Monthly Calendar-Report for January 2014

Eastbound mixed on One passes westbound doublestack on Two at CP-W. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

And so begins my first calendar without the continuous help of Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”).
It’s also my first calendar without just my own pictures, since my brother Jack and nephew Tom were along a few times, and did pretty good.
Phil is the railfan extraordinaire from Altoona, PA, who supplied all-day train-chases for $125. —I did my first Tour almost three years ago, alone with Phil (my wife wasn’t with me), and it blew my mind.
He called them “Adventure-Tours,” and that’s just what they were, railfan overload.
Faudi would bring along his radio rail-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 left 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 really nice car he’s afraid he’d mess up. (Phil had done the driving.)
Phil had to stop leading me around, which was what he was doing after he quit the business, with me driving.
His wife has muscular sclerosis, and was having a difficult time last year. Phil felt he couldn’t leave his wife to help me chase trains.
Which was fine. Phil and I had already chased trains quite a few times earlier, so I was using his photo-locations, which can be dramatic.
I also was getting the hang of railroad operations, so could monitor my radio-scanner fairly well.
I also had mastered mileage locations out along the railroad. The train-engineers have to call out the signal-aspects as they proceed, and some of the signal-locations go by milepost location. (I know where those that don’t are.)
When a train-engineer calls out a signal, I know where they are.
They also have to say what track they are on, which tells me if they are comin’-or-goin’.
So I no longer am in-the-dark without Phil. But I like having him along. He’s knows what is scheduled, and I don’t yet.
He also can identify a train by what it’s pulling.
Radio-transmissions can be sketchy, but when Phil hears something he can usually make sense of it.
He also is from the area, and has chased trains a lot. When he hears something, he’ll know if we have time to beat it to one of his photo-locations, and what roads to use.
I also like chasing trains with a real railfan, which Phil is.
This first photograph is by me, without Phil. It was with my brother Bill from northern Delaware and his son Tom, my nephew, early last year.
Tom is the railfan; Bill isn’t.
Phil and Tom and I chased trains a few years ago.
Bill and Tom and I went to a Faudi photo-location, CP-W, northeast (railroad-east) of South Fork, PA.
CP-W is where the old Pennsylvania Railroad had a flyover to South Fork. The idea was to keep trains for South Fork from tying up the mainline.
At South Fork a branch begins south into coal-country. The South Fork Secondary still exists, and still has four coal-loadouts.
But the flyover is long-gone. All that remains are the stone abutments.
A running-track (visible at left) from the South Fork Secondary feeds the main, and accessing it isn’t that difficult.
A train to South Fork has to use Track One to get to that running-track, which conflicts Track One.
But eastbounds can also use Track Two — with the flyover trains to South Fork didn’t need to use One.
So we all hiked down to CP-W on a Norfolk Southern access-road.
Phil wasn’t with me, but he could call my cellphone.
He couldn’t leave his wife, but he could monitor his scanner, although only the east slope of The Hill from his house.
The west slope was me, although my scanner was being difficult. I hadn’t used it enough until then, so was somewhat buffaloed.
I have it pretty well under control now, although if Phil’s around I let him do the scanner monitoring.
So there we were at CP-W on the west slope which Phil couldn’t monitor.
And I wasn’t having much luck with my scanner.
A doublestack freight passed downward on Track Two, yet here came a mixed up on Track One.
The line is still fairly busy. We managed to snag a double without Phil. —A “double” is two trains at once.



A 1969 “Dan Gurney Edition” Mercury Cyclone Spoiler. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

—The January, 2014 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecar calendar is a Dan Gurney Edition of a 1969 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler.
The Cyclone Spoiler is Mercury’s version of Ford’s Torino Talladega.
Both had a special bluff front-end that improved aerodynamics at top speed.
The stock Cyclone and Torino intermediates shaped their front-ends like a scoop, which slowed the car.

“Dapper-Dan” Gurney.

Gurney in the Porsche Formula-One car.

Dan Gurney was a racecar driver from my era, ‘60s and ‘70s.
Gurney, who lived in southern California, got his start in hot-rodding, but drove so well he moved up to racing.
He eventually even drove Formula-One for Porsche (“Poor-SHA”), and later made his own effort in Formula-One, the American Eagle team. I think he even won a race with that car — and it wasn’t the V8 Cosworth-Ford motor most Formula-One teams were using at that time. It was a V12 developed by his team.
Gurney is still alive; one of the few Formula-One racers that survived.
This “Dan Gurney Edition” memorializes Gurney’s many victories at Riverside Sportscar track in southern California — he won the race five times.

A Wood-Brothers entry of Gurney at Riverside.

At that time the NASCAR season began with a stockcar race on Riverside Sportscar track.
Since Gurney was a successful sportscar racer, the Wood-Brothers NASCAR team hired him to drive Riverside.
This was especially fruitful for Gurney, since Wood-Brothers concentrated on pit-work. They had reduced the time for various pit-functions, like fueling and changing tires.
A Wood-Brothers racer would pit, and spend less time in the pits than anyone else. By so doing, that Wood-Brothers racer might move up in the field, perhaps into the lead.
Now all the NASCAR teams do it. There are even competitions among pit-crews to see who is fastest.
But back then Wood-Brothers won races based on their shorter pit times.
Gurney in a Wood-Brothers car at Riverside was a winning team. And often Riverside was the only NASCAR race Gurney drove.
Gurney also had the advantage of racing sportscar tracks. He’d baby a car, and his competitors didn’t know as much. They’d burn up clutches and wear out brakes.
Gurney was always sort of a hired gun.
Other drivers often headed a team, or drove as the number-one driver for a team. Gurney’s Eagle Formula-One team was a driver-team relationship.

Gurney steps into his Can-Am McLaren at Mosport sportscar track near Toronto (“MOE-sport”). (Photo by Bobbalew.)

Gurney often drove for other teams; like Wood-Brothers or McLaren.
His driving for McLaren’s Can-Am team caused a major flap.
McLaren was tired by Goodyear; but Gurney was Firestone.
I think Gurney only did a race or two for the McLaren Can-Am team. He never won any, but could have.
McLaren was the premier Can-Am team at that time, but its number-one driver was New Zealander Denis Hulme (“Hume”).
Its number-one driver had been Bruce McLaren, but McLaren was killed when his Can-Am car came apart testing.
Gurney drove for other teams. I think he won LeMans with co-driver A.J. Foyt in a Ford Mark-IV racer. Such cars were capable of 200+ mph!
Henry Ford II (”the Deuce”) was mad because Enzo Ferrari refused to sell Ferrari to Ford. Ford’s blunderbuss effort at LeMans was the result.
It’s nice to see a Dan Gurney Edition of the Cyclone-Spoiler in this calendar.
I think the bluff front-end looks better than the stock Torino and Cyclone.
The car has the Gurney-team’s colors: white with blue trim.



More steam action on the Mighty Curve. (Photo by W.G. Fancher©.)

The January, 2014 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is another photograph of steam action at “the Mighty Curve” (Horseshoe Curve).

The December 2013 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar. (Photo by Lewis Bullock©.)

It reprises a photograph in my Calendar-Report last month of a Pennsy Decapod (2-10-0) pulling coal-hoppers, probably empty, around the Curve.
This month it’s a Pennsy Texan (2-10-4). Pennsy’s war-baby, pulling mixed freight up around the Curve.
“War-baby” because the locomotive isn’t a Pennsylvania Railroad design. Pennsy had been developing its own steam-locomotives in Altoona, its shop-town.
But during the ‘20s and ‘30s Pennsy was investing in electrification. They didn’t develop modern steam-locomotion.
When WWII broke out, Pennsy was saddled with old and tired locomotive designs, like that Decapod. WWII began a traffic deluge, so Pennsy was in trouble.
New locomotives were needed, yet the War Production Board wouldn’t allow Pennsy to develop.

A Norfolk & Western “A” (2-6-6-4). (Photo by C.L. Kayleib©.)

A Chesapeake & Ohio T-1 Texas (2-10-4).

A Belpaire Firebox on a Pennsy engine.

So Pennsy had to shop an already-developed locomotive. They tried Norfolk & Western’s “A” (2-6-6-4), and Chesapeake & Ohio’s T-1 (2-10-4).
Pennsy, scared of articulation, chose the C&O T-1, but gave it a long-distance tender, Pennsy front-end details, and a semi-streamlined cab.
Pennsy’s Texans were all built in Altoona.
But they lacked the trademark Pennsy Belpaire (“BELL-pear”) firebox.
In fact, it’s a Lima SuperPower design (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”), although C&O’s Texans were built by American Locomotive Company (Alco) in Schenectady, NY.
SuperPower was mainly aimed at increasing steam-capacity ay high speed. A SuperPower engine wouldn’t run out of steam at speed.
So slogging a heavy freight up The Hill is sort of a misapplication. Pennsy’s Texans finished on a fairly level line in Ohio where they could boom-‘n’-zoom.
Although they also finished on The Hill. —I’ve certainly flown many pictures of Pennsy Texans on The Hill.
I notice the photographer is standing right in the middle of the four-track right-of-way. It was reduced to three tracks in 1981.
Standing in the right-of-way is something I don’t do.
I don’t even like standing near the tracks.
A train might appear, and all-of-a-sudden I have to scatter.
I also don’t wanna inflame the railroad-police. Others are railfans too.
Trackside for me is about 15-20 feet from track-center, or from an overpass.
Pennsy’s Texans are long-gone; in fact, none were saved.
Many Pennsy engines were saved, and are at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, PA.
The Texans are impressive, but weren’t a Pennsy design.
But as Pennsy’s first steam-locomotive with so-called “gadgets” they abhorred, like feedwater heat, which increased efficiency, they were Pennsy’s first exposure to such gadgets — which later appeared in Pennsy locomotive design.



“Bad kitty!” (The nose-art.) (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

The January, 2014 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is one of the most dramatic pictures photographer Makanna ever snagged.

(—Actually, they are all pretty good this month, except the last, which gets by because it’s rare; one-of-a-kind.)

My Ghosts calendar is a Grumman F7F Tiger-Cat, a plane I’ve never seen, and was not familiar with.
It’s a twin-engine variation of the Grumman ‘Cat series. First was the F4F Wildcat. Then the F6F Hellcat. Finally the F8F Bearcat.
Many Hellcats were made, and saw action against the Japanese in WWII’s Pacific Theater.
All were single-engined, and the Bearcat was a real hotrod. An immensely powerful engine in as small and light an airframe as possible.
The Hellcat and Bearcat were both powered by the gigantic Pratt & Whitney Double-Wasp 18-cylinder engine, 2,100 horsepower for the Tiger-Cat and Bearcat (2,000 horsepower for the Hellcat).
The Tiger-Cat has two.
Seeing this airplane I think of a radial-engined Lockheed P-38 Lightning, which had two water-cooled V12s.
The Lightning got by calling it an “interceptor,” instead of a “fighter”-plane. It didn’t meet Army Air-Corps fighter-plane requirements.
What I notice most about this Tiger-Cat is how narrow its fuselage is: not much wider than the shoulders of its pilot.
The engine-nacelles have to be gigantic, since they’re encasing air-cooled Double-Wasp radials.
The Tiger-Cat looks more engine-nacelles than fuselage.
A Tiger-cat is bigger, than its single-engine cousins, and has more wing.
I’ve never seen one, but I’m sure I’d be impressed.
It looks lethal. Even more lethal than the Lightning, which looked graceful.
I wonder if the engines of a Tiger-Cat are counter-rotating; on a P-38 they were. The right-engine rotated the opposite of the left engine, which gave the airplane better balance.



An eastbound loaded oil-train, distributed power locomotive pushing, is actually going away. (Photo by Sam Wheland.)

—The January, 2014 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is actually going away.
It’s a train of loaded crude-oil tankcars; an idler-car (the faded red boxcar) is in front of of the pusher-locomotive in case of a crash.
I know exactly where this picture was taken. It’s a Faudi photo-location, the Jamestown Road overpass over the Pennsy bypass built in 1898.
The overpass is north of Portage, PA, and has eastbound Pennsy target-signals on it, 257.2.

The Pennsy targets on Jamestown Road overpass. (Photo by Tom Hughes.)

The bypass was built to circumvent difficult curvature on the original Pennsy west-slope main between Portage and Cassandra (“Kuh-SANNE-druh;” as in “Anne”).
The railroad originally went through Cassandra, and the original alignment north of Portage still exists as a branch. It was never removed because it passes Sonman Coal Tipple.
The branch re-enters the bypass at right.
The original alignment used to cross here to go up through Cassandra.
The bypass avoided Cassandra, but had to include a deep rock cut.
The cut was used to bridge a highway into Cassandra, but now that highway (State Route 53) also bypasses.
A footbridge was installed on the old bridge abutments; it is now known as Cassandra Railfan Overlook. You can just barely see it beyond the signal-bridge.
The footbridge was installed to allow Cassandra residents to get to jobs across the tracks.
But the bridge became a hangout for railfans.
A Cassandra resident noticed, started mowing the area, and installed old restaurant tables and benches.
That resident became mayor of Cassandra, and I’ve been to Cassandra Railfan Overlook many times. Above all it’s shady and you can sit.
Anything eastbound is hammering, assaulting the heavens, WIDE-OPEN climbing the west-slope of Allegheny Mountain.
This photograph was probably chosen because it depicts a new wrinkle on Norfolk Southern, the use of radio-controlled distributed power.
Railroads out west have used radio-controlled distributed power for years, often mid-train.
The locomotive depicted is radio-controlled by the head-end crew. Distributed power increases capacity and efficiency.
Railroads have found a new market moving crude-oil from well-head to east-coast refineries. —In this case, from North Dakota and Canada.
That giant conflagration in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, involved a crude-oil train. Crude doesn’t explode, but can catch fire and flow through sewer-drains.
Apparently even the lake was afire, as burning crude flowed into the lake.
Despite those conflagrations, tons of crude are being moved by the railroads. People are agitating for the Keystone XL Pipeline, but I’m not sure that would end railroad involvement.
Many oil-refineries are on the east coast. The Keystone XL Pipeline moves the stuff south.

My December calendar-entry. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

Since the Jamestown Road overpass is a Faudi photo-location I’ve taken many photographs off it. One (at left) will be the December entry in my 2014 calendar.
But I don’t consider the location photogenic. It’s tangent (straight) track on both sides of the bridge.
It needs a lot of telephoto, as Wheland’s picture had, and even then the results are questionable.
Then too when the average railfan looks at a train-picture, they think the locomotive is in front. In this case it’s pushing.



Not bad for a ’33 Ford. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)

—The January, 2014 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a much-modified ’33 Ford three-window coupe; three windows because it lacks the two tiny windows behind each door-post that would make it a five-window.
That is, it only has three windows beside the windshield: the door-windows and the rear.
The car’s top is chopped 3&1/2 inches; somewhat extreme but not ridiculous.
The car is also devoid of fenders, but doesn’t look too bad. —I prefer fenders on ’33 or ’34 Fords. The rear drag-slicks match the body’s wheel-surround, where fenders would be hung.
The car is painted Lamborghini yellow-pearl, and has tasteful flames. Rodders tend to go overboard with flame-paint, but this looks okay. At least the flames aren’t day-glo green or blue.
The motor sets me wondering.
It’s a supercharged SmallBlock Chevy, and the exhaust is unmuffled.
To me that says “trailer-queen.” It doesn’t look like something you could enjoy on the street.
That massive supercharger is a remake of GM’s 6-71 supercharger used on 6-71 diesel engines. That’s six cylinders of 71 cubic-inch displacement.
6-71 superchargers found heavy use in drag-racing in the ‘60s. They force more intake-air into an engine.
But the owner of this car had two four-barrel carbs atop the blower (supercharger). Drag-racers usually had fuel-injection, essentially sprayers that sprayed fuel into the air fed into the supercharger.
To me this car is for drag-racing. That heavily-modified motor would be a handful on the street — unmanageable.
Cars like this, heavily modified Fords, dominated drag-racing in the early ‘50s.
But by the late ‘50s drag-racers were turning to non-Fords that were smaller and lighter, and perhaps more aerodynamic.
But it looks pretty good for a ’33 Ford. That slanted grill usually turns me off, and hot-rodders preferred the ’34 Ford over the ’33. —An example is famous hotrod builder Chip Foose.
Anyone who reads this here blog knows I consider the ’32 Ford three-window coupe the best-looking hotrod of all time.


#5800, the one-and only DD-2 (4-4-4-4). (Photo by Fred Kern.)

—The January, 2014 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is uninspiring.
It’s a portrait of Pennsy’s one-and-only DD-2 electric locomotive.
DD because it’s two D-model 4-4-0s articulated together. —Much like the GG-1 (“Jee-Jee-ONE;” I only say that because a friend was mispronouncing it “Jee-Jee-Eye”), which was two G-model 4-6-0s articulated together.

A DD-1. (Dave Sweetland Collection.)

This is a box-cab P-5a; there was also a steeple-cab version. (Charter.net photo.)

“DD-2” because there was a DD-1. Pennsy’s first locomotives through the Hudson River Tunnels were the third-rail DD-1s.
After the phenomenal success of the GG-1, Pennsy was trying to find a replacement for its aging P-5 electric locomotives.
The P-5s were at first passenger locomotives but since the GG-1s were so successful, the P-5s were relegated to freight-service.
The P-5s go back a long way.
Pennsy tried various experimentals to replace the P-5, but none were produced in quantity.
One angle was rectification, changing the alternating-current delivered over-the-wire to direct-current for the traction-motors.
The P-5s and GG-1 were AC.
DC is a nice idea — that’s what diesel-electric locomotives use, at least at that time; now it’s both.
But a locomotive has to be dependable. Rectification at that time was flaky.
As far as I know, the DD-2 was AC, and was built before the rectification experiments. If the DD-2 had been as successful as the GG-1 in passenger-service, it would have been built in quantity for that.
The DD-2 follows the GG-1 design principle: two independent sub-frames under a single body. But perhaps four powered wheels didn’t track as well as the GG1’s six.

5800 at Wilmington Shops, about 1959. (A rectifier-unit is at right.) (Photo by Bobbalew.)

I managed to snag the one-and-only DD-2 at the GG-1 shops in Wilmington, DE.
I didn’t know what I was seeing, but I had never seen it, so I snapped a picture. Some of the rectification experimentals were also there.
DD-2 #5800 apparently stayed in service a while before being scrapped, unlike the R-1 (4-8-4), which the GG-1 trumped.
And Pennsy expected the R-1 to trump the GG-1.
Who knows? When I saw the DD-2, it may have been out-of-service by then.
I saw the DD-2 in the shop. —And maybe the rectification experimentals were also out-of-service.

Pennsy’s E-44s. (Photo by Dave Sweetland.)

The P-5s were not retired until Pennsy fielded their new E-44 rectifier units in the ‘60s.
The E-44s stayed in service until Conrail de-energized much of Pennsy’s electrification in the ‘80s.
All that remains are -a) commuter-districts, and -b) Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor and Philadelphia-to-Harrisburg line. —Plus the lineside poles. The wire was removed.
DD-2 #5800 apparently wasn’t worth replicating.
And anyone who follows this here blog knows I consider the GG-1 the greatest railroad-locomotive of all time. It could put 9,000 horsepower to the railhead. The current General-Electric diesel is rated at 4,400 horsepower.