Monthly Calendar-Report for February 2013

Four MACs push the back end of the C51 coal-extra east on Track One into Lilly, PA. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

—The February 2013 entry of my own calendar is from long ago, June 18, 2010.
My wife was still alive then, and with Phil and me.
Phil (Faudi; “FOW-dee;” as in “wow”) was still is business then, doing the driving.
In other words, Phil was leading us around, which he still does, only it’s me driving instead of him. Plus he’s no longer doing train-chases as a business; he’s doing it as a favor to me. For that he -a) gets a free calendar (my own calendar), -b) a meal paid by me for he-and-his-wife at an Altoona restaurant, -c) my driving (which is a bit slower than him; although I felt safe with him), and -d) the pleasure of chasing trains with a real railfan comparable to him — although he knows more than I do.
Phil gave up his business after -a) a client almost injured herself, and -b) occasional near-misses with his car. He also traded his old car for a newer car he didn’t wanna damage with a train-chase. Phil is slightly older than me, by now 69 — I turn 69 this month. He turned 69 in December.
My Honda CR-V is also more amenable to a train-chase, since it’s All-Wheel-Drive, and being an SUV has more under-clearance than a car.
Of course it ain’t a Jeep, and I’m not about to try charging a snowbank.
But we did a farm-track with a center-hump that would snag his car, plus it was icy. With All-Wheel-Drive that was no problem.
This picture was nowhere near as challenging: just drive down a dirt-road to the location. Lilly is in sight to the right.
We went there in Phil’s old car; Phil driving.
The MACs are EMD SD-80 MACs, “SD” (Special-Duty) meaning six-wheel trucks (three traction-motors each truck), with AC (Alternating-Current) traction-motors, “M” meaning wide (modified) cab.
Most diesel-locomotives are DC (Direct-Current), but AC pulls better at slow speed.
Which is why this train has MACs on it; it’s a drag-freight = not fast.
The train is headed uphill, up the west slope toward Allegheny Summit.
So it has lots of MACs on it, perhaps four at each end, at least four at this end, which is the pushers on the rear.
An SD-80 MAC can generate 5,000 horsepower; it’s the first V20 diesel-locomotive since the SD-45 of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
But its forte is moving heavy drag-freight.
This train, all loaded coal-cars, is a heavy drag. It’s moving slowly.
Lots of coal gets mined in Pennsylvania, and was part of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s riches, although other traffic-generators played a part.
Pennsy merged feeders west of Pittsburg which fed the main stem. Soon a flood of traffic was moving from the nation’s interior east toward the east-coast megalopolis.
Pennsy also took advantage of the Industrial-Revolution, steel-making in Pittsburg and Johnstown on the Pennsy main.
Pennsy no longer exists, and its railroad-lines are now Norfolk Southern, what we see here on the old Pennsy main through Lilly.
A lot of coal is still mined in Pennsylvania, and Norfolk Southern is often the railroad transporting it to market. The coal in this train is probably metallurgical, and if so will be exported overseas for foreign steel production.
Norfolk Southern also moves steam-coal in great quantity, coal burned to generate steam for making electricity. Steam-coal is trained directly from mine to generating-station.
Trucking is little competition to railroading when it comes to moving coal. A single coal-car can hold 100 or more tons of coal. A coal-truck doesn’t even come close.
A coal-train might be 100 or more of those coal-cars, and its crew is only the train personnel, perhaps three-or-four in this case, plus a few more crewing the helpers when needed.
With trucking every truck needs a driver.

Over the old Reading bridge in Harrisburg. (Photo by Bruce Kerr.)

—(“REDD-ing;” not “reading.”)
A winner again!
The best entry this month is my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar, a Norfolk Southern train of probably coal-empties rumbling across the old Reading Railroad bridge across the Susquehanna (“suss-kwee-HAH-nuh”) river at Harrisburg.
Reading Lines was a part of Conrail, broken up and sold in 1999. The old Reading main toward New York City is Norfolk Southern’s line toward New York City.
In fact, the old Reading main became Conrail’s main toward New York City after the old Pennsy main became Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
Conrail probably had trackage-rights on the Corridor, but freight toward New York City needed a railroad of its own.
That would be the old Reading line which connected with Central of New Jersey to get to the New York area.
Freight still doesn’t cross the Hudson River via railroad to get to Manhattan Island — it didn’t with Pennsy either.
The old train-ferries were superseded by trucking.
Double-stacked freight-containers might get trained to the New York area in northern New Jersey on the west shore of the Hudson, but from there the containers get trucked into the city.
This bridge was built in 1924. It probably replaced an earlier bridge.
It became part of Reading’s attempt the steal traffic from Pennsy; that is, traffic from the nation’s interior toward New York City.
It became part of the so-called “Alphabet-Route,” an alliance of smaller eastern railroads meant to compete with Pennsy and New York Central.
It wasn’t just one railroad. It was an alliance of smaller railroads like Reading, Central of New Jersey, and Nickel Plate.
The alphabet-routing was a bit more roundabout, including through western Maryland.
It was called “Alphabet-Route” after the letters of its many participating railroads, like P&WV (Pittsburg & West Virginia) and CNJ (Central of New Jersey). (—Reading was “RDG.”)
So eastbound freight on Norfolk Southern might use the old Pennsy line to get to Harrisburg, but it then would switch to the old Reading line to get to the New York area.
The bridge was originally Reading, but now Norfolk Southern uses it to get across the Susquehanna near the old Pennsy yard at Enola (“aye-NOLE-uh;” as in “hey”).
Pennsy had at least two bridges in Harrisburg. One, Rockville, is the original Pennsy main.
A second came with a merged railroad out of Maryland.
There may have been others.
Enola Yard was southwest of Harrisburg, and across the river. Freight from the east had to cross the river south of Harrisburg to get to Enola.
Rockville Bridge became kind of moribund when Pennsy switched its Harrisburg yarding to Enola.
Harrisburg became too congested, and the flood of traffic could bottleneck it.
The train pictured is westbound, probably empty coal-cars headed back toward mines in western PA.
It might just pass right by Harrisburg, and not even stop for yarding. It looks like the train is a “unit-train,” assembled long ago for yo-yoing mine-to-destination then back to the mine. Back-and-forth with no need to be broken.

Cobra-Jet 429 Ford Torino. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

—Hooray! A Ford product has made my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar, a 1970 Cobra-Jet 429 Torino.
And photographer Harholdt made it look pretty good; although the strident yellow color helps.
The Ford Torino was the best-looking of the intermediate sedans, although it never looked that good as a musclecar.
At least that was the impression I always had.

Photo by BobbaLew.

George Follmer’s Trans-Am Mustang.

The best-looking Fords of that era are the Boss-302 Mustangs made for SCCA’s Trans-Am competition.
The car pictured at left is the Trans-Am Mustang raced by George Follmer (“FOHL-mer;” as in “oh”). Follmer is driving. These were the best Trans-Am racers, campaigned and built by old NASCAR-racer Bud Moore.
The Cobra-Jet Torino was pretty, but so was every garden-variety Torino. Other musclecars were based on intermediate sedans, but for some reason looked more like musclecars than the Torino.
During the ‘70s my wife and I lived in an apartment in the top half of a house.
The bottom floor of the house was lived in by our landlady, who was elderly and advancing in age.
As she got older, she had to rely on live-in companions.
One had a Ford Torino, nice to look at, but very ordinary.
It was her day-to-day grocery-getter.
Often she gave me the keys if I had to drive to the grocery.
She’d park in the driveway, and had to move her car if I had to get my car out.
Rather than do all that, she’d have me drive her car.
Her car was only a Windsor 302 cubic-inch V8. Her car was very pretty, but hardly a Cobra-Jet.
The Ford musclecars also had the reputation of becoming losers. It could be they didn’t hold their tune as well as the GM or Chrysler musclecars. The ones that seemed to excel were made by General Motors, the SS Chevelles, and the G-T-O Pontiacs.
The Chrysler musclecars looked pretty good too, but looked bigger. The Cobra-Jet Torino is as big as a musclecar should look. It looked smaller than the Dodge and Plymouth musclecars, the same size as an SS Chevelle or G-T-O Pontiac, both of which look brawny, whereas the Cobra-Jet Torino looks pretty.

GG-1 awaits departure from New York City with the southbound “Silver Meteor,” which goes all the way to Florida. (Photo courtesy: Mitch Dakelman Collection©.)

—The February 2013 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a GG-1 (“Jee-Jee-ONE;” I only say that because a friend was mispronouncing it “Jee-Jee-Eye”) electric-locomotive deep in the bowels of Pennsy’s New York Penn Station.
It’s at the head of “The Silver Meteor,” a passenger-train that went all the way to Florida.
The train was New York City to Florida. It used Pennsy to Washington DC, where it switched to Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac, for delivery to Seaboard Air Line railroad in Richmond, which it used all the way to Florida, where it split, a Miami section, and a St. Petersburg section.
The picture is eons ago, February 2nd, 1939, the first run of the “Meteor.”
The Silver Meteor was first of a bunch of Seaboard streamlined passenger-trains, all using stainless-steel cars, silver.
Others were “The Silver Comet” and “The Silver Star.”
The “Silver Meteor” is still in service, a Florida train under Amtrak. We used it in the ‘80s to get to my wife’s parents in Debary, FL. We got on the train in Wilmington, DE, and off in DeLand, FL.
It was awful. Despite being a railfan, I decided I’d never use it again.
As soon as we left Wilmington the lights went out. This was in the diner, and it was dark. I couldn’t eat if I couldn’t see.
Apparently the electric cord from the locomotive to the train had disconnected, and we went all the way to Baltimore before it was reconnected.
Shortly after leaving Baltimore it disconnected again. I resolved never again would I ride Amtrak without a flashlight.
The train-trip to Florida was overnight.The equipment was so-called “Heritage” cars, older cars inherited from the railroads that turned railroad passenger-service over to Amtrak in 1971.
In other words, the cars were equipment once used by the railroads. They were old and tired.
I don’t know if the cars rode rough, or the track was rough. Probably both. We rode Amtrak’s Auto-Train over the same route years later, and it was smoother.
Auto-Train was new equipment; the railroad probably was too.
Sleep was impossible on the Silver-Meteor.
We had a sleeping compartment, a “bedroom,” but every switch and grade-crossing threw me into the ceiling.
All I could think of all night was the train derailing.
Our bunks were across the car, which was discombobulating as the train rocked.
On Auto-Train we had a “SlumberCoach” accommodation; a tiny compartment beside a center aisle that had our bunks lengthwise. For return Amtrak offered us an upgrade to a “bedroom” accommodation at the SlumberCoach price.
But I refused. I wasn’t about to try sleeping across the car after my experience on the Meteor.
Anyone who follows this blog knows I consider Pennsy’s GG-1 the greatest railroad locomotive of all time. Not only were they gorgeous, they lasted about 20 years longer than average.
As a teenager, I was lucky enough to live in northern Delaware, a GG-1 heaven on Pennsy’s New York-to-Washington electrified line, what later became Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
GG-1s reigned supreme, and every one I saw seemed to be doing 80-90 mph or more!
They rode smooth, and were immensely powerful. A single GG-1 could put 9,000 horsepower to railhead on short-term overload. They couldn’t do that continuously — the traction-motors would overheat. But power like that was great for blasting away from a station-stop.
A single modern diesel-electric locomotive is good for 4,400 horsepower.

4876 in the basement at Washington Union Station.

The locomotive pictured is #4876, famous later for being involved in an accident on January 15, 1953. 4876 was leading the Federal Express southbound from Boston into Washington Union Station, when the train lost its brakes.
4876 and train crashed through the bump-stop, and continued into the station out onto the concourse floor.
4876 sunk heavily into the basement.
It had to be disassembled to be removed.
It was later reassembled and returned to service.

4876 in Baltimore.

4876 apparently still exists, at the B&O rail-museum in Baltimore. Many GG-1s were scrapped, but 4876 wasn’t. It’s one of many that weren’t, although it’s stored outside, vandalized, suffering water-damage, and is in very poor condition.
It’s doubtful a GG-1 could be restored to service. The old Pennsy electrification was upgraded, and is no longer what it would need to be to operate a GG-1.
Beyond that, the GG-1 had transformers filled with PCBs. Those transformer-casings were drained and filled with sand or concrete. Others were removed completely.
Under the current 60,000-volt catenary, a GG-1 would really be an AEM-7 in a GG-1 body. Many AEM-7s were rebuilt to operate on alternating-current (AC). The wire powering a GG-1 was AC, but was only 11,000 volts (which is still a lot). GG-1s were AC traction-motors. The first AEM-7s were direct-current (DC), rectifying the AC catenary-power. Many AEM-7s were later switched to AC traction-motors.

A ’37 Ford five-window coupe.

—The February 2013 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a 1937 Ford coupe.
The car is not especially attractive to me — its front-end is wrong.

A 1939 Ford five-window coupe. (A five-window has an added small window behind the door-post.)

But it’s the year Ford introduced the coupe-body that became one the best-looking cars of all time.
Put the front-end of a ’39 Ford on this coupe-body and you have one the best-looking cars of all time.
And Ford Motor Company didn’t have a styling-department; that is, not the vast resources of General Motors’ Art & Colour Section as set up by Harley Earl.
Which despite its strength fielded some of the worst-looking turkeys ever marketed.
Old Henry, Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, thought styling a waste.
What mattered was function, and dependability.
Yet Ford had Henry’s only son Edsel, who Old Henry badmouthed. Edsel wanted Fords to look good.
As a result, some of the best-looking cars of all time emanated from Ford Motor Company — for example, the Model A, and the 1932 Ford. Also the 1934 Ford, and this coupe-body as 1939-1940.
Ford also had E.T. “Bob” Gregorie, Ford’s styling-chief from the middle ‘30s on.
This coupe-body is essentially his. Gregorie was a hire by Edsel.
Ford also had a cheap V8 motor, attractive to hot-rodders.
The fledgling hotrod parts industry was aimed at the Ford V8. A tinkerer could soup up the Ford V8 in his backyard.
You didn’t need a college education. Being mechanically-inclined was enough.
The Ford V8 could be easily modified for increased performance, and as a V8 it was spunky enough unmodified.
Plus the Ford was a low-priced car. They were cheap and plentiful.
After WWII a lot of elegant surplus fittings and fasteners were still on the West Coast for the Pacific war-effort. The stuff was cheap, and made it possible to build a hotrod.
Meld a Ford with surplus equipment, and you had a hotrod.
This car is the traditional late ‘40s hotrod.

Photo by BobbaLew.

A Ford Flat-head V8. (Note flat cylinder-head casting — an aluminum hotrod part in this case.)

It has a Flat-head Ford V8, souped up with double Stromberg 97 carburetors.
The only thing non-stock is the paint, a Thunderbird red.
Plus it’s the coupe-body, basis for what became one of the best-looking cars of all time.
I’ve also seen sedan versions of this body, and they don’t work at all.
They’re BeetleBombs!



(Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—A friend of mine says this is a really dramatic picture.
Well, yes it is, the lighting is fabulous.
But when I look at this picture I think “charade!”
Those aren’t really Japanese fighter-planes. They’re Texan trainers painted in Japanese colors.
Ersatz Japanese fighters. Impostors!
“Well,” my friend said; “the B-17 was a heroic airplane.”
“Sure,” I said; “if you don’t mind getting shot out of the sky.
The B-17 is a 1930s airplane asked to do a 1940s job. They were bog-slow; sitting ducks.”
“Load ‘em up with machine-guns,” he said.
“89 bazilyun machine-guns count for nothing, when you’re getting shot out of the sky by the Luftwaffe,” I said. “And if the Luftwaffe succeeds, as often it did, nine of your buddies get shot out of the sky along with you. Your heroic bomber crashes mightily in flames. Engage Joseph Heller. If you survive, you end up a German prisoner.”
The February 2013 entry Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a B-17 bomber accompanied by supposed Japanese fighter-planes.
Except they aren’t Japanese fighter-planes. They’re Texan trainers painted in Japanese fighter-plane colors (one is a Harvard, the Navy version of the Texan).
I’m not even sure the B-17 saw duty in the Pacific theater versus the Japanese, although they probably did.
The Japanese mainland was out of the range of a B-17. It would have to fly from China, which it probably did.
Not from America.
By the time various Pacific islands were conquered by America, the B-17 was being replaced by Boeing’s B-29 bomber, which could reach the Japanese mainland from those islands.
To me the B-17 was heavy bombing-runs over Germany, which it could reach from England.
They could do serious damage if they delivered their bombs.
But they also were sitting ducks for Hitler’s Luftwaffe.
A B-17 had a forest of on-board machine-guns to protect it, a so-called “Flying Fortress.” But 89 bazilyun machine-guns mean nothing when you’re a sitting duck.
And at first the B-17s had to fly over Germany unprotected by fighter escort. Hitler’s Messerschmitts had open season.
Friendly fighter-planes didn’t have the range to go as far as Germany, not until the P-51 Mustang, which came later in the war.
The Germans discovered the B-17s were especially vulnerable from the front; there were no machine-guns up front at first.
Which is why that chin-turret was added below the bombardier’s post.
But the B-17 didn’t become viable until they could take along fighter escort.
I’ve seen a B-17 fly; quite a few are still around. My WWII warbirds site says 13 are still airworthy.
A B-17 was bog-slow; gorgeous but a sitting duck.

Truck-train! (Photo by Ron Taylor.)

—The February 2013 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is what Pennsy did to meet the competition of trucking; a truck-train southbound on the Pennsy New York-to-Washington mainline near Levittown, PA in 1964.
Truck-trailers would be loaded onto special flatcars circus-style, driven right onto the flatcars into position.
It isn’t van-containers, what’s common now. The trailers are complete with road-wheels.

Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.

Behind the locomotives is a train of doublestacked containers.

What’s common now is wheel-less van-containers stacked two high in well-cars; “doublestacks.” The van containers get loaded and unloaded in giant yards with large cranes or equipment.
Van containers of standard 40-foot length are also used in international sea-trade. They get shipped in container-ships. Larger containers are also moved (for example the standard 53-foot trailer-length), but not in sea-trade.
The van-containers were more efficient than railroad switching to small industrial sidings. Railroad delivery is not as flexible as trucking.
The profit in railroading is moving large loads over long distances. Delivering a small load to an unloading-point can be costly.
A truck can deliver to an unloading-point not near a railroad, plus costly railroad infrastructure doesn’t need to be maintained. Industry doesn’t need to be trackside, unless it’s depending on railroad delivery.
The train is powered by a single E-44 electric locomotive.
The E-44 was built by General Electric, and rectified the 11,000-volt 25-cycle alternating-current delivered by the overhead wire into direct-current for the locomotive traction-motors.

Photo about 1962 by BobbaLew.

Box-cab P-5s.

Photo about 1962 by BobbaLew.

A steeple-cab P-5.

Photo by John Dziobko.

An E-3b (three four-wheel trucks).

Photo by BobbaLew.

Penn-Central E-33s.

The E-44 replaced the P-5 (4-6-4), both box-cab and steeple-cab, in freight-service.
The P-5s were old and worn out, and were essentially passenger-locomotives downgraded by the GG-1.
Rectification allows use of DC traction-motors like diesel-locomotives. Yet AC transmitted better over long distances. The GG-1s and P-5s were AC, as were Pennsy’s self-powered MP-54 commuter-cars.
Pennsy tried rectification in the ‘50s; experimental cab-units like the E-3b illustrated.
But they were never built in quantity.
Virginian Railway tried a 3,300-horsepower version of a rectifier locomotive on its electrified segment, made by General Electric, and found it successful.
(When electrification on Virginian was shut down, the E-33s moved to New York, New Haven & Hartford, which was eventually merged into Penn-Central, the E-33 illustrated.)
Pennsy asked General Electric to build a more up-to-date version.
Thus the E-44, 4,400 horsepower in a boxier body.
They have six DC traction-motors spread over two three-axle trucks (six wheels).
At first the E-44 used 12 mercury-arc Ignitron-tubes for rectification, but soon E-44s were marketed with silicon-diode rectification.
Eventually all the E-44s were switched to silicon-diode rectification. It was easier to maintain then mercury-arc Ignitron-tube rectification, which liked to fail.
Many E-44s were modified into E-44a’s, 5,000 horsepower.
They were occasionally used to haul passenger-trains, although they weren’t suited to such service. They were unstable at speed, so limited to 70 mph.
The E-44 is essentially a freight-engine. Some lasted even to Amtrak and Conrail, but were retired when Conrail got out of electrification in the ‘80s.
Pennsy’s New York-to-Washington line is still electrified, but it’s Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, owned and operated by Amtrak.

The only remaining E-44.

Photo by Tom Hughes with Phil Faudi.

A Trailer-Train on Norfolk Southern’s old Pennsy line.

Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.

RoadRailer.

Only one is left, #4465, at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, PA.
4465 is an ex-Amtrak unit, but was repainted in Pennsy colors.
Truck-Train is still around, although it may no longer be called “Truck-Train.”
Just recently we saw a Truck-Train on the old Pennsy line near South Fork, PA.
It’s trailer-on-flatcar, I think UPS trailers, coast-to-coast, very high priority.
Norfolk Southern has gone beyond Truck-Train to RoadRailer, a train of special highway trailers that can convert to railroad bogies. The bogies couple the trailers into a train, and lift the trailer-wheels clear of the rail.
It’s highway trailers running on railroad wheels. The concept is extremely efficient, but requires the highway-trailers be modified for RoadRailer use.
It’s better than Truck-Train, but costly to implement.