Monthly Calendar-Report for April 2013

(We are fast-approaching the one-year anniversary of my wife’s death, April 17th.
Yet here I am cranking out these calendar-reports.
Recently my friend who daycares my dog while I work out at the nearby Canandaigua YMCA, eyed my motorcycle in my garage, and asked “Are you gonna get this thing on the road this year?”
“I’m thinking of selling it,” I said. “I’m 69, and writing is more fun. Between riding motorbike and writing I get my pen out.”
So the Monthly Calendar-Reports continue, despite the incredible sadness engendered by the dreadful fate that’s befallen me.)



Train 20T eastbound climbs The Hill toward the summit. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

—The April 2013 entry of my own calendar is very much composed; that is, the final image was in my head before I took the picture.
It’s a reprise of the picture below, taken off the Route 53 overpass north (railroad east) of Cresson, PA (“KRESS-in”) over the old Pennsy mainline up the west slope of Allegheny ridge.



The Pennsylvania Railroad no longer exists. It’s now owned and operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad, a 1982 merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway.
The two tracks at left are on the right-of-way of the original Pennsylvania Railroad. They’re lower.
The tracks at right the train is on — there are three tracks — are the right-of-way of the New Portage Railroad, which Pennsy came to own.
The New Portage was rectification of the original Portage Railroad, part of the state of PA’s Public-Works System, meant to compete with New York’s immensely-successful Erie Canal.
Allegheny Ridge couldn’t be canaled; it had to be portaged. That was the original Portage Railroad, but grading was so rudimentary when it was built, the railroad had to include 10 steep inclined-planes.
Locomotives, or horses, pulled the cars between planes, but at every plane the cars had to be winched up the plane to the next level.
There also was transloading the canal-packets to railroad-cars. The entire system was cumbersome and slow, poor competition for the Erie Canal, which was through, so didn’t involve transloading.
Philadelphia capitalists were so worried about losing trade they founded the Pennsylvania Railroad to circumvent the state’s Public-Works System. Pennsy was a through railroad with no transloading. It could also operate at night — the state Public-Works refused to operate at night. —And Pennsy could operate in Winter, when canals froze.
As previously noted, the New Portage Railroad was built to circumvent the original Portage Railroad with its inclined-planes.
But Pennsy put the State Public-Works System out-of-business, and it was offered for sale to Pennsy.
Pennsy decided to incorporate the New Portage in its crossing of Allegheny ridge.
The New Portage had a tunnel atop the mountain — Pennsy added it to its own tunnel under Allegheny ridge.
Pennsy also eventually reactivated the New Portage alignment after it was earlier abandoned. By so doing, more tracks were added across the mountain.
So now most eastbound trains take the New Portage alignment up to the summit. If not, they take the rightmost track of the original Pennsy alignment, Track Three.
On the New Portage alignment they use New Portage tunnel, then they ramp down to the original Pennsy right-of-way downhill, which was lower.
The New Portage alignment east of the tunnel was since been abandoned again.
Need for it disappeared, and a large highway was built in that valley, obstructing the right-of-way.
This picture is from September 2012, my second train-chase since my wife died.
I had my new camera-body, the Nikon D7000 that replaced my defective Nikon D100.
Nothing went haywire, but it was raining slightly.
I and Faudi pulled up to the Route 53 overpass, and walked out on the bridge. Faudi calls it “High-Bridge;” I call it “five-tracks,” since five tracks pass under it.
Four and Three are on the old Pennsy alignment. Four is currently westbound only; Three can be either direction.
Two and One and Main-Eight are up on the Portage right-of-way.
Two and One are currently eastbound only, and Main-Eight is storage for heavy trains awaiting movement over The Hill, usually coal.
We are on the West Slope — the train is climbing The Hill, its steepest and most difficult ascent eastbound.
The train is double-stacks. I walked back to have the middle of the train be a foreground. Every photograph needs a foreground.
The radio-feed picture doesn’t do that, yet looks pretty good.
The overpass is long, so you can change the photo-angle somewhat.
I’m using strong telephoto.
The only thing I lack in my picture is sunlight, and perhaps a second train descending on Three.
The radio-feed picture has both. All it lacks is a foreground.
“Radio-feed” because it’s atop Station-Inn’s radio-feed website.
Station-Inn is a bed-and-breakfast for railfans in Cresson, and its radio-feed transmits Norfolk Southern operating radio over the Internet.
Station-Inn is a dump! I’ve stayed there, and I prefer Tunnel-Inn in nearby Gallitzin (“guh-LITT-zin;” as in “get”). It’s right next to the old Pennsy Tunnel-mouth.
This photo is extremely posed. I’ve been wanting to take it for years. It works fairly well, but isn’t extraordinary. What it lacks is sunlight, plus perhaps a second train descending on Three.
Sunlight alone would make it extraordinary.
The radio-feed picture has both sunlight and a second train descending.
But it lacks the foreground I had.
Some day I’ll get my extraordinary photograph.

(None of the calendar-pictures are extraordinary. I’ve arranged them by interest as photographs, although my All-Pennsy color calendar is rather plain. My Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a good photograph of a hotrod that turns me off. Next is my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar, a nice photograph, but also sort of plain.)




Eastbound auto-racks at Cove, PA, on the old Pennsy main. (Photo by John Molesevich.)

—The April 2013 image in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is at a popular railfan location in Cove, PA.
For some insane reason “Cove Secondary” is in my head, but it’s not valid.
“Secondary” being a branch-line.
I Googled “Cove Secondary” and got Cove Secondary School.
I then Google-mapped Cole, and it’s along the Susquehanna (“suss-kwe-HA-nuh;” as in “hah”) river just north of Harrisburg.
But before the railroad turns inland along the Juniata river (“june-eee-AT-uh”) across the state.
It’s not a very dramatic picture. It looks like many of the pictures I’ve taken with Phil Faudi, although I’ve snagged a few dramatic pictures.
Photographer Molesevich works as an electrician at Enola Yard (“aye-NOLE-uh;” as in “hay”) across the river from Harrisburg, which Pennsy built long ago to get its torrent of traffic out of congested Harrisburg.
It also was where Pennsy’s electrification began, and freight-trains were switched to electric locomotives. That electrification was de-energized by Conrail in the ‘80s; Conrail being a successor to Pennsy (and Penn-Central, the merger of Pennsy and New York Central that failed).
The wire is gone, but the lineside towers that held it are still up.
Molesevich works nights and gets off at 7 a.m. He thereafter drives home up Routes 11 and 15 through Cove.
Molesevich was probably monitoring scanner transmissions, so he knew this eastbound was coming.
So he pulled off into the Cove railfan spot.

The railfan parking-lot near Cove, PA.

I noticed a trackside parking-lot in my Google-map search, so I zeroed in on it in Google Street-Views.
It’s pictured at left.
It sure looks like a spot where railfans would congregate, and monitor rail-traffic from inside their parked cars.
I’ve done it myself. There are places like that in Rochester (NY), only it’s CSX not Norfolk Southern.
The CSX line is the old New York Central main, the Water-Level.
“Water-Level” because it more-or-less followed the Erie Canal, so had easy grades, unlike Pennsy.
It too is very busy, much like Norfolk Southern’s old Pennsy main.



1970 Plymouth GTX. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

—The April 2013 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1970 Plymouth GTX, a car that had been eclipsed by the Plymouth RoadRunner.

A 1969 RoadRunner.

The RoadRunner was a smashing success, and would appeal to yrs trly.
It was a dirt-cheap hotrod. Instead of souping up your ’55 Chevy, and all the insanity that might entail, you just went to your Plymouth dealer and purchased a RoadRunner.
Hotrod performance without the acrimony; and you could street-race right away.
The GTX was Plymouth’s response to the original G-T-O Pontiac. It was also fairly expensive.
But the GTX was more a musclecar; it came with a 440 cubic-inch engine. You could get a 440 or Hemi (“hem-EEEE;” not “he-mee”) optional in a RoadRunner, but low-line RoadRunners came with a 383 cubic-inch engine, not a 440, but still enough to instill fear in the owners of SmallBlock Chevy hotrods.
What we have here is a nice-looking photograph of a car not that interesting to me. —I tilt toward the Roadrunner.
I guess it’s my paternal grandmother’s genes; frugality, yet spiced with hotrod performance.
The RoadRunner was extremely basic. What you got were el-cheapo fittings mixed with hotrod performance. Four-on-the-floor with cloth-covered bench seats.
The GTX was a better car, but more expensive.



Cruisin’. (Photo by Don Wood©.)

—The April 2013 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a Don Wood picture, although not one of his extraordinary ones.
Wood is gone, but the Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar was started with his photographs in the late ‘60s.
The Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar was the first one I got, probably their ’69 calendar, which was probably their third.
Some of Wood’s pictures were so dramatic they ended up on my wall.

Photo by Don Wood©.

Photo by Don Wood©.

Wood’s photograph of the Mt. Carmel ore-train is the most dramatic train-picture I’ve ever had.
Thanks to Wood I also learned of K4 #612, the best K4 on the New York & Long Branch.
The New York & Long Branch was a Jersey Central line in north Jersey Pennsy got trackage-rights on.
Pennsy did so by threatening to build a competing railroad and put New York & Long Branch out of business.
The purpose was commuter-service from north Jersey to New York City.
Pennsy operated electric out of New York City, then junctioned to the New York & Long Branch.
A lot of what operated on NY&LB was Pennsy commuter-service.
But to operate on NY&LB Pennsy had to switch to non-electrified locomotives, for example K4 #612, one of many K4s used on NY&LB.
612 was not an ordinary K4. It had a front-end throttle (on the superheater header), not in the steam-dome, as was common when K4s were built.
612 was so good they ran it on an end-of-steam fan-trip, pictured above.
I have other Wood pictures of 612. Best was his panning-shot at 50-60 mph!
The Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar has since branched out beyond Wood, yet here’s Wood trying again with a Pennsy M1 Mountain (4-8-2), a very successful freight-engine.
The M1 was retired late because it was so well-suited to moving freight over Pennsy’s Middle Division, Harrisburg to Altoona, and slightly uphill. —Among other Pennsy lines.
The M1 Mountain was supposed to replace the K4 Pacific (4-6-2), but it didn’t. This might have been because its driving-wheels were only 72-inch diameter, a compromise for moving freight.
The K4 had 80-inch drivers, great for boomin’-and-zoomin’.
The M1 was great for 40-50-60 mph westbound on the Middle Division, slightly uphill from Harrisburg to Altoona.
Tie a mixed-freight to her tail, and let ‘er cruise!
Pennsy wasn’t the last steam-railroad in the nation; that was Norfolk & Western.
But Pennsy hung on longer than most, mainly because it moved so much coal, the fuel for steam-locomotives.
But also because the M1 Mountain was so well-suited for its assignments; here taking freight toward Buffalo on the easy gradients of central PA.
In northwestern PA, toward Buffalo and Erie, the grades became stiffer. So Pennsy switched to something better-suited than the M1, like diesels, or earlier the I1 Decapod (2-10-0).



Huh? (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The April 2013 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a dramatic photograph of a German fighter-plane I’m not familiar with, the Focke-wolf 190A-9.
I wasn’t aware the Luftwaffe had a radial-engined fighter-plane.

Messerschmitt Bf 109

Thinking of German fighter-planes I think of the Messerschmitt Bf 109, which had a water-cooled V12 engine.
The engine was Daimler-Benz, and was inverted, upside-down compared to American and British V12 airplane engines.
As I understand it, the Messerschmitt V12 was also fuel-injected, which meant the engine always operated in extreme maneuvers. The American V12s were carbureted, and could starve for fuel. —Like if the carburetor drained empty during a high-G maneuver.
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site detail it:
“The Fw 190 is widely regarded as Germany’s best fighter aircraft of WWII. Its appearance in the skies over France in early 1941 was a rude shock to the Allies, as it was clearly superior to any other plane. For nearly a year, until the debut of the Spitfire IX, the Fw 190 was the unmatched champion of the air war.
First flown on June 1st, 1939, the Fw 190 served for the duration of the war. Allied bombers dreaded the sight of these potent aircraft, as did the fighters who provided cover for them. Arguably, the Fw 190’s greatest impact on the Allied war effort was to spur ever-greater advances in technology and aircraft design to counter its threat.”
So it sounds like the Focke-wolf 190A-9 was a smashing success.
Despite my never hearing of it.
But it ain’t pretty, not like the Messerschmitt, which was fairly pretty, but not as pretty as a Mustang or Spitfire.
And the calendar airplane may be a reproduction. Only one remains airworthy, although others are under restoration.
A small number of reproductions, impostors, have been made.


Here it comes! (Photo by Fred Kern.)

—Bam, bam, bam, bam!
Another Pennsy M1 Mountain (4-8-2).
The April 2013 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is an M1 Mountain (4-8-2) getting rolling westbound out of Pennsy’s Enola Yard near Harrisburg.
Surely the train is headed west on Pennsy’s storied Middle Division for Altoona. The picture is March 10th, 1957.
M1s lasted so long because they were so well suited for this duty. Cruising at 40-50-60 mph on the slight uphill grade of the Middle Division.
Another Fred Kern photograph. Others have been in this calendar. They’re not as extraordinary as Don Wood, but they’re color. Don Wood’s are black-and-white. —This looks like it might even be a 35mm color-slide.
The original calendar image was blue-tinted, I had to hit it fairly hard with Photoshop’s® color-adjustment.
It still is bluish in a plume of steam beside the tender.
But I had to not push too hard. Otherwise it looked strange.
Slide-colors did this over time. The red dye would fade or bleach out, and you ended up with bluish tint.
Last month’s calendar-image of a Pennsy K4 Pacific (4-6-2) was blue-tinted too, slightly. It looked good enough I forgot to do it.
I notice another fan to the left. The car looks like a ’56 Buick.
1957, and Pennsy is still using steam.
No doubt Kern was upset that fan was also in his picture, along with the car.
Yet here it comes! Pounding and thrashing. Steam looking triumphant.
I remember how much we hated diesels back then; “growlers” we called ‘em. They lacked the drama and majesty of steam.
Yet look at that towering column of smoke! NO WAY could that ever get past the pollution nannies.
That smoke will dissipate.

765.

Yet you better not hang your laundry lineside.
It would get showered with soot.
I remember as a child mothers called authorities if a steam-locomotive disgorged soot all over their laundry hung outside to dry.
I have recent video of restored Nickel-Plate excursion steam-locomotive #765.
A sooty black pillar of smoke is erupting out its stack. I’m sure the pollution nannies had to look the other way.
I rode behind 765. I had to wear swim-goggles to keep the cinders from my eyes.



Over-slammed!

—I wouldn’t touch this thing with a 10-foot pole!
The April 2013 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a radically lowered 1932 Ford pickup.
In my humble opinion the hot-rodders went too far.
The top was chopped seven inches, the body was sectioned six inches, and then channeled another six inches.
How does anyone sit in such a thing and drive it?
The top-chop doesn’t look too bad. Seven inches is pretty extreme, but the top still looks fairly normal, or should I say “normal” compared to the other extremes?
Seven inches of metal was cut out of the side verticals so the top-roof could be lowered.
(I remember seeing a ‘70s Chevy pickup at a car-show; its top had been chopped about eight inches. The windows were gun-slits. How did anyone sit in such a thing, no less drive it?)
Then the body-sides were “sectioned:” six inches of metal cut out of the body-sides so the measurement top-to-bottom is six inches less. Which radically reduces the room for a driver, unless he’s a midget.
Then the body was “channeled” another six inches so it could sit lower on the frame-rails.
The car (truck) still has a frame. Channels are fabricated into the body-bottom so the whole kibosh could sit lower on the frame-rails.
The end result is the seats are down between the frame-rails.
They’d have to be to allow clearance for an adult human-being.
Even then I bet a driver, once folded into this abomination, would hit his head on the roof.
Only a midget or a small child could operate this thing.
And beyond that, how does one even drive it? Them running-boards would bottom mounting a driveway.
It sits so low, even the headlight-nacelles go above the radiator-shell. —Which looks silly!
I’m sorry, but my sense of practicality overpower the coolness.
When I was in high-school I saw a radically customized 1949 Mercury, chopped, sectioned and channelled. It looked great, very well done, a master body-work.
But the driver had to sit on the floor in the back-seat area. The Mercury also bottomed leaving the fast-food joint.

Not a credit-card

I received an interesting piece of mail yesterday (Monday, March 25th, 2013), a gigantic white poster-board envelope about 11 by 14.
It was marked “Global Express Mail.”
“HUH?” I’d never heard of such a thing.
It looked like a U.S. Postal-Service thingy, except it wasn’t. As if it was meant to look that way.
“Look inside for your registered pre-loaded Platinum Preferred card” was printed in gigantic bold lettering on the outside.
Is this some credit-card solicitation? It looked like an ad from a local car-dealer. Credit-card solicitations are usually small.
Well, yrs trly opens everything, lest I shred something important.
About 95% of my mail gets shredded. But I’m not about to shred a jury-summons or a bill.
I opened the folder. “Time sensitive,” it blared. “Do not ship cash or liquids in this packaging.”
Another lurid blast from Vision Kia of nearby Canandaigua entreating me to buy a car.
Yes, there was indeed a card inside. It looked like a credit-card, but wasn’t a credit-card. (See above; the dots are glue.)
It had a sweepstakes number printed on it.
“Take this card to Vision Kia to see if you won a car!”
“Shredder for you, baby!” I shouted.
Is this their new angle?
No longer a fake key taped to the ad, that I should take to Vision Kia to see if I won a car.
Get the sucker to open the envelope. Dangle a fake credit-card in front of ‘em.
The other day my neighbor showed me a supposed check he received for two-million-plus dollars. All he had to do was send 20 dollars.
“In my shredder!” I shouted.
“How can people do that?” my neighbor asked. “I thought that was illegal.”
At least he’s leery. He’s like his deceased father, who used to be my neighbor before he died. —Now his son is my neighbor.
His father wouldn’t let a Mason leader into his house to give him an award.
“You ain’t givin’ me no award,” he shouted. “I don’t know you from the moon.”

Another rotten day

“And so begins another rotten day.”
I say that every morning as I roll out of bed, usually at 6:04 a.m.
If that sounds early, I’ve been awake since 5-5:30 with my clock-radio on a nationwide classical music-feed from Minnesota.
The clock-radio does a dip at 5:40, what its alarm was set for.
Then at 6 a.m. radio-station WXXI, the public-radio classical music station out of Rochester (NY) I listen to, begins local programing by transmitting bird-song.
The birdsong lasts until 6:01, when WXXI transmits National-Public-Radio’s short new update.
That ends at 6:04, usually with a short report of national stock-futures, and stock-performance abroad.
“I wish there were some way we could make you feel better,” say various friends.
But they can’t.
“So begins another sad, sad day without my wife,” I say to myself through tears.
My beloved wife of over 44 years died almost a year ago. She had cancer.
My dog has accepted that, but not this kid.
I know in my head, but I can’t crunch it yet. I guess I just don’t wanna.
I attend a grief-share.
The other day I met its facilitator at the grocery.
She was thrilled! “How are you doing?” she bubbled.
“Well, okay I guess,” I answered; “but I feel like I just exist.”
Ever the stick-in-the-mud. I put a damper on everything.
Recently the guy who daycares my dog while I work out at the YMCA asked how I was. He asks just about every time I drop off my dog. —He’s concerned for my wellbeing.
“Well, I haven’t burned down the house yet, and I’m still on my feet,” I said.
“And you’re still fully clothed and fed,” he added.
“In other words, you’re fine.”
“I am not,” I said. “I cry all the time, and I’m always sad.”
Almost a year has passed, and I’m still affected.
Perhaps not as devastated and numb as at first, but enough to limit my doing anything.
I still have a house full of stuff that needs to be dispersed. And it took 10 months to downsize from the two cars we drove to only one.

What hath BlogSpot wrought?

This here blog-site has made another one if its unannounced changes I discover when something didn’t post as intended.
This site can crunch HTML, which I do very basically, to underline, italicize, and embolden.
Not too long ago they instituted a new user-interface, unannounced of course. I found it didn’t do the usual paragraph-drops with the paragraph-key.
But if I did it HTML, it crunched the <br>-tag, equivalent to a one-line paragraph-drop.
Solved that problem! That was what I wanted. You see paragraph-drops in my final posting just like before.
But I had to do them myself. BlogSpot wasn’t doing it. To me that ain’t “user-friendly.”
Recently I noticed it no longer crunched the <p>-tag. The <p>-tag is what HTML calls the paragraph-tag.
Except it delivers a two-line paragraph-drop, which I don’t want because it uses too much space.
Sometimes I use a two-line drop, so I was finding/replacing <br><br> to <p>.
I no longer use the <p>-tag.
Solved yet another!
Quite often I ran pictures that weren’t column-width.
For column-width pictures I wrote my own HTML picture-tag, so Granny’s Internet-Explorer didn’t go haywire.
If I used a regular HTML picture-tag for a column-width picture, IE goofed it up. At least the IE version at that time; I don’t know about now.
For pictures less-than-column-width I used an HTML picture-table tag.
It gave me a wrap. The picture might fill part of the column, and text filled the remaining part.
I usually run my less-than-column-width pictures flush-left, although I can run them flush-right.
My picture-table tag had three table-rows. One was the picture itself, the second was the byline, and third was the caption.
After that the picture-table ended (</table>).
Now I notice a new glitch.
The picture-table is no longer ending at the </table>. It’s ending after my byline table-row.
My caption was appearing atop my wrapped text.
What hath BlogSpot wrought? (Or in other words: “NOW WHAT?”)
Or How do I get around this?
Have I gotta dump all my less-than-column-width pictures, and/or do only column-width?
Or how about just go-with-the-flow, and do only one table-row below the picture, to be a caption and/or byline.
Quite often my less-than-column-width pictures are only screenshots lacking a byline. They can get by with only a caption, or nothing.
Occasionally I use a picture that needs a byline more than a caption.
In which case I flush-right a byline instead of a caption flush-left.
If my less-than-column-width picture needs both a byline and caption, I can stick it all in one table-row. If it’s too wide, it bumps to a second-or-third line.
What I fear most is the all-knowing authorities at BlogSpot reading this blog. They decide to “fix,” then lob some unannounced “fix” at me that screws things up even more, and I have to parry.
Or worse yet, what are they gonna throw at me next, unrelated to what I just said? Unannounced of course.
Pictures from only Picassa? Mine are from PhotoBucket via an http address.
As I understand it, BlogSpot and Picassa are Google, and Google is trying to take over the entire known universe.
(They wanna replace my local e-mail with GMail.)
In other words, I predict a fevered power-grab.
Wrastling-time.
At least PhotoBucket warned me it was gonna “improve” their user-interface.
“Improved” for some, perhaps, but not for this kid.

• “HTML” is Hyper-Text Markup Language, a background instruction system made invisible in text by surrounding carets (“<” and “>”). I use it only to embolden, underline and italicize text, although it can do other things. I do paragraph drops with it. My picture-inserts and links are also via HTML-tag.

Oh my aching Bach!

Yesterday (Wednesday, March 20th, 2013) was the first day of Spring.
More important to me is that today (Thursday, March 21st, 2013) is Johann Sebastian Bach’s birthday. He was born in 1685.
Bach is my favorite composer.
I’ve come to like romantic composers, particularly Ravel. But Bach is a slam-dunk.
I was fortunate to attend a college whose Music-Department worshipped Bach, Houghton College (“HO-tin;” not “how” or “who”) south of Rochester (NY).
What a pleasant surprise that was. Although I’d say my love of Bach was fanned by that college.
I would have appreciated Bach, but Houghton was playing him all the time.
They loved Bach so much they held a Bach-festival every four years, the idea being to expose every student to a Bach-festival.
Mine was my Senior year.
Since I was fairly good at drawing, festival organizers enlisted me to do a Bach poster.
So I did. I redrew the typical Bach rendering, depicted above, with Bach winking.
The entire college was appalled. I had sacrileged Bach.
I’m sure their reaction was partly prompted by their perception I was an Of-the-Devil ne’er-do-well.
I’m sure if one of their favored ones had drawn Bach winking, they would have been more understanding.
A friend who graduated Houghton much later than me wondered about this.
“So Bach sits at the right-hand of God?” he asked.
I was surprised by the college’s reaction.
I certainly wasn’t making fun of Bach.
Thankfully the Bach-festival went on despite my poster, which was incinerated.
I used to play Bach on the college pianos.
My piano ability vanished with my stroke.
But back then I played “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring segued into “Louie-Louie.”
I think Bach would have liked it.

• “Houghton College,” is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college. (My wife, since deceased, also graduated there, same class as me.)
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.

Social-gathering of the ”Transients”

Retired road-supervisor Gary Coleman (“COAL-min”) walks down toward Maple-Tree.

The other day (Tuesday, March 19th, 2013) was the annual all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast at Cartwright’s Maple-Tree Inn in faraway Allegany County south of Rochester, N.Y.
And that’s “gany,” not “gheny,” as it’s usually spelled.
My friend who daycares my dog calls us “the Transients,” retirees of Regional Transit Service in Rochester, N.Y.
Regional Transit (RTS), a public employer, is the supplier of transit bus-service for the Rochester-area. For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for RTS. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability.
It was an okay job, except I was tiring of it. It paid fairly well, but the thought of another 14 years was depressing.
Transit was difficult. Not only was the clientele dangerous, but my employer seemed rife with mismanagement.
We hourly Transit employees, bus-drivers and mechanics, were unionized (Gasp), always at loggerheads with Transit management.
Both parties seemed involved. Management could be jerks, but so too could our union.
The acrimony was deep and never-ending.
Union employees seemed to be always trying to pull a fast-one, plus management was always obtuse. —Like their whole idea seemed just to collect another bloated paycheck.
The relationship was always adversarial, as if bus-passengers were lucky to get any service at all.
Having used bus-transit once myself, I was always looking out for my passengers. That is, nothing was gonna get in the way of transporting them from Point-A to Point-B, neither union or management.
But this had to balance against the reality of bus-service; that just because a bus appeared it wasn’t gonna magically take you home. Try to tell some angry vagrant you had others waiting along the route you were supposed to follow.
I have thousands of bus-stories I could relate, and many of them include bus-passengers demanding the moon.
We Transients are “ad hoc,” not an official organization.
We include both union and management employees, both retired bus-drivers and retired operating managers.
Our group seems to be getting smaller. One has died, but we had nine this time, four more than last time, I think.
But two of those nine weren’t Transit retirees. (They were relatives, which is fine. It’s a social gathering, not official.)
This was my fourth or fifth pancake-breakfast, my first since my wife died.
The first I attended had 20 or more, and my second had about that.
At least one has since died, and those attending were from all over Western New York.
Of the seven retirees, only a few are from Rochester. Many of us live in the rural outback. I live in West Bloomfield, about 20 miles south of Rochester, and two others live about 25-30 miles east of Rochester.
Dave Brown, a retired manager, lives in Webster, about 10-15 miles east of Rochester. For him, Maple-Tree was about 80 miles south. For me it’s 50 miles. For those in Rochester it’s 70-75 miles.
Maple-Tree Inn is hardly a franchise restaurant. It’s not a steakhouse or pasta emporium, or a fast-food joint.
In fact, it looks like it was built by the owners. Fittings are kind of spartan.
Maple-Tree is only open during the maple-sugaring season.
It sits amidst a giant sugar-bush. Most of the trees are tapped with plumbing for sap running to a central collection-tank.
I remember a few years ago watching a large four-wheel-drive tanker-truck driving out of the bush.
The sap collected gets boiled down into 100% pure maple-syrup.
That’s Maple-Tree’s selling-point. All-you-can-eat buckwheat pancakes served with fresh 100% pure maple-syrup.
The Transients pig out. I ate six, a record for me. I’ve seen others eat 14.
Maple-Tree is world-famous, despite its being out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere.
People from Europe have patronized. Luxury tour-buses of creaky oldsters are in the parking lot. Inside you have to dodge wheelchairs and walkers.
Maple-Tree is just south of Short-Tract. Does Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, know where Short-Tract is?
Short-Tract is hardly anything. Many of what few houses remain are abandoned and falling apart. Blink and you’ll miss it!
Maple-Tree and Short-Tract are up on the east side of the vast Genesee Valley.
The Genesee Valley was the first breadbasket of the nation. Wheat would get grown therein, then shipped up to Rochester — there was a canal — for milling and/or transshipment east on the Erie Canal.
After Maple-Tree I had to go down into the small rural village of Fillmore, down the hill from Short-Tract, to buy gasoline.
Fillmore is next to the Genesee river.
Fillmore is the next village north of Houghton (“HO-tin;” not “how” or “who”) home of Houghton College, where my wife and I attended college in the middle ‘60s.
I used to hitchhike up to Fillmore.
I left Fillmore north on State Route 19A, the road to Portageville and Letchworth Park. We hung out at Letchworth often as Houghton students.
Traveling north I passed the road to Wiscoy Creek; it’s signed.
It started me crying.
My wife-to-be (at that time) was the one that introduced me to Wiscoy Creek; I never knew it existed.
At that time the creek was dammed, probably an old electric power dam. An eight-foot wooden aqueduct-tube ran all the way from the dam down alongside the creek.
The creekbed was wooded, and the pipe leaked. Towering geysers of water sprayed out of the tube.
What a place that was; and my wife-to-be can take credit for pointing me to it.
We’d walk atop the leaking pipe all the way up to the dam, which was maybe 20 feet high.
I tried to find Wiscoy Creek again not too long ago, with my wife along — she was alive then — but no sign of it. No dam, no pipe, nothing. I don’t even know if I took the right road in.

• A “road-supervisor” was an official of the company that rode around in a supervisor-car, supervised bus-drivers, and settled arguments with bus-passengers. They also attended bus accidents.
• The “Genesee Valley” (“jen-uh-SEE”) contains the Genesee River, a fairly large river that runs south-to-north across Western New York, runs through Rochester, including over falls, and empties into Lake Ontario. The valley is fertile and broad.
• “Houghton College,” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college. (My wife also graduated there, same class as me.)

90 degrees or 60 degrees?

Is there a motivator under all this stuff? (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I finally did my duty last night (Thursday, March 14th, 2013).
I opened the hood of my new (newer) car, and Googled Wiki Duratec.
My Ford Escape has the V6 Duratec FFV engine, three liters displacement.
My wife, who died almost a year ago, said she knew I’d had a stroke because I was no longer charging into every internal-combustion engine.
Before my stroke I was, but after I was no longer interested.
So the entire time I considered my newer car I never popped the hood.
This is extraordinary!
I knew it was a V6. The information said it was, plus I also drove an inline-4 Escape, and it ran rougher.
So what do we have here?
I finally popped the hood last week after I’d already bought the car, and it was in my garage.
Lots of plastic ducting and wires. I couldn’t make sense of that I saw.
I couldn’t even tell if the engine was transverse (between the front wheels, 90 degrees from the length of the car), or parallel to the length of the car — the way older cars have been for years; for example the Model-T Ford.
After poking around I discerned the engine-block. It was transversely mounted.
Now, is it a 90-degree V6, or 60 degrees? That is, the degree separation between the cylinder-banks of the V.
A 60-degree V6 is inherently balanced, a 90-degree V6 isn’t.
A 90-degree V6 is like a 90-degree V8 with two cylinders lopped off. A 90-degree V8 is inherently balanced.
Chevrolet did that. Lopping two cylinders off their SmallBlock V8 gave them a V6.
But their engine needed a balance-shaft; otherwise it ran rough.
Buick had a 90-degree V6 too, and they offset the cylinder crank-throws to make it run smoother.
Ford’s V6 began with a 60-degree V6 designed in Great Britain — imported but inherently balanced.
My Duratec engine is years later, but it looks like 60 degrees.
I was hoping my Wiki Duratec article would tell me, but it didn’t.
Seeing my engine-block under all that plastic ducting is almost impossible, but it looks like 60 degrees.

• “Wiki” is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• The Chevrolet “SmallBlock” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first to 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the SmallBlock. It was made in various larger displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. The “Big-Block” could be immensely powerful, and the “SmallBlock” was revolutionary in its time.

Blindsides

I received two notifications from my auto-insurance yesterday (Thursday, March 14th, 2013)
—1) was a bill for my motorcycle insurance due April 3rd.
—2) was policy-declarations for changes to my auto-insurance policy since I traded-down to only one car.
Another Blindside!
The declarations said I was unmarried.
That’s technically correct, but I can’t crunch that yet.
My wife died almost a year ago, yet I still feel married.
Another widowed friend was telling me how she was filling in her 1040 income-tax form, and didn’t know how to fill in her marriage-status.
She called IRS.
“Single,” they told her, as if to comment “don’t be stupid!”
She was married 20 years, me 44.
You don’t just all-of-a-sudden become unmarried.
Well yes you do, technically. But you don’t just immediately feel you’re single.
In the process of trading down to one car, I had to access our safe-deposit box to get the titles for my old cars.
“Please sign the signature-card,” the bank-clerk said.
BLINDSIDE ALERT!
There on the card was my wife’s signature. She was last to access our box.
I managed to sign the card without crying, but I was holding back tears.
Almost a year has passed since my wife’s death, but I can’t just reverse 44 years of marriage to a really good one.

Pancakes at Pammy’s

Yesterday (Monday, March 11th, 2013) -A) to rectify the fact the people who daycare my dog while I work out at the nearby Canandaigua YMCA, had not been able to pig out on pancakes at the world-famous Cartwright’s pancake emporium south of Rochester (N.Y.), due to its being closed Mondays, the only day my friends could go, and -B) in an attempt to offset the horrible fate I’ve been dealt — my wife died a while ago, so I’m told I need people — we decided to eat pancakes at the home of Pam Hoyle (“Hoil;” as in “oil”).
Pam, like me, lost her beloved spouse, but over a year ago. I am coming up on a year.
Like me, Pam used to work at the Messenger newspaper in Canandaigua. She was in Advertising, I was News.
Pam and her husband lived in the outback, extremely rural. They lived in the Town of Middlesex, but on a private road.
Their home was on a hillside overcooking distant Canandaigua Lake, but the south end, which isn’t busy.
There’s even a pond on her property.
Pam and I share a commonality, having both lost our spouses. We look out for each other.
Very depressing for me was seeing all the pictures of her deceased husband, Fred.
Fred, like my wife, also died of cancer, but his was melanoma. My wife was non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Both Pam and I lost really good ones. It ain’t easy!
I’d never been to Pam’s house before, but what struck me is how little the content seemed to have changed.
It seemed like the place included Fred, but of course Fred is no longer there.
It made me feel better about my house, which still seems to very much reflect my wife, although my wife is gone.
Just getting to Pam’s took almost an hour.
First to Canandaigua, then south along the lake.
The road I was on diverges from the lake, but then I turned west on a road down toward the lake to get to Pammy’s private road.
Actually her road is semi-private. It isn’t government maintained.
It’s a single-lane dirt-track, covered with slime, maintained by the various home-owners along it.
Pammy is not the only house along the road.
My first foray was to another house, and it wasn’t Pammy.
Then I recognized her car.
I’d found her house, so I called her on my cellphone, expecting no service (it’s very rural).
But she answered, then came outside.
I’d taken along the decaf I’d made at home that morning, primarily so it wouldn’t get tossed.
But her cat knocked over my mug, spilling my coffee all over.
We mopped it up. Pammy had also made decaf.
In not too long my friends who daycare my dog appeared.
They found it too. It’s like you almost needed a GPS, find it by satellite. But I doubt her private road would be in their system.
One would be homing on a pin, or winging it (as I did), if you hadn’t been there to drop a pin yet.
Pammy’s pancakes weren’t the all-you-can-eat buckwheat pancakes of world-famous Cartwright’s, but were fine, and her syrup was 100% pure maple-syrup. the Cartwright’s specialty.
And avoiding Cartwright’s we avoid all the drooling geezers with walkers. “Watch it, sonny!”
Most of our table-talk was about our former employer, how it’s no longer the great place it was.
The people who daycare my dog are also ex-Messenger employes. Pam was laid off.
So was pancakes at Pammy’s worth it?
Yes, but as always it was just a distraction.
I’m always aware of that.
Pleasant as it was, it’s just a distraction from the horrible fate that has befallen me.
I return to an empty house, and Pam’s house returns to just her alone.
And her private road is rutted and mud-slimed.
Not bad, but I’m tempted to patronize a car-wash.

• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two-three hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.)
• The “Messenger newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost seven years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]).
• “Canandaigua Lake” is one of the Finger Lakes, a series of north-south lakes in Central New York that look like the imprint of a large hand. They were formed by the receding glacier.

Spring forward

I changed nearly all my clocks last night (Saturday, March 9th, 2013) in preparation for Daylight Saving Time.
I did this so -a) my clock-radio wouldn’t fire up an hour late, -b) my DVR would record the news instead of Access-tits-and-ass, whatever, and -c) my furnace wicked up at the right time per my programmable thermostat.
I also reset the electronic clocks in my stove and microwave.
The only clocks I didn’t reset were -a) in my car, which I still need to figure out yet, and is Daylight-Savings anyway, and -b) my bedside alarm-clock, which resets itself per the satellite.
My cellphone also resets per the satellite, and this computer gets a time-signal from the National Institute of Standards.
I reset my digital wrist-watch and then my clocks per this computer time-signal.
I could get a time-signal for my DVR from my cable-TV company, but I haven’t done that yet.
My dog happened to go out about 1:55 a.m., and then came back in at 2:03. My bedside alarm had reset itself; it said 3:03.
I remember the insanity my wife had to go through every time Daylight-Savings kicked on, or went off.
We both had our own computers, hers a Windows PC, mine an Apple Macintosh.
Our choices were a reflection of employ. Hers used PC, mine used MACs.
The fact I use MAC was loudly pilloried by my all-knowing blowhard brother-in-Boston, the macho Harley-dude who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He drives PC at work.
The fact I use MAC indicates I’m rebellious and of-the-Devil.
He accused MACs of being Tinker-Toys, that I should get with the program, and switch to PC with the ancient Windows-XP operating system, I guess what his company uses.
Even my wife had Windows-Seven, which I think is two iterations beyond XP.
I hardly feel this here MAC is a Tinker-Toy. It’s too powerful and elegant.
And its OS-X operating-system hasn’t crashed yet, and I’ve been using it well over six years.
I also feel MAC is more user-friendly than a PC. A lot of that may be unfamiliarity. My wife was doing things pertinent to a PC. You had to understand arcana to drive it.
MAC can be frustrating at times, but usually I can figure it out.
Windows I’d be lost in — but I’m a MAC-person, I retired from a MAC world.
For whatever reason, every time the time changed for Daylight-Saving, my MAC would do it, and her PC wouldn’t.
We always surmised some obtuse bit of Windows arcana was failing us — something related to “use Daylight-Savings.”
Both our computers were connected to the National Institute of Standards time-signal, yet mine would automatically switch with the time-change, and hers wouldn’t.
My wife had to always manually make her PC-time agree with my MAC.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. At the time she was 68 (I’m now 69). I miss her dearly.

Make it all go away

Every night about 9 p.m. I start thinking about going to bed.
This isn’t how it was when my wife was alive, when bed by 11:30 was a struggle. Often it was midnight.
It isn’t that way now.
Come 9 p.m. I’m often out of things to do, or out of the energy to do things.
I’m told grief is exhausting.
Probably so.
Next to this computer is a mountain of papers to process, and checks to write.
A gigantic pile of boxes is in the other room that need to be cut up for cardboard recycling.
I have stuff in the refrigerator that needs to be processed before it spoils.
Everything gets put off until mañana. I seem to not have the energy to do things that might get me to bed later.
I also have a dog, and I try to make her life pleasant.
There’s enough sadness around here as it is; her master is a wreck.
I’ve given up watching an hour’s worth of news. Only a half-hour while I eat. I try to not avoid my dog; she gets enough of that as it is.
There are no longer two of us to entertain the dog, and I’m always busy.
I’ve had to semi-retire her toy-box. I no longer have time to play.
So come 9 o’clock I’ve had enough.
Turn the lights out, shut my brain off, make it all go away.
Lose consciousness and thereby forget my sadness.
When I wake up the next morning: “So begins another sad, sad day.”

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. At the time she was 68. I miss her dearly.
• My current dog is “Scarlett” (two “Ts,” as in Scarlett O’Hara), a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s seven, and is my sixth Irish-Setter, a high-energy dog. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. [Scarlett was from a failed backyard breeder.] By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't bad. She’s my fourth rescue.)

Winner of the insanity prize

(Note to Camerabanger: I poke around but I don’t see an address. rhughes3@rochester.rr.com and I’ll send a calendar.)

Are they kidding?

Venezuela’s claim our nation infected Hugo Chavez with cancer is the most insane assertion I’ve heard in years.
It qualifies for the “Marcy, it’s everywhere” award.
I admit I’m a so-called “bleeding-heart Liberal” who thinks Rush Limbaugh is a blowhard idiot (Gasp!), but I have an intimate knowledge of cancer.
My wife died from it.
Cancer is not the product of infection. You’re not “infected” with cancer. My wife and I lived in the same conditions for years, yet she got cancer, and I haven’t so far.
Cancer is not so much a disease, like flu or pneumonia. Errant growths are not stymied by the body’s immune-system, so develop into tumors that grow unchecked.
Challenging conditions like smoking or asbestos might prompt errant growths, although my wife had neither, and was a paragon of good health.
Yet she developed cancer. I’m probably not as healthy as she was, yet so far no cancer for me.
You don’t contract cancer by exposure. I’m pretty sure my wife and I were pretty close while she had cancer, yet I seem to be okay. (We slept in the same bed.)
So Venezuela’s assertion Chavez was infected by us is preposterous, even ridiculous.
Venezuela claims Chavez was in remission a few times.
So was my wife.
There are various strong chemos that do that, but her cancer always came back.
It killed Chavez too.

• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”

This is what I see

This is what I see. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I look out into my garage, and I see what’s depicted above.
A single car occupying a two-car garage with one slot empty.
No longer are two cars in there, the cars my wife and I drove.
A 2003 Honda CR-V SUV, and a 2005 All-Wheel-Drive Toyota Sienna minivan. (The CR-V was also All-Wheel-Drive.)
My wife died of cancer almost a year ago. Ever since I’ve thought two cars for only one person was silly.
I really liked the CR-V, but it was 10 years old, and not very dog-friendly.
There’s no dog-swallowing gap behind the front seats, but folded-up the rears block the rear-door entrance. A dog has to jump around the folded-up seats, and my dog has fallen.
Both the Honda and the Toyota were bought new, yet my newer car is a 2012 Ford Escape, “pre-owned.” (“Doncha mean ‘used?’”)
I couldn’t dicker on this car; it was like buying a new previous Escape — only 2,800 miles.
Supposedly it was bought new by a guy who soon died, then sold back to the dealer.
I don’t like the new Escape, and the previous Escape is the dog-friendliest SUV I’ve ever seen.
An SUV is great for chasing trains. SUVs have a lot of under-clearance, and are usually All-Wheel-Drive, both of which I need.
I attended my GriefShare last night, and a friend was there who lost her husband over a year ago.
“I understand completely,” she said. “It’s hard to see your mate’s car go.
My husband’s butt sat in that driver-seat,” she said. “That was his car. He specced it, he ordered it, and he bought it.”
“Excuse me if I start crying,” I said to the salesman as he went about delivering my car. (I didn’t.)
I looked at the CR-V one last time. How many times did I drive that thing to Altoona and Horseshoe Curve?
Once we drove it all the way back from a railfan excursion in West Virginia, all in one day, a trip I’d never attempt again.
I’m old, and it burned me out.
I looked at the van. How many times did I cart my wife to Strong Hospital in Rochester for cancer treatments? Her last drive alive to hospice was in that van. She was so weak we had to wheel her in in a wheelchair.
The moving finger having writ moves on.

• Horseshoe Curve (the “Mighty Curve”), west of Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”), PA, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. The railroad was looped around a valley to climb the mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. I am a railfan, and have been since age-two (I’m 69). The viewing-area is smack in the apex of the Curve; and trains are willy-nilly. Up-close-and personal. —I’ve been there hundreds of times, since it’s only about five hours away.

“I found the key!”

Monday morning, March 4th, 2013, I took my dog to nearby Boughton Park (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow”).
She loves it. Smells galore! Poop to eat. Doggie Heaven. We walk about four miles on leash — she’s run away. If she sees a critter, like a deer, she’s gone. I’ve been dragged off-path.
Since I’d slept in about a half-hour, and had to go to the bank afterwards, I thought I’d be getting home after the mail had been delivered.
So after I put my van away in the garage, I walked out my driveway to my mailbox.
I apparently tried to put my van-key in my pocket, but I missed.
My van-key is separate; too big to be on a keychain.
No mail yet, so I went back in my house and began various duties, feeding the dog and myself in preparation for a shower.
I keep the car-keys in a box on my dresser, since they’re radio keys, too big for a keychain.
I went to put my van-key in the box, but it wasn’t in my pocket.
Now what! What did I do with that key?
It was on my property somewhere, because I had used it park-to-bank-to-home, but no sign of it.
I retraced my steps and poked around my garage. I also checked jacket pockets where I might have put the key in error.
No key.
I have extra keys for my van, including the non-radio key that doesn’t open the glovebox.
So missing a key is not a tragedy. I could still drive my van.
I gave up. Sooner-or-later that key would turn up, probably long after I traded my van, which may be by week’s end; a newer car has already been agreed to.
I took my shower and poked around in my garage again afterward.
Gaffs like this are mightily depressing now that I’m alone — my wife died almost a year ago.
There’s no longer anyone to help look for a key, or hold my hand.
I no longer have a cheering-section.
I called my cleaning-lady, who was going to come that day, but couldn’t, to tell her I was out of the shower.
“If you see a key,” I told her “grab it!” I don’t know what I did with that key.”
“It’s probably right where you left it,” she laughed.
I told her gaffs like that get me mightily depressed, now that I lack a cheering-section.
“I’m your cheering-section!” she exclaimed.
After hanging up I went back out to get my mail.
There in my driveway, encrusted in ice, was the missing key.
I had to call my cleaning-lady a couple hours later to tell her I would be working out at the YMCA Tuesday, March 5th, the day she was now gonna come. So I probably wouldn’t be home; she’d have to let herself in. I trust her; she knows where my secret door-key is.
I mentioned I found the key
“Probably where you left it,” she said.
Well, not exactly,” I said. “It was in my driveway. Apparently it missed my pocket as I went to check my mailbox.
This isn’t the first time,” I told her.
“The same thing happened not long ago in the Boughton Park parking-lot. No key after walking my dog, but there it lay in the parking-lot, where it had been the whole time I walked my dog.”

• Boughton Park is a fairly-large town park in East Bloomfield where I walk my dog. I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester. (West Bloomfield is one of the three towns that own and administer the park.)
• My current dog is “Scarlett” (two “Ts,” as in Scarlett O’Hara), a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s seven, and is my sixth Irish-Setter, a high-energy dog. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. [Scarlett was from a failed backyard breeder.] By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't bad. She’s my fourth rescue.)

From the vaunted “Marcy, it’s everywhere” file

First I should explain “Marcy, it’s everywhere.”
“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”
So begins detailing the insanity I experienced yesterday (Tuesday, March 5th, 2013).
I had gone to the Mighty Tops supermarket in Canandaigua after working-out at the YMCA.
I walked across the parking-lot toward the row of shopping-carts they store outside.
I got a shopping-cart, and started toward the store-entrance.
All-of-a-sudden Granny was charging me yelling “I’ll take it! I’ll take it!”
“So what did you do?” asked my friend who daycares my dog while I work out.
“I should have given it to her,” I said; “explaining I had just grabbed it for her.
But instead I told her I grabbed it for myself.”
Granny was incensed, of course, that I would be so rude, thoughtless and inconsiderate.

• “Tops” is a large supermarket-chain based in Buffalo I occasionally buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two-three hours per visit.

One more nail in the coffin

And so concludes another chapter in the sad passing of my beloved wife.


This is the actual car.

I feel depressed about it.
Like it’s one more step in accepting the horrible fate that’s befallen me, the death of my wife of over 44 years last April.
I’ve committed to purchasing the “pre-owned” 2012 Ford Escape pictured above.
“Doncha mean ‘used?’” I always ask.
At least it wasn’t “pre-enjoyed.”
I still have the two cars we had before my wife died, a 2003 Honda CR-V, and an All-Wheel-Drive 2005 Toyota Sienna minivan. (The CR-V is also All-Wheel-Drive.)
But two cars for only one person seemed silly. I could have sold the Sienna and kept the CR-V, which I’m very happy with; but it’s 10 years old, and not very dog-friendly.
There’s no dog-swallowing gap behind the front seats, and I have a flat floor with plenty of headroom.
But folded up the rear seats block the rear-door entrance. A dog has to jump around the folded seats, and my dog has fallen.
I didn’t feel attached to these cars; the delay was logistics.
Getting trade-in values for my cars, and finding cars to look at.
But now that the deal is consummated, I feel depressed.
And of course my wife will never see what I purchased, a fact that got me crying as I drove home the other night (Thursday, February 28th, 2013) after consummating the deal.
A number of factors were at play:
—1) The car had to have All-Wheel-Drive. This staves off blowing out my driveway. With All-Wheel-Drive I can usually negotiate snow up to eight inches deep.
I’ve only had to use my snowblower twice this Winter, and one of those times was a little less than eight inches.
We’ve only had two substantial snowfalls so far. The first I blew out was about 14 inches, the second time about six or seven — more was predicted.
All-Wheel-Drive also makes it possible to chase trains in difficult weather-conditions.
Two Winters ago I drove up an ice-encrusted farm-track as if the ice didn’t exist.
Two months ago my brother from northern Delaware was driving me around in his BMW sedan to chase trains.
We started up a similar ice-encrusted track, and had to turn around — a track my CR-V would have conquered.
—2) I need an SUV to chase trains, namely the under-clearance that seems to come with an SUV.
Years ago we chased trains in my friend Phil Faudi’s (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”) Buick. But farm-tracks were worrisome. We had to make sure his car didn’t bottom.
With my CR-V I don’t have to worry about that.
It has about a foot of under-clearance. With Faudi’s car it’s about eight inches.
We were driving in Altoona toward a dip that would bottom a car. Faudi became alarmed, but in my CR-V I just drove over it without drama.
—3) I’d like a car to be small and at least semi-sophisticated.
My all-knowing blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho Harley-dude who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, loudly insists I buy a full-size Chevrolet pickup; every 400 miles, 30 gallons.
Such a vehicle would also be as big as an aircraft-carrier, and would require two moves to park at the grocery. (My E250 was like that; we called it the “Queen Mary,” because it was like docking a ship.)
I get to drag around perhaps 2,000 pounds I rarely use. —How often do I need a pickup bed?
And groceries get stored outside, unless I got a pickup with an extended cab. —That’s more weight to drag around.
Desiring “semi-sophisticated” rules out various Jeep products.
And there are similar vehicles that are non-Jeep.
The Jeep Liberty looks interesting, but it’s solid rear-axle. The Liberty is also no longer made. They stopped making it a few years ago.
The Geo Tracker is also interesting, but like Jeep it’s solid rear-axle. —I think the Tracker is no longer made either.
A solid rear-axle is antediluvian. The Ford Escape is independent rear-suspension.
—4) Most important is dog-friendliness.
Which is why I preferred the previous Escape over the new Escape.
The bottom seat-cushions fold forward filling the dog-swallowing gap, and the rear seatbacks fold down leaving a flat floor with plenty of headroom.
Would that my CR-V was like that. If it was, I’d hang onto it.
And so it goes. I’m committed to trading my two vehicles for the used Escape. Both my vehicles were purchased new. I considered a new Honda CR-V, and the new Mazda CX-5 SUV.
But both are not as dog-friendly as the previous Ford Escape. The new Ford Escape I don’t like, and it really isn’t better than the new CR-V.
Not too long ago my local postmaster, my wife’s boss when she worked for the post-office, let me look at the Escape she had just purchased. It was the previous Ford Escape.
I was blown away!
“Why can’t they all be like that?” I cried.
It was the most dog-friendly SUV I’d ever seen.
Here I am buying used, when my previous cars were new.
But the previous Escape is preferable to the new SUV offerings.
So now I have to not start crying when I look out into the garage and see only one car, the Escape.
Instead of the two cars my wife previously drove.

• A “dog-swallowing gap” is a gap behind the front seats a dog can fall into. It’s usually a foot or more wide, although less is just as dangerous.
• “All-Wheel-Drive” is always on. “Four-Wheel-Drive” has to be activated.
• RE: “Chasing trains......” —I’m a railfan and have been since age-two (I’m 69). —The idea is to beat a train to a location where it can be photographed.
• “Altoona” in PA is where the old Pennsylvania Railroad began its climb over the Allegheny mountains. It’s where I chase trains. —Pennsy no longer exists; it’s now owned and operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad. The line is still very busy.
• “Solid rear-axle” design has been around since before the Model-T Ford. The rear-wheels are connected by a solid axle with a heavy differential in the center to turn the drive-rotation 90 degrees, and provide differentiation in turns — the outside wheel turns faster than the inside wheel. Such an arrangement disturbs both sides in bumps, even if only one side hit the bump. The heavy differential also has momentum. “Independent rear-suspension” breaks the axle into two independently-suspended halves, usually with the differential mounted solidly to the car. With such an arrangement, only the bumped wheel is disturbed, and no longer can differential momentum affect handling. IRS (independent rear-suspension) usually handles rough pavement better than solid-axle, but solid rear-axle can be made to handle quite well, as in NASCAR. — I had a Vega with a solid rear-axle that was very well located and handled fine, except it was a bear in rough-pavement curves. The rear-axle would hang up due to differential momentum allowing the back-end to jump sideways.

Monthly Calendar-Report for March 2013

(Sometimes the picture in my own calendar is not good enough to be number-one.
It’s not bad, but the picture in my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is equally as good. It’s not dramatic, but I’ll make it number-one.)

Classic Deuce hotrod roadster.

—The March 2013 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a classic Deuce hotrod, a ’32 Ford roadster.

Photo by BobbaLew.

A ’32 Ford roadster ruined; modern wheels and tires, and a laid-back two-piece windshield. The taillight cutouts are also abnormal.

It doesn’t make any of the mistakes I’ve seen on Deuce hotrods. Like modern wheels and tires, or a laid-back two-piece windshield.
In fact, it’s true to early hot-rodding. It uses a bored-and-stroked ’48 Mercury Flat-head V8 motor, and a ’39 Ford trannie with Zephyr gears.
This is hot-rodding in the early ‘50s, before the SmallBlock Chevy and four-speed tranny.
What hot-rodders built in their backyard, a ’32 Ford with a souped-up Flatty, and a tranny with Zephyr gears, three speeds, not four or more.
The SmallBlock Chevy in a hotrod is attractive; I once saw a Corvette motor in a Shoebox-Ford.
But one must stay true to “the Look,” the classic ’32 Ford.
Exceed it, and you lose “the Look,” which always looked right.
It helps the car is a ’32 Ford, one of best-looking cars of all time.
Its look is primarily Edsel Ford, only son of Old Henry, Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company.
Old Henry was continually badmouthing Edsel, but Edsel wanted Fords to look good. (Old Henry thought styling was a waste.)
The proportions of a ’32 Ford always came off right. It’s a smallish car, but the proportions and trim are Lincoln.
And I still prefer the ’32 Ford radiator-shell over everything else.
(That includes the 1934 Ford grill, loved by hotrod-builder Chuck Foose.)
A friend, since deceased, built a Model-A roadster hotrod, but he used the ’32 Ford radiator-shell on it.
It was the right move on his part.
He preferred the ’32 Ford radiator-shell too.
The color of this car is debatable, but at least it lacks flames.
Another ’32 Ford hotrod is in this calendar, but it’s over-painted.
Perhaps a lighter color on this car, but everything about its appearance and fittings is right.

Train 25V westbound on Track Three into Lilly. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

—What we have here is my last successful photograph from the train-chase from Hell, train-chase number-nine, Thursday, June 7th, 2012.
June 7th was probably too soon after my wife died; April 17th.
And after this photograph, my Nikon D100 digital-camera, veteran of many train-chases, failed.
In fact, I think it was beginning to fail with this picture.
The image-sensor in the camera was failing, going dark.
I had to beat this picture extremely hard with Photoshop©, mainly lightening.
The recorded image was way too dark.
The picture is also not that striking, but okay. It kind of grows on me.
I still say my best calendar was my first; two years ago. It had many of my best pictures. My calendars have gone downhill since then — although this calendar isn’t bad. I’ve gotten a few good pictures since then, and they are in this calendar.
But this isn’t one of the good ones — to my mind. The westbound approach to Lilly on Three is always sorta plain. It’s shot from a highway overpass, but suffers from that long tangent.
I also need strong telephoto at this location, which this picture has. It’s the only way to accentuate that curve coming into the long tangent.
Fortunately this wasn’t the last picture I took that day.

The back of a D100.

But it was the last picture I took with the D100.
I borrowed the camera of my bed-and-breakfast proprietor, a Nikon D70.
He’s also a railfan like me.
Two of the pictures I took with his camera are in this calendar.
But then his camera started failing on me too, or so it seemed.
A Nikon D70 is very similar to a D100 (I almost wish I’d bought a D70 instead; it would have been good enough), but it’s not exactly the same.
Strange things were happening, and finally the camera wasn’t shooting.
It also started raining; heavy showers and darkness.
There was the possibility my borrowed camera wasn’t shooting because it wasn’t getting enough light.
Things go on in the background I don’t understand. Even my D100 did this. I have fairly good command of D100 operation, but I don’t understand everything.
Switch to a borrowed D70 and things become even more mysterious.
As I say, it was the train-chase from Hell, and we finally gave up in a shower. It was dark enough, despite the extended June daylight, to be down about 1/30th of a second. The camera was even wanting flash.
I also had become mightily depressed — numb. I was very much in the ozone — as I say, it was probably too early after my wife’s death.

A D7000 camera-body.

I’ve since upgraded to a new Nikon D7000 camera-body. It uses the same lenses as my D100.
My D100 was never repaired, I still have it.
I’d wanted to upgrade my camera-body for some time; now I had an excuse.
A D7000 is much like my D100, which I had already mastered fairly well.
And so far the D7000 hasn’t thrown any mysteries at me; which the D100 did occasionally. —Like cutting out during a train-chase, leaving me baffled and surprised when it worked again.
So far no cut-outs from the D7000, and I’ve done two more train-chases with it.
Yet when I look at this picture, I think “Look at how wide that right-of-way is?”
Pennsy was like that. This is the mainline, the main trunk from the nation’s interior to the east-coast megalopolis. It was originally four tracks, but now it’s three on The Hill. Just two elsewhere.
But it’s wide enough for five, maybe even six.
A few years ago I reconnoitered the old Baltimore & Ohio West End, torturous, and B&O’s first connection to the Ohio River. Pennsy wouldn’t allow Pittsburgh.
Clearances on the West End were narrow — about half of what’s here.

Coal-train at Lorain, OH, awaits crew. (Photo by Jermaine Ashby.)

—Another Jermaine Ashby photograph in the dark in the Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar.
It seems he had a photo in this calendar before, although I couldn’t find it.
It was also in the dark, but this one is better.
It’s 3 a.m., probably in June, because it looks like the sky is brightening at right.
Which is probably east.
That’s Lake Erie to the right of the train.
Locomotive number-9098 is a General-Electric Dash-9 40-CW, “40” equaling 4,000 horsepower, “C” equaling three-axle six-wheel trucks, and “W” equaling wide-cab (actually more a wide nose).
The Dash-9 40-CW is a special model for Norfolk Southern, a 4,000 horsepower version of the General-Electric Dash-9 44-CW. The engine is set up to only generate 4,000 horsepower instead of 4,400, supposedly to last longer and be less troublesome. (NS does have a few Dash-9 44-CWs.)
The Dash-9 40-CWs are used as road-locomotives, and are quite often seen. There are other NS road-locomotives, like from Electromotive-Division, the SD70-Ms. Electromotive now has two diesel-engines, the 265-H (four-stroke) and the 710-G (two-stroke; really just an expansion and modernization of EMD’s two-stroke diesel which has been around for eons [beginning at 567 cubic-inches per cylinder, now 710 cubic-inches per cylinder]).
EMD never gave up on its two-stroke diesels, since they more easily meet emission-regulations.
The 265-H generally goes for export.
General-Electric is now offering an Evolution-series of locomotives, essentially the Dash-9 40-CW with a different diesel-engine set up to meet emission-standards.
They’ve even developed a “hybrid” where dynamic-braking charges batteries. (But I don’t think railroads are buying; for now the batteries only add to generator output.)
Evo locomotives are available as both Direct-Current (DC) and Alternating-Current (AC) versions. Most generate 4,400 horsepower, but Norfolk Southern has them at 4,000 horsepower (ES40DC), just like their Dash-9 40-CWs. CSX also derated its ES44DCs to 4,000 horsepower.
Norfolk Southern moves a lot of coal. One doesn’t wait long to photograph a coal-train; and here one stands awaiting a crew.
One wonders if photographer Ashby could photograph at night if the train were moving.

Spitfire! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The March 2013 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Supermarine Spitfire, the elegant British hotrod meant to counter Hitler’s Luftwaffe.
But it’s not the hotrod the North-American P-51 Mustang was.
If I am correct, the Spitfire is a development of a seaplane racer.
It has the Rolls-Royce Merlin liquid-cooled V12 engine.
Packard (Motors; the automotive manufacturer) extracted even more horsepower out of the Merlin, but not that much.
Most P-51 Mustangs have the Packard-Merlin, 1,695 horsepower. The Rolls-Royce Merlin in a Spitfire is 1,655 horsepower (although my warbird site says 1,478 horsepower, which sounds more familiar).
And a friend of mine, a propeller airplane fan, tells me the Spitfire had a so-called “Malcolm Hood;” the somewhat bubble canopy above the cockpit. It raised the headroom for the pilot, and enhanced visibility.
I ran a photograph of a Mustang in my January Calendar-Report that had a Malcolm Hood, which I had never seen on a Mustang.

A Hawker Hurricane.

And good as it was, the Spitfire wasn’t what won the Battle of Britain. turning back Hitler’s Luftwaffe bombing attacks.
That would be the Hawker Hurricane, not exactly a hotrod, but enough to turn back the Luftwaffe.
But for countering Messerschmitts, the Spit was a better airplane. The Mustang was even better; plus the Mustang had range. I don’t know if the Spit did. The Mustang could fly all the way to Germany and back, accompanying the bombers.
Prior to the Mustang, the bombers were on their own, mere cannon-fodder for Hitler’s Messerschmitts.

1969 396-SS Camaro. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

—The March 2013 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 396 Camaro.
The ’69 Camaro is the love of Camaro-lovers.
It’s essentially the introductory Camaro of ’67-’68 with slightly revised bodywork.
The roof is the same, but everything else is slightly expanded.
A while ago, Car and Driver magazine featured an updated Camaro based on a ’69.
Everything mechanical was revised and updated; brakes, tires, suspension, motor, tranny.
But it was still a ’69 Camaro, which meant the windshield was steeper than it came to be later, and aerodynamics were rudimentary.
And a Camaro with a heavy cast-iron 396 cubic-inch Big-Block up front is ridiculous!
One can also see the fixture atop the hood to signify power, but it too looks ridiculous, ignorant stylists gone berserk!
I bet the car’s weight-balance is horrendous; that it’s front-heavy.
Such a car is only aimed at straight-line acceleration, and that’s only if you get the lightly-loaded drive-tires (the rears) to hook up.
Stuff your foot into a 396 Camaro, and your rear tires may go up in smoke.
Beyond that, a front-heavy car will plow in a curve. Try a corner in a 396 Camaro and you plow straight into the weeds.
You’d get skonked by a lowly two-liter BMW 2002.
That is, until the road straightens and you can blow by the BMW at full-wail.
I try to interleave my many train-calendars; that is, not have them one after another.
But I think this Camaro picture is much better than the Pennsy K4 that follows.
In fact, this Camaro picture is good enough to be number-one, but other factors are at play. It’s a better picture than the Deuce hotrod, but I wouldn’t touch a 396-Camaro with a 10-foot pole. In fact, I prefer the Mustang (car) over the Camaro — it looks better.
And that’s despite my being a Chevy-man, a slave to the SmallBlock.
Given a choice between a Deuce hotrod and a 396-Camaro, the Deuce wins hands down.
Which is why the Deuce is number-one, and the Camaro isn’t.

Pennsy K4 Pacific awaits commuter-rush duty at Bay Head Junction. (Photo by Robert P. Olmsted.)

—The March 2013 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is Pennsy K4 Pacific (4-6-2) #3751 awaiting the afternoon commuter-rush from New York City at Bay Head Junction on March 10, 1956.
Electrified trains from New York would take the Pennsy main to a junction where they’d dive off toward Bay Head on the old Jersey-Central line serving the north Jersey seashore, the New York & Long Branch.
That Jersey-Central line wasn’t electrified, so the electric locomotive had to be changed for a non-electrified.
Pennsy gained trackage-rights on the NY&LB, and got them after threatening to build a competing railroad which would have put Jersey-Central’s line out-of-business.
Pennsy had immense power, and could do that.
In the morning was the reverse. Non-electrified up to Bay Head, then change to electrified for delivery to New York City.
Frequently high-stepping Pennsy passenger-power served its final days on this railroad, K4 Pacifics and then diesels (the Sharks, the PAs, and then the Es).

Photo by Robert Long.

Where it all began (this is the exact spot; my father took me to this location).

There were other places old Pennsy passenger-power served, like PRSL (“Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines;” [“REDD-ing;” not “Reading”]), passenger trains to south Jersey seashore resorts. Like the passenger-train at left through Haddonfield, NJ, where my attraction to railfanning began (“HA-din-field;” as in “Ha”).
—And it was those Pennsy steam-engines that did it. Particularly that gorgeous red number-plate on the front smokebox door.
But a lot of Pennsy passenger-power in its final runs worked this railroad, the New York & Long Branch.
The line became essentially Pennsy, although you could find Jersey-Central trains and locomotives.
The line is now Jersey Transit, serving the New York commuter-trade. Traffic to the north Jersey seashore resorts is essentially gone.
Some of the line was even electrified; the engine-change, if there is one, is no longer where it was.
Commuter-traffic is also somewhat different. Commuter-traffic into and out of New York City can also use Port-Authority-Trans-Hudson (PATH), tunnels under the Hudson river that parallel the old Pennsy tunnels.
PATH was originally William McAdoo’s Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, essentially a subway financed by Pennsy. Its intent was to get some of the commuter-load off Pennsy (although PATH completed its tunnels before Pennsy).
PATH is now a rapid-transit that covers much of north Jersey, but the Hudson & Manhattan began at Newark, and ended in Manhattan.
Pennsy’s Hudson tunnels are north.
A lot of photographs got taken at Bay Head Junction, and out along the New York & Long Branch.

Photo by Don Wood©.

Photo by BobbaLew.

1361 on display at Horseshoe Curve, Memorial-Day, 1968.

Photo by BobbaLew.

The last remaining assembled K4, #3750 at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

The last of Pennsy steam passenger-power gravitated to this line. Although it was also used on PRSL, excursions to horse-racing tracks.
The last K4 I saw in revenue service was a race-track train in 1956. (The K4 was rusty, and I was 12.)
Railfan photographers flocked to the New York & Long Branch to photograph the last of Pennsy passenger steam.
One photographer stands out, Don Wood of Elizabeth, NJ. (Wood is dead.)
His many photographs, taken with a 4-by-5 press camera, were the basis of the first Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendars back about 1967, of which the 2013 version follows below.
I’ve posted Wood’s classic photograph of K4 #612, on the final run of steam on the NY&LB, a railfan special.
612 was not an ordinary K4. It was somewhat modified. It had a front-end throttle, and was the best K4 the NY&LB had.
Only two K4s remain. One is #1361, built at Juniata Shops north of Altoona (“June-eee-AHHH-tuh;” as in “at”) and now completely disassembled. It was disassembled for restoration to service, but may not be reassembled, at least not for service. 1361 was the K4 put at Horseshoe Curve many years ago, and ended up in very bad shape.
Even its smokestack wasn’t covered, so when the front smokebox-door was opened four feet of standing water (snow-melt) gushed out.
The other is 3750 at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania at Strasburg, PA. It’s assembled, but just sits — outside.

“Sharks.” (Photo by Don Ball©.)

—The March 2013 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a Don Ball Photograph.
Ball was motor-drive. He shot anything and everything in the ‘50s, but none of his photographs are really dramatic.
He reminds me of myself, although I don’t shoot everything.
I exercise composition occasionally, but it often doesn’t work.
I suppose I’m more successful than Ball, but I’m doing what he did: just shoot and see what I get!
The locomotives are “Sharks,” so-called because of their appearance. They were an attempt by Baldwin Locomotive Company to get into the diesel-locomotive biz.
Baldwin had done an earlier cab-unit diesel-locomotive design, the so-called “Baby-Face,” but it didn’t sell well.
So Raymond Loewy was brought in to restyle Baldwin’s diesels.
Hence the Shark, which takes some of its styling-cues from Loewy’s T-1 steam-engine for Pennsy.
Baldwin had been a long-time builder of steam railroad locomotives, including Pennsy, since it was based in the Philadelphia area.
Railfans always like the Shark. it was the best-looking of early cab-unit designs.
Unfortunately railroads can’t be railfans. They’re is business. If a locomotive breaks down, it plugs the railroad. You can’t just drive around the cripple as you could with a truck. Trains are all using the same pathway: the track. If a train cripples it has to be rescued and pulled out of the way.
Baldwin diesels were notoriously unreliable. Every Baldwin-led freight was a crap-shoot; the crew had to cross its fingers. If the Baldwins crippled, their train plugged the railroad, and had to be rescued.
Most reliable were the cab-units supplied by General Motors’ Electromotive Division (EMD).
Trouble was, when Pennsy finally dieselized, and they held out longer than most, they needed so many locomotives EMD couldn’t supply their demand. Pennsy had to purchase from many locomotive manufacturers, and Baldwin was probably the least reliable.
The Sharks, though pretty, didn’t last very long.
Ball has captured Sharks here, but the crew is probably holding their breath. They have to hope their Sharks don’t cripple, for which they get called on the carpet and loudly excoriated by management.

Photo by Dave Wingfield.

B&O Shark.

Pennsy’s Shark wasn’t the only one. Sharks were purchased by other railroads. I’ll picture a B&O (Baltimore & Ohio) Shark. Sharks also made it to New York Central.