Monthly Calendar-Report for February 2014
(February 4th, 2014 — not too bad, considering I started this calendar-report half-way into the month.
I try to start these things earlier.
It would have been a week-or-two later except it was too cold to take my dog to the park.
I’ve been told people look forward to these calendar-reports more than anything.
No doubt people wonder why I’m so far behind being retired.
I find I’m swamped, especially with my wife passing.)
Eastbound stack-train on One crosses Brickyard Crossing. (Photo by Tom Hughes.)
— The February 2014 entry of my own calendar was taken by my nephew Tom Hughes, the railfan son of my brother from northern Delaware.
It’s a stacker downhill on Track One at Brickyard Crossing.
The road isn’t Brickyard Road; it’s Porta Road, and as far as I know it’s the only grade-crossing in the Altoona area — that is, the only place a road crosses the mainline at grade.
Porta Road sees little traffic; the gates are down often.
There was a brickyard nearby, but it’s gone. It was replaced by warehousing and truck-docks.
But the railroad still refers to the area as “the brickyard.” Railfans will always call it “Brickyard Crossing.”
The railroad’s continuing to call it “the brickyard” reminds of radio-transmissions out of “CSX-Baltimore” regarding “Whiskey-Block” and “Cherry-Tree” on the old Baltimore & Ohio main. I bet that cheery-tree is gone.
Brickyard offers various photo-locations. Tom’s photo is from up on an embankment northwest of the tracks, the best location for eastbounds assuming the sun’s not out.
If the sun is out, a photo is horribly backlit. The only place to shoot eastbounds if the sun is out is the other side of the tracks — in which case you’re down at trackside, or even below the tracks.
Yrs trly was down at the grade-crossing, hoping for a westbound.
Westbounds can also be shot from up on the embankment — I got a really good picture there once.
Westbound is a curve into Brickyard, and lineside greenery becomes your background — which you get with heavy telephoto.
The November picture of this calendar will be from the grade-crossing.
My November picture is also a double, one coming up, and one going down.
We saw a triple at this location, a train on every track. A stacker was climbing Track Two, and a mixed came up beside it on Three.
A slab-train then descended on Track One, but we weren’t in a good location to get it. We needed to be on the other side of the tracks. —And about the only way to fully snag a triple is from an overpass above the tracks.
Slab-trains are all gondola-cars loaded with steel slabs for rolling into plate. This train may have been empty.
The slab-train stopped, and another train came up Three. That’s my November calendar-picture. The stacker on Two had cleared.
So for an eastbound, Tom was in the better location, as long as the sun wasn’t out.
I shot this stacker too, but Tom got the better shot. Mine was down at the grade-crossing, trackside.
A K-2 Pacific — not a K-4. (Photo by Robert F. Collins©.)
The February 2014 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a K-2 Pacific (4-6-2) at Morris Park shop on Long Island Railroad.
The K-2 Pacific precedes the famous Pennsy K-4 Pacific.
If I am correct, it is more the lines west of Pittsburgh, the lines across Ohio and Indiana Pennsy merged to feed its main-stem east of Pittsburgh.
“Lines West” and Pennsy east of Pittsburgh seemed to be two different entities at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Lines east of Pittsburgh liked to get by with fewer drive-axles; for example the E-6 Atlantic (4-4-2). Build the boiler big enough and you can. The boiler of an E-6 is huge for an Atlantic. Most Atlantics were teakettles.
The K-2 was Pennsy’s concession to wanting a light-Pacific on “Lines West.” —It also was used east of Pittsburgh.
It doesn’t have the firebox of a K-4, which was large for a Pacific.
But apparently this K-2 worked well enough for it to be sent east to Long Island Railroad — a Pennsy subsidiary. The picture is 1937, which is late enough to retire most K-2s.
My bus-company did that. If a bus worked well, it wasn’t retired despite its age.
Long Island Railroad was essentially a commuter-line. As such it had Pennsy G-5s (4-6-0). There were also E-6 Atlantics, and probably even K-4s.
But apparently this K-2 worked well enough it wasn’t retired.
It looks like a K-4 from the front, but that pilot-beam is wood, the trailing-truck isn’t “Kiesel” (“KYE-zuhl”) like a K-4, and the fire-grate isn’t the K-4’s 70 square feet.
I also notice the K-2 doesn’t use the outside Walschaerts (“Well-shirtz”) valve gear of a K-4; it may be Walschaerts, but it’s not that of a K-4.
I notice it also has the older four-window locomotive-cab. K-4s were only two-window.
All the K-2s were scrapped. Only one fully-assembled K-4 remains, #3750 (above). It’s at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, PA. There is another K-4, #1361, but it’s apart.
Fury! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)
The February 2014 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Hawker SeaFury, very much a hotrod.
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site weigh in:
“As with many aircraft of the 1940s, the Hawker SeaFury fighter-bomber design was the result of a British wartime design specification which called for certain performance levels to be met by the new aircraft.
To meet Specification F.6/42, the Hawker design team began by modifying the Hawker Tempest into a smaller, lightweight version. By 1943, six prototypes had been ordered, five to be flown with three different engines, and one to be a test airframe.
The first flight of the new airplane (by now named the “Fury”) took place on September 1st, 1944.
Production contracts for the airplane had already been placed, with 200 land-based Furies to be delivered to the Royal Air Force, and another 200 carrier-based SeaFuries to be delivered to Fleet Air Arm.
The first SeaFury prototype, powered by a Bristol Centaurus XII, had first flown on February 21st, 1945, but the first fully-navalized version with folding wings did not fly until October 12th, 1947.
The Royal Navy also received 60 two-seat T.Mk 20 trainers in the early 1950s.”
This airplane appears to be one of those trainers — so one wonders if it qualifies as a WWII warbird.
The Bristol Centaurus XII radial generates 2,480 horsepower; which is a lot.
I notice it’s cranking a five-bladed propeller.
Furies are raced.
They’re probably not as agile as a Mustang, but they can attain 445 mph as built.
A Fury might need more room to maneuver, but there’s nothing like a blunderbuss motor.
It’s like car-racing a Hemi (“HEMM-eee;” not “he-me”). The Hemi was big and heavy, but also immensely strong.
This airplane lacks the beauty and grace of a Mustang (or Spitfire), but has that gigantic motor turning that five-bladed propeller.
I’ve seen twin four-bladed props on racing Mustangs, but that ain’t as-built.
This SeaFury is as-built.
Imagine being chased by one these things. Four 20-mm cannons! It probably caught up with you from behind.
The SeaFury was the Fury for aircraft-carrier service, although I don’t think the British were operating in WWII’s Pacific Theater.
That would have been the U.S. Navy with Corsairs and Hellcats.
The SeaFury did very well in the Pacific during the Korean War.
John Deere combines. (Photo by Tim Calvin.)
—The February 2014 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a single GE diesel-locomotive pulling a string of John Deere combines toward the Port of Baltimore.
I’ve seen tractor-trains myself, but usually mixed, not solid tractors.
Allegheny Crossing usually sees one mixed-train per day with tractors in it.
But they are often blue, which is New Holland, or red.
I have also seen carloads of yellow Caterpillar bulldozers.
Shipping large equipment like this by rail is attractive. Equipment like this is “Oversize-Load” on a highway, but not on railroad flatcars.
Four or more giant combines might fit on a 60-foot single-trailer flatcar.
Ship on the highway, and that load would be so wide, you’d need escorts.
Shipping by rail makes sense.
The locomotive is a General-Electric ES40DC, one GE’s Evolution Series, engineered to meet recent stringent emission requirements.
(“40” stands for 4,000 horsepower.)
Electromotive Division (EMD, once a division of General Motors, but now independent), with its two-stroke diesels, is having less trouble meeting emission-requirements as do General-Electric four-stroke diesels.
Two-strokes burn the fuel-charge at lower temperatures, and therefore generate less nitrogen pollutants than a four-stroke.
Electromotive Division has used two-stroke diesels since diesel-locomotion began in the ‘30s. EMD recently designed a four-stroke to improve fuel-economy, but two-strokes run cleaner.
Getting by with only one locomotive is fine if the run is mainly downhill.
And attaining the east coast is mainly downhill —except for Allegheny Crossing in the Appalachians, which may require multiple units, even helpers.
A 1971 Dodge SuperBee. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)
—The February 2014 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecar calendar is a 1971 Dodge SuperBee.
Dodge was envious of Plymouth’s smashing success with its RoadRunner, which wasn’t really a musclecar. It didn’t have a gigantic hot-rodded engine, although it could. Standard was a souped-up 383 cubic-inch engine, which is still fairly large.
The RoadRunner was a hotrod on the cheap. Very basic, but a good street-racer. They came with a four-speed floorshift, or three-speed TorqueFlite automatic-transmission.
Otherwise, fitments were basic. A RoadRunner has bench-seats like the cheapest Plymouth model. They weren’t buckets. A RoadRunner didn’t set you back like a Plymouth GTX, yet you had that hotrod motor and floorshift.
The RoadRunner was phenomenally successful. Plymouth sold many — a marketing smash.
Fellow Chrysler brand Dodge was envious. They wanted a RoadRunner of their own.
And so the SuperBee, the RoadRunner concept rebadged as a Dodge.
That is, Chrysler’s intermediate body with a 383 floorshift.
This particular SuperBee has Chrysler’s Hemi motor, which makes it a musclecar.
You could option the Hemi in a SuperBee.
By 1971 the SuperBee was only an option-package on Dodge’s Charger. It was no longer a free-standing model.
I never felt the RoadRunner concept was that attractive.
Chrysler’s intermediates were too big.
And the best-looking RoadRunner was the first, 1968.
M-1 Mountain (4-8-2) cools its heels awaiting clearance into Enola yard. (Photo by Fred Kern.)
—Sigh!
Another photograph by Fred Kern.
The February 2014 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a Pennsy freight-train, pulled by a Mountain steam-engine (4-8-2), cooling its heels at Cove, PA, awaiting clearance into Enola (“aye-NOLE-uh”) yard down the Susquehanna (“suss-kwee-HA-nuh”) river across from Harrisburg.
Enola is the yard Pennsy built because Harrisburg was congested.
I always slug photography-files with the name of the photographer, so I know who to credit.
If I did a computer-search for “Fred Kern” I’d get 89 bazilyun hits.
Last month’s entry was by Fred Kern; next month’s entry is Fred Kern.
His Kodachrome© slides make this calendar.
I also ran a recent picture at Cove in the Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar.
At first I thought this train might be the same train I ran in an earlier Fred Kern picture in an All-Pennsy color calendar.
It’s not. That train was charging out of Enola; this train is waiting to get in.
The earlier train was westbound; this train is eastbound.
Pennsy’s Mountain was probably its most successful steam-locomotive design.
The firebox-grate is only 70 square feet; not small, but only adequate.
But the locomotive had a combustion-chamber to more adequately burn its coal.
The Mountains were well-suited for their assigned duties, which were to pull fast-freights.
They were used on Pennsy’s storied Middle-Division Harrisburg to Altoona, plus other routes.
On the Middle-Division the grade is not heavy, but always there. A Mountain might hold 40 to 50 mph uphill to Altoona.
After Altoona Pennsy became a mountain railroad, up and over Allegheny summit. —That’s slogging. The Mountains weren’t suited for that.
When this picture was taken, March 1957, steam would come off Pennsy in little over a year.
The locomotive is dirty and shows signs of deferred maintenance.
Its driving-wheels are covered with sand-dust. Sand is used to enhance traction on slippery rail. Sand might keep the drivers from slipping.
Even current diesel-locomotives use sand. Traction is always a challenge where the steel-wheel meets the steel-railhead. The actual contact-patch is tiny.
No matter how well-suited the Mountain was for the Middle-Division, it compared poorly to diesel-locomotion. Steam-locomotives needed water-towers and coaling-docks.
Pennsy built a giant coaling facility on its Middle-Division to re-coal its locomotives on the mainline.
That coal facility was removed with dieselization.
Concrete coal-towers still exist on some railroads. Removing them costs more than letting them remain.
Trackside water-towers didn’t block the railroad when removed. An over-the-railroad concrete coal-tower would block the railroad when exploded.
All a diesel needed was a fuel-rack. Plus its power-delivery was better than a steam-locomotive, which gave intermittent power-thrusts. Power-delivery from a diesel-electric was continuous. Electric traction without wires.
UGH! (Photo by Scott Williamson.)
—The February, 2014 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a really good photograph of what to me is a dumb-looking car.
The car is a throwback, a reproduction of a dry-lakes racer in southern California from the ‘40s.
Hot-rodders, backyard tinkerers, used to race on southern California’s vast dry-lakes. Edwards Air-Force Base is on Muroc dry-lake. Muroc is vast enough to land the Shuttle if need be.
A Shuttle runway is also in Florida. If the Shuttle landed at Edwards, it needed to be transported back to Florida.
This car appears to be a Model-T phaeton with the back-end hacked off. Apparently hot-rodders did this if they couldn’t find a Model-T two-seater roadster, a teacup.
I’m sorry, but the teacup roadster is gorgeous.
This hacked phaeton is a joke.
This car also uses a hot-rodded four-cylinder motor, as many did in the ‘40s.
It not being a V8 makes it not a hotrod to me.
What it is is a lakester reproduction, albeit very well done.
I get the feeling the car’s owner found this chopped phaeton lakester, and decided to not let it go to waste.
And so a reproduction of a classic lakester, complete with four-cylinder engine.
I wonder if the engine is Model-T Ford, souped-up of course.
It doesn’t say.
Often restorers pull out the old Model-T motor, and replace it with a modern overhead-valve four.
The Model-T Ford wasn’t overhead-valve; it was a flat-head.
Souping a flat-head didn’t deliver much. It could be done, but doing so was like souping a flat-head Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engine.
A flat-head is side-valve, with contorted breathing. Overhead-valve breathes much better.
The Ford flat-head V8 was pretty much retired as a hotrod engine by the Chevrolet SmallBlock, which is overhead-valve.
I try to start these things earlier.
It would have been a week-or-two later except it was too cold to take my dog to the park.
I’ve been told people look forward to these calendar-reports more than anything.
No doubt people wonder why I’m so far behind being retired.
I find I’m swamped, especially with my wife passing.)
Eastbound stack-train on One crosses Brickyard Crossing. (Photo by Tom Hughes.)
— The February 2014 entry of my own calendar was taken by my nephew Tom Hughes, the railfan son of my brother from northern Delaware.
It’s a stacker downhill on Track One at Brickyard Crossing.
The road isn’t Brickyard Road; it’s Porta Road, and as far as I know it’s the only grade-crossing in the Altoona area — that is, the only place a road crosses the mainline at grade.
Porta Road sees little traffic; the gates are down often.
There was a brickyard nearby, but it’s gone. It was replaced by warehousing and truck-docks.
But the railroad still refers to the area as “the brickyard.” Railfans will always call it “Brickyard Crossing.”
The railroad’s continuing to call it “the brickyard” reminds of radio-transmissions out of “CSX-Baltimore” regarding “Whiskey-Block” and “Cherry-Tree” on the old Baltimore & Ohio main. I bet that cheery-tree is gone.
Brickyard offers various photo-locations. Tom’s photo is from up on an embankment northwest of the tracks, the best location for eastbounds assuming the sun’s not out.
If the sun is out, a photo is horribly backlit. The only place to shoot eastbounds if the sun is out is the other side of the tracks — in which case you’re down at trackside, or even below the tracks.
Yrs trly was down at the grade-crossing, hoping for a westbound.
 |
| From the embankment. (Photo by Bobbalew with Phil Faudi.) |
 |
| My November calendar-entry. (Photo by Bobbalew.) |
Westbound is a curve into Brickyard, and lineside greenery becomes your background — which you get with heavy telephoto.
The November picture of this calendar will be from the grade-crossing.
My November picture is also a double, one coming up, and one going down.
We saw a triple at this location, a train on every track. A stacker was climbing Track Two, and a mixed came up beside it on Three.
A slab-train then descended on Track One, but we weren’t in a good location to get it. We needed to be on the other side of the tracks. —And about the only way to fully snag a triple is from an overpass above the tracks.
Slab-trains are all gondola-cars loaded with steel slabs for rolling into plate. This train may have been empty.
The slab-train stopped, and another train came up Three. That’s my November calendar-picture. The stacker on Two had cleared.
So for an eastbound, Tom was in the better location, as long as the sun wasn’t out.
I shot this stacker too, but Tom got the better shot. Mine was down at the grade-crossing, trackside.
A K-2 Pacific — not a K-4. (Photo by Robert F. Collins©.)
The February 2014 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a K-2 Pacific (4-6-2) at Morris Park shop on Long Island Railroad.
The K-2 Pacific precedes the famous Pennsy K-4 Pacific.
If I am correct, it is more the lines west of Pittsburgh, the lines across Ohio and Indiana Pennsy merged to feed its main-stem east of Pittsburgh.
“Lines West” and Pennsy east of Pittsburgh seemed to be two different entities at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Lines east of Pittsburgh liked to get by with fewer drive-axles; for example the E-6 Atlantic (4-4-2). Build the boiler big enough and you can. The boiler of an E-6 is huge for an Atlantic. Most Atlantics were teakettles.
The K-2 was Pennsy’s concession to wanting a light-Pacific on “Lines West.” —It also was used east of Pittsburgh.
It doesn’t have the firebox of a K-4, which was large for a Pacific.
But apparently this K-2 worked well enough for it to be sent east to Long Island Railroad — a Pennsy subsidiary. The picture is 1937, which is late enough to retire most K-2s.
My bus-company did that. If a bus worked well, it wasn’t retired despite its age.
Long Island Railroad was essentially a commuter-line. As such it had Pennsy G-5s (4-6-0). There were also E-6 Atlantics, and probably even K-4s.
But apparently this K-2 worked well enough it wasn’t retired.
 |
| The only fully-assembled K-4. (Photo by Bobbalew.) |
I also notice the K-2 doesn’t use the outside Walschaerts (“Well-shirtz”) valve gear of a K-4; it may be Walschaerts, but it’s not that of a K-4.
I notice it also has the older four-window locomotive-cab. K-4s were only two-window.
All the K-2s were scrapped. Only one fully-assembled K-4 remains, #3750 (above). It’s at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, PA. There is another K-4, #1361, but it’s apart.
Fury! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)
The February 2014 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Hawker SeaFury, very much a hotrod.
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site weigh in:
“As with many aircraft of the 1940s, the Hawker SeaFury fighter-bomber design was the result of a British wartime design specification which called for certain performance levels to be met by the new aircraft.
To meet Specification F.6/42, the Hawker design team began by modifying the Hawker Tempest into a smaller, lightweight version. By 1943, six prototypes had been ordered, five to be flown with three different engines, and one to be a test airframe.
The first flight of the new airplane (by now named the “Fury”) took place on September 1st, 1944.
Production contracts for the airplane had already been placed, with 200 land-based Furies to be delivered to the Royal Air Force, and another 200 carrier-based SeaFuries to be delivered to Fleet Air Arm.
The first SeaFury prototype, powered by a Bristol Centaurus XII, had first flown on February 21st, 1945, but the first fully-navalized version with folding wings did not fly until October 12th, 1947.
The Royal Navy also received 60 two-seat T.Mk 20 trainers in the early 1950s.”
This airplane appears to be one of those trainers — so one wonders if it qualifies as a WWII warbird.
The Bristol Centaurus XII radial generates 2,480 horsepower; which is a lot.
I notice it’s cranking a five-bladed propeller.
Furies are raced.
They’re probably not as agile as a Mustang, but they can attain 445 mph as built.
A Fury might need more room to maneuver, but there’s nothing like a blunderbuss motor.
It’s like car-racing a Hemi (“HEMM-eee;” not “he-me”). The Hemi was big and heavy, but also immensely strong.
This airplane lacks the beauty and grace of a Mustang (or Spitfire), but has that gigantic motor turning that five-bladed propeller.
I’ve seen twin four-bladed props on racing Mustangs, but that ain’t as-built.
This SeaFury is as-built.
Imagine being chased by one these things. Four 20-mm cannons! It probably caught up with you from behind.
The SeaFury was the Fury for aircraft-carrier service, although I don’t think the British were operating in WWII’s Pacific Theater.
That would have been the U.S. Navy with Corsairs and Hellcats.
The SeaFury did very well in the Pacific during the Korean War.
John Deere combines. (Photo by Tim Calvin.)
—The February 2014 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a single GE diesel-locomotive pulling a string of John Deere combines toward the Port of Baltimore.
I’ve seen tractor-trains myself, but usually mixed, not solid tractors.
Allegheny Crossing usually sees one mixed-train per day with tractors in it.
But they are often blue, which is New Holland, or red.
I have also seen carloads of yellow Caterpillar bulldozers.
Shipping large equipment like this by rail is attractive. Equipment like this is “Oversize-Load” on a highway, but not on railroad flatcars.
Four or more giant combines might fit on a 60-foot single-trailer flatcar.
Ship on the highway, and that load would be so wide, you’d need escorts.
Shipping by rail makes sense.
The locomotive is a General-Electric ES40DC, one GE’s Evolution Series, engineered to meet recent stringent emission requirements.
(“40” stands for 4,000 horsepower.)
Electromotive Division (EMD, once a division of General Motors, but now independent), with its two-stroke diesels, is having less trouble meeting emission-requirements as do General-Electric four-stroke diesels.
Two-strokes burn the fuel-charge at lower temperatures, and therefore generate less nitrogen pollutants than a four-stroke.
Electromotive Division has used two-stroke diesels since diesel-locomotion began in the ‘30s. EMD recently designed a four-stroke to improve fuel-economy, but two-strokes run cleaner.
Getting by with only one locomotive is fine if the run is mainly downhill.
And attaining the east coast is mainly downhill —except for Allegheny Crossing in the Appalachians, which may require multiple units, even helpers.
A 1971 Dodge SuperBee. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)
—The February 2014 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecar calendar is a 1971 Dodge SuperBee.
Dodge was envious of Plymouth’s smashing success with its RoadRunner, which wasn’t really a musclecar. It didn’t have a gigantic hot-rodded engine, although it could. Standard was a souped-up 383 cubic-inch engine, which is still fairly large.
The RoadRunner was a hotrod on the cheap. Very basic, but a good street-racer. They came with a four-speed floorshift, or three-speed TorqueFlite automatic-transmission.
Otherwise, fitments were basic. A RoadRunner has bench-seats like the cheapest Plymouth model. They weren’t buckets. A RoadRunner didn’t set you back like a Plymouth GTX, yet you had that hotrod motor and floorshift.
The RoadRunner was phenomenally successful. Plymouth sold many — a marketing smash.
Fellow Chrysler brand Dodge was envious. They wanted a RoadRunner of their own.
And so the SuperBee, the RoadRunner concept rebadged as a Dodge.
That is, Chrysler’s intermediate body with a 383 floorshift.
This particular SuperBee has Chrysler’s Hemi motor, which makes it a musclecar.
You could option the Hemi in a SuperBee.
By 1971 the SuperBee was only an option-package on Dodge’s Charger. It was no longer a free-standing model.
 |
| A ’68 RoadRunner. |
Chrysler’s intermediates were too big.
And the best-looking RoadRunner was the first, 1968.
M-1 Mountain (4-8-2) cools its heels awaiting clearance into Enola yard. (Photo by Fred Kern.)—Sigh!
Another photograph by Fred Kern.
The February 2014 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a Pennsy freight-train, pulled by a Mountain steam-engine (4-8-2), cooling its heels at Cove, PA, awaiting clearance into Enola (“aye-NOLE-uh”) yard down the Susquehanna (“suss-kwee-HA-nuh”) river across from Harrisburg.
Enola is the yard Pennsy built because Harrisburg was congested.
 |
| April 2013. (Photo by Fred Kern.) |
 |
| Also April 2013. (Photo by John Molesevich.) |
If I did a computer-search for “Fred Kern” I’d get 89 bazilyun hits.
Last month’s entry was by Fred Kern; next month’s entry is Fred Kern.
His Kodachrome© slides make this calendar.
I also ran a recent picture at Cove in the Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar.
At first I thought this train might be the same train I ran in an earlier Fred Kern picture in an All-Pennsy color calendar.
It’s not. That train was charging out of Enola; this train is waiting to get in.
The earlier train was westbound; this train is eastbound.
Pennsy’s Mountain was probably its most successful steam-locomotive design.
The firebox-grate is only 70 square feet; not small, but only adequate.
But the locomotive had a combustion-chamber to more adequately burn its coal.
The Mountains were well-suited for their assigned duties, which were to pull fast-freights.
They were used on Pennsy’s storied Middle-Division Harrisburg to Altoona, plus other routes.
On the Middle-Division the grade is not heavy, but always there. A Mountain might hold 40 to 50 mph uphill to Altoona.
After Altoona Pennsy became a mountain railroad, up and over Allegheny summit. —That’s slogging. The Mountains weren’t suited for that.
When this picture was taken, March 1957, steam would come off Pennsy in little over a year.
The locomotive is dirty and shows signs of deferred maintenance.
Its driving-wheels are covered with sand-dust. Sand is used to enhance traction on slippery rail. Sand might keep the drivers from slipping.
Even current diesel-locomotives use sand. Traction is always a challenge where the steel-wheel meets the steel-railhead. The actual contact-patch is tiny.
No matter how well-suited the Mountain was for the Middle-Division, it compared poorly to diesel-locomotion. Steam-locomotives needed water-towers and coaling-docks.
Pennsy built a giant coaling facility on its Middle-Division to re-coal its locomotives on the mainline.
That coal facility was removed with dieselization.
Concrete coal-towers still exist on some railroads. Removing them costs more than letting them remain.
Trackside water-towers didn’t block the railroad when removed. An over-the-railroad concrete coal-tower would block the railroad when exploded.
All a diesel needed was a fuel-rack. Plus its power-delivery was better than a steam-locomotive, which gave intermittent power-thrusts. Power-delivery from a diesel-electric was continuous. Electric traction without wires.
UGH! (Photo by Scott Williamson.)
—The February, 2014 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a really good photograph of what to me is a dumb-looking car.
The car is a throwback, a reproduction of a dry-lakes racer in southern California from the ‘40s.
Hot-rodders, backyard tinkerers, used to race on southern California’s vast dry-lakes. Edwards Air-Force Base is on Muroc dry-lake. Muroc is vast enough to land the Shuttle if need be.
A Shuttle runway is also in Florida. If the Shuttle landed at Edwards, it needed to be transported back to Florida.
This car appears to be a Model-T phaeton with the back-end hacked off. Apparently hot-rodders did this if they couldn’t find a Model-T two-seater roadster, a teacup.
 |
| The tea-bucket two-seater roadster body. |
This hacked phaeton is a joke.
This car also uses a hot-rodded four-cylinder motor, as many did in the ‘40s.
It not being a V8 makes it not a hotrod to me.
What it is is a lakester reproduction, albeit very well done.
I get the feeling the car’s owner found this chopped phaeton lakester, and decided to not let it go to waste.
And so a reproduction of a classic lakester, complete with four-cylinder engine.
I wonder if the engine is Model-T Ford, souped-up of course.
It doesn’t say.
Often restorers pull out the old Model-T motor, and replace it with a modern overhead-valve four.
The Model-T Ford wasn’t overhead-valve; it was a flat-head.
Souping a flat-head didn’t deliver much. It could be done, but doing so was like souping a flat-head Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engine.
A flat-head is side-valve, with contorted breathing. Overhead-valve breathes much better.
The Ford flat-head V8 was pretty much retired as a hotrod engine by the Chevrolet SmallBlock, which is overhead-valve.
Labels: Monthly Calendar Report
posted by BobbaLew at 5:09 PM
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