Monthly Calendar-Report for April 2015
Eastbound Amtrak Pennsylvanian approaches Lilly, PA. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)
—Here it comes! The only passenger-train left on this storied line, which once carried many passenger-trains.
Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian, state-sponsored, eastbound in this case (there’s a westbound in late afternoon), approaching Lilly, PA in morning light.
Unfortunately many think this is all there is, and the railroad is Amtrak. Amtrak owns and operates a few railroads, particularly the old Pennsy electrified line between New York and Washington, otherwise known as the Northeast Corridor.
Amtrak even extended the Corridor to Boston using existing railway.
But the railroad pictured here is Norfolk Southern, a private enterprise, not the government. Plenty of freight gets moved on it. Amtrak is just one train (actually two: one west and one east).
The railroad is the old Pennsy main across PA, Pittsburgh to Harrisburg, but Norfolk Southern owns it. Amtrak has trackage-rights, and Norfolk Southern goes out of its way to keep Amtrak on time.
The April 2015 entry of my own calendar is the eastbound Pennsylvanian, and was taken by my brother Jack Hughes.
It’s nearly impossible to convince a macho Harley-dude he’s an artist doing good work. Art is a “liberial” pursuit. (“Liberial” is how he spells it.)
Of course, it’s my calendar; I produce it.
But if he got a better picture than me, I’ll use his instead.
My calendar is half his pictures.
We knew this train was coming. We set up in weeds railroad-west of Lilly, where the railroad goes under an old Pennsy signal-bridge, then curves into Lilly.
I was on my tripod with my big telephoto lens.
I shot the train going under the signal-bridge, but it was in shadow.
My brother got the better picture. He waited until the train started around the curve in sunlight.
Sometimes I think my brother seems more aware of this stuff than I am — that my telephoto can lead me astray, as it often does.
The locomotive is a General-Electric P-42 Genesis-unit, 4,250 horsepower, a four-axle diesel-electric. Its design was specific to Amtrak, supposedly safer than the average diesel locomotive.
Its fuel-tank is where it won’t be ruptured in a crash.
As I understand it, its chiseled styling is by the same guy that styles GM’s Cadillac.
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| 04T, the eastbound Pennsylvanian. (Photo by Tom Hughes.) |
My nephew Tom Hughes, railfan son of my other brother in northern DE (who is not a railfan), got the Pennsylvanian with a rare 500-series Amtrak diesel — pretty much GE’s Dash-Eight locomotive used to haul freight. Except it’s four-axle.
Pennsy became all-powerful, the largest railroad in the world, mainly because it cultivated mergers and affiliations that fed its main at Pittsburgh.
It also attracted industries that became its traffic-base, particularly coal and steel.
It became so powerful there was question who ran the country, Pennsy or the Federal Government.
Teddy Roosevelt’s anti-trust legislation was as much a strike at Pennsy as it was against Standard Oil.
Now Pennsy is gone, a victim of its weight and change.
Pennsy was saddled with insanely high costs, and its hold on commerce was compromised by government-built airports and the Eisenhower Interstate System.
A railroad had to build its own route, classification facilities, and terminals.
Pennsy had to merge with arch-rival New York Central, and that (Penn-Central) collapsed in bankruptcy.
Conrail was instituted by the government to take over collapsing northeastern railroading, and eventually that was broken up and sold after becoming successful and privatizing.
Norfolk Southern operates the old Pennsy main across PA, and CSX operates the old Central main across New York.
Amtrak began nationwide in 1971 to take passenger-service from the railroads. It had become burdensome.
Mustang! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)
—Can there be a WWII warbird calendar without a P-51 in it?
The April 2015 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a P-51 Mustang, the darling of propeller airplane fans.
It’s gorgeous!
I had a flyable nitro-powered model-airplane modeled after the Mustang. It wasn’t a duplicate, but the wings and empennage were Mustang. As a flyable model its wings were quite a bit bigger, but shaped like a Mustang.
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site weigh in:
“One of the most effective, famous and beautiful fighter aircraft of WWII, the P-51 was designed to fulfill a British requirement dated April 1940.
Because of the rapidly-mounting clouds of war in Europe, the United Kingdom asked North American Aircraft to design and build a new fighter in only 120 days. The NA-73X prototype was produced in record time, but did not fly until October 26th, 1940.
The first Royal Air Force production models, designated Mustang Mk Is, underwent rigorous testing and evaluation, and it was found that the 1,100-horsepower Allison engine was well suited for low-altitude tactical reconnaissance, but the engine’s power decreased dramatically above an altitude of 12,000 feet, making it a poor choice for air-to-air combat or interception roles.
The RAF then tested a new engine in the airplane, the 12-cylinder Rolls-Royce Merlin. This gave much-improved performance, and led to the U.S. Army Air Corps fitting two airframes with 1,430-horsepower Packard-built Merlin V-1650 engines.
The first Merlin-engine versions appeared in 1943 with the P-51B, of which 1,988 were built in Inglewood, CA, and the P-51C, of which 1,750 were built in Dallas, TX. Both new versions had strengthened fuselages and four wing-mounted 12.7-mm machine guns.
The Merlin-powered Mustangs were exactly what Allied bombers in Europe desperately needed, and they became famous for their long range and potent high-altitude escort capability.
The most significant variant, the P-51D, featured a 360-degree-view bubble canopy, a modified rear fuselage, and six 12.77-mm machine guns. 7,956 were built.
In the last 40 years, surplus Mustangs have been modified and used extensively as civilian air racers, but the latest trend is for private owners to restore them to almost perfect, historically-accurate condition.
As public appreciation for the Mustang has grown, the monetary value of the few remaining examples has skyrocketed. War-surplus P-51s, once auctioned from storage for less than $2,000, are now usually valued at nearly a million dollars or more. The restoration of existing airframes has become a small industry in the U.S., U.K. and Australia, and the total number of flyable examples, despite one or two accidents each year, is growing.”
Every air-show I’ve attended had a Mustang in it, often three or more.
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| Old Crow. |
I’ll never forget it, hammerhead stalls, screaming power-dives at 500+ mph.
Above all, the P51 is agile. As well as gorgeous. And the sound was incredible. I’ll see if I can post that sound-file of a P-51 flyover. (http://www.stelzriede.com/ms/mus/p51.wav, open this address
[above] as a URL in your Windows Media Player [PC] or Quicktime [MAC], or else just click the link and maybe it will play. —I had to update Flip4Mac to get it to play in Quicktime, since it’s a .wav file)
Every American, BY LAW, should be required to see, and hear, a P-51 fly!
In the hole at right. (Photo by Robert Malinoski.)—It’s too bad photography 60 years ago wasn’t what it is now.
I look at pictures in my own calendar and say wow.
The April 2015 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar was taken while steam-locomotion was still active on Pennsy.
It’s probably from a tiny 35 mm color slide.
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| Last month’s entry. (Photo by Ray Mueller.) |
Both locomotives are Decapods (2-10-0). The one at right (#4241) with another, is stopped to allow the one at left (#4591) to clear.
The train at right is a Mt. Carmel ore-train, a heavy train of iron-ore cars for interchange with Lehigh Valley in Mt. Carmel.
Pennsy was doing this at the end of the Decapod’s careers.
The ore was probably loaded off a boat in Philadelphia, destined for mills in Bethlehem, PA.
The picture was taken in 1955. Steam-locomotion would end on Pennsy two years hence.
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| The only Decapod left. |
In 1982, the Western New York Railway Historical Society acquired the engine from WABCO, and put it on display in Hamburg, NY outside Buffalo, where it remains dormant but is getting a cosmetic restoration.
WABCO had lost interest.
When I compare this picture to one my brother took recently of Nickel Plate 765 on the old Pennsy, I say it’s too bad.
The Queen of the West End — the best there is. (Restored Nickel Plate steam-engine #765.) (Photo by Jack Hughes.)
To get edge-sharpness back then you had to shoot black-and-white with a large-format camera — perhaps a 4-by-5 inch negative.
That’s a Graflex press-camera.
1963 426 Max-Wedge Plymouth Sport-Fury. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)
—The April 2015 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecar calendar could be said to be the beginning of the factory hotrod movement.
It’s a 1963 426 Max-Wedge Plymouth Sport-Fury.
It also could be said the 1961 409 Chevrolet was the beginning of the factory hotrod movement.
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| “She’s real fine, my 409.” —’61 bubble-top 409. (Them wheels ain’t stock.) |
I was smitten.
The 400 cubic-inch barrier had been breached.
There are cars before the 409-Chevy that were factory hotrods, like the 300-series Chryslers of the late ‘50s.
But they didn’t exceed 400 cubic-inches. The largest was 392 cubic-inches.
Go back far enough and the calendar suggests Old Henry’s 1932 Ford V8 was a factory hotrod.
They were sprightly.
Chrysler reacted to the 409-Chevy by bringing large-engine cars to market, like this 426 cubic-inch Max-Wedge Plymouth.
It’s not the Hemi — that came later. It’s Chrysler’s B-engine. Its valves are still all in a row.
These cars dominated drag-racing, except I remember Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins had a 409.
Jenkins ran a hotrod shop in southeastern PA that souped up Chevy SmallBlocks.
His 409 was unbeatable until Chrysler’s Hemi came along. He had to get a Hemi of his own, the only way he could keep winning.
Part was his being an unbeatable driver, and part was his ability to extract incredible horsepower from an engine.
But the Max-Wedge cars were a siren-song.
I remember designing a ’56 Thunderbird custom with a Max-Wedge engine.
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| T-bird at Cecil County Drag-o-Way. (Summer of ’65.) (Photo by BobbaLew.) |
It was nice to look at, a ’55, but it didn’t work.
Goosed it would melt its rear tires. They wouldn’t hook up.
The greatest railroad locomotive ever built. (Photo by Gene Collora©.)
—As I’ve said many times, can there be an All-Pennsy Calendar without a GG-1 in it?
The April 2015 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is GG-1 #4854 taking a train of empty coal-cars out on the main from the Jamesburg branch in 1960.
The Jamesburg branch comes off the Pennsy main in north Jersey as it approaches New York City. The train is attaining the main at Monmouth Junction/Midway Tower.
I’ll spare my readers my GG-1 pictures. I’ll just say I saw many, and usually every time I did they were doing 80-90 mph.
A single GG-1 could put 9,000 horsepower to railhead. To replace one in Harrisburg you had to couple perhaps four diesel-locomotives.
Diesel-locomotion has advanced since then, but a single diesel might get 4,400 horsepower.
You couldn’t maintain 9,000 horsepower in a GG-1. That was overload. It would overheat the traction-motors.
But you could overload pulling out of a station. I rode behind one once with 26 cars, and in minutes we were cruising at 90+.
And the GG-1 is gorgeous, a triumph of industrial-designer Raymond Loewy (“low-eee”). Loewy had done a few small things for Pennsy, but then convinced Pennsy to use a welded steel shell on the GG-1, instead of riveted. He also did minor restyling, particularly of the front-end. He also designed the paint-scheme; the five gold pinstripes on the locomotive pictured at the end.
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| “Old Rivets.” |
What I notice in this calendar-picture is the stick-rail, short lengths of rail bolted together.
Pennsy’s New York City/Washington D.C. line was stick-rail, but was extremely heavy rail, about eight inches high, 143 pounds per yard.
Now the rail is welded into lengths perhaps a quarter-mile long.
Welded rail takes out the weakness of bolted rail-joints. No clickety-clack over rail-joints, but no wear at rail-joints, which usually translated into low spots.
Pennsy’s New York City/Washington D.C. line was probably a maintenance headache.
The Northeast Corridor is now welded rail on concrete ties.
Quite a few GG-1s are left, but 4854 was scrapped. None are operable. The transformers in them used PCB-based fluid, so were filled with concrete or sand, or removed.
The best-looking GG-1 is #4935 at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, PA. I’ll run my nephew Tom’s picture of 4935.
#4935. (Photo by Tom Hughes.)
Rain. (Photo by Jonathan Bish.)
—The April 2015 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern freight about to leave Enola Yard near Harrisburg.
One of the Heritage-units is in the consist, #8025, the Monongahela Heritage-unit.
A thundershower has just passed, which explains the wet pavement.
I’ve shot the Monongahela unit myself; I’m running it as the August picture in my own calendar.
Enola was installed in 1905 to offset Harrisburg becoming a bottleneck.
At that time the railroad was Pennsy, and Enola became where the railroad’s electrification ended. Electric locomotives were exchanged for non-electric locomotives; steam-engines at first, then diesels.
The lines east of Enola have been de-energized, and wire taken down. The old Pennsy line from Philadelphia to Harrisburg is still electrified, but it’s Amtrak, not Norfolk Southern.
Norfolk Southern freight-trains to New York City use the old Reading line and Jersey Central, not the old Pennsy line.
Enola is on the west side of the Susquehanna River, Harrisburg on the east.
A number of river-crossings became Pennsy as well as Rockville Bridge. Reading had a river-crossing too, but I don’t see it interchanging with the old Pennsy, even though Norfolk Southern owns both.
I don’t consider this picture that good; it’s not very dramatic.
It had a small streak of lightning in it, but I cropped that out. It wasn’t much.
My picture of 8025 is much better. Had it been a Norfolk Southern unit instead, it would have been my calendar cover.
8025. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)
BeetleBomb. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)
—The ’39-’40 Ford coupes were some of the best-looking cars ever built, but their sedan counterparts were BeetleBombs.
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| 1939 Five-Window coupe. |
I remember one from my childhood, a humble two-door sedan painted flat-black with spray-cans.
I wonder if this car is that one, but I doubt it.
The young occupants terrorized our neighborhood with that old beetlebomb, bare elbows slung over window-sills, brazenly puffing cigarettes. They’d rev that poor FlatHead and lay rubber at stop-signs.
That is, until Johnny Law showed up in his flashing cherry-top step-down Hudson.
As a youngster I knew not what to think. The rebellious teenager was an appealing image, but seemed dangerous.
So here we have a much better version of that bedraggled old BeetleBomb.
It has a mildly souped 350-Chevy SmallBlock, the motor that put Henry’s FlatHead out to pasture.
It’s a great photograph, but an uninspiring car. The coupe version of this car is one of the best styling jobs ever brought to market.
And Ford didn’t have a styling department like GM’s Art & Colour. Old Henry thought styling a waste.
A 396 Nova?
—The April entry of my Jim LePore Musclecar calendar is a 1970 396 cubic-inch SS Chevrolet Nova.
For heaven sake!
A Big-Block motor in a compact car?
It should fit. There were 396 Camaros, and the Camaro and the Nova were pretty much the same chassis.
But how do you get those lightly-loaded rear drive-tires to hook up? Goose a souped 396, and those tires go up in smoke!
Plus what happened when you bent that Nova into a corner at speed?
With so much weight on the front tires it would plow into the boonies.
It’s an insane concept: an incredibly powerful motor in a small light car.
Too bad that heavy Big-Block isn’t in the back seat, where its weight might make the drive-tires more likely to stick.
Can-Am racecars did this: a mid-engine Big-Block, the ultimate hotrod.
SS versions of the lowly Nova are an engaging idea. But a lighter SmallBlock and four-on-the-floor made more sense.
Labels: Monthly Calendar Report
posted by BobbaLew at 5:41 PM
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