Things are different in Altoony!

Empty grain-train west at Cassandra Railfan Overlook. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

(“kuh-SANN-druh;” as in “Anne”)
Another foray to Allegheny Crossing in the Altoona, PA, area, where the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain in the 1850s.
Pennsy, once the largest railroad in the world, no longer exists. Although its railroad does, operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad, which purchased most of the ex-Pennsy lines from Conrail when it sold.
Norfolk Southern is a merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway in 1982.
Pennsy had merged with arch-rival New York Central in 1968 to form Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in 1970, the largest bankruptcy ever at that time.
Conrail, a government operation at first, was formed to keep northeast railroading going. Other northeast railroads beside Penn-Central were going bankrupt.
Conrail, which included both the NYC and Pennsy mains, succeeded and eventually went non-government. It was broken up and sold in 1999.
CSX purchased most of the ex New York Central lines; which is interesting because this is what was desired in the 1950s: Pennsy was trying to merge with Norfolk & Western, and Chesapeake & Ohio (now CSX) was trying to get control of New York Central.
Quite a few Conrail branch lines (former Penn-Central, etc.) were turned over to shortlines or abandoned, and much of its commuter-service was turned over to government authorities.
The current arrangement of CSX operating NYC and Norfolk Southern operating Pennsy is what was at first not allowed.
I’m a Pennsy-fan, and always have been. I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2; I’m now 70.
I started with Pennsy, actually Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (“REDD-ing;” not “READ-ing”), which was still operating steam-locomotives in the late 1940s and early ‘50s, when I first visited.
I was scared to death of thunderstorms, but I could stand right next to a steam-engine!

Things are different in Altoony compared to the world I come from, which is western New York.
People talk with the Philadelphia-accent, which is where I came from originally, actually south Jersey.
But I’ve been in western New York so long, almost 50 years, only a smidge of my Philadelphia-accent is left.
I embarrassed the check-in lady at my motel. “I’ve lived here all my life,” she said, when I pointed out her accent.
Like what accent?
“Well of course your accent is not an accent to you, but people in western New York don’t talk like that,” I said.
Flashing signs are everywhere, and giant roadside billboards that flash or change every couple seconds.
You don’t see that sort of thing in western New York, just small roadside entreaties to repeal the S.A.F.E.-act: “Protect our 2nd-amendment rights.”
Years ago we passed a hospital in Altoona with a flashing sign out front.
My wife, now gone, picked up on it immediately.
“Today’s special,” she said. “Liver transplants, only $895.”
I got lost this visit driving back to my motel.
I turned around in a shopping-mall parking-lot. At the exit onto the highway I faced a funeral-home.
It had a mausoleum attached.
A flashing sign was out front: “Ask about our specials!”
You don’t see things like that in western New York.
“No fancy funeral for for me,” my mother-in-law bellows, still alive at age-98.
“Just stuff me in a Hefty-bag, and drag me out to the curb.”
“Arrangements by Pratt Disposal and Flint landfill,” I once wrote into a suggested obituary at my newspaper.
“I better delete that,” I said; “lest it get printed.”
“Pratt Disposal” is my trash pickup. Out where I live trash is disposed of privately, not a gumint function.
“Flint landfill” is a giant trash landfill in the nearby Town of Flint. My trash ends up in that landfill.

Previous train-chases at Allegheny Crossing were led by my friend Phil Faudi (“FOW-deee;” as in “wow”), a railfan extraordinaire from the Altoona area.
He was doing it as a business at first; he called ‘em “tours.”
My first tours were with him as a business. But then he gave that up. Too many near-misses, and a newer car he didn’t wanna abuse. He had been driving me around in his car per his railroad-radio scanner.
But he continued leading me around in my car with me driving. He’d monitor his railroad-radio scanner and tell me where to go.
But his beloved wife has Multiple Sclerosis, and he was afraid of her falling while he and I were chasing trains.
So now he stays home monitoring his railroad-radio scanner, and calls my cellphone while I chase trains myself.
This works pretty well, although not as good as he and I together, in which case we snag nearly everything.

Congratulations if you’ve read everything previous.
The art starts here.
Since I checked in my motel by 3 p.m., I figured I’d begin chasing trains Wednesday afternoon, unlike usual.
I figured I’d try to find the location in Altoona where my brother and I shot last January.
In Altoona the railroad splits into two groupings I call “the express-tracks” and “the drag-tracks.”
Fast trains take the express-tracks, and heavy coal-trains the drag-tracks.
But I was unable to find the location where I shot a coal-extra negotiating the drag-tracks last January.
So instead I shot an eastbound stacker on the express-tracks.


Eastbound stacker threads the express-tracks through Altoona. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

That was the only location I went to on Wednesday afternoon.
That stacker stopped to clear a westbound train of auto-racks, but that’s not a successful picture.

Day Two, the day of my full-on train-chase, Thursday (8/21):
I began at Cassandra Railroad Overlook (I call it “Cassandra Railfan Overlook”), an old overpass over the main.
The bridge is on the original highway alignment into Cassandra, and is supposedly the original highway-bridge.
The highway was rebuilt bypassing Cassandra, but that old overpass was a way for Cassandra residents to get to jobs across the tracks, without actually crossing the tracks at grade.
The bridge is iron and concrete, single-lane, wide enough to pass a Model-A.
From west the railroad threads a deep rock cut approaching the bridge.
Previously the railroad went right through Cassandra, but that was bypassed by a straighter route in 1898.
Cassandra Railfan Overlook is better than Horseshoe Curve, since it’s shady.
Horseshoe Curve is part of Allegheny Crossing, a trick to ease grading over Allegheny Mountain.
Horseshoe Curve is a railfan pilgrimage spot; the BEST I’ve ever been to.
I set up on Cassandra’s park-benches, hoping to repeat a view I saw in a Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar.
I carry a railroad-radio scanner myself, and heard a grain unit-train being cleared at Cresson (“KRESS-in”).
Norfolk Southern delivers a unit-train of corn to a shortline in Cresson.
That shortline then takes the train up to an ethanol plant in Clearfield, PA.
What’s pictured (lede picture) are the empty covered-hoppers going back for another trainload of corn.
From there I began chasing trains with Faudi; he called about 9:45.
Unfortunately Faudi is on the east side of the mountain, and can only monitor that side. I was on the west side of the mountain.
All he could tell me about was westbound trains up the east slope. Eastbound up the west slope I was on-my-own.
But I figured I’d do all right, because -a) there are many, and -b) I have a railroad-radio scanner of my own.
I figured I’d go to the small town of Portage, Portage and Cassandra being the two locations I wanted most.
Portage is where the 1898 bypass starts. It’s a long straight to Cassandra Railfan Overlook.
Actually the original Pennsy went right through Portage, and that railroad still exists.
It passes a coal-tipple, so is used as a branch.
I had to wait a while, but Phil had told me a westbound was coming.


Westbound stacker at Portage. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


Helpers push mixed east through Portage. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Then came an eastbound string of coal-hoppers, with SD80-MACs at each end.
The SD80-MAC was the premier EMD (“Electromotive Division”) locomotive a few years ago. It has the V20 engine, and AC (Alternating-Current) traction-motors. —Most road diesels are V12 or V16 and Direct-Current.
It’s rated at 5,000 horsepower, and the “M” stood for “modified cab,” a wide-nose cab.
The V20 engine was first used in the SD-45 of the late ‘60s, and had a habit of breaking that long crankshaft.
The V20 worked fine in a boat, but not in railroad operation, which subjects it to heavy vibration.
EMD fixed that.
Conrail got the SD80-MACs hoping to reduce locomotive use over its storied Middle Division by one locomotive.
The Middle Division is Pennsy’s old Middle Division: Harrisburg to Altoona.
That didn’t work. But the SD80-MACs were excellent for slow heavy coal-drags.
They were transferred to Allegheny Crossing, where there are coal-loadouts.
You might see those MACs moving heavy coal-trains up The Hill.
I took pictures, but they’re blurred. I was using strong telephoto which I mount on a single-leg pole.
Actually, a tripod might make more sense, since that single-leg pole is as unstable as hand-held.
In Portage Faudi suggested I go to Carneys Crossing, a road-crossing at grade. north of Portage.
But then the westbound he predicted was slow getting going, so he suggested I go to the Railfan Observation-Deck in nearby Cresson.
The railroad goes straight through Cresson, and is where that shortline, once a Pennsy branch, intersects.
The railroad also services its helper-engines there, along with the MACs. That service-terminal is visible from the Observation-Deck.
I’ve never done very well from that Observation-Deck, but Faudi said a westbound was coming.
After Cresson, it was after one o’clock, and during the afternoon until maybe 3 p.m. activity slows on the railroad. So I drove back to Portage, a McDonald’s, to get lunch.
I was going to eat lunch in the restaurant, but Faudi called and said a very important train was coming, that I should immediately get trackside. It’s a new train, a Fed-Ex hotshot, trailer-on-flatcar, even some Fed-Ex ground trailers.
So I had McDonald’s change my order to “to-go,” which was really just bag it.
And off I roared into Portage to find the location Faudi suggested.
I saw the hot-shot, but I didn’t have my camera on.
Then another westbound came, but it snuck up on me while I was changing lenses.
A third westbound came, but I managed to snag it.


Westbound mixed at milepost 258.8. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Take note the train has foreign power, a BNSF unit, the orange second unit.
A GP-38 was also in this consist. That’s the third unit.
GP-38s aren’t even turbocharged.
“Not enough power, Boss; it’ll stall on The Hill.”
“Take that GP-38. That’s all I got.”
GP-38s usually serve local-freights; they’re not road-power.
A railroad service-truck goofed up my view of westbounds through Portage.
An eastbound coal-extra came.


Eastbound coal. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I snagged that.
Apparently I had gone where Faudi suggested, but he said there was another location in Portage.
It’s where the long straight from Cassandra ends.
He said it was next to a road-trailer, but I’d have to knock down weeds.
View goofed up by that service-truck, I began looking for the trailer location.
I found it, without Phil, but the weeds had already been chopped down.
But the location only works westbound, and I only got two eastbounds.
After that I decided to go to Summerhill, to try to repeat a view I saw in Trains Magazine.
But before I did I tried the Jamestown Road Bridge, a highway overpass over the 1898 bypass.
Madness began as I left Portage. One of the eastbounds was still passing, but a westbound mixed Phil had predicted flew by doing at least 50 mph!
Mixed-freights are usually almost draggers. They often get stopped so more important trains can pass.
At Jamestown Road I took my telephoto out as far as it would go: 300 mm.
The westbound UPS-train was coming, another hot-shot of mostly UPS trailers on flatcars.
On that long straight I got the entire train, although the UPS-train is fairly short.


The westbound UPS-train. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I then headed to Summerhill, which has an old Pennsy signal-bridge Norfolk Southern still uses, and it silhouettes the sky.
It’s a great picture, but my previous shots also had a church in them = distraction. They were from across the tracks.
The Trains picture was from a side I hadn’t tried yet. It silhouettes the signal-bridge, yet avoids the church.
When I finally attained Summerhill, a long wait began; over an hour.
I was about to leave; no scanner-chatter — and all Phil could predict was westbound. My Summerhill shot is eastbound.
Suddenly the flood began. A predicted westbound passed, and suddenly here were the SD80-MACs heading west on Track One.
Track One is usually only eastbound. The MACs were headed for the South Fork Secondary, location of four tipples.
An eastbound snuck up on me, but my best Summerhill shot is the MACs pushing their train west on One — A cheat-shot.


MACs the wrong way at Summerhill — the engines are actually pushing. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Having snagged my Summerhill photo — it’s lousy; I need to try again — I decided to give up for the day; it was after five.
Phil felt bad I had missed a few trains, but I was happy.
“You hafta remember I’m on the side of The Hill you can’t monitor, and I’m making sudden decisions without your counsel, which compromise my success, like that service-truck for example.
And if I don’t have my camera on, that’s not your fault.”
So I headed for Altoona, down the east slope of The Hill.
Along the way I decided to try a location where my brother shot last January, the Main St. bridge in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”), where Main St. crosses Track One.
The idea was to see if I could shoot from the other side of the tracks. But I can’t. It’s lawn, and obscured by trees. The only place to shoot is from where my brother shot.


Empty slab-train under Main St. in Gallitzin. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

THE END; from there back to Altoony.

Day Three; Back to Reality — back to bereavement.

• “Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines” (PRSL) is 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.
• The New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act of 2013, commonly known as the NY SAFE Act, is a gun control law in the state of New York. The law was passed by the New York State Legislature on January 15, 2013, and was signed into law by Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo on the same day. The legislation was written in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Cuomo signed the bill into law half an hour after it passed the legislature. The act severely limits gun-ownership, and requires background-checks just to purchase ammunition. High-capacity magazines are also barred, and the definition of “assault-weapons” was also expanded, to include weapons that weren’t previously “assault-weapons.” Assault-weapons also have to be registered. —Gun-owners are upset with the SAFE-Act, that it contradicts the Bill-of-Rights Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. Small printed lawn-signs have been liberally distributed, and you see them everywhere.
• My wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• For almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]) I worked for the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost nine years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)
• “BNSF” is Burlington-Northern Santa Fe, a fairly recent merger of Burlington-Northern Railroad and Santa Fe Railroad.
• “UPS” is of course United Parcel Service.
• The “South Fork Secondary” is an old Pennsy branch out of the town of South Fork; it’s owned and operated by Norfolk Southern.

Get with it, Bill!

So here I am placidly bopping east on the N.Y. state Thruway toward Boston when all-of-a-sudden “If you wish to perform a vehicle-health report now or later, please press ‘enter’ now.”
To me that’s a Hobson’s Choice, but only in the sense I get no option to decline.
Beyond that it’s asking me “now or later,” not specifically “now” or specifically “later.”
“WHAAAA......” I always exclaim.
“How about ‘Shaddup?’” I say, after which I press the only ‘enter’ button I can find, which is on the radio search console.
In other words, “Quit bothering me, Bill!”
Such are the mysteries of Microsoft “Sync,” which my car has.
Sync also does voice-recognition, and Bluetooths my cellphone.
“Please say a command.”
“Call Cleaning-Lady.” I have “Cleaning-Lady” in my cellphone-contacts.
It then calls my mower-man.
“Get with it, Bill!” I say, hanging up.
“Call Faudi,” I say, the guy I chase trains with in Altoona, PA.
It calls my sister Peggy in Lynchburg, VA.
I’m sorry Bill, but Apple’s Siri (“sear-eee”) does much better. I disconnect my Bluetooth so Siri will call Faudi on my iPhone.
Apparently Sync will also do GPS navigation, but it’s not the display-screen with map. It’s just voice-commands.
I’ve never used it. I’m not about to have some disembodied female voice lead me into the ozone.
Once I was following a BMW out of nearby Canandaigua.
We came to an intersection where I normally turn. The BMW was ahead of me, and it turned too.
But then the BMW pulled over, its driver looking feverishly at his dashboard. As if to say “Do I really wanna turn here?”
Sorry Garmin, but the GPS-navigation has to be in my head in advance.
That is, I hafta know where I’m going before I start.
I can print maps from Google, so I ain’t dependin’ on some ‘pyooter-program, or someone’s idea of what they think is the best route, if I think my route is better.
My car will also get Sirius satellite-radio. Like what do I need that for, when I never listen to radio when I drive?
I purchased my car over a year ago, and for about a year Sirius kept trying to sign me up.
I kept refusing. Finally they gave up — I hope.
So I’m driving a Sirius-enabled car without Sirius.
But what bothers me most is Bluetooth to my iPhone.
I’ve given up trying to make calls.
Although if I make a call to “Jack,” my brother, it will actually call my brother.
If I ask it to call “Kevin,” my niece’s husband, it will actually call Kevin.
Congratulations, Bill. You won’t have to work on them.
The fact it also takes incoming calls is convenient, although I have to stab around to answer them. —I hardly get any.
And I’ll be a son-of-a-gun if I know how to close out a call.
I push what I think is the correct steering-wheel button. There may be a delay. So I never know if it was me hanging-up or my caller.
Then there is the keypad problem. If I’m Bluetoothing I don’t have a keypad. Like NOW WHAT if an incoming call wants me to “press one now?”
And then there is the text-function. I fire up my car, and the Bluetooth display says “text.”
“WHAAAA......”
It will do voice-recognition texts? Voice-recognition is bad enough as it is.
The voice-recognition on my iPhone is pretty good, but I usually have to edit my texts.
I’m sorry but my iPhone is better than Microsoft’s Sync. I always end up saying “Get with it, Bill.”
If my car starts talking to me I say “Shaddup!”
I guess I come from the old-school.
I like technology, but leave off the blabbering.
Just get me from Point-A to Point-B, reliably without drama.

• “Bill” is Bill Gates, head-honcho of Microsoft.
• My car is a 2012 Ford Escape (that’s not the new Escape).
• “Siri” is the voice-recognition assistant on an iPhone. I can command “Siri” to call someone, and my iPhone does.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• RE: “You won’t have to work on them.” —Gates’ response to the technical hairballs that usually accompany Microsoft’s applications is “We’re working on it.” If you drive a Windows PC, you get updates galore; otherwise known as “fixes.”

Houghton College

(“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”)
Despite graduating as a ne’er-do-well, that is, they didn’t kick me out, although they nearly kicked me out twice, I don’t regret my attending Houghton College.
And I have friends that tell me Houghton was worst experience they ever endured.
Once I was nearly kicked-out for wearing tight pants, a-la-Rolling Stones — the dreaded “tight-pants” rap.
The second time I was nearly kicked out for scrawling “Cheap American Trash” in the salt-encrusted flanks of the Dean’s son’s Pontiac G-T-O.
There may have been other contretemps; I forget. It seemed I was always riding the ragged-edge.
Such was the life of a free-thinker who dared mock conventional-wisdom.
With me it’s because Houghton was the first place that took me seriously.
That is, adult authority-figures there valued my opinions. I wasn’t automatically declared “Of-the-Devil,” as I had been before Houghton.
Houghton was a compromise with my father, who wanted me to attend Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, like he did. And become a Bible-beating zealot, loudly preaching at and passing judgment on vagrants.
At that time Moody wasn’t a college; I think now it is.
My father wanted me to attend Moody first, then transfer to a college.
But I wanted to attend a four-year college.
Such a college was Houghton, which like Moody was evangelical.
I also wanted no part of Chicago. We stayed there once to visit Moody, and it was frightening.
During my high-school summers I worked at an evangelical boys camp on Chesapeake Bay in northeastern MD. I taught horsemanship and worked in the stables.
During the summer of ’61, that boys camp had many on its staff that were Houghton students.
One was David Droppa (“DROH-puh;” as in “owe”), Houghton Class of ’64.
He was enthusiastic about Houghton, and made it sound interesting.
I also visited Houghton, perhaps in my senior-year of high-school.
Houghton is extremely rural, yet it’s an extension of the east-coast megalopolis, where it got many of its students.
It was an island of suburban values in a vast sea of rurality.
Years ago a canal passed through the town, at that time named “Jockey-Street,” since renamed after the college. The college was part of an effort to clean up Jockey-Street, a bawdy canal-town. The clean-up man was zealous Willard J. Houghton.
I also applied at Wheaton College near Chicago. It’s the alma-mater of Billy Graham, and also the premier evangelical college.
Houghton was number-two.
Wheaton turned me down — I wasn’t very interested anyway — but Houghton would only admit me if I proved I could do college-level work at their summer-school.
So much for boys-camp, I would do six weeks of Houghton’s summer-school.
Which makes me part of the vaunted Summer-School gang; about 10-15 people who got into Houghton by attending summer-school to prove they could do college-level work.
My six-week summer-school course would be Bible-Introduction. I had no idea how I’d ever pass that, since my Bible background was nil.
But it was either that or ‘Nam. At that time our nation had a military-draft for the Vietnam War, but college-students were deferred.
I did pretty good in that Bible-Intro course; I almost aced it.
I would matriculate into Houghton College.
And so began my Freshman year, through 1963. Various members of our Summer-School gang flunked out, or were tossed out, but I did okay.
I chose Physics as my major, although my college-advisor, who also happened to be my Physics professor, counseled against it.
I almost aced Physics; I was the only one in our class who got the hang of it, mainly the math (algebra). The math was essentially a tool. I used it like a socket-set; I’d drive it every-which-way, which I could.
Others, trying to memorize Physics formulas, were utterly lost; and that was despite their megadollar slide-rules slapping their thighs. (Remember slide-rules?)
Mine was only a cheesy appliance held together with Scotch-tape, plus its hairline was missing.
The answers it gave me were only close, but it was clear I knew what I was doing. The others didn’t.
I could have aced college-Physics if I’d known I had an A-average going into the final.
My study for that final was scattershot, which lowered my final grade to “B.”
By then I had also lost interest in Physics. The Physics labs were in “the Dungeons,” musty basement laboratories in an ancient building, since torn down.
I had also been doing a History-requirement, and came across a professor I thought the world of.
His name was “Troutman” (same as the fish); and he valued my opinions.
He was always in trouble with his cohorts, since -a) his wife wore jewelry (gasp!), -b) he was a Democrat (double gasp!), and worse yet he was a liberal-Democrat (“Get thee behind me Satan!”).
I had run into such tolerance in Summer-School when my Bible-Intro professor said he was sorry I couldn’t have faith.
What to me was the faith that reversed all the tenets that worked against religion; like so-called scientific fact.
But he wasn’t loudly passing judgment on me telling me I was “Of-the-Devil.”
He just wasn’t as inspiring as Troutman.
I changed my major to History; I was majoring in the good professors.
During my sophomore or junior year (’64 or ’65), a second professor came to the History Department named Katherine Lindley.
She was also as good as Troutman. Now I had two excellent professors in my major, so I stayed a History-major.
Usually a department had only one good professor; the History-Department had two.
By then I was wondering what I’d do after college, so I decided to train for Secondary-Education.
The Sec-Ed minor was stupid, gut-courses. I used to say “If you can’t do it, teach it. If you can’t teach, teach others how to teach.”
I eventually did trial student-teaching as a junior in a nearby high-school, but it was awful. My mentor teacher was a droll politician. I remember a girl-student I wanted to take under my wing, and try to inspire, but he claimed all she needed was a spanking. In other words, he cut me off; and in so doing he cut off my efforts to become a teacher.
My “under my wing” bit was an extension of my successes at that boys camp.
But it was obvious the educational establishment had no room for such altruism.
What it wanted, apparently, was military order, that is, independent thinking was stomped.
The official student-teaching I was supposed to do at the beginning of my senior-year went by-the-boards —I didn’t do it.
Toward the end of my junior year I befriended a philosophy-professor named Miller.
He was a good argument, always poking holes in any assertion, just like Troutman.
Which is what I was doing.
He convinced me I should do an extra year at Houghton so I could major in both History and Philosophy.
I began various Philosophy courses in my senior year, one of which was logic. I was utterly buffaloed. I could have probably done well in logic if that was the only course I was taking. I had to drop it.
Earlier a math-professor wanted me to take Calculus, aware I had nearly aced Physics. I deferred. I decided the only way to make sense of Calculus was to only do Calculus.
But I also had a full course-load. How could I make sense of Calculus when I also had to memorize the beginning of Canterbury Tales in Olde English? Also the name of Napoleon’s horse. (“It’s on page 1024 of the text, class, as a caption.”)
I was also tired by then, tired of studying so hard. Professors were telling me I should be  scholar; the bane of a questioner.
But I had had enough — I was just cruising anyway. It seems all a liberal-arts college teaches you is the history of western civilization. Master it, and you can ace just about anything.
I felt like I wanted to move on, and live my life.
So that proposed Philosophy-major became a minor, and I only did four years.
I also had to do summer-school again, because I did poorly in two previous courses. In the end all that stood between me and a degree was passing second-year French.
They graduated me; an August graduate.
They also refused to issue transcripts, since I owed them money — which I soon paid.
So my college-education ended a whimper.
But I’ve never regretted it. They were the first ones to not tell me I was “Of-the-Devil.”
I have since decided college is mainly your mastering time-management; being able to crank out a gigantic amount of work, or at least what appeared to be gigantic, in not enough time.
I cranked out a gigantic annotated-bibliography for Troutman; I was the only one that did. His grading it took years; even he was time-challenged.
He gave me an “A,” but I doubt he actually read it. If he had, he would have seen what a cheap-shot it was — mainly a display of superb time-management.
To do an annotated-bibliography you’re supposed to read all 89 bazilyun books on a topic; for reviewing. Uh, all I read were the first few paragraphs of each. 15-20 minutes per day for weeks.
I figured out the time-allotments needed.
People also tell me the whole point of a college-education is getting a good wife, which I did.
But I think Houghton was more than that.

• RE: “His wife wore jewelry (gasp!).” —At that time, Houghton was run by Wesleyan-Methodists, who were against wearing jewelry. Later Troutman’s house burned out, and the Wesleyan-Methodists who ran the college loudly declared that a sign from above. —I don’t know as Houghton is Wesleyan-Methodist any more.

Kitselman’s birthday

Gail Kitselman. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Every morning I usually get up early enough to hear Garrison Keillor’s Writers Almanac.
The classical-music public-radio station out of Rochester (NY) I listen to airs it about 8:20 a.m.
It usually grates this retired newspaper employee because Garrison, who majored in English, is always “entitling” things, like poems, books, whatever.
At which point I scream “Entitled to what?”
“Today is Tuesday, August 12th, 2014,” he said yesterday morning.
He then started listing various birthdays, Zerna Sharp, the person behind the “Dick and Jane” readers, Cecil B. DeMille, etc.
“It’s also Kitselman’s birthday,“ I said.
Gail Kitselman is one of my first girlfriends, not the first, but the first I felt serious about.
Her mother thought I was wonderful, but her father, a highly-paid executive, quite-rightly felt I was a waste; that I’d never amount to anything.
I met Kitselman in a roundabout way, after driving her and friends to visit their basketball-coach in a distant hospital.
I took Kitselman on various dates. The ones I remember are -a) a day-long sojourn to 59th-Street beach in Ocean City, NJ, and -b) to a nearby amusement-park in southeastern PA.
That amusement-park closed long ago. 59th-Street beach is the finest beach in the entire known universe.
Ocean City had a boardwalk, and we walked it after dusk holding-hands.
We had a really great time, and Kitselman wanted me to kiss her when we got back home. But I couldn’t do it.
I’m a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of sexual relations, where no girl would have anything to do with me.
My relationship to Kitselman was my senior year of high-school, and we drifted apart when I started college.
Kitselman was still in high-school. She was Class of ’64; I’m ’62.
The last time I saw Kitselman was in that high-school.
She didn’t wanna continue if I was 400+ miles away, distracted by other college girls.
So now I wonder if Kitselman is still alive.
I say that because my beloved wife, who would have made 100 had she not developed cancer, is GONE. —Her mother is still alive at age-98.
Kitselman and I would have been a difficult match. I was too messed up, and Kitselman wasn’t.
I never amounted to anything because I was too messed up.
I always felt I was borderline insane compared to my wife; like my wife was the sane one.
Kitselman used worry she was too thin, that she didn’t fill out her clothes.
She also worried she’d get varicose veins in her legs like her mother.
But Kitselman was really great person, to parry me screwed-up as I was — and still am, probably.
So now I wish I’d kissed her, like I carry a debt to fulfill.
We had a great time at the seashore, but I’m a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of sexual relations.

• “Q” stood for Quincy, her maiden-name.

Virginia Twaddell

(“twah-DELL”)

Ginny in ’62.

In December of 1957, when I was 13, soon to be 14, my family moved from suburban south Jersey to suburban northern Delaware.
I was in eighth-grade.
It was because my father had got a new job that paid much more than his old job.
My father could have gone to college. He apparently even skipped a grade in school.
But his parents, my paternal grandparents, wanted him to get a job as soon as he graduated high-school.
He was graduating into the Depression.
His first job was supposedly as a caddy at a golf-course. He also mowed and did maintenance.
Other jobs may have followed, but the first I remember was in a shipyard on the Delaware River in nearby Camden, which is across from Philadelphia.
It wasn’t a large shipyard, like Sun Ship in Philadelphia. They built tugboats and mine-sweepers.
A family moved in two doors from us, and the guy worked in Texaco’s Eagle-Point oil-refinery south of where we lived.
That guy got my father a job in that refinery, and it lasted a few years.
Then Tidewater-Oil (Flying-A) built a new oil-refinery in Delaware, and they were looking for workers.
My father joined as an Inspector.
That was 1956, and required a daily 100-mile commute to get there from our home in south Jersey.
So we decided to move to a new suburban development in northern DE.
The move was traumatic for me. I was being ripped out of a familiar life and friendships.
I would have to start anew.
Northern DE was also perceived as a backwater of the vast Delaware Valley. This was partly because a turgid educational-TV station came out of Wilmington in northern DE.
The educational-TV station was boring compared to the three network TV stations out of Philadelphia.
What I didn’t realize then, but realize now, is I was moving to a better life.
Free of “rumbles” (fights) and hard-rock DA greasers manning switchblades and zip-guns.
The kind of world Springsteen sings about.
It was also free of trollop wanna-bees.
I didn’t move when my parents moved. I stayed behind in south Jersey at my grandparents’ digs in Camden.
I’d take the bus out to my old suburb, so I could continue attending my south Jersey high-school.
This arrangement lasted through December, when I finally moved to DE toward the end-of-the-month.
This was so I could attend the last day of my DE school before Christmas-vacation.
That last day was also the last day my DE school would attend their original school in our district.
A new junior-high had been built to accommodate the post-war baby-boom, and we would transfer there in January.
Previously high-schoolers from our district went to a city high-school in Wilmington.
Our class was among the first to make this change.
A few years later our new high-school was built, and we transferred there.
I quickly learned who all the boys were lusting after: it was Virginia Twaddell.
And she wasn’t much of a sexpot, not like south Jersey.
She was cute and attractive, and recognized she was class sexpot.
But it wasn’t like she milked it as the trollops did in south Jersey.
Northern DE was DuPont-land; our neighbors were mainly DuPont engineers.
It was a much more classy setting than south Jersey, and Virginia Twaddell reflected that.
Virginia was the younger sister of a less-attractive girl that graduated in my high-school’s first graduating-class; 1960.
I and Ginny are Class of ’62, the third class.
My high-school class has been very good at reunions. They hold one every five years.
I’ve been to a few, and so has Ginny.
Ginny was head cheerleader while we were seniors.
Ginny married a guy from the class behind ours, yet continued being the class sexpot.
She seemed a bit put-off by this.
I remember attending a reunion Ginny also attended, but I couldn’t talk to her. She was still the class sexpot, and I’m a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of sexual relations, where no girl would have anything to do with me.
But in 2012 I attended my 50-year high-school reunion, and we visited our high-school, which still stands.
I noticed a lady who looked somewhat familiar, so I asked her name.
Surprise-surprise! It was Virginia Twaddell, and here I was talking to her.
At age-68, she was no longer a sexpot, although I’m not sure she ever was.
It’s just that all the boys lusted after her, including me.
Despite her not being a south Jersey slattern.

• “Zip-guns” were hand-made guns, usually made from car-antennas; the antenna being the gun-barrel. A .22-caliber bullet could be shot through a car-antenna. “Switchblades” were folding pen-knives operated by a button. When threatened, a greaser might flip open his switchblade, grist for Springsteen.
• “Q” stood for Quincy, her maiden-name.

Cross not a Hughes, Part-4:

Sometime in the early ‘80s we got our first color-TV.
I know color-TV had been around since about 1956, but I didn’t think it was worth it.
With the coming of cable-TV, and Sony’s Trinitron, I decided color-TV was worth it.
In fact, for years my wife and I had no TV at all. Our first TV was a black-and-white Sears portable with rabbit-ears.
There was Senator Sam wagging his craggy finger at John Dean: “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
We probably got that TV just so we could view the Watergate hearings.
Hearings over, that TV went back into disuse, except for the news.
My TV viewing us still pretty much the same: just the news, and not all of it.
So out to a small suburban TV store just east of Rochester (NY) to buy a Trinitron.
It was called “Suburban TV.” I guess they also did repairs.
I walked out with a Sony Trinitron, my first color-TV.
I plugged it in when I got home, and NOTHING.
I dorked around, but still NOTHING.
Back to Suburban TV.
They too tried it; NOTHING. But their demonstrator worked.
“It looks like you need a new channel-selector, Mr. Hughes. It’s guaranteed, but we’ll get it in about two-three weeks.”
“Wait a minute!” I yelled. “I just gave you guys $475; I think I’m entitled to a working TV.”
They were terrified; I was scaring off customers.
“You got one here that works,” I screamed. “Why can’t I have that one? I shouldn’t have to wait two-three weeks.
I work for Regional Transit Service, I’ll blast your store’s name all over my Drivers’ Room. No one from Transit will patronize your store.”
I walked out with their demonstrator, the Trinitron that worked.
I left their store-manager a quaking mass.
So now I wonder if I could grandstand like that since my wife died, leaving me with no confidence at all.
Probably.
So far I’ve recounted three previous incidents of not crossing a Hughes.
I guess it’s still in there; in each case my grandstand reaction was totally unplanned.
But with my wife’s death I feel like I have no confidence at all.

• “Hughes” is me, Bob Hughes, BobbaLew.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• 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 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.

Mess not with a Hughes, Part-3:

Over 44 years of marriage, my wife and I have had various banks.
My wife is now GONE, and left me with the last bank we had, Canandaigua National Bank.
We were both working for Lincoln-Rochester bank when we got married; she as a teller, and I as a management-trainee.
So we banked at Lincoln-Rochester, since as employees we were fee-free.
Lincoln-Rochester no longer exists. It affiliated with other New York state banks to become Lincoln-First, and that affiliated with Chase Bank in New York City.
I worked for Lincoln-Rochester over three years before I was “laid-off;” which to me was more like being “canned.”
Things had changed. The management position I was training for disappeared, so I was redirected to front-desk duty, which I could hardly do.
The bank was also upset I wasn’t a viper, hot to fleece the customers, especially the small ones. —That I had this despicable  compulsion to “be fair.”
That is I was more a Democrat (Gasp!) than a Kiwanian REPUBLICAN!
So I was cut loose, and drifted listlessly unemployed seven years.
During that time my wife and I moved to another apartment, plus my wife began her life-long career at Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company.
I also was trying to freelance motorsports photography, and sold a few photographs to nationwide magazines.
I also tried motorsports coverage for a small weekly newspaper in Rochester called City/East.
City/East was sort of an outgrowth of a neighborhood organizing against eminent domain by the state to put in an expressway.
During those seven years we may have switched banks; I can’t remember.
The next bank I remember is Central Trust of Rochester, third largest bank in Rochester.
It was only bank that remained Rochester-based, although it later affiliated with Irving Bank in New York City, and no longer exists.
The other banks in Rochester were Lincoln-Rochester and Marine-Midland. Both affiliated with outside banks during those seven years.
My wife and I also bought our first house during those seven years based on her income.
Our house was at 323 North Winton Road in Rochester, and we lived next to two employees of Regional Transit Service (RTS), both bus-drivers, Kathy Young and her boyfriend, whose name I can’t remember.
My attempt at freelance photography had crumbled, and it seemed my motorsport coverage was going nowhere.
So at the suggestion of Kathy I went to work for the bus-company, as a so-called “temporary-job” driving bus.
That temporary-job lasted 16 & 1/2 years until my stroke in late ’93.
And during that time we were banking with Central-Trust.
My stroke ended my bus-driving, and we may have switched banks before my stroke; I can’t remember.
Some time we switched to First National Bank of Rochester, tiny, but the only Rochester-based bank after Central affiliated with Irving.
I recovered fairly well, and after an unpaid internship sponsored by my stroke-rehabilitation I began employ with the Messenger Newspaper in nearby Canandaigua.
I interned there because I had done a voluntary newsletter for my bus-union while at Transit.
That newspaper was the BEST job I ever had. I refused to go back to bus-driving, although it would have paid better.
We also moved to my current home in West Bloomfield, south of Rochester, in 1990. That house was designed by us.
Marine-Midland had affiliated with HSBC out of Hong Kong, and we switched to HSBC because -a) they had a branch nearby, and -b) HSBC had bought our mortgage originally floated by a savings-bank in Rochester.
We stayed with HSBC the whole time I was at the Messenger, and also paid off our mortgage.
But our safe-deposit box was still in faraway Rochester at the savings-bank that originally floated our mortgage.
Which my wife felt was inconvenient.
So we started looking around for a nearby location for our safe-deposit box.
HSBC had a branch maybe seven miles away, but it was a safe, not a walk-in vault.
Canandaigua National Bank in nearby Honeoye Falls (“hone-eee-oye;” as in “oil”), about four-five miles away, had a vault.
They would rent us a safe-deposit box as part of a package that included a checking-account.
But that checking-account also had online bill-pay, and was otherwise online.
I’m sure HSBC could have done that too, but Canandaigua National Bank is independent; it’s not affiliated with some distant bank.
HSBC’s nearby branch also closed.
First National Bank apparently tanked, so Canandaigua National Bank is the only remaining locally-based bank.
Of course, the banks are always at war with each other, so there could be other banks claiming to be local.
But they’re not as local as Canandaigua, even if not affiliated with a New York City bank.
One day I picked up my paycheck at Transit, brought it home, and made what the bank calls a “split-deposit.”
My paycheck would be cashed, it would pay some bills the bank processed, and deposit $60 to our checking-account.
I took that all to a nearby Central-Trust branch, and transacted it.
I was given a receipt for $60.
That night the bank called. Our checking-account was overdrawn, and bouncing checks.
Apparently the bank had charged back the $60.
Um, I got a receipt!
I went up to the bank, and did what I call a “grandstand.”
I confronted the front-desk personnel, and said I wasn’t leaving until they redeposited that $60.
After all, I had a receipt.
Weeping and wailing and gnashing-of-teeth. They just wanted me out; I was upsetting customers with my yelling.
“But I ain’t leavin’ until you redeposit that $60, and reimburse your overdraft charges.
I worked for a bank once, and I know you can charge your bad-items to redeposit my $60.”
They did, but with my help.
They had apparently lost my Transit paycheck, and charged my checking-account $60 to recover part of their loss.
Don’t mess with a Hughes; you’ll get a grandstand.
Transit stopped payment on the lost paycheck, and issued me another.
With that, Central-Trust recovered their entire loss.
But they probably lost a few customers with my grandstand.

• “Hughes” is me, Bob Hughes, BobbaLew.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• 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 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• The “Messenger Newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger, from where I retired almost nine years ago. I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern). It was the BEST job I ever had.

Mess not with a Hughes, Part-2:

Back in the ‘80s I was running footraces.
Not marathons.
Five miles or 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) or five kilometers (3.1 miles).
The longest race I ever ran was over seven miles; I had to pace myself.
Back then I weighed about 60 pounds less than I do now; about 130+ instead of 190+.
My running slowed, mostly after my stroke, which occurred in late ’93, and I recovered fairly well.
Maybe four years ago I was down to about 3-4 miles per run.
My last race was in 2010, a 5-K.
By then I was 66, but I could still run.
I started running perhaps two-three years after I started driving bus in 1977.
I kept at it because it was lopping off flab.
My running fell apart after my stroke, because an antidepressant medication had me down to almost a walk.
When I stopped the antidepressant my running picked up.
But I never got back to as good as I had been.
I had to stop altogether when my wife died. She used to take along our dog at a walk while I ran.
Not too long after I started running I started footraces.
I even won my class once because no hot-shots were in it.
My wife did all the winning. Usually she was the only entrant in her class, or one of few.
I never was that good. A race usually divided into three groups: the hot-shots, the mid-packers, and the stragglers.
I was usually among the mid-packers.
My best average was 6:27 per mile; not that fast, but fairly fast. (My wife averaged around seven minutes per mile.)
Not long after I started racing I tried a 10-K at my alma mater, Houghton College (“HO-tin;” not “how” or “who”) in the Genesee (“jen-uh-SEE”) Valley below Rochester (NY).
By then I had been an alumni around 17 years. Other alumni ran too.
By then Houghton had got into intercollegiate sports, although not football. Only soccer and lacrosse and track and maybe a few girls’ sports like basketball.
When I was at Houghton intercollegiate sports were Of-the-Devil.
The sports teams named themselves “the Highlanders,” in honor of the college’s Christian heritage.
They would open each competition with a word-of-prayer. And then get soundly trounced.
Highlanders were running this 10-K, track guys dressed in kilts. I often was faster than them.
That 10-K was the toughest race I ever ran.
Houghton is on the western slope of the vast Genesee Valley.
The race went down to the valley-floor, then up the western slope.
It was awful. I had to stop numerous times on that hill.
I don’t think we climbed the whole western slope, but quite a bit of it.
Some of it was on grass.
I remember running down the runway of the Houghton International Aerodrome, a single runway grass-strip, uncontrolled, that could only accommodate small private planes.
There was a student whose father flew her in in a twin-engine Piper Apache.
I remember hoping nothing landed as I ran down that runway.
Then it was back down to the campus, over twisting footpaths, up to what was then the college athletic-field at that time.
That athletic-field is now something else, and a new athletic facility is being built north of the old campus.
That old athletic-field had a quarter-mile track, and the race finished on that track.
As I rounded the final bend toward the finish, it looked like I could beat the guy ahead of me.
So I kicked into passing-gear.
The guy I wanted to beat tried to trip me.
I got mad.
Never in all my years of racing have I encountered such nastiness.
And Houghton was an evangelical college.
I kicked the guy in the shins, and shoved him aside. I wasn’t taking that kind of crap, biblical or not.
And I beat him.
It was probably the slowest 10-K I ever ran, but also the toughest.
But I wasn’t taking no nastiness from some Bible-beating zealot.

• “Hughes” is me, Bob Hughes, BobbaLew.
• 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 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• “Houghton College” is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• The Genesee River, a fairly large river that runs south-to-north across Western New York through the “Genesee Valley,” also runs through Rochester, including over falls, and empties into Lake Ontario. Houghton was not far from the Genesee River.

Mess not with a Hughes

In late 1956 I began attending Delaware Township High-School for seventh-grade.
We called it “Della-Twip.”
Delaware Township High-School was later renamed Cherry Hill High-School, since our township, originally Delaware Township, was renamed Cherry Hill Township.
Erlton (“Earl-tin;” as in the name “Earl”), my home at that time, was originally the center of Delaware Township.
Erlton was a suburb of Philadelphia in south Jersey, founded by a guy named “Earl” in the ‘20s or ‘30s.
But then President Eisenhower visited Cherry Hill Inn in 1956, and after that Cherry Hill became the town center.
Delaware Township High-School wasn’t finished when I began.
Only the academic-building was completed.
Previously high-school students did high-school in nearby Haddonfield (“ha-din-FIELD”), an old Revolutionary-War town just south of Erlton.
Delaware Township High-School was a response to the Post-War Baby-Boom, which prompted double-sessions at my elementary-school, which has since been torn down.
Della-Twip was finished when I began eighth-grade in late 1957.
That is, everything but the shop and mechanical-drawing wing.
We had a gym and cafeteria. Also an auditorium.
Life was fairly simple for me. We still were hiking mud and gravel to get to gym-class and that cafeteria.
But we were no longer crammed in just the Academic-Building.
Life was simple, but there were greasers and bullies and hard-rocks.
The girls were trollops and slatterns.
South Jersey seemed to engender those kind of people.
I was in a class one day, and some bully started harassing me.
He said he’d meet me out in the hall, presumably for a fight.
This bully had a reputation. Supposedly he had tossed another greaser twice-his-size over his head at a dance.
Class ended, I walked gingerly out into the hallway.
Bully was waiting.
He slammed me across the hall into the lockers.
But he made me mad.
I bounced right back and slammed him across the hall into the lockers.
He hadn’t expected that.
He was banking on his reputation as a successful bully.
He thereafter said he’d meet me outside after school, but I never saw any sign of him.

• “Hughes” is me, Bob Hughes, BobbaLew.

Slammed into utter-darkness yet again

On Wednesday afternoons I eat out with a fellow widower at a restaurant just east of Canandaigua.
It takes me about a half-hour to get there.
I started keying-in a blog about 1:30, but my lights began flickering about 2:30.
A thunderstorm was nearby.
Then the electricity went off.
I could keep typing because this laptop was on internal battery-power.
I have a stand-by generator (pictured), but it waits 30 seconds before kicking on.

The stand-by. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

It kicked on. My electricity was back to this ‘pyooter-center, but the stand-by doesn’t push everything.
Just everything that matters: refrigerator, freezer, garage-door opener, furnace.
But not the air-conditioning, and not my bedroom. At least it’s not supposed to push the air-conditioning, but a couple weeks ago the AC came on during a power-outage that kicked on the stand-by.
This outage took out everything but my landline telephone. It even took out my Internet and e-mail, which it used to do, except my Internet-service-provider put in a stand-by at their switching-station.
When I eat out with that guy I have to leave my dog in my house.
So before I leave I take her for a long walk in case she has to go to the bathroom.
I have to leave by 4:30, but since that storm was approaching I figured I better start walking my dog at 3 instead of 4.
It rained a little, but the storm passed me by.
Yet my stand-by was still wildly roaring.
It was still blasting away when I left at 4:30.
I had to hope my electricity might be back when I returned, so I didn’t have to go to bed with that standby roaring under my window.
When I returned about 6:55, my stand-by was off, and I was back on the grid.
What was most-amazing to me was the backup-battery for my DVR worked as intended. Often it doesn’t. All my DVR records is the news, and it did so.
That was the third outage this summer. The first outage my stand-by wouldn’t crank; dead battery, and it’s a car-battery.
My neighbor and I replaced that battery.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly. —My friend’s wife also died of cancer about a year later. They were married 51 years.
• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.

Monthly Calendar-Report for August 2014

#8102, the Pennsy heritage-unit, leads empty crude-oil tankcars down The Hill. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—The August 2014 entry of my own calendar is another photograph by my brother Jack Hughes.
Norfolk Southern’s Pennsy heritage-unit, #8102, is leading an extra of empty crude-oil tankcars down The Hill.
In 2012, in honor of of its 30th anniversary, Norfolk Southern had 20 of its new locomotives delivered in paint-schemes of predecessor railroads: e.g. Pennsy, Lackawanna, Nickel Plate, Norfolk & Western, Erie, Lehigh-Valley, Southern Railway, Wabash, Central of Georgia, etc.
8102 is one of those heritage-units, painted Pennsy Tuscan-red (“TUSS-kin;” not “Tucson” Ariz.). It also has the five gold pinstripes applied to Pennsy’s first passenger diesels.
Some of Pennsy’s first passenger-diesels were painted Tuscan-red with five gold pinstripes — some were Brunswick-green. A later paint-scheme reduced to one yellow stripe.
The heritage locomotives attract a lot of attention.
My brother in northern DE, whose oil-refinery gets crude-oil from Norfolk Southern, tells of hundreds of camera-toting railfans descending on his refinery, getting refinery security all upset.
He tells security not to worry; it’s just a heritage-unit is leading their crude-oil train.
My brother (Jack) and I had located on the Route-53 overpass north of Cresson (PA, “KRESS-in”) over the old ex-Pennsy main on the west side of Allegheny Mountain.
Five tracks are visible: right-to-left, Tracks Four, Three, Two, One, and Main-8.
Main-8 is a storage track for trains that will later climb The Hill, like coal-gondolas. —You’ll note it doesn’t look as good as the others.
The train is on Track Four.
My brother snagged an earlier picture of 8102, but it’s fuzzy.
He noticed 8102 was an the point of this train descending The Hill, so he ran across the road and feverishly snapped a picture. —Causing much horn-blowing and screeching tires.
He then came back and snapped this calendar-picture. I also took one almost identical, but his was better.
My brother likes this location. “Not often do you see a mainline with five tracks,” he says.
Four discounting Main-8, but that’s still a four-track main.
Tracks Four and Three are on the original Pennsylvania Railroad alignment.
Tracks One and Two and Main-8 are on the alignment of the New Portage Railroad. New Portage was built by the state to circumvent the original Portage Railroad with its inclined planes.
The Portage railroads were part of the Pennsylvania Public Works System, a combined system of canals and railroad meant to compete with New York’s immensely successful Erie Canal.
The state’s Public Works System was a disaster, and eventually went bust.
Railroads had bypassed canals which had to be closed during Winter, plus a combined system was cumbersome. The original Portage Railroad was required because Allegheny Mountain couldn’t be canaled.
The Public Works System was sold to Pennsy for a song. Pennsy was interested because the New Portage Railroad had a tunnel under the summit Pennsy could add to its original tunnel.
But New Portage Tunnel is slightly higher than the original Pennsy tunnel. Pennsy had to ramp down to its original grade.
So Tracks One and Two and Main-8 are slightly higher than Three and Four, and will go even higher as they climb the mountain.
Tracks Two and One merge into Track One before the summit. At which point Tracks Three and Four become Two and Three approaching the original Pennsy summit tunnel.
The two tunnels, “Allegheny” and “New Portage” are still as original. Although “Allegheny” was enlarged to allow two tracks and clear doublestacks.
And New Portage was reduced to one track from two, but was also enlarged to clear doublestacks.
There also was a third tunnel, “Gallitzin” (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”), added by Pennsy next to Allegheny, but that has since been abandoned and sealed.
Allegheny was originally two tracks, but downgraded to one as equipment-size enlarged; but now it’s back up to two.
Double-stacked containers require a lot of vertical clearance.



Beasts on Horseshoe Curve, 1960. (Photo by Gene Colora©.)

—The August 2014 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is two Baldwin RT624s heading a freight down The Hill toward Altoona in the apex of Horseshoe Curve.
I had to get out my vaunted Pennsy Power books, Books One and Two, which I bought just after I got married, and will never part with.
There are plenty of other books I’ll trash, but not my Pennsy Power books.
I’m a railfan, mainly Pennsylvania Railroad.
The books are by Alvin Staufer. Book One treats Pennsy steam and electric locomotives, everything they had. Book Two also treats diesels and electric commuter-cars.
I guess there was also a Book Three, but I don’t have that.
So I had to drag out Book Two to be informed about these calendar locomotives.
It was confusing. I was shown lots of twin-engine “Beasts,” but most were 5000-series. Only one photo was 8000-series, and the calendar locomotives are 8000-series.
8000-series seem to be locomotives by Baldwin Locomotive Works, and look slightly different than the 5000-series, made by Lima Locomotive Works (“LYE-muh;” as in “lima-bean,” not “LEE-muh”).
Whatever, the beasts have two diesel-engines, and the trucks on the 8000-series are massive castings.
Baldwin merged with Lima in 1951 in a fevered attempt to remain competitive in the diesel-locomotive market. Lima had earlier merged with General Machinery Corporation of Hamilton, Ohio, to form Lima-Hamilton in 1947. BLH lasted until 1956.
Each diesel-engine is 1,200 horsepower (the book also says 1,250); the entire locomotive packs 2,400 horsepower.
That’s a lot of power for a single diesel-locomotive back then; they weigh 362,000 pounds.
The calendar-locomotives also had dynamic brakes to help hold back a descending train.
Dynamic brakes are turning the traction-motors into generators, which generate electricity dissipated as heat in toaster-grids atop the locomotive.
This causes braking-action.
Dynamics made it easier to descend grades. No longer did crewmen have to set up brake-retainers on each car before descending a grade.
Dynamics are still in use. Often helper-engines shove a heavy train up a grade, and then stay coupled applying dynamics as the train descends.
“I need you to yank on me,” I hear a lead engineer radio his helper-crew.
I see this train has a gondola-car as the first car. Makes me wonder if it’s an empty slab-train, a train of all gondolas to move heavy steel slabs to a mill to be rolled into plate.
Norfolk Southern still does that on this line. I’ve included a picture of an empty slab-train:


Empty slab-train, June 26th, 2014. (Photo by BobbaLew.)





A 1970 Boss-429 Mustang. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

—The August 2014 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecar calendar is a mighty-fine looking Mustang, but it’s a Boss-429.
The engine in a Boss-429 is the gigantic single overhead-cam “Cammer” developed by Ford for NASCAR racing. It was meant to compete with Chrysler’s Hemi (“HEM-eee;” not “he-me).

The “Cammer” engine in this car. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

Wedging this motor into a Mustang was a mistake. It compromised the exhaust manifolds which had to be reconfigured to fit.
Drag-racers were put off. Not many Boss-429 Mustangs were sold.
This exact same picture appeared in the Motorbooks September-2012 Musclecar calendar, which is okay, because it’s a great-looking car.
But that gigantic motor over its front-end made it a poor performer on the highway; that is, anything other than a straight line. It would understeer in corners.
Drag-racers were put off by those compromised exhaust-headers.
A Boss-429 would need steel tube headers to do any good, and even they would probably be hard to fashion.
A Cammer in a Mustang is a very tight fit.

Mach-One Mustang. (Photo by Peter Harholdt© [I suspect])

More sensible to me is a Mach-One Mustang as pictured at left. It had a 351-cubic-inch Cleveland motor, much lighter than a Cammer.
A Mach-One Mustang is something you could enjoy, even if not as fast in straight-line acceleration as a Boss-429.
About all I can say here is it’s a great-looking car. Too bad it’s a Cammer, although that makes it rare.
One wonders what this car would go for at auction. Recently a Hemi-powered Barracuda convertible went for 3.5 million dollars!


Dirty and bedraggled, but still impressive. (Photo by John Dziobko.)

—The August 2014 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is a Pennsy M1a Mountain (4-8-2) on the turntable at Northumberland (PA) roundhouse being serviced.
I found myself getting out my Pennsy Power books to see if they had this thing captioned right.
They’ve mucked up captions before.

A cast cylinder-saddle on an M1a. (Pennsylvania Railroad.)

Not a cast cylinder-saddle — note piston-valve feed pipes direct into the smokebox-sides; in “cast” they’re in the casting. (Photo by Gene Foster.)

It seems there was a version of Pennsy’s Mountain that had a cast cylinder-saddle, and I wondered if it was the M1a or M1b.
They’re were three versions of the Pennsy Mountain, the M1, the M1a, and the M1b.
I guess they’re right. The M1 doesn’t have the cast cylinder-saddle depicted here, but the M1a’s do.
My Pennsy Power books are unclear about a cast cylinder-saddle on Pennsy’s Mountain, and an M1b is not pictured, although I don’t think it looked any different than an M1a — the difference is the M1b had circulators in its firebox, which increased steam-capacity and tractive-effort.
The locomotive pictured, #6754, has a cast cylinder-saddle.
Only one Mountain remains, #6755, an M1b, at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania near Strasburg, PA. It’s outside, and rusting apart. It’s of course inoperable, but at least it wasn’t scrapped.
Toward the end of their careers, the M1s suffered deferred maintenance.
Pennsy was no longer mega-rich. This calendar-engine needs to be washed.
Yet the M1 Mountains were doing better than planned. Of all the engines Pennsy developed, the Mountain was their favorite.
It was a dual-purpose locomotive; only 72-inch drivers. The K-4 Pacific (4-6-2) is 80-inch.
Its firebox grate was only 70 square feet, but that’s still fairly large.
It required a mechanical-stoker to keep up with it.
The Mountain’s best design-feature was a combustion-chamber ahead of its firebox. It permitted complete burning of its coal.
The Mountains were’t drag-engines; a Dek (2-10-0 Decapod) might be better on The Hill.
But on a lightly-graded alignment, like Pennsy’s storied Middle Division (Harrisburg to Altoona), they could boom-and-zoom; 50 mph or more towing freight.
There were other lines Mountains were assigned to, but the Middle Division was their stomping-ground.
Diesels would eventually take over the Middle Division, but the Mountains did fine. Pennsy kept using them clear up into 1957, long after other railroads dieselized.
Admitted, Pennsy wanted to stick with coal-fired steam locomotion, but the Mountains were especially well-suited for the Middle Division.



’29 Model-A roadster on ’32 rails. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)

—Look at those spun-aluminum Moons!
Where do you see anything like that nowadays?
The August 2014 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a 1929 Model-A roadster body on a 1932 Ford chassis; a concept that was very popular.
It ain’t fair to place this car so far back in the calendar-report. It’s an excellent picture of a very appealing hotrod.
And it’s a “Flatty,” Ford’s flat-head V8 motor, the foundation of hot-rodding.
Flattys weren’t very sophisticated, but they were easy to work on, and responded well to hot-rodding.
A flat-head has flat cylinder-heads, like a lawnmower engine. They are side-valve, valves parallel and next to the cylinders in the engine-block. Engine-breathing is circuitous and contorted.
Better were overhead-valve engines; they breathed better.
But Ford’s flat-head was sprightly. Even stock. It appealed to the backyard mechanic.
Plus the Flatty has only three exhaust-ports per side, instead of four. The two center cylinders exhaust into a single port.
Plus exhaust is routed through the cylinder-block, which made the engine want to overheat.
The exhaust-valves are atop the motor, yet exhaust gets ported down to the sides of the motor through the block.
Cadillac’s V8 of the ‘40s was also a flat-head, but the exhaust exited the top of the engine.
The Chevy SmallBlock of 1955 solved all these problems, plus like the Flatty was cheap and available.
No longer did hot-rodders have to scarf up an Oldsmobile or Cadillac V8 to get overhead-valve performance.
Plus the SmallBlock was better anyway.
With its light-weight valve-train it could really rev, better than the Olds or Caddy.
Ford brought out an overhead-valve V8 in 1954, but it followed design-parameters of the Olds and Caddy V8s. Compared to the SmallBlock it was a stone.
I remember a guy drag-racing a ’55 Ford V8. He always got skonked by the SmallBlock Chevys.
So in essence the SmallBlock put the Flatty out to pasture. Nevertheless a flat-head powered hotrod is classic.
The Model-A looks about as good as a ’32 Ford, yet its chassis is a whipsaw. The ’32 Ford chassis was more substantial. Its frame-rails could more adequately deal with a souped-up V8.
So the drill was to put a Model-A body on the ’32 Ford chassis, assuming a Model-A is what you started with.
What strikes me most-of-all is those spun-aluminum Moon hubcaps.
“Moons,” as they were called, were very popular back in the early ‘60s when I graduated high-school in 1962.
Everyone was putting Moons on their cars. My guess is they were also cheap.
You’d see Moons on anything; some kid’s decrepit ’52 Chevy coupe, to a Jeep. Usually with whitewall tires.
I tried Googling Moon spun-aluminum hubcaps, and got little more than than classic hotrod parts.
Moons were a fad, but I always thought they looked pretty good.
I see this car also has a “Moon-Eyes” decal, also very popular in the early ‘60s.
As I understand it, a “Moon-Eyes” decal was left on the Moon on the Lunar Lander.



Slight-of-hand or not? (Photo by Kenneth Conleay.)

—The August 2014 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar has me photographically analyzin’.
It’s a picture of a Norfolk Southern auto-rack train passing a peach-orchard in Georgia.
My question is whether a photographer could get both a distant object (the train) and objects right-up-close (the peaches) both in focus.
I know this is hard, but it can be done; if the camera’s aperture-setting is tiny enough — almost a pinhole — it will focus both close and distant.
The other option is shooting with a view-camera that can be tilted. In which case the camera would be tilted so the peaches at bottom were in focus, yet the train higher up is also in focus.
The picture was probably not shot with a view-camera.
I dragged out my Nikon D7000 digital camera. The smallest aperture it would do is f22. I don’t know as that’s enough. Seems you’d need f32 or f64. F64 is almost a pinhole.
Well, the train is razor-sharp, and the peaches a bit fuzzy. Maybe f22 was the smallest the photographer could go.
Principles of photography here: the smaller the aperture (the bigger its number), more will be in focus. That is, a smaller aperture will increase depth-of-field (focus).
There is another option the photographer could have taken, but it looks like that wasn’t done here. It’s an old Photoshop trick, layering a focused foreground atop a focused background.
I’ve seen it done; in fact, a photographer won a calendar-contest with it. He layered a picture of his jumping Irish-Setter dog atop a picture of thousands of geese fleeing a pond at sunset.
It looked like his dog was scaring off the geese.
But the lighting was all wrong.
The geese were silhouetted against the sky, yet the Irish-Setter was in flash.
Well okay, perhaps the photographer used flash to illuminate his dog. But there were obvious focus conflicts. Both the geese and the Irish-Setter were razor-sharp.
That Irish-Setter calendar was judged by non-photographers. They probably weren’t familiar with Photoshop.
I’d like to think the judges for the Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar are knowledgable enough to toss such trickery.
As I say, I don’t think this picture is the Photoshop trick. There’s too much foreground, and it’s disparate.
What makes me wonder is the sky; it’s overcast.
With conditions like that, the light might be low enough to not allow the smallest aperture setting.
Every photo is a crap-shoot. Just shoot and see what you get. You may be able to do some planning, but it may not work.
Yet some of my potshots are my best stuff.



Trainer alert! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The August 2014 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a deHavilland DHC-1 Chipmunk.
It sounds like the Chipmunk wasn’t really a WWII warbird. I’ll let my WWII warbirds site weigh in:
“Developed just after World War II, the DHC-1 Chipmunk was the first aircraft designed by deHavilland of Canada to replace the deHavilland Tiger Moth as a single-engine basic trainer.
The Chipmunk first flew on May 22nd, 1946. Initially, 218 Chipmunks were built for the Royal Canadian Air Force, followed, after a change to the Gypsy Major 8 engine, by 735 planes for the Royal Air Force’s primary pilot training.”
It’s a shame planes like this are always in the shadow of hotrods, such as the Supermarine Spitfire.
But more-than-likely a fighter-jockey had a trainer in his past.
The Chipmunk is a pretty nice-looking airplane, if you accept -a) the non-retractible landing-gear, -b) that off-center cooling scoop.
The engine is only a 145-horsepower deHavilland Gypsy Major 8 inline piston engine, not the Merlin V12.
The top speed of a Chipmunk is 135 mph, not 400 or so.
So after the Chipmunk that fighter-jockey might want more performance.
But at 400+ mph you can’t make mistakes.

A Stearman biplane. (Photo by Philip Makanna.)

The U.S. Army Air-Corps also had primary trainers, like the Stearman biplane (“by-plane;” I only say that because yrs trly was mispronouncing it “bip-lane” years ago) pictured.
I recently witnessed some Stearmans flying. They could do changes in direction a 400 mph hotrod could never do.
Yet they couldn’t outrun a Messerschmitt.