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.