates were rail-web height to hold alignment, but they wore too at the ends.
A railroad was much more efficient than horse-and-wagon, but you had to stay on top of track-wear.
I remember back in the ‘60s before welded-rail the old Pennsy New York to Washington electrified line used stick-rail, massive 141 (or was it 143) pounds per yard.
Trains were running 100 mph on it.
But track-crews always had to be out maintaining it. No way could you run 100 mph over dropped rail-joints.
A dropped rail-joint might drop the rail-ends an inch or more compared to the rail center.
Bouncy-bouncy-bouncy!
Welding together the rail-ends, a fairly recent development — perhaps 30-40 years ago — made much longer lengths of rail possible: ribbon-rail.
Often you see small shortlines using jointed stick-rail.
It may be left over from long ago.
But it isn’t high-speed or heavy car-loading.
Stick-rail could never cope with heavy car-loading. It would wear too fast.
As you can see, long lengths of ribbon-rail will bend around a curve.
The train is carrying perhaps 30-40 ribbon-rails.
Sections get off-loaded to replace worn rail still in use.
The railhead wears too, especially on curves, where wheel-flanges wear against the inside edge.
The wheels on a railroad-car don’t differentiate.
That’s the source of squealing on curves.
One end of the wheelset it sliding, perhaps both ends.
Make the curve sharp enough, and a wheel might climb the rail and derail.
Looking at this photo, I wondered if it’s from the same highway-bridge photographer Don Wood took pictures of Pennsy steam-locomotives long ago (middle ‘50s).
It’s not.
We’re on the old Pennsy Middle Division, some of which parallels U.S. Route 22.
Route 22 was once the main highway west across PA.
It bridged the old Pennsy coming into Huntingdon from the east.
I tried to repeat Wood’s photo-locations in the ‘70s.
I found the bridge, but all was different.
Stores were now out along Highway 22 that weren’t in Wood’s photograph.
Wood’s picture is fabulous, but I couldn’t repeat it.




Eastbound at Newport........(Photo by Don Wood.)

The June 2012 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is another dramatic picture by Don Wood.
The first Audio-Visual Designs All-Pennsy Calendars were essentially Don Wood photographs.
Promotor Carl Sturner, a railfan, got together with Wood to produce the first Audio-Visual Designs All-Pennsy Calendars back in the late ‘60s.
Audio-Visual Designs was Sturner’s business. It also produced small color railfan photographs, almost business-card size.
Sturner died, as has Wood, and his business failed, but somebody else bought Audio-Visual Designs. There was great demand for the black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar. There was no calendar for a few years, but now it’s back in production, with frequent other-than-Wood photographs.
The Audio-Visual Designs Calendar was my first and only calendar for some time.
I’m a railfan, and partial to Pennsy.
The calendars sell out quickly every year, and I have to order immediately. But they probably aren’t producing many.
Wood took hundreds of photographs, but always loved the Pennsy M1 Mountains (4-8-2) pounding the Middle Division between Harrisburg and Altoona across the state of PA.
The Middle Division approached the Allegheny Front, but didn’t breach it.
The grade was steady but easy, so an M1 could hold 40-60 mph.
The Middle Division was the final assignment for the M1 Mountains, one of the few places in the ‘50s to still find Pennsy steam-locomotives in use.
And the M1 was an impressive machine.
It had a combustion-chamber, so was a prolific producer of steam.
This photograph is not one of Wood’s better pictures.
But the train is boomin’-and-zoomin’.
The train is passing an interlocking tower: Port Interlocking.
There are crossovers — we are standing in one — and they are interlocked to protect train-movement.
The idea is to avoid misaligned switches, and/or colliding with opposing trains.
I wonder if Port Interlocking still exists? The interlocked crossovers probably do, but the tower is probably gone.
Crossover-switches can be operated remotely from a faraway location.
This looks like a four-track main, the old Pennsy “Broad Way.”
It’s probably now down to two tracks.
The old Pennsy, now Norfolk Southern, is a main railroad east from the nation’s interior, one of two.
The other is the old New York Central “Water-Level” across New York state, now CSX.
“Water-Level” because it pretty much followed the Erie Canal, so was free of steep grades.




1970 Buick GSX. (Peter Harholdt©.)

—The June 2012 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a Buick GSX, what my brother-in-Boston claims is the best musclecar.
Staid Buick, maker of cars for the upwardly mobile proletariate, was out on a limb to make a musclecar.
But musclecars were selling like hotcakes.
GM intermediate sedans with a hot-rodded full-size engine.
Pontiac’s G-T-O set the pattern in 1964, a hot-rodded full-size 389 cubic-inch engine in the Pontiac Tempest sedan.
By 1970 the race was on to field the fastest and most powerful musclecar.
This Buick has a gigantic 455 cubic-inch engine.
Both Buick and Oldsmobile went a little beyond the standard musclecar formula: powerful engine in a smaller car.
They made the car handle too; development was thrown into chassis engineering.
Although I wonder how successful their efforts could be.
They’re offsetting that giant heavy motor which could make the front plow in a corner.
The Buick and Oldsmobile musclecars had the reputation of being good handlers — less prone to spinning you into the boonies floored in a corner.
To me this is not an especially good picture. Photographer Harholdt is trying to avoid the side-elevation, but in so doing loses a lot of the car, particularly its rear-end.
It’s hard to know what to do with this car; it’s not especially attractive. A blunderbuss compared to a lithe Lotus.
Both are examples of sophistication, but the musclecar is just a super-powerful full-size engine in a smaller car.
Competition at that time was the Lotus Elan, especially attractive to me.
Although an Elan was poor for American roads, and could fall apart under you.

Photo by BobbaLew.

A Buick GS convertible.

I once saw a Buick GS at a classic-car show.
I photographed it to impress my brother-in-Boston, supposedly the best musclecar ever.
But it’s not a GSX. It’s just a GS; a smaller engine, 350 cubic-inches or so; sort of a RoadRunner competitor.
The standard Plymouth RoadRunner was only 383 cubic-inches.




Two Pennsy GP-9s lead a freight east into Decatur, IL in 1967. (Photo by R.R. Wallin)

—The June 2012 entry of my AII-Pennsy color calendar is two General-Motors Electromotive Division (EMD) GP-9s heading a freight eastbound into Decatur, IL in 1967.
It could be said the GP-9 was the diesel-locomotive that put Pennsy steam-engines out to pasture.
The diesel-locomotive was like a big truck. It might last a while (perhaps 20 years), and then get traded.
The trucks on traded diesels often got reused on replacement units. Many were the GP-18s and GP-30s with Alco trucks.
A diesel-electric locomotive had a couple of advantages compared to steam.
—1) Was low-speed pulling-power. A diesel pulled well at low speed, while a steam-engine liked to get rolling.
Steam was more efficient at speed, but railroading seemed to be a low-speed endeavor.
Some railroads maintained 40-60 mph train-speeds, but often train-speed rarely exceeded 30 mph, often no more than 20.
Diesels pulled better at those speeds than steam.
—2) Diesel-locomotives could be operated in multiple (“MUed”). Double-headed steam-locomotives were a crew for each locomotive. The two locomotives operated in concert, but were two locomotives.
Diesels could be wired together: one crew operating two or more locomotives.
—3) Diesels negated all the paraphernalia that came with operating steam-locomotives, especially water-towers and coaling-towers.
Water had to be supplied in great quantity so steam-locomotives could boil water into steam.
And coal wasn’t liquid. You didn’t just pump it into a fuel-tank like a diesel. It was often dispensed by overhead coal-towers. I’ve even seen it shoveled into locomotive tenders.
You could say the GP-9 was what eventually dieselized Pennsy.
They had 310 units.
“GP” means “General-Purpose.” They have four-wheel trucks.
(EMD also made an “SD:” “Special-Duty.” It was a GP with six-wheel trucks. They could be operated on lighter track requiring lighter axle-leadings.)
The GP-9 was a road-switcher; a locomotive-cab with a narrow hood at each end with parallel walkways outside.
The long hood covered the engine and the generator. The short hood might only have a steam-generator, a small boiler to supply steam to steam-heated passenger-cars.
Often it didn’t have anything.
A road-switcher could be easily operated in either direction, the advantage was engineer vision.
The road-switcher was essentially a full-cab (“covered-wagon”) engine made easy to operate with increased vision, like a switcher with its narrow hood.
Earlier efforts at Pennsy dieselization were limited by the availability of the many engines needed.
Pennsy also wanted to order from Baldwin Locomotive Works, based near Philadelphia, its supplier of hundreds of steam-locomotives.
Baldwin was a mistake. Baldwin diesels weren’t reliable. EMD was, but didn’t have the capacity to fill Pennsy’s need.
As such Pennsy had to dieselize with every brand other than EMD.
They were a steam holdout, and when they finally dieselized, EMD was in no position to fill Pennsy’s needs, which were enormous.
Pennsy had to dieselize with anyone and everyone, not just the most reliable maker, EMD.
Plus they were partial to Baldwin, a mistake.
Baldwin stuck with ancient technology, the antithesis of EMD’s “trolley-motors,” traction-motors in swiveling trucks, like a trolley-car.

Photo by John Dziobko©.

Baldwin Centipede at Altoona station.

A sterling example is the Baldwin Centipede, intended to be the queen of Pennsy passenger-service, patterned after the GG1.
Although a GG1’s motors were in a sub-frame independent of the locomotive.
And the Centipede couldn’t be MUed, plus it had a habit of breaking down.
The Centipede ended up in pusher-service over Allegheny Summit — The Hill.
That was an application where it didn’t need to be MUed.
T

Photo by Bobbalew.

GP-9 #7048 is on display at the Mighty Curve.

here is at least one GP-9 remaining, #7048 at Horseshoe Curve west of Altoona, PA.
7048 replaced the memorial K4 Pacific (4-6-2), #1361, when it was pulled out for return-to-service.
7048 lasted into the Conrail era, what succeeded after Penn-Central failed.
It was even painted Conrail blue, but now it’s back to Pennsy black.



Ummmm.......

—The June 2012 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is laughable; a lead-sled version of the most disgusting car ever, a 1951 Buick.
“Lead-sled” because at that time body-filler was lead, applied molten. Once cooled and solidified, that lead could be smoothed and shaped. Customizers used lead for various body modifications, smoothing welds and filling holes and gaps.
The post-war General Motors cars were some of the worst-looking cars ever: turkeys.

A Jimmy Dean Mercury.

Compare the Jimmy Dean Mercury, 1949, one of the best-looking cars of that era.
The Jimmy Dean Merc is pretty much the same lines and curves as the General-Motors post-war cars, but comes out looking great.

The front of the Buick lead-sled.

Worst about the Buick is the grill-teeth, applied to earlier Buicks.
Buick is even doing it now, on recent models.
Buicks always looked snarling and angry.
I almost got hit by a Buick once, although I think it was a ’52.
I was walking home from high-school, and started across a main road.
That Buick came snarling at me; smoking teenager at the wheel.
No let-up at all.
I jumped back outta the way.
Teenagers often got cars like this, hand-me-downs from Daddy.
They’d start customizing, shave the hood and trunk; remove ornamentation.
They might lower the car, add skirts, french the headlights, add different taillights.
The taillights on this car look terrible; totally out of character.
Ya get the feeling the customizers have gone totally bonkers. No regard for taste.
And a ’51 Buick should have been left alone — not worth customizing.
Better would have been a Jimmy Dean Merc.
I remember seeing a nosed and decked ’51 Chevy coupe; same reaction. But at least the Chevy wasn’t a Buick.