Hoops galore!

For the past couple weeks I’ve been trying to set up a “sustaining membership” to the classical-music radio-station in Rochester I listen to.
The station is WXXI-FM.
WXXI is a public-radio station. It’s mainly funded by its listeners.
What I’ve done in the past, since I listen to it constantly, is let them bill me for an annual membership.
With a sustaining membership I’ve pledged that annual amount broken into 12 monthly payments. WXXI can charge my account for the monthly amount.
But I don’t like that. I don’t trust it. I’d rather authorize the payments myself. That way, if anyone makes a mistake, it’s me.
I know someone whose automatic bill-pay went bonkers and overdrew her account.
So a torrent of e-mails were exchanged with WXXI regarding whether I could initiate the payments instead of them.
They said I could, so I put payments to WXXI into my smartphone calendar the end of each month.
So, finagle my bank to do a payment; it was August 29th.
First my bank wanted WXXI listed as a payee.
I started doing that.
“Business, individual, charity, or other?”
I clicked charity, unaware of the hairball it would initiate.
“For security purposes, what was the maiden-name of your maternal grandmother?”
I misread that, and entered the maiden-name of my paternal grandmother.
Boink! “Naughty-naughty! You failed. Please try again.”
“.......grandmother again......”
I entered the my paternal grandmother’s full name.
Again, boink! “Naughty-naughty!”
“What was the name of your first pet?”
I misread that, and entered the name of my current pet.
Boink! “You failed three security challenges, so we locked the account. Please call our Security Department to unlock the account.”
Great! So far I’ve wasted 20 minutes, and I don’t have all day. Now I gotta call my bank to unlock my account.
“Please hold during the silence. We value your call, so please hold and your call will be answered in the order it was received. BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM......”
They unlocked my account, so I started over.
But I clicked “Business” instead of “Charity.” “Business” doesn’t prompt the security-challenges.
So WXXI gets their monthly sustaining-membership payments as if they were bill-pays, like the phone-company or gas & electric.
The bank also wanted an address, phone-number, and account-number.
Was WXXI in the phone-book? No. Was the information on their website? No.
I ended up calling WXXI. All the information was same as on my membership-card, including my membership number, which serves as an account-number.
But I wouldn’t know that; 15 minutes chewed up.
Altogether just setting up this sustaining-membership with my bank took almost two hours.
It wasn’t WXXI’s fault, or even my bank. I blame the technical gurus who wanna pad their resumé. I get this all the time.
Internet procedures supposed to save time, that have me jumping through hoops galore.
I hope to do a blog about my recent adventures with Amazon.com.

Another sojourn to Altoona

Here you see why I bought this car; a 2012 Ford Escape SUV with All-Wheel-Drive and high ground-clearance. Yrs trly is walking back to his car during a train-chase. It’s parked on a jeep-track up to the tracks through the woods. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

I started crying as I turned off Tunnel Hill Road onto the Route 22 Expressway toward Altoona (PA) to return home.
I glanced one last time at the blue riveted water-tower that signals I’m almost to Tunnel Inn, the bed-and-breakfast I use in the area.
“Back to reality,” I said through tears, what I always said to my wife as we left the area.
Now that my wife is gone — she died over a year ago — “reality” is much sadder than it was with her.
Back to my big empty house with only my faithful dog.
I had gone to Altoona to chase trains, what I’ve done many times — I’m a railfan and have been since age-2; I’m 69.
Altoona was the base of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s assault on Allegheny Front; the main impediment to trade across PA in the early 1800s. Allegheny Front is part of the Appalachian mountains.
Altoona was also Pennsy’s shop-town. Locomotives were designed, tested and built there, as were railroad-cars and other equipment. —Those shops once employed thousands.
Unfortunately mighty Pennsy, once the largest railroad in the world, is gone.
In 1968, partly in response to various pressures, Pennsy merged with arch-rival New York Central to become Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in 1970, the largest corporate bankruptcy ever at that time.
Penn-Central, along with other bankrupt northeastern railroads, were folded into Conrail, a government enterprise that became profitable and privatized in 1986.
Pennsy’s fabulous New York City to Washington D.C. electrified line became Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. Amtrak is government sponsored.
Conrail was broken up and sold in 1999. Much of the New York Central lines went to CSX Transportation. many of the ex-Pennsy lines went to Norfolk Southern Railroad, a merger of Southern Railway and Norfolk & Western in 1982.
Conrail still exists as Conrail Shared Assets, terminal facilities that couldn’t be fairly divided between CSX and Norfolk Southern.
Pennsy’s original line across PA still exists, although now owned and operated by Norfolk Southern.
And Like Pennsy, the line still carries a lot of traffic.
Government regulation was also eased with the Staggers Act in 1980. Railroads once had immense power, but under regulation prompted by that, they could not effectively compete with alternate transit-modes, like trucking on government-built Interstate Highways.
(Truck-lines are not building and maintaining their pathway like the railroads.)
Altoona is no longer what it was under Pennsy. A huge locomotive shop still exists north of Altoona, but most everything else is gone.
Pennsy’s challenge of conquering Allegheny Front is still there. Norfolk Southern often has to add helper-locomotives to move trains over the mountain.
The number of trains and the challenge are why I’m attracted to this area.
Trains are always pulling or braking hard, and there are so many trains I don’t have to wait long.
People are always amazed. They think I’m waiting hours to see only one train. A while ago I saw 30 over nine hours.
My brother-from-Boston would accompany me.
He seems to have mellowed, perhaps because of my bereavement.
He used to noisily badmouth everything I said or did.
All because long ago I had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to question his driving, which at that time was crazy.
Other issues ensued, like my pointing out his recollection of how we got someplace was wrong.
My brother runs power-plants. He’s a manager. Questioning is not allowed.
My brother had ridden his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, so unlike the last time I would be driving my car.
I tend to be overly careful. and drive within my limits — I had a stroke almost 20 years ago.
As the “pokey-little-puppy” I can’t push like he would.
I had my railroad-radio scanner. With it I can tell fairly well if a train is coming. —And if we have time to move to another location or stay put.
I used to chase trains with an Altoona railfan very familiar with train-operations in the area.
He gave it up as a business after he had near-misses, and got a newer car. He had been chasing trains in his car. But he continued to lead me around, plus a few others, chasing trains.
But he had to give even that up. His wife has Multiple Sclerosis, and got worse.
So as far as I’m concerned, I’m on-my-own chasing trains. In past chases my friend gave me some excellent photo-locations, and I somewhat picked up his skill monitoring a scanner.
So here we were out chasing trains Thursday morning (August 22nd), my brother and I.
I get a call on my cellphone. It’s my Altoona-friend monitoring his scanner at home, to tell me where to be.
Train-engineers call out the signals as they pass: “Train 26T, east on One, 254.0, clear!” (That’s an indication he can proceed into the approaching track-block the signal is for.)
Track One is currently eastbound only, and when the engineer calls out the signal location I know where it is.
That is, Track One is eastbound, Three is westbound, and Two can be either way.
I’ve mastered the milepost locations (signal locations) to know well enough where a train is.
What track it’s on tells me which way the train is going, except if it’s on Track Two.
Another factor you monitor with your scanner is defect-detectors; they broadcast on the radio frequency.
Defect-detectors monitor a passing train for hot wheel-bearings, dragging equipment, etc., then broadcast the result.
“N-S detector milepost 258.9, Track One, no defects!” tells me an eastbound is coming if I’m east of 258.9.
A defect-detector can give you an idea which way a train is going if it’s on Track Two.
If an engineer calls out 254.0 on Two, and later the detector at 253.1 transmits, you can figure the train is probably headed east. (The engineer may also say “east” at a signal.)—Mileposts increase the farther they get from Philadelphia.
So here we were, my brother and I, on a highway overpass my Altoona-friend calls “High-Bridge.”


A stacker climbs the west slope. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


Eastbound solid auto-racks on Three pass a westbound stacker on Four, what my Altoona-friend calls “a double.” (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Underneath pass the tracks of the old Pennsylvania Railroad climbing eastward toward the summit of the Alleghenies.
My brother had never seen a five-track mainline. except one track is mainly storage for coal-trains awaiting locomotives to take them over the summit.
Left-to-right (or right-to-left in the bottom picture) the tracks are numbered Four, Three, Two, One, and Main-Eight.
Four is westbound only, Two and One are eastbound. and Three can be either way.
Clear of this area Track Four becomes Three, Track Three becomes Two, and the two tracks at right merge into One at the summit toward Altoona.
East of Altoona are only two mainline tracks, Two and One. In Altoona Two westbound becomes Three.
My brother and I debated the track-numbering.
He claimed Four was Three, and Three was Two.
“21T, UN, west on Track Three, clear,” my scanner would say.
“That’s Three, I tell ya,” my brother said, pointing to Four.
“The engineer said UN,” I said. “Before UN he’s on Track Three, but after UN three becomes Four.
That’s Four below us, and if you don’t like it, I’ll sic Rush Limbaugh on ya!” I said.
“21T, MO, west on Track Four clear!” said my scanner.
UN and MO are signal-locations, locations of old towers with “UN” and “MO” telegraph call-letters.
“Did you hear that?” I said. “Between UN and MO Three becomes Four.
We took a few pictures, but it was cloudy.
There were other locations to hit.
By now my Altoona-friend was calling frequently to lead us around.


A mixed-freight approaches Slope Interlocking. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


Alto Tower, closed, is at right. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

We stopped at “Slope Interlocking” and “Alto Tower,” now closed, both in Altoona.
“Slope Interlocking” used to be a tower at the start of the grade over the Alleghenies.
Now it’s just an interlocking, the tower is gone.
Interlocking means switches and crossovers are interlocked to avoid route conflicts between trains, or cause switches to be thrown against a train.
An overpass is above the interlocking. The interlocking is there to route trains into vast Altoona yard.
By now my intent was to show my brother some of my Altoona-friend’s great photo-locations.
Plus we wanted to get to a great photo-location we had found on our own.
That’s where my lede picture was taken, driving a wooded jeep-trail to get to the location.
We took a few pictures there, then started to leave. But my Altoona-friend called to say a train was coming, and was nearby.


At our location. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


Also at our location. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

My Altoona friend had saved the day. We turned back and set up again. My brother got the picture he failed to get earlier.
I called my Altoona-friend, and let my brother thank him.
We then drove south (railroad west) to hit a few locations my brother wanted to try.
By now the sun was out, so we stopped again at “High-Bridge.”
Trains were coming and two had heritage-units.
My Altoona-friend wouldn’t know that.


#1072, the Illinois-Terminal heritage-unit, leads 61Q (empty ballast-hoppers) eastbound on Track One up The Hill. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


PRR heritage-unit #8102 leads 65N (a train of empty crude-oil tankcars) westbound on Track Four down The Hill. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

Norfolk Southern has painted some of its new locomotives in colors of the many old railroads that comprise its system.
One locomotive, #8102, is Pennsy colors, Tuscan Red (“TUSS-kin;” not “Tucson, Ariz.”) with gold pinstripes, the colors Pennsy used on its passenger diesels.
#8102 was on train 65N, a train of empty crude-oil tankcars returning out west to load up again. (The lead covered-hopper is an idler to protect the engines and crew in case of a crash.)
We also got #1072, the Illinois-Terminal heritage-unit. leading 61Q, a train of empty Herzog ballast-hoppers. Illinois-Terminal was Chicago-based.
Both heritage-units were leading.
From High-Bridge we headed south (railroad-west), but it began to rain. Not hard, but a big dark cloud was overhead, and my weather-radar indicated an approaching squall-line.
But the rain dissipated as we continued south, almost to South Fork.
South Fork is where I wanted to get a fabulous late-afternoon shot on a big curve. I got one a while ago, but it was only helpers — I need a train.


Helper-set on Track One at South Fork. (Photo by BobbaLew.)



At Lilly looking west. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


At Summerhill looking west. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


Almost to South Fork looking east. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

We shot off three overpasses, Lilly and Summerhill and just north of South Fork.
But it was late; we didn’t go down to the curve in South Fork.
I would have, if I’d heard an eastbound coming. My scanner was silent.
We drove back to Cresson (“KRESS-in”) to eat supper.
(Cresson is where the helper-sets are maintained.)
Our restaurant was locking up as we left; they close at 8.
Another pleasant diversion chasing trains in the Altoona area. We missed maybe six, but got at least 18 — not bad for chasing trains without my Altoona friend, although he was calling to give directions.
But I return home to the same sad, sorry situation I left.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly. —She’d have come along, even though she wasn’t a railfan.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• My “Altoona friend” is Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee,” as in “wow) a railfan extraordinaire from Altoona, PA, who supplied all-day train-chases for $125. —I did my first three years ago, alone, and it blew my mind. He called them “Adventure-Tours,” and that’s just what they were, railfan overload. Faudi would bring along his railroad-radio scanner, tuned to 160.8, the Norfolk Southern operating channel, and he knew the whereabouts of every train, as the engineers called out the signals, and various lineside defect-detectors fired off. He knew each train by symbol, and knew all the back-roads, and how long it took to get to various photo locations — and also what made a successful photo — lighting, drama, etc. I’d let Phil do the monitoring. I have a scanner myself, but I’d leave it behind. Phil knew every train on the scanner, where it was, and how long it took to beat it to a prime photo location. My first time was a slow day, yet we got 20 trains. Next Tour we got 30 trains in one nine-hour day. Phil gave it up; fear of liability suits, and a new really nice car he’s afraid he’d mess up.

“All I’m tryin’ to do is order doggie vitamins”

....I thought to myself, as I attempted to order online from Nature’s Farmacy.
“You make it so difficult I’m tempted to forget it. Ordering online shouldn’t take this long!”
I have a dog. I put a vitamin-powder on her evening meal; something my late wife used to do.
For that I get a vitamin-enriched dog, merrily pulling me to the ground in pursuit of perceived critters.
I fell on the ice last February messing up my left knee. My dog has pulled me to the ground so many times since, my knee still bothers.
The vitamin-powder is about empty, so I set it aside to reorder online from Nature’s Farmacy.
I have Nature’s Farmacy in my computer as a “Dog Stuff” bookmark.
“Welcome to the new ‘Nature’s Farmacy’ website. We’re still Nature’s Farmacy, but we’re still working with our new website.”
“Uh-ohhhh........”
I cranked the vitamin-powder into their search-window. It’s called “Ultimate.”
Every Ultimate vitamin offering came up, from eight ounces to 10 pounds. I only needed a pound-container, which wasn’t there.
I poked around, and a pound offering showed up.
But nothing was “Add-to-Cart.”
Okay, put aside purchase. Call 800-number the next day to order by phone.
“Click on the ‘One-Pound’ title. It’s a live link; it may not look live, but it is. It goes to a page with ‘Add-to-Cart’ on it. You can order online.”
And so it did. So far about 20 minutes have passed since beginning to try to reorder, phone-call and my previous attempt.
Third Attempt: I clicked the “One-Pound” heading, and got directed to the “One-Pound” page.
“Add-to-Cart.”
Flying blind here. No checkout, but “View Cart.”
I did so, and there’s the checkout button.
I clicked that.
“To check out, please log in or register.”
“WHAT?
I gotta register just to check out? Where’s the ‘checkout as guest?’”
Not there.
Okay, register. “All I’m tryin’ to do is reorder something, and you’re making me jump through hoops.”
I clicked the “Register” button, and got the usual name-address-email-phone stuff, but they also wanted “profile information.”
Again, “WHAT?”
“I’m 69 years old and widowed,” I entered. “I’m a widower. I have a dog.”
I thought later what I should have said was “Are you kidding? What does this have to do with my reordering something? What, pray tell, do you need a ‘customer-profile’ for?”
“Some web-designer is trying to pad their resumé,” I thought.
So far 40 minutes have passed.
With this kind of foolishness Nature’s Farmacy will lose sales.
Or will they?
Most of Nature’s Farmacy’s customers are Facebookers, not oldsters like me.
They need that silly profile in the Nature’s Farmacy database to give their life meaning and credence.

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

Pavonia Yard

(The red arrow points at Pavonia Yard.)

There it is, good old Pavonia yard (“puh-VOWN-eee-uh”) north of Camden in south Jersey on maps of remaining Conrail facilities.
Conrail still exists, as “Conrail Shared Assets.” Terminal facilities were so complex in north and south Jersey, and Detroit, they couldn’t be equally divided when the rest of Conrail was broken up and sold.
Those terminal facilities would remain Conrail, yet be accessible to both Norfolk Southern and CSX.
North Jersey is across from New York City and heavily-developed with freight-sources. South Jersey is across from Philadelphia, and Detroit is heavily developed.
Conrail was constituted from many railroads with competing lines, especially in north Jersey.
If all the lines in south Jersey had become CSX or Norfolk Southern it would have been unfair to the line shut out. Detroit was similar.
North Jersey also has a Chemical-Coast. Ceding it to one railroad was unfair.
I’m sure there was plenty of haggling. “Conrail Shared Assets” is the result.
Conrail Shared Assets also applied to lines around Philadelphia.
Pavonia goes back a long way. It was opened by Pennsy in 1888.
I remember crossing it in the late ‘40s, and it had already been there some time.
I don’t know if it was actually in Camden, but just north it served the Camden area as well as south Jersey.
It was probably built because railroad facilities in Camden were cramped, and had become congested.
Pavonia was near Delair Bridge.
Delair Bridge was built in 1896 to get Pennsy free of ferry-crossings. Pennsy’s first yards in south Jersey were at Cooper’s Point in north Camden, location of an early ferry-slip, if not the first.
The Cooper’s Point ferry was first to abandon.
There were other railroad-yards in Camden, particularly Reading’s (“REDD-ing;” not “REED-ing”) Atlantic City Railroad. Their yard was Bulson Street, not as cramped as Cooper’s Point.
Pavonia Yard was along Pennsy’s Bordentown Branch, which I think was the original Camden & Amboy, one of the earliest railroads in the nation.
Camden & Amboy connected Philadelphia to New York City, but ferries were at each end.
New York City is still cut off from direct railroad railroad-service from the west, although New York Central served New York City from the west.
But now that line is Metro-North.
But no longer is New York dependent on rail-ferries. Freight arriving in north Jersey can be transferred to trucks for delivery into New York City.
The main road from my paternal grandparents in north Camden out to our house in the south Jersey suburbs was Marlton Pike (“MARL-tin”).
It crossed Pavonia yard at grade. Doing so was a bumpy mess — a shock-killer.
You were crossing at least 10 tracks protected by an elevated watch-tower that could lower the gates.
Every switching-move had to block the highway.
I’m sure this was a bottleneck. And Pennsy probably hoped the state Highway Department would put in an overpass. But that didn’t happen until the late ‘50s or early ‘60s.
The Bordentown Branch was also the route Pennsy’s flyers from New York City used to get to Atlantic City. There were also trains from New York to Camden.
Everyone in my family hated crossing Pavonia Yard but me, the railfan.
Crossing 10 tracks was dreadful, but there were trains galore.
And in the early ‘50s steam-locomotives were still in use.
Old 2-8-0 Consolidations were still assigned as switchers, or I might see a B-6 0-6-0 switcher with its slope-back tender.

A Pennsy B-6 switcher.

And there was also a chance some flyer might come through on the Bordentown Branch.
I’m sure I saw the Nellie Bly, Pennsy’s premier New York to Atlantic City train before it started going to Philadelphia.

• “Nellie Bly” was the pen name of journalist Elizabeth Jane Cochrane, famous in the late 1800s for two feats: -a) an around-the-world trip to emulate “Around the World in 80 Days” (she did it in 72 days); and -b) faking insanity to report on life in an insane asylum. She became so famous, the Pennsylvania Railroad named its premier New York to Atlantic City passenger-train after her. (In 1901 it suffered a fatal crash.)

Look out for Granny!

Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday I try to work out at the YMCA in Canandaigua.
So last Tuesday (August 6th, 2013) I set out for Canandaigua — Routes 5&20.
I turned down a side-road to avoid the infamous Bloomfield speed-trap.
I swear the Village of Bloomfield extended their 35 mph speed-zone out beyond the perceived village-limits to fill their coffers.
Driving east out Bloomfield Village you go down a hill, your car speeds up, and there sits Smoky taking pictures.
A toll-taker! 100 smackaroos!
I have been snared in that speed-trap many times. After the fourth time I said “enough!”
The Village of Bloomfield can do without my presence, They wore out their welcome.
So I found side-roads that go south of Bloomfield village. They eventually merge back into 5&20, which takes me to Canandaigua.
About 200 yards south of 5&20 is the entrance to a trailer-park on the right.
It’s where geezers and empty-nesters live out their lives until the nursing-home.
My 80-year-old aunt would go ballistic if she heard “trailer-park.”
“They’re not trailers,” she’d yell “They’re manufactured homes.”
She lives in one herself.
Well, whatever. They usually lack basements, and are on land the trailer-park owns.
Plop your manufactured-home on the trailer-park’s land, then pay rent for the land.
Although I’ve seen manufactured-homes on basements on land the house-owner owns.
Sometimes the owner roofs his manufactured-home so it looks stick-built.
Many of the houses in my neighborhood are manufactured-homes.
My immediate neighbor to the south is a double-wide manufactured-home.
Another neighbor across the street is a double-wide manufactured-home.
Another neighbor back from the road had a devil of a time getting his double-wide situated. It was on a curvy and bumpy access-road, and now his roof leaks.
My house and my neighbor’s across the street are stick-built. Two steps south of me is also stick-built. My aging neighbor called it “the ship.” It’s large, the only two-story around, and angled vis-a-vis the street. (My house is only one story.)
Double-wide manufactured-homes are usually in halves 10-12 feet wide, the maximum width than can be trailered.
Once in place the halves are bolted together.
My wife considered a manufactured-home for our new house (the house I’m currently in) 23 years ago.
But I was leery of manufactured-homes. I felt they didn’t give much design leeway. My proposed garage was 24 feet wide. That’s as wide as a double-wide.
I turned off 5&20 onto my side-road, and there sat Granny in the trailer-park entrance in her navy-blue Ford Focus. She was signaled to turn left onto my side-road toward 5&20.
I continued, and was about 50 yards from the entrance and suddenly Granny accelerated right in front of me.
Did she even see me at all?
I stopped, thinking I sure was glad I once drove transit bus. Madness like that was always occurring.
“Oh Dora, look. A bus. PULL OUT! PULL OUT!”
If another driver was nearby, expect anything!
And sure enough, there was Granny pulling in front of me.
I threw up my hands as she motored placidly by. But I don’t think she noticed.
I should have blown my horn.

• “5&20” is the main east-west road (a two-lane highway) through my area; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where I live. It used to be the main road across Western New York before the Thruway.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. At the time she was 68. I miss her dearly. (I’m now 69.)
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.

“Oh my golly!”

“More steps!” (Photo by BobbaLew.)

My brother Bill and his wife Sue from northern Delaware came up to visit me two weekends ago.
He was on vacation, so he drove up Thursday, July 25th, we would hike the gorge at Watkins Glen State Park in Watkins Glen Friday, July 26th, and then would visit Letchworth State Park on Saturday, July 27th.
He would drive home Sunday, July 28th.


(Photo by BobbaLew.)


(Photo by BobbaLew.)

So we met in the parking-lot at Watkins Glen State Park to begin hiking the long gorge.
It’s over a mile and all uphill.
A creek has cut a narrow gorge into the rock to get from the top down to the valley floor.
Apparently the most recent receding ice-age glacier cut out the valley the village of Watkins Glen is in.
North of Watkins Glen is giant Seneca Lake, one of the Finger Lakes.
There are 10 Finger Lakes, and Seneca Lake is one of the largest. The Finger Lakes run south to north, and were carved by the receding glacier.
The Finger Lakes look like the imprint of a giant hand in the terrain — a 10-fingered hand, although some lakes are tinyl.
Watkins Glen is a tourist attraction. People from all over come to hike the gorge. I heard various Asian languages.
Hiking the gorge is all uphill; there are at least 800 steps.
There are another 180 steps up out of the gorge at the end, although they might be part of the 800 steps. It’s not clear.
All I could think of was my mother, worn out and complaining about the steps.
“Oh my golly!” she’d cry. “More steps!”
Every 75 or so feet, another staircase.
And quite a bit of the gorge trail had puddles from water-splash and springs. You were continually skirting puddles.
The creek was draining through the gorge, and water was also coming off the gorge walls.
At one point you walked behind a waterfall — see pictures below.


The walk-behind waterfall. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


Behind the waterfall. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Finally we reached the top — or the end.
We hiked up out of the gorge, on the 180-step staircase called “Jacob’s Ladder,” to a plateau with bathrooms and a snack/gift shop.
You can tell you’re at the top, because a railroad-bridge crosses the gorge at the top.


The railroad-bridge at the top. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

It’s Norfolk Southern’s Corning-Secondary, the old New York Central line from the main at Lyons down to Williamsport, PA, via Corning.
Some has been abandoned (into Williamsport), and some was sold to shortlines (I’m thinking of Tioga Central).
But Lyons to Corning is Norfolk Southern.
Finger-Lakes Railway, a shortline, has trackage-rights to get from Geneva to an old Pennsylvania Railroad line to Watkins Glen. Watkins Glen has a salt-mine.
But I don’t think FLR has trackage-rights over this bridge.
Hiking the gorge made me sore, muscle soreness.
I’m 69, but I made it up without drama.
Coming back down I was stumbling from soreness.
On the way down we struck up a conversation with a quintessential Harley bruiser. Oily sweatshirt with ragged cut-off sleeves, hairy arms with tattoos, built like a fireplug. (“Heavy on the home-fries please;” steak for breakfast!)
He and his brother had ridden their Harleys up from home, Lock Haven, PA.
His brother looked fairly normal; bruiser was a James Dean wannabee.
He told us how riding his Harley melted stress, and how his mother-in-law was scared to death at first. That her daughter would be dating a guy just released from jail.
But bruiser claimed fatherhood had mellowed him. Well, his Harley was brutally LOUD. So was his brother’s.
They complained about the New York state helmet-law, yet dutifully put on their helmets. —Pennsylvania doesn’t require helmet-use.
Bruiser’s was a Nazi Wehrmacht helmet with a spike on top. Such a helmet is utterly useless in a crash. But it’s a helmet to the police.
Bruiser said something about attending the massive bike-rally in Sturgis, SD.
But he would ride to it instead of trailering his bike as friends suggested.
He also commented some bike-rally in Johnstown, PA, was “awesome,” 35,000 bikes.
Oh to be among friends. All bruisers and bruiser wannabees.
His sweatshirt advertised a Harley dealer in Gettysburg, PA, which is why my brother struck up a conversation.
He had just visited Gettysburg.
The next day would be Letchworth Park.
I felt better after a nap and nighttime sleep. But any time I started walking at Letchworth the soreness was back.
Thankfully seeing Letchworth is mostly driving. It’s hard to hike Letchworth; it’s too big.
Before Letchworth we decided to see Mt. Morris Dam.

Mt. Morris Dam. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

I had never been there, and we arrived about 10:40.
Signs said a free tour would begin at 11; down into the dam, etc.
We decided to do it.
Mt. Morris Dam is flood-control. There’s no dammed up lake behind it.
It protects downstream towns and farms and Rochester from flooding by the Genesee river (“jen-uh-SEE”). If drainage upstream becomes excessive, water accumulates behind the dam.
Mt. Morris Dam is at the north end of Letchworth gorge.
The dammed-up water accumulates in the gorge.
Right at the moment the gorge was empty. A contractor had trucks at the bottom removing tree-debris.
We hiked down to the dam on an access-road, and then out onto the top of the dam.
The road goes to a tall head-house. We went inside, then took a freight-elevator 195 feet down.
Our guide was a pretty young girl voided of all femininity by her frumpy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers uniform. I guess she was also a park-ranger.
Her uniform reminded me of our uniforms at Transit.
They looked terrible — hardly dashing.
Yet the floozies always seemed attracted to that uniform, as if it symbolized a stable income.
Would that it did!
You were always walking on eggshells, afraid you might get fired on some trumped-up charge.
I remember a driver getting fired even though a Granny slid her car into his parked bus, which he was not on. His bus was safely secured at the layover-point. But the fact the bus was his meant he’d had an accident, and management declared they would fire him if he was involved in any more accidents.
Um......
What that uniform symbolized is you had to wear it to drive bus.
If you didn’t you were “out-of-uniform;” and couldn’t drive.
I remember being called-on-the-carpet for wearing a matching sweater not from the uniform-vendor, who was obviously getting a kickback, and/or management was getting a kickback.
That uniform cost way more than it was worth, although we were getting a uniform allowance — which was usually not enough. (My first Transit uniform was purchased with my own money.)
The pants were ill-fitting, and the shirts were hot and sweaty.
We had to wear ties a ballistic passenger could use as a noose!
It was a honky tour. Not a single person of color or foreign ethnicity was among our group, which comprised about 30 — although there was a Harley greaser.
Many were children.
Inside the dam we navigated narrow concrete tunnels with overhead safety-lights. You could stand.
We were in the bottom tunnel, which accessed the gates.
There are water-tunnels beneath the dam to allow water out of the dam bottom.
A hydraulic system opens the gates to these tunnels with gigantic pistons.
The gates also have a cutting edge to cut through tree-debris. Not everything is stopped from getting in those tunnels.
Our guide did various cutesy tricks to entertain the kids. I pretty much kept to myself.
Honkies among us made sickening attempts at humor.
Back into the freight-elevator. Up two floors to a chamber in the gorge wall. An incredibly long staircase went up to a parapet above the dam, up on top of the gorge.
Until the access-road (the first access-road washed out), that long stairway was the only way down to the dam, and back up.
With that our dam-tour was finished. Back on the freight-elevator, back outside, and back up the access-road.
I was turned off by the honky behavior, but the tour was interesting.
My brother said he did the Hoover-Dam tour, but it was nowhere near as extensive or informative. Plus he had to wait in line, and pay.
This tour was free.
But Mt. Morris Dam isn’t Hoover Dam.
Next was Letchworth Park, but we had already spent time at that dam. We had to do short shrift.
So into the South Entrance we drove, after a long drive down from the dam, which is at the north end.
Under the famous railroad-bridge over the gorge.


That’s the railroad-bridge back there. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

That bridge is still active, but ancient.
I think it’s about 1875. It replaced a wooden trestle that burned.
The railroad is now Norfolk Southern, but it was originally Erie’s line to Buffalo. It was probably something else before that.
Norfolk Southern will replace the bridge — it’s part of NS’s line from Buffalo to New York City, the old Erie.
That bridge is so old and rickety the trains can’t exceed 10 mph. If a train went into emergency (sudden full train-brakes), it would probably take down the bridge.
Questions remain about leaving the old bridge standing. It makes an excellent walking-path, overlooking the Upper Falls.
I walked across it many times myself years ago, including as trains passed — it has a railing, and plenty of room.
But now I presume Norfolk Southern has it as “no trespassing.”
Letchworth is about 20-25 miles north of Houghton (“HO-tin;” not “how” or “who”), my college, so was a frequent hangout.
As a railfan I was drawn to that bridge, although back then it was Erie-Lackawanna.

Kinzua Viaduct before the tornado.

An inactive railroad-bridge called “Kinzua Viaduct (“KIN-zoo-uh”) in northwestern PA was left standing, but a tornado partially destroyed it. Kinzua was impressive. It was over 300 feet high, and long. It crossed Kinzua valley, and was supposedly the mightiest steel viaduct of all. (Pictured is bridge number-two; number-one was iron — two is steel. —Second-mightiest was the one over Letchworth.)
The waterfall is the Upper Falls. Walking the railroad-bridge overlooks the falls.


The Middle Falls. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

We then drove down to the “Middle Falls” after checking out a museum.
Letchworth Park was named after William Pryor Letchworth, who bequeathed his estate in the gorge to become a state park.
His mansion, which overlooked the Middle and Upper Falls, is now a restaurant.
The park has three waterfalls, Upper, Middle, and Lower.
It’s the Genesee River, which carved the gorge long ago.
The long, deep gorge is called “the Grand Canyon of the East,” although it seems to me another gorge in PA calls itself the same thing.
We then set out for the Lower Falls, but we were running out of time, and it was beginning to rain.
I don’t know if we actually saw the Lower Falls. We saw a waterfall, but it wasn’t much.
Our guide at the dam said the Lower Falls are flooded out when the dam is full — which is hardly ever.
We also were out of time. We had to leave.

• The “Genesee River” is a fairly large river that runs south-to-north across Western New York, runs through Rochester, including over falls, and empties into Lake Ontario.
• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability, but I recovered fairly well.

Monthly Calendar-Report for August 2013

I probably saw this locomotive. (Photo by Robert L. Long©.)

The August 2013 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is important, enough to make it my number-one entry.
It’s not very dramatic, but I probably saw this locomotive.
It’s where my railfanning began, in Haddonfield, NJ (“hah-din-FIELD”).
Haddonfield is an old Revolutionary town, just south of Erlton, NJ where I grew up (“EARL-tin”). “Erlton” is the small suburb of Philadelphia in south-Jersey where I lived until I was 13. Erlton was founded in the ‘30s, named after its developer, whose name was Earl.
The Camden & Atlantic Railroad, built about 1850, went through Haddonfield.
You can blame Atlantic City on the Camden & Atlantic.
Camden & Atlantic was so successful it prompted competition, Atlantic City Railroad.
Both Camden & Atlantic and Atlantic City Railroad depended on ferry-service from Philadelphia.
Philadelphians would ferry across the Delaware River to Camden, and then take the trains to Atlantic City.
Atlantic City Railroad was parallel to Camden & Atlantic to the south. In west Jersey it went through Haddon Heights, perhaps three miles south of Haddonfield.
But in the Jersey pine-barrens approaching Atlantic City, Atlantic City Railroad was within site of Camden & Atlantic.
Pennsy and Reading (“REDD-ing;” not “REED-ing”) merged the two railroads, Pennsy Camden & Atlantic and Reading Atlantic City Railroad.
Races developed to see who could get to Atlantic City fastest.
High-drivered 4-4-2s were developed to get up over 100 mph.
The lines through the pine-barrens were straight and fast.
“High-drivered” means 84-inches wheel diameter. 84 inches is huge, although I think I’ve heard of 86-inch diameter.
Average driver diameter on steam locomotives might be 70 inches (almost six feet). Although Pennsy passenger-locomotives gravitated toward 80 inches.
Many 4-8-4 locomotives were built in the ‘30s with 80-inch drivers.
Freight locomotives were usually 69 inches or less.
My railfanning began in 1946. The photograph is 1956, but by 1946 the old Camden & Atlantic (and Atlantic City Railroad) were Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (PRSL).
“Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines” was an amalgamation of Pennsylvania and Reading railroad-lines in south-Jersey to counter the fact the two railroads had too much parallel track. It was promulgated in 1933. It serviced mainly the south-Jersey seashore from Philadelphia.
Other branches had been built to serve other south-Jersey seashore resorts. Often both railroads served a seashore resort and shared little traffic.
So the old Camden & Atlantic line through Haddonfield was PRSL. Atlantic City Railroad was abandoned and torn up through the pine-barrens. Many of the old Pennsy lines south of Atlantic City were abandoned in favor of Reading lines.


Where it all began. (Photo by Robert L. Long©.)

The calendar-picture is not actually where I began my railfanning.
That’s down across from the water-tower, visible on the background of the calendar-picture.
That water-tower is not in my “Where it all began” picture, but its standpipe is.
Reportedly the train in the calendar-picture had just stopped for water.
But the calendar-picture is from the same street we traveled, my father-and-I on his balloon-tire Columbia bicycle, me at age-2 in an orange-crate basket up front.
The street dead-ended out along the railroad just east of Haddonfield station.
We’d hang out at the dead-end and wait for trains.
Free entertainment, which my father loved, and I loved watching trains.
Often the steam-locomotives stopped to take on water from the standpipe, right across from me.
The trains would whistle for the road-crossings in Haddonfield. My father claimed they were whistling for me. I’d wave.
More-than-likely the reason I was attracted to railroads was PRSL was still using steam.
Gigantic diesel-locomotives are impressive, but there’s nothing like steam.
By 1956 about the only trains PRSL was using steam on were racetrack excursions.
The train pictured is returning from Atlantic City Racetrack, a horse-racing venue.
The last steam-locomotive I ever saw in revenue service was a racetrack excursion from Garden State Park in 1956. Garden State Park was a large horse-racing venue not far from where I lived,
The racetrack was along Pennsy’s Delair-bridge Philadelphia bypass. Pennsy built that bypass to run trains direct to the Jersey seashore without ferries across the Delaware — also to get freight to-and-from Camden off ferry-service.
The steam-locomotive was a rusty Pennsy K-4 Pacific (4-6-2; perhaps this locomotive).
I was late for supper, a cardinal sin, but it was indeed the last steam-locomotive I ever saw in revenue service.
I notice this K-4, #5497, a 1928 Juniata product (“june-eee-AT-uh”) still has the gorgeous horizontally slatted pilot.
Most K-4s were converted to a heavy cast-steel pilot that wasn’t as attractive.



Whistling death.(Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The August 2013 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Chance-Vought F4U Corsair fighter-plane.
The Corsair is my second-most favorite airplane; my favorite being the P-51 Mustang.
The Corsair lacks the grace of a P-51. It’s crude. A powerful engine tows it around; it seems like all the plane is is a platform for that engine.
The rear stabilizers of a P-51 look great. Those of a Corsair look crude.
Then there are those gull-wings. Designers were afraid there wasn’t enough clearance for that giant 14-foot propeller.
So the wings were gull-winged to avoid lengthening the landing-gear. All to get the fuselage and its engine higher.
It looks strange, but that gull-wing easily identifies it as a Corsair.
As an aircraft-carrier based fighter-plane, the Corsair solved one of the problems of the Grumman Wildcat. Namely that its landing gear was not wide enough. A Wildcat could go ass-over-teakettle landing on a carrier-deck. Touchdown on a carrier-deck is hard.
The Corsair widened the landing-gear. A Corsair was less likely to tip.
Grumman also widened its landing-gear. The Hellcat follows the Wildcat.
But the ‘Cats don’t look as crude as a Corsair.
The Corsair appears to be all-engine.
The Corsair was a successful carrier-based fighter-plane.
Japanese pilots used to call it “Whistling-death” because of the sound it made.
My attraction to Corsairs goes back to an encounter in 1951. My Cub-Scout troop visited Willow-Grove Naval Air Station outside Philadelphia.
A fighter-jock strode out and mounted his Corsair.
Giant sheets of yellow flame washed along the fuselage as he fired up the Corsair’s motor.
“Won’t it catch fire?” I asked worriedly.
Our guide laughed.
Soon the Corsair was roaring overhead, doing practice tailhook landings on the runway.
They simulate carrier-landings. An arresting-cable is stretched across the runway to snag a plane as it lands.
Just like an aircraft-carrier, except the runway isn’t bobbing like a ship.
Early Corsairs had a three-bladed propeller.
Most of those flying do (28 are still air-worthy).
But a few remain with the four-bladed propeller.
My guess is they have a more powerful engine that can crank a four-bladed propeller.
When I see a Corsair with a four-bladed propeller I’m thrilled.



Trash-train. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

—The August 2013 entry of my own calendar is train 64J, the eastbound trash-train, descending Track One from The Hill, coming into Altoona.
This picture is taken from the 17th Street overpass, hard by venerable Alto Tower, now closed.
Dispatching through Altoona is now handled offsite in Pittsburgh.
The amount of traffic through Altoona isn’t what it was 40 years ago, but with this change Altoona has become a bottleneck.
Pittsburgh dispatching isn’t the experience Alto Tower was.
Trains often have to stop to attach or detach helpers for The Hill.
The challenge is to keep everything fluid. Alto could do it; they were experienced.
Pennsy’s position-light signals are also being replaced.
A giant signal-bridge with its many target-signals that once spanned these tracks at Alto is gone, replaced by what you see.
It’s new Norfolk Southern signaling.
Tracks have also been realigned through Altoona.
Approaching Altoona from the east are only Tracks Two (westbound) and One (eastbound).
In Altoona Two becomes Three. It used to be Three switched off of Two.
No longer; no longer a switch to maintain.
A lot of traffic was being switched to Three to climb The Hill, so we might as well dispense with the switch.
Another giant signal-bridge spanned the tracks east of the overpass for westbounds. That is gone too.
It’s interesting so many signals are visible in this picture. I see five.
Track One is also signaled westbound. Currently it’s eastbound only, but will be made both ways in the future.
Track Three is also out-of-service beyond this point. One can see the crossover is lined to get westbounds on Three over to Two.
Track Three is also signaled “stop,” but the diverge (below) is signaled “clear.”
It’s called the “trash-train” because it carries trash, supposed construction-debris in purple containers on flatcars, four containers per flatcar.
But I’ve smelled garbage. You hold your nose as this train passes.
Trash is trained out west for landfilling. 64J is the trash-train returning empty.
This train is usually light enough to not need assistance, even loaded.



“Here come da Judge!” (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

—The August 2013 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecar calendar is a 1970 G-T-O Stage-IV Ram-air “Judge” convertible.
It’s a nice photograph, one of photographer Harholdt’s standard side-elevations.
And the 1970 G-T-O, with its plastic Endura front-bumper, is a gorgeous car.
But by 1970 The G-T-O Pontiac was a caricature of its former self.
All the manufacturers were cashing in on the musclecar concept pioneered by Pontiac with its 1964 G-T-O, namely a hot-rodded version of a full-size car’s motor in a smaller intermediate sedan.
At first the G-T-O was a Tempest option.
But soon the G-T-O was its own model.
Al the other manufacturers started marketing musclecars, Chevelle with an SS396, Oldsmobile with its 4-4-2, Chrysler with various versions of its Plymouth and Dodge intermediates, even staid Buick.
And everyone was trying to one-up the others. Soon gigantic hot-rodded motors were fielded, well over 400 cubic-inches. Chevrolet raised its “Big-Block” to 454 cubic-inches, and Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac all went to 455 cubic-inches.
Chrysler went to 440 cubic-inches, and Ford and Mercury maxxed out at 427-428-429 cubic-inches.
The “Judge” was visually laughable, even though very serious. “G-T-O” wasn’t enough. We gotta give it a cutesy name like “RoadRunner.” Call it “da Judge;” here come da judge.
But the Judge is only 400 cubic-inches. Hot-rodding made it immensely powerful.
Of interest was its Ram-air air-intake.
Pontiac took advantage of a high air-pressure area above the hood to snorkel that high-pressure through an opening in the hood direct to the carburetor.
The carburetor was also getting cooler outside air, denser than the hot air under the hood.
The cylinder-heads also had giant passageways, so-called “Ram-air” heads.
Whatever, fear-and-trembling if a Judge rolled up beside you at a traffic-light.
Trailer-for-you, baby. You gonna get spanked!


A ’64 G-T-O. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

But I still think the best-looking G-T-O was the first, the ’64 pictured above.
By 1970 the G-T-O was backwater. Pontiac needed to market “The Judge.”
Scallops over the tires, a wing out back, and the tachometer outside atop the hood — ridiculous!
I bet serious drag-racers put a tach inside where they could see it to shift.
The other night, while walking my dog back from the park up the street, a musclecar rumbled by on the highway in the distance — looked like a ’70 or ’71 Chevelle SS.
I could tell by the induction-racket. Musclecars make a lot of induction-noise due to the prodigious amount of intake-air they ingest.
“That thing is seriously dated,” I thought to myself.
Cars nowadays look like bars of soap. The idea is to enhance aerodynamics, to make the car slipperier to the air, and thereby increase fuel-economy.
The Chevelle had a longish nose, and acres of sheet-metal out back encasing a longish trunk.
Stuff you never see nowadays.
A car’s trunk is often integrated into the top. It all slopes back to enhance aerodynamics.
But back then, a Chevelle did not have that aero.
On top of that, today’s cars are taller. The intent is to allow packaging of a driver sitting erect.

A 1971 454-Chevelle SS. (Not my brother’s car, but similar. [Same color.]) (Photo by Bobbalew.)

By comparison, a ’70/’71 Chevelle looks slammed. The look is long and low, what Detroit was doing back then.
Also, SUVs didn’t exist back then.
I know the 454-Chevelle SS is very collectible. My brother-in-Boston has one.
It’s impressive, but dated.
Years ago I auditioned a ’55 Chevrolet BelAir coupe I was considering buying.
No sale! What a turkey that thing was, an antique. I preferred the car I came in: a 1989 Honda Civic All-Wheel-Drive stationwagon. —And all through high-school and college what I wanted was a ’55 Chevy BelAir coupe.



A Norfolk Southern stacker of J.B. Hunt domestic containers approaches Spencer, NC. (Photo by Mark Shull.)

—The August 2013 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar, is not inspiring.
It reminds of some of the photographs I’ve taken with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”).
Perfectly lit, face-on lighting to the front of the locomotive, but not that inspiring to me.
And I’ve gotten enough smashing photographs with Phil, enough to make my own calendar for the past three years.
Photographer Shull explains the reason for the photograph is the house in the picture at right.
It’s owned by an elderly gentleman who mows the grass across the street next to the railroad right-of-way for railfans.
He is also tolerant of railfans, who can be obnoxious and pushy at times.
I guess that gentleman is not a railfan. I know I couldn’t live in a house like that. I’d be up all night!
Years ago I stayed in a motel within sight of the old Chessie mainline in St. Albans, WV.
The line was a grade, and all night long coal-drags hammered up it. You could hear them coming — they’d wake me up.
They were doing about five mph; the sound was deafening, diesel-locomotives in Run-8. From start to finish was 20-25 minutes, assaulting the heavens the whole time.
I got little sleep. And I never saw anything; the tracks were behind trees across the street along the highway.
Before that, when we lived in Rochester, I noticed a house for sale. Its backyard paralleled the old New York Central mainline into Rochester. By then the line was Penn-Central.
Entering Rochester from the east the railroad climbs a slight grade.
At that time we lived about a mile from the grade, but we could hear westbounds climbing it.
I thought about buying the house, but I decided against it.
I knew I’d be up all night watching trains, or they would wake me climbing that grade.
My compulsion to watch trains has degraded with age, or because of my stroke, or after my wife’s death.
When I go to Altoona I stay at a bed-and-breakfast hard by the old Pennsy main. Trains rumble by all night and slightly shake the building, which is brick.
Eastbounds blow their horn before entering a nearby tunnel.
I pay little attention. Rarely do I run outside to see the train. Rarely do I open the venetian-blinds.
Blowing the horn might wake me up, but I’m sure trains rumble by and I never know it.
But there’s no way I could live in the house in Shull’s photograph. Passing trains would be a distraction.
I’ve been asked about moving to the Altoona area, to be near my favorite railroad-line, Norfolk Southern’s ex-Pennsy Allegheny Crossing.
I’ve thought about it, but for the moment I pass.
You see a lot of J.B. Hunt domestic containers on stack-trains. They probably contain product for WalMart*. (Domestic containers run up to 53 feet long, which is too big for container-ships. Ship-containers are 40 feet.)


The calendar-cover. (Photo by Fred Kern.)

— The August 2013 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is the photograph they used as a cover.
The only thing Pennsy about it is that GG-1 at right, and it’s the electrified Pennsy line to New York City.
The other train is being hauled by a Reading steam-engine, #216, a G3 Pacific (4-6-2).
The GG-1 is waiting with its train in North Philadelphia station.
The calendar makes what I consider a mistake. It says the Reading steamer is pulling a commuter-train.
I don’t think so.
Reading commuter-cars are dark grey or olive-green or blue.
The coaches are tuscan-red (“TUSS-kin;” not Tucson, Ariz.), the color of Pennsy passenger equipment, and coaches of Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines.
I’d say the Reading steamer is pulling a PRSL seashore train, and will diverge from the Pennsy main at Shore Junction in north Philadelphia. From there it will cross the Delaware River over Delair Bridge, and then head on Pennsy and PRSL in south Jersey for the Wildwood, Cape May, and Ocean City seashore resorts.
PRSL often used Pennsy coaches, yet ran Reading engines to Wildwood, etc, on old Reading lines. (Competing Pennsy lines had been abandoned with the founding of PRSL in 1933.)
Atlantic City trains usually had Pennsy engines, K-4 Pacifics (4-6-2).
My railfanning began with PRSL (see above first entry).
Pennsy K-4s had that gorgeous red keystone number-plate, and were much prettier than Reading’s steamers.

(This is actually a full-size plastic casting.) (Photo by Bobbalew.)

Reading’s G3 Pacifics were a bit misapplied for PRSL service.
The G3 was a modern engine, designed for express passenger service to New York City on the Crusader.
I remember before PRSL’s Budd RDCs, the Camden-Haddonfield shuttle service (PRSL trains headed north west of Haddonfield over Pennsy’s line for Delair Bridge and Philadelphia), was performed by a Reading G3 with one or two Reading commuter coaches.
That’s shuffling. A G3 could boom-and-zoom. That’s a G3 misapplied.
The Camden-Haddonfield shuttle could have been done with an elderly teakettle, which the G3 wasn’t.
I saw plenty of Reading steam-engines on PRSL. They always turned me off. Pennsy’s engines were prettier.
That gorgeous red number-plate was probably Raymond Loewy.
Pennsy was always putting its headlight at the top of the smokebox front, which looked great.
Everyone else, including Reading, had it in the center.



Beetlebomb.

—The August 2013 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a 1940 Ford two-door sedan turned into a hotrod.
It has a mildly-built 327 cubic-inch SmallBlock Chevrolet V8. The SmallBlock is probably the most popular hotrod engine.
It also has rack-and-pinion steering and front disc brakes.
Desirable stuff, but to my mind the ’39-’40 Ford sedans are turkeys; not as bad as the late-‘40s Fords, but a shame.

A ’39 Ford five-window coupe.

The ’39 Ford five-window coupe is one of the best-looking cars of all time. I don’t know what you could have done to make the sedans look as good.
The two-door sedan was the car you souped up if you couldn’t get a coupe.
I remember such a car when I was growing up in the early ‘50s.
An Italian family lived nearby, and all three young sons were into hot-rodding.
The oldest, employed as a soda-jerk at the local soda-fountain, had a purple customized 1947 Mercury convertible with a white Carson top with a tiny rear window. A make-out car.
The serious car was owned by son number-two. It was a black 1940 Ford coupe up on blocks awaiting an Oldsmobile Rocket V8 engine.
Sons two and three, ages 20 and 18, jointly owned the two-door sedan.
The only hot-rodding done was to paint it flat-black and monkey around with its Flat-head V8 motor, supposedly to make it faster.
All they did was race around in it, terrorizing the neighborhood. They were continually being stopped by the police.

Beetlebomb. (A late-‘40s Ford.)

They beat the daylights out of that car, revving it on side-streets, arms slung over window-sills, brazenly puffing on cigarettes. James Dean wannabees.
Every time I see a ’39-’40 Ford sedan I think of those guys trashing that car.
Flames on such a car are a joke. A ’39-’40 Ford sedan is to me a hotrod wannabee, as is the late ‘40s Ford.