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.