Monthly Calendar-Report for January 2013

Eastbound mixed-freight on Track One charges CP-W. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

— The January 2013 entry of my own calendar is from my first trip to Allegheny-Crossing since my wife died.
It was probably too early. It was in June of last year, and my wife died in April.
When everything started going wrong, I was in no condition to cope.
The biggest problem was my camera failing.
When it did, I got extremely depressed. I was 250 miles from repair, looking at the need for repair.
I already had a lawnmower back home that was throwing me hairballs.
I had to farm out repair of that.
And trying to explain what was wrong with my camera with speech slightly compromised by my long-ago stroke, plus the distraction and sorrow of my wife dying, made it difficult to cope.
My thought was to do things to distract from my wife dying.
I attended a wedding in northern Delaware, and made this trip to Allegheny-Crossing.
Nothing worked. The sorrow was too powerful.
I had no confidence at all — I still don’t have much.
Back then I’d say I was about 10 percent of what I was. Now I’m perhaps 40-50 percent — which is still a long way from 100 percent.
When everything started going wrong down in Altoona, it was if my entire world crashed mightily in flames.
First my own camera died.
We borrowed the camera of my bed-and-breakfast proprietor, which was the same brand as mine, and similar to mine.
It too seemed to fail.
Then it started raining, hard.
The whole point of these sojourns to Altoona is to take train-pictures.
It seemed everything was crashing in flames.
But I did get a few pictures before my camera failed, and this is one.
It’s train 10G, a mixed-freight, charging toward us eastbound on Track One at CP-W (checkpoint W) just north (railroad east) of South Fork.
CP-W is where there used to be a flyover into South Fork.
A secondary comes into the main from the east at South Fork. It switches onto the main up at CP-W, north of South Fork.
The flyover, now gone, was over the west and eastbound tracks, so a train going into South Fork could avoid blocking the main.
Pennsy did this; they could afford to — plus they couldn’t afford to block the massive flow of traffic, especially eastbound. Flyovers galore to avoid blocking the mainline.
Like the flyover at CP-W, most are long-gone.
All that remains are stone abutments almost hidden in shrubbery.
I used a strong telephoto to avoid sky. The picture was already in my head. The dark greenery is in the background, and sunlight illuminates the locomotive-nose.
My failed camera, a Nikon D100, now probably over 10 years old, has since been replaced. I still have it. I never repaired it.
I upgraded to a new Nikon D7000 camera-body; it uses the same lenses as the D100.
I wanted to upgrade, and now I had an excuse. Plus the D7000 camera-body didn’t cost that much.

P-51 Mustang. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—Another Mustang! The WWII warbird everyone venerates.
It happens to be gorgeous and a hotrod.

Photo by Philip Makanna©.

Last month’s Ghosts photograph.

Last month’s Ghosts photograph, December 2012, was also a Mustang, but not in American colors. It’s Royal New Zealand Air Force; okay, but not as gorgeous as American colors.
I particularly note the cockpit canopy of this calendar Mustang.
It’s not that of the earliest Mustangs, nor is it the full bubble canopy of the later Mustangs.
It’s an arrangement I’ve never noticed before. Somewhat a bubble canopy, but not entirely.
I prefer the full bubble canopy as on the New Zealand Mustang.
But no matter; as always, Mustang shines through. It’s a gorgeous airplane, la creme de la creme.
The Mustang’s a tail-dragger. Its long nose blocks forward vision when taxiing.
You have to yaw side-to-side to see where you’re going.

Dashing through the snow. (Photo by Chris Dalton.)

—None of this month’s calendar-pictures are extraordinary, except perhaps the Mustang, and that of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar, a shot of a Norfolk Southern freight in the snow on the old Norfolk & Western main through West Virginia.
It’s a rule I quickly learned for my own calendar. January, February and December should be snow-pictures, although I’m out of good snow-pictures.
But that’s what we have here.
I have quite a few snow-pictures, but not many good enough to be calendar-pictures.

Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.

My 2012 Christmas-card image.

I was talking to someone the other day. She had just received my Christmas-card, a snow-picture (at left) from a previous calendar.
“You take really great pictures,” she told me.
“Sometimes yes,” I said. “Although I just shoot and see what I get.”
What I have is the eye to recognize a good picture.
I exercise the composition to snag a good photograph. I can visualize if my composition will work, although often it doesn’t.
Most of the time I just shoot and see what I get.
After which my eye tells me if I got a good one.
There are compositional rules I apply, but they don’t supersede “just shoot, and see what I get.”
My own calendar-picture is an example of using composition.
I had already visualized what I’d get if I used strong telephoto to cut out the sky.
The darkened greenery becomes the background, with the locomotive-nose strongly illuminated by sunlight.
It worked fairly well.
The old Norfolk & Western main had to be heavily fiddled to accommodate doublestacks.
It had many tunnels, and doublestacks require lots of vertical clearance, more than those tunnels could provide.
But Norfolk Southern, probably in concert with state authorities, took on the project, the so-called “Heartland Project.”
Fiddling the line to clear doublestacks, notching tunnel-linings, etc. Often the floor of a tunnel is lowered.
I’ve seen this myself.
The old New York Central line through Rochester does a dip under a pedestrian overpass.
Apparently the bridge couldn’t be removed, but doublestacked van containers would have hit.
So the tracks were lowered.
It’s a drop in elevation of a few feet, and very gradual. Perhaps over a mile.
The railroads, with various state authorities, have spent a lot to get railroad-lines up to doublestack standards.
Tunnels had to be enlarged on the old Pennsylvania Railroad.
The tunnel at the summit of the Alleghenies had to be entirely rebuilt — enlargement.
It was the same tunnel-bore as originally built; first two tracks, then down to one, and now back up to two with enlargement.
All because Philadelphia didn’t wanna lose out on trade that would ship doublestack.
(The original tunnel-bore wouldn’t clear doublestacks.)
Which was why the original Pennsylvania Railroad was built in the first place. To negate gravitation of 19th-century ocean-trade to New York City and it’s Erie Canal.
The State of Pennsylvania built a canal-system to compete with the Erie, but it was cumbersome and slow. It had the Alleghenies problem, which couldn’t be canaled.
A portage railroad was built over the Alleghenies, but that required transloading canal-packets to railroad cars, a slow process. (It wasn’t through.)
Plus the original portage railroad had grading difficulty. It couldn’t be a through continuous railroad; grading was so rudimentary at that time the portage railroad had to include inclined-planes, inoperable by railroad-trains, so steep they had to be winched up with ropes.
Plus the state system couldn’t operate in winter when the canals froze.
So private Philadelphia capitalists founded the Pennsylvania Railroad, mainly because the state system was so difficult.
—They also were taking advantage of new technology not available 30 years earlier.
Locomotive #9739 is a General-Electric Dash 9-40CW. “C” meaning three-axle trucks (six driven wheels), “W” meaning wide-nose as opposed to narrow-nose, and “40” meaning 4,000 horsepower.
The Dash 9-40CW is a special application for Norfolk Southern, downrating the standard Dash 9-44CW from 4,400 horsepower to 4,000.
The idea is to reduce stress on the diesel-engine so it lasts longer.
Although 9739 is one of a series of locomotives that can generate 4,400 horsepower when called for.
The old Norfolk & Western was coal-oriented. It shipped rivers of coal from the Pocahontas coal-region to ocean ports in Norfolk, VA.
But now the line has been configured to move doublestacks. I’m sure it’s still transporting lots of coal, but it’s also moving inbound imports in doublestacked van-containers.
The old Pennsy is doing the same thing. Traffic used to be essentially eastbound, but now it’s westbound too. (The old Pennsy is now Norfolk Southern.)

Not bad for a ’33 Ford.

—The January 2013 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a 1933 Ford roadster.
It looks nice despite not being a ’32 or ’34, the Fords hot-rodders always gravitated toward. (I prefer the ’32.)
The ’33 Ford was always a backwater car. It looks much like the ’34, but not as attractive. The ’34 had a grill-surround that looked better.
Beyond that this car is ersatz. It’s assembled from non-stock parts. The body and frame are not factory. It’s almost what you have to do today to build a new hotrod.
The factory stuff is all taken, unless you stumble across something in a barn — good luck with that; that barn was already emptied.
I’m kind of amazed the reproducers would even field ’33 parts. ’33 Fords never attracted.
Yet we have a nice car here; except it makes the mistake of stripping off the fenders. Without fenders the grill becomes too dominant.
But at least it’s not a fiberglass body. How many flimsy fiberglass reproductions were never finished, or tossed.
Being a kit hotrod, it can have modern components.
It has a modern injected Ford V8, and disc-brakes.
But it’s still an antique; open and frightening.
I saw a ’34 Ford sedan once at a car-show. The owner bragged about it having no safety-equipment, yet he felt safer at 85 mph in that bucket-of-bolts than a safety-equipped modern car.
NOT THIS KID!

That caboose is gonna boom-and-zoom! (Photo by Mel Swansick.)

—The January 2013 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is three GG1 (“Jee-Jee-ONE;” I only say that because a friend was mispronouncing it “Jee-Jee-Eye”) motors being transferred light in a power-move from Jersey City, possibly to Philadelphia.
Anyone who has followed this blog knows I think Pennsy’s GG1 electric is the greatest locomotive of all time.
Not only were they gorgeous, they lasted forever, almost 20 years longer than average.
These GG1s are being transferred light (unloaded) in a power-move.
As was common back then, a caboose is tied to their tail.
Soon these GG1s will be approaching or hitting 100 mph. Jersey City south has a lotta straight track where trains could boom-and-zoom.
We have here the single-stripe paint scheme that replaced the earlier five-stripe “cat-whisker” paint-scheme pioneered by industrial-designer Raymond Loewy.

Photo by Tom Hughes (my nephew).

The five-stripe “cat-whisker” scheme.

A Penn-Central GG1.

Photo by Joe Szarmach.

A stripeless Amtrak GG1 rusting away at Leatherstocking Railway Museum, Cooperstown Junction, NY. (There were striped Amtrak GG1s, silver with a red stripe; the stripe followed the Loewy lines.)

People poo-poo the single-stripe scheme, but I think it still looked fine. It was following Loewy’s lines.
When that stripe was ended in later repaints under Penn-Central, the GG1s were painted black with no stripe. —Which looked horrible.




















Z16. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

—The January 2013 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a car I’m not familiar with, a 1965 Z16 Chevelle.
Z16 as in Z-28. Z16 being the option-number. Z28 was the option-number for the package that became the Camaro Trans-Am racer. Car & Driver magazine convinced Chevrolet to just call it the Z-28.
The Z16 was Chevrolet’s first attempt to counter the phenomenal success of the Pontiac G-T-O; a Chevelle with the motor of a full-size Chevrolet.
It had the Chevrolet Big-Block, 396 cubic inches, 375 horsepower. The Big-Block is Chevrolet’s truck-engine. Chevrolet had an earlier truck-engine, the 348, hogged out in 1961 to 409 cubic-inches.
I don’t think the 409 cubic-inch displacement was ever used in trucks.
As the ‘60s advanced, Chevrolet decided to produce a better truck-engine, the Big-Block.
Like the 348 (and 409) the Big-Block was hot-rodded and installed in cars for drag-racing and track-racing.

Photo by BobbaLew.

Not my brother’s car, but similar (same color). —A 1971 454 SS Chevelle.

The Big-Block was enlarged for later years, up to 454 stock cubic-inches displacement. My brother-in-Boston has a 1971 454 Chevelle SS. (Like at left —I drove it once; it was almost terrifying.)
The biggest problem with the Z16 was getting its lightly-loaded rear tires, its driven tires, to hook up.
The SmallBlock Chevelle made more sense, but it wasn’t the killer Big-Block.
It was the same formula as Pontiac’s G-T-O, the motor from a full-size car in a smaller intermediate sedan. That is, the G-T-O was the full-size 389 cubic-inch motor in the Tempest intermediate sedan.
And that 389 was hot-rodded, as is Chevrolet’s 396 at 375 horsepower.
Only 201 Z16s were built.
All were coupe hardtops like pictured; one convertible Z16.
Chevrolet’s Big-Block intermediates didn’t get really rolling until later, and by then everyone was cashing in on the G-T-O concept, even Buick and Oldsmobile.
And the G-T-O concept didn’t do that well as a sportscar, as it pretended to be.
Except for American highways; straight-line performance.
Throw a curvy rural byway at it, and a BMW 2002 could beat it.
Give it the open highway, and it would be all over that 2002.
By 1965 I was no longer interested in Detroit cars, not even the Pontiac G-T-O.
My sister’s first husband had a Tempest convertible, but it wasn’t a G-T-O. It’s motor was only the 326 cubic-inch V8. I was continually bad-mouthing him for not buying a G-T-O.

“Salude-salude!” (Photo courtesy: Mitch Dakelman Collection©.)

—It’s like my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar has taken a hit.
Audio-Visual Designs lost its long-time printer, so there almost wasn’t a calendar.
The calendar is similar, same size, same format. But previously the calendar-pages were hung from a coiled wire. Now it’s just bound and stapled.
Pages have to be torn off. It used to be they could just be flipped.
The Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar faltered some time ago.
It used to be the December entry was always color. It hasn’t been for years. This is no great loss. There was a shortage of color Pennsy photography from the ‘50s. The color-picture was often stupid.
The January 2013 entry is a Pennsy M-1 4-8-2 getting a salute from a yard-worker in Enola Yard (“aye-NOLE-uh;” as in “hey”).

An initial T-1 experimental.

Pennsy never had a 4-8-4, although the T-1 was sort of a 4-8-4 at 4-4-4-4.
The drivers were on a solid frame like a 4-8-4. But it was duplex; four cylinders instead of just two.
But the T-1 wasn’t a freight-engine. Plus with such a long driver-wheelbase, it had difficulty negotiating curved track. It wasn’t articulated.
Fast-freight fell to the 4-8-2 Mountains, which did well at it.
The M-1 was big and powerful. With its combustion-chamber it could keep up with steam-demand.
The M-1 Mountain was Pennsy’s first application of the combustion-chamber. The massive 2-10-0 Decapod didn’t have one.
The M-1 shone on Pennsy’s Middle Division, the long uphill climb from Harrisburg to Altoona and the Allegheny Mountains, which need additional locomotives = helpers.
Although the Middle Division wasn’t steep. It was gradual and long. The M-1s did well on it.
The M-1 depicted will probably soon be assigned to pull a fast-freight west on the Middle Division to Altoona. For years Enola was the marshaling-yard where freight west from Philadelphia and the east coast was yarded to continue west.
Enola, across the Susquehanna (“suss-kwee-HAH-nuh”) River from Harrisburg, replaced yarding in Harrisburg, which became too congested.
Although the sunlight tells me this M-1 probably just came east from Altoona with a fast-freight into Enola.

1943 painting by Dean Cornwall.

In WWII propaganda Uncle Sam was shown muscling up for the war-effort. Pennsy’s M-1 Mountain was shown passing a trainload of tanks, roaring steel-factories staining the sky in the background.
Both Pittsburgh and Johnstown on Pennsy were steel-towns.
Too bad this calendar-picture isn’t color. That keystone number-plate on the smokebox-front is red.