Monthly Calendar-Report for December 2013
Steam action on the Mighty Curve. (Photo by Lewis Bullock©.)
The December 2013 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is steam-locomotive action at “the Mighty Curve” (Horseshoe Curve).
Of all the railfan pilgrimage spots I’ve been to, and I’ve been to quite a few, Horseshoe Curve is my favorite. I’ve been there hundreds of times. My first time was 1968.
Finding it was a challenge, until I noticed it wrapped around us.
“We’re smack in the middle of it,” I cried. We were on the road down in the valley, and the tracks were up above, pinned to the hillsides.
The viewing-area is right in the apex, and trains are willy-nilly. I used to say “you wait 25 minutes, and you’ll see a train.” That’s not always true, but I’ve seen two at once, and occasionally three at once.
Three at once, back in the days of Penn-Central (1969). (Photo by BobbaLew.)
Years ago it was four tracks, now it’s three.
And it’s a grade. Westbound is climbing, and eastbound is descending. Trains climbing are at wide-open throttle, assaulting the heavens. Eastbound is hold back the train, and trains have occasionally run away.
Horseshoe Curve is an engineering trick that made possible building a through railroad across the Allegheny barrier, what previously made it nearly impossible to trade with the nation’s interior.
The railroad was looped around a valley — over 180 degrees — to ease the grade.
Helper locomotives are still often needed to conquer the grade, and hold back a descending train.
Which is the whole reason the Curve was put there. Stay in the valleys approaching the Alleghenies, then add helpers to conquer the Alleghenies.
The railroad could have taken an easier route up on the hillsides from Harrisburg to the Alleghenies to ease crossing PA.
Originally it was Pennsylvania Railroad (“Pennsy”), now it’s Norfolk Southern. Pennsy became extremely powerful, and was once the largest railroad in the world.
It was well-positioned to become a conduit of trade with our growing nation, and managed to pour torrents of freight onto its original mainline, Pittsburgh to Harrisburg. Feeders were added from throughout the midwest, and added in the east when New York City became a main overseas trade destination.
Conquering Allegheny barrier was mainly John Edgar Thomson, who laid out railroads in Georgia. The same barrier existed there, the Appalachians.
Thomson tossed proposed routes aside in favor of valleys approaching the Alleghenies, then face-on over the Alleghenies with helper locomotives.
It was an early 1800s challenge, so tunneling the entire Alleghenies was beyond reason.
Yet Thomson also knew insanely steep grades, and switchbacks, would be barriers.
Needed was a through railroad fairly easy to operate.
You could tunnel the top of the mountain; that wasn’t too long.
But you had to get up to it without steep grades, switchbacks, or inclined-planes, as the original Portage railroad (state sponsored) had.
West of Altoona the Kittanning valley was noticed. If you could wrap the railroad around the valley it would ease the grade over the Alleghenies.
And so Horseshoe Curve. A rock promontory had to be removed and two feeder valleys filled to allow the tracks to loop Kittanning valley.
For the 1850s it was an incredible engineering challenge, but it was done, mainly with Irish workers.
Horseshoe Curve is still in use. Traffic is still very heavy over the mountain, but Thomson’s alignment is still in use.
A bypass was installed in 1898 to ease curvature up the west slope.
Tunnel engineering is now capable of a long tunnel under the Alleghenies, but the railroad still uses Thomson’s alignment.
About all such a tunnel might do is cut out helper-service. Stopping to add helpers consumes time.
And locomotives are getting powerful enough to conquer The Hill without helpers — unless the train is long and heavy.
The train pictured is a Pennsy I-1sa Decapod (2-10-0) taking empty hoppers back to the mines in western PA.
The railroad still does this, although it’s Norfolk Southern instead of Pennsy, and diesel-electric instead of steam.
I’ve taken hundreds of pictures of such trains, including at the Mighty Curve. They run as extras, as do loaded coal-trains. A lot of coal is mined in PA, and was part of the reason Pennsy was successful.
(Most of my December calendar-entries are not very impressive. In fact, the last two, including mine, are distinctly uninspired.)
A 1966 Four-Forty-Two Olds convertible. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)
—The December 2013 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecar calendar is a 1966 Four-Forty-Two Olds convertible.
The Four-Forty-Two Olds first came on the market in 1964, same year as the Pontiac G-T-O. It was a civilian version of the B09 police-cruiser.
4-4-2 stood for four-barrel carburetor, four-speed transmission, and dual exhausts. (I have a hard time imagining a police version with four-on-the-floor, although there may have been.)
It could be said the 4-4-2 was Oldsmobile’s version of the G-T-O.
Both were based on the General’s intermediate offerings, Pontiac the Tempest, and Oldsmobile the Cutlass.
Soon all the GM brands (except Cadillac) were marketing G-T-O wannabees, Chevrolet its Big-Block SS Chevelle, and Buick a musclecar based on its Skylark.
How reliable Car and Driver magazine was is debatable, but they were claiming the 4-4-2 handled better than a G-T-O.
Both had the same chassis layout, depending on a big hot-rodded full-size motor to generate immense power.
A solid rear-axle — same as the Model-T — could hop over bumps in corners and send the car spinning. Add that a heavy cast-iron motor was over the front-end = the car might plow straight ahead instead of following steering-inputs.
Plus the rear tires could break loose with all that power. They were lightly loaded.
Yet all that motor was great fun.
When we lived in Rochester, we lived on a main drag that was often the site of impromptu races between musclecars.
One night two musclecars roared by unmuffled about 3 a.m.
Later we could hear them racing up on the expressway; musclecars at full wail — 150+ mph.
My guess was it was Chevrolet versus Pontiac; a Big-Block SS versus a G-T-O. —Maximum bellowing!
Although one car could have been a 4-4-2.
And no matter what Car-and-Driver said, a puny BMW 2002 could beat a 4-4-2 on a curvy road. It would brake and curve better.
But for straight running, much of American highways, that 4-4-2 would be king.
Not many 4-4-2 convertibles were made. The car pictured is rare.
A Thoroughbred train negotiates the Crescent Corridor between Harrisburg and Hagerstown. (Photo by Jim Haag.)
—The December, 2013 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern mixed-freight near Huntsdale, PA on the Crescent Corridor.
The Crescent Corridor is Norfolk Southern’s investment in getting trains from the Northeast to the South.
Government entities helped — the intent was steal heavy truck-traffic off parallel Interstate-81.
The Crescent Corridor was cobbled together from existing railroad branches. Junctions had to be bypassed, and long passing-sidings installed.
The key leg to me is Harrisburg to Hagerstown, MD, but the Crescent Corridor continues to Atlanta, Memphis, and New Orleans.
South of Maryland, the Corridor is into the Appalachians.
There were two branch-lines from Hagerstown to Harrisburg, Pennsy and Reading (“REDD-ing;” not “REED-ing”).
I don’t know which line was used. Norfolk Southern bought in when it got part of Conrail. Conrail followed Pennsy and Reading when they went bankrupt; Pennsy as part of Penn-Central.
The photographer is apparently a train-engineer who has operated this line.
During his journeys he noticed this location next to the railroad: a Christmas-tree farm.
Look out fer da Jug! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)
—The guys at Ghosts probably think this photograph is incredible. They used it as the calendar-cover.
But I don’t think it is. It would be incredible of the Thunderbolt alone; it doesn’t need that B-17.
The December 2013 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is face-on of a P-47 Thunderbolt (“Jug”) flying above a B-17.
Photographer Makanna snagged a really good photograph of a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. It just happens there’s also a B-17 in it, the out-of-date turkey that performed so many bomb runs over the enemy in Europe.
That P-47 looks incredible, face-on with its huge 2,535 horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-2800-59W Double-Wasp 18-cylinder radial piston engine, and that gigantic four-bladed propeller.
The P-47 was a big airplane. A P-51 Mustang weighs 7,125 pounds, yet a P-47 weighs 9,950 pounds.
The P-51 made a great dog-fighter, but the P-47 could carry a heavy bomb-load.
The P-47 might do a better job of ground-attack.
As far as I know, the P-47 is the first Army Air-Corps fighter with an air-cooled radial engine. The P-38, P-39, P-40, and P-51 are all water-cooled V12s.
Air-cooled radials are mainly Navy. An air-cooled radial can’t have have its cooling-system shot up and disabled, as can a water-cooled engine.
Air-cooled radials are lighter, but present a challenge to aerodynamics.
A water-cooled V12 can be packaged in a slippery fuselage. An air-cooled radial has to be out where it can disrupt cooling air.
It presents a bluff front.
The Army Air-Corps seemed biased against the radial engine. Although I’ve seen a Navy Grumman Bearcat fly. It has a Pratt & Whitney R-2800-34W Double-Wasp radial engine, yet seemed as much a hotrod as the Mustang.
But then here was the P-47. It was as if the Army Air-Corps finally admitted the significance of the Navy’s radial-engine development.
Then too the P-47 was much better at ground-attack than the P-51.
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site weigh in:
“The Thunderbolt was the most famous of all the Republic aircraft in WWII. First flown on May 6th, 1941, the P-47 was designed as a (then) large, high-performance fighter/bomber, utilizing the large Pratt and Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine to give it excellent performance and a large load-carrying capability.
The first deliveries of the P-47 took place in June 1942, when the U.S. Army Air Corps began flying it in the European Theater.
Though it was an excellent airplane, several improvements were made as production continued, with each improvement adding power, maneuverability and range. As the war progressed, the Thunderbolt, or “Jug,” as it was affectionately called, gained a reputation as a reliable and extremely tough airplane, able to take incredible damage and still return its pilot home safely.
Later in the war, Jugs served as escort fighters for B-29 bombers in the Pacific. Mostly, though, they excelled in the ground-attack role, strafing and bombing their way across the battlefields of Europe.”
T-bone! (Photo by Scott Williamson.)
—The December 2013 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a ’27 Model-T roadster powered by a souped-up Ford V8-60 flat-head.
Old Henry (Ford), curmudgeon that he was, refused to build a six.
So he downsized the flat-head V8.
And so the V8-60; 60 horsepower.
Souped-up versions of the V8-60 came into use in midget-racing, open-wheel single-seat roadsters like in USAC racing, but smaller with smaller engines.
The owner of this car used to race V8-60 powered midgets, so he wanted to do a souped-up V8-60 in his hotrod. The car is a 1927 Model-T roadster — a different body than earlier Ts.
The ’27 T is interesting but not as nice as a Model-A or 1932 (“Deuce”).
The T grill always throws me off. The grill-surround of a ’32 Ford is classic.
A friend of mine, since deceased, was building a Model-A roadster hotrod, but he used a ’32 Ford radiator-surround.
It looked fabulous; he had made the right choice.
The fact this car uses a V8-60 makes it unique, but a Small-Block Chevy or the full-size Flatty would make it more interesting to me.
And that two-piece Duvall style windshield is a mistake.
Snow at Tunnel Inn early in October. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
—And now the dumbest photograph I ever put in my my own calendar.
The December 2013 entry in my Allegheny-Crossing calendar is a picture of a train exiting Allegheny Tunnel at the top of The Hill in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”).
Pennsy’s second tunnel, “Gallitzin” at left, is abandoned and sealed up.
Allegheny Tunnel (first called “Summit Tunnel”) is Pennsy’s original tunnel, and was two tracks at first.
But as railroad equipment enlarged, Allegheny was reduced to one track, and nearby New Portage Tunnel incorporated.
“Gallitzin” Tunnel was added in 1904 to add an additional track.
Allegheny continued to be used, but wasn’t high enough to clear doublestacks. —New Portage wasn’t either.
Conrail enlarged Allegheny in 1995 with state aid to clear doublestacks, as was New Portage, and Allegheny was also widened to allow two tracks.
With two tracks, Gallitzin could be closed.
So now the Alleghenies are no longer a barrier to doublestacks. New Portage was enlarged by dropping its floor.
I ran this picture only because it had snow, what the railroad dispatcher in Pittsburgh calls a four-letter word.
It was early October, 2011. My wife and I had driven to Altoona to do a railfan excursion around PA.
The weather was marginal, raining all-the-time.
The Levin Es lead the excursion-train into Altoona’s Amtrak station. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
The trip was pleasant. Up The Hill and back, including Horseshoe Curve, and then north toward Williamsport on the old Pennsy Bald-Eagle branch, now Nittany & Bald Eagle, a shortline.
Although the Bald-Eagle branch was upgraded to run Norfolk Southern unit coal-trains to a power-plant. NS has trackage-rights.
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| A Conrail Executive E-unit (one of two). |
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| Norfolk Southern’s Executive Business-train, powered by the “Tuxedos,” four refurbished EMD F-units. (Photo by Bobbalew with Phil Faudi.) |
We stopped north of Harrisburg to cross the old Pennsy Rockville bridge, 48 70-foot arches, the longest stone masonry arch railroad viaduct in the world.
We were now on the old Pennsy mainline, headed back to Altoona.
Lots of 70-80 mph running, including Nittany & Bald Eagle.
We were only stopped once near Northumberland on Pennsy’s line to Erie. Something was in the way, and you can’t drive around it on a railroad.
But darkness had fallen once we were on the Pennsy main. I have always wanted to see it, but it was pitch-dark.
Our locomotives were the Levin Es, formerly Conrail’s Executive E-units.
Conrail was broken up and sold in 1999, and Norfolk Southern sold the Conrail Executive Es and refurbished four EMD F-unit locomotives for its own Executive Business-train.
Conrail’s Es have been restored to Pennsy Tuscan (“TUSS-kin;” not “Tucson, AZ.”) red paint by the Levin-brothers, and are very strong.
Pennsy train EC-6 with Fairbanks-Morse C-liners heads for Enola yard. (Photo by Fred Kern.)—My boobie-prize goes to my All-Pennsy color calendar.
I was going to give my boobie-prize to my own calendar, but this calendar is even worse.
It’s Pennsy train EC-6 headed toward Enola (“aye-NOLE-uh”) yard southwest of Harrisburg and across the river.
Enola was installed in 1905 (and fully built out by the late ‘20s) because Harrisburg was becoming too congested to efficiently handle the torrent of traffic moving over Pennsy.
Massive Rockville Bridge across the river (the Susquehanna) is in the background. Rockville is still in use, although no longer the four tracks it could accommodate — only two.
The train is being pulled by Fairbanks-Morse diesel locomotives, examples of what Pennsy had to do to dieselize.
EMD’s (GM’s Electromotive Division) was the better choice, but Pennsy’s demand was so great EMD couldn’t fill it.
Pennsy had to buy from anyone and everyone, including Fairbanks-Morse.
Fairbanks-Morse tried to break into the locomotive market and failed.
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| An opposed-piston engine. |
Fairbanks-Morse lasted a while, but like many diesel-locomotive manufacturers it eventually failed.
Submarine diesels weren’t well-suited for railroad duty. Too much vibration compared to aquatic duty.
The train is headed east toward the vast Enola complex, there to be classified and handed over to electric locomotives bound for the east coast, perhaps even New York City.
The train pictured may be comprised of sections: cars bound for New York City, cars bound for Philadelphia, and cars bound for Baltimore or New Jersey locations.
In Enola the train would be broken up into those sections, and those cars bound for New York coupled to other cars bound for New York until a full train is assembled, after which road-locomotives would pull it out toward New York City.
Enola still exists, although the lines east it fed are no longer electrified. The poles are still there, but the wire is gone.
Electrification was costly to maintain.
Heading east Enola now feeds an old Reading line toward New York, what Conrail switched to toward New York after Pennsy’s line became Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, and its Philadelphia-to-Harrisburg line became Amtrak.
Reading didn’t access New York; in fact, it didn’t even cross north Jersey. It connected to Central of New Jersey and had trackage-rights.
From north Jersey Reading passengers had to ferry to New York, which is what freight used to do, but now it’s trucked.
North Jersey is now a collection of railroad terminals. The Hudson River is a barrier to railroading. In fact, even Pennsy didn’t tunnel freight under the Hudson — only passengers.
Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor uses those old Pennsy tunnels (“the Tubes”).
Enola is now operated by Norfolk Southern, and Norfolk Southern has trackage-rights over Amtrak’s Corridor.
Using them is a challenge; most trackage-rights trains run at night when they don’t conflict with Northeast Corridor Amtrak service.
Although I’m told heavy trains beat the track and misalign switch components.
A lot of other commuter-trains use the Corridor — various commuter authorities.
The Corridor used to carry a lot of freight on Pennsy, but now it’s mainly passenger.
It purports to be Amtrak’s “High-Speed Rail,” but there are still too many tight curves and bumpy junctions.
Portions are capable of 140 mph, but the tunnels through Baltimore are tiny. They go back to the 1800s.
Those tunnels and the Hudson Tubes won’t clear double-deck passenger-cars.
Amtrak’s Auto-Train, which uses double-deck cars, can’t go to New York. Similarly, trains from New York to Florida can’t use double-deck cars. —Such cars wouldn’t clear the Tubes and the Baltimore tunnels.
This picture suffers from being old. It faded red, and I had to reduce the reddish tint with Photoshop.
But a lot of the terrain is red-tinted. Change that too much and it becomes bluish or greenish.
Those Fairbanks-Morse diesels are very dirty, and the Rockville Bridge in the faraway background distracts.
About the only justification for this picture is those Fairbanks-Morse diesels. I haven’t seen many pictures of Pennsy Fairbanks-Morse diesels in action.
(Two of my calendars do extra pictures. I also did an extra picture for my calendar-cover — I should fly that.)
The Levin-Es at the top of The Hill in Gallitzin. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
—My calendar-cover is a picture I took July 8th, 2007. It’s the Levin E-units pulling a short railfan excursion up The Hill and back, which includes Horseshoe Curve. —The short excursions up The Hill were part of Altoona’s Railfest, a celebration of Altoona’s rail heritage. Altoona was the Pennsylvania Railroad’s shop-town. It was also the base of the grade over Allegheny Ridge.
The around-PA excursion mentioned earlier, also pulled by the Levin-Es, was also a Railfest excursion.
Railfest has sometimes been in October, but also in July.
The Levin-Es were scheduled to pull those short railfan excursions. They used other equipment before. I rode one earlier that used MARC equipment, MARC commuter coaches, with MARC locomotives at each end.
With that equipment there were no recouples. One locomotive pulled, and the other pushed.
The train would go up The Hill on Track Two, loop around out past Gallitzin on the connecter between UN and AR, then come back down to Altoona on Track One.
Before Altoona it would cross over to Two, so it could be on the loading-track at Altoona’s Amtrak station.
Then the train just operated in reverse. What had been the pulling locomotive was now pushing, and the pushing locomotive was now pulling.
With the Levin-Es there were coupling moves.
The train followed the same route, but the Levin-Es were always leading, both up and down.
At the end of a run, the locomotives would swap ends: uncouple from one end and recouple at the other end.
The train would then do the next excursion reverse of the previous excursion, and since the Levin-Es are both cab-units, they can be operated from either end.
In my picture the Levin-Es have topped The Hill under Jackson St. bridge in Gallitzin.
I had ridden a previous excursion.
My Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar has two pictures worth flying:
Southern Railway #630 (2-8-0) leads an employee-appreciation excursion. (Photo by Wayne Manning.)
One is an employee-appreciation excursion with steam-locomotive #630 (2-8-0) of Norfolk Southern predecessor Southern Railway.
Norfolk Southern has been using Nickel Plate 765, because Nickel Plate merged into Norfolk & Western in 1964, and is therefore a Norfolk Southern predecessor.
Nickel Plate 765 is the BEST restored steam-locomotive I’ve ever seen. It can run hard and fast, and does.
The Nickel Plate “Berks” (Berkshire, named for the mountains in western Massachusetts it was developed to conquer) were Lima SuperPower (“LYE-muh,” not “LEE-muh;” as in “lima-bean”), built to run hard and fast in freight-train service competing with New York Central (Michigan Central at first, which had a monopoly) west of Buffalo.
SuperPower’s main advantage was increased steam capacity. A SuperPower locomotive could boom-and-zoom without running out of steam.
765 ran employee-appreciation excursions up The Hill out of Altoona last May, and I was there to photograph.
765 crests The Hill in Gallitzin. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
There’s nothing like steam!
765 bursting out of that tunnel in Gallitzin, whistle shrieking, was a thrill for this old widower.
Norfolk Southern has also painted 20 of its new freight-locomotives in so-called “Heritage Schemes,” paint-schemes of its forebears.
The 20 Heritage-units around the turntable at Spencer roundhouse in North Carolina. (Photo by Greg Marck.)
The second picture is all the Heritage-units assembled around the turntable at North Carolina Transportation Museum at Spencer, NC.
NS1030 is on the table with the numbers 1982 and 2012 in her number-boards.
1982 is the year Norfolk Southern was formed when Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway were merged. 2012 is 30 years.
So far I’ve seen three Heritage-units in service.
#1069 as Virginian. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)
First was 1069 as a Virginian Railway locomotive.
#1072 as Illinois-Terminal. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)
Then there was 1072 as Illinois-Terminal hauling a ballast-train east.
#8102 as Pennsylvania Railroad is leading. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)
Then there was 8102 as Pennsylvania Railroad, pulling an empty oil-train west on the old Pennsy main. (The covered-hopper is an idler in case of a crash.)
My Oxman hotrod calendar pays homage to the Model-T hotrod:
First is a “T-bucket” hotrod, called that because the two-seater roadster body look like a bucket.
Bucket-T. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)
A T-bucket hotrod is what I wanted to build. It’s fairly simple. The bucket roadster body is mounted to two frame-rails, and a souped-up V8 motor put out front.
The rear-axle from a Ford pickup might be put out back. It could usually handle the power-output of a souped-up V8.
My deceased friend was building a Model-A hotrod, but it had the stock banjo Ford differential of the ’46 Ford which supplied the frame.
(“Banjo” because it looked like a banjo.)
I bet that banjo would have given nothing but trouble. It wasn’t up to the souped-up Pontiac V8 his hotrod had.
But his car was a Model-A, not a Model-T.
I never was able to build a T-bucket hotrod, and now think the ’32 Ford three-window coupe looks much better.
What follows is a Model-T hotrod that addresses the greatest flaw with Model-T hotrods, its radiator.
Kewel! (Photo by Scott Williamson.)
This car is the best-looking of the calendar’s Model-T homage. It has a racecar-nose.
It should have been the December calendar-entry.
The back end is the final bodywork of the Model-T Ford, not a bucket.
This car looks great, as good as a ’32 Ford hotrod.
Finally we have an earlier Model-T with the bucket followed by the rear bodywork Ford was using at that time.
Skip the V8 sign. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)
It has an actual Ford Flat-Head V8, which need not be advertised by that “V8” painted on the door.
In fact, that’s the only thing wrong with this car, that V8 sign and the number and drag-class letters. It would look better with nothing.
Ford’s Model-T used a four-cylinder flat-head. Installing a V8 would vastly increase this car’s wow-factor.
There was another Model-T hotrod pictured, but it was a pickup.
I never liked that! The pickup body was tiny, big enough to carry a suitcase.
That is, appearance only, no function.
The good-looking Model-T hotrod is that racer-nose.
Labels: Monthly Calendar Report
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