Monthly Calendar-Report for September 2015
(This here calendar-report woulda flown earlier, except I had an operation, and have been zonked out at least two weeks.)
21J westbound through Altoona. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)
—In my humble opinion, this is the best photo my brother ever took.
The September 2015 entry of my own calendar is westbound Norfolk Southern train 21J threading downtown Altoona.
It’s not exactly what he wanted. That giant warehouse at right, with the vertically corrugated steel siding panels, is “Altoona Pipe and Steel.” “Altoona Pipe and Steel” is atop the siding panels. He got one photo with “Altoona Pipe and Steel” in it, but cut off the locomotive pilot.
This photo was not long after my brother broke his leg. He was on crutches, and had to sit in a folding-chair while waiting.
He broke his leg getting off the bottom rung of his ladder. He was trying to dislodge a hornets’ nest.
He hobbled up two flights of stairs to this footbridge over the old Pennsy main through Altoona.
Altoona has a long and storied past for the Pennsylvania Railroad.
It’s at the base of Allegheny Mountain, once a barrier to trade across PA.
Helpers get added to help trains over the mountain.
Altoona is half-way across PA, half-way between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh.
Pennsy built shops to build and service locomotives.
Vast marshaling yards were also installed.
Locomotives specific to duty were assigned. Faster locomotives ran to Harrisburg, since it wasn’t so challenging.
Powerful plodders were assigned to get trains over Allegheny Mountain (“The Hill”). —Plus the additional helpers.
Things are slightly different with dieselization.
But “The Hill” still intimidates.
Often a lighter train can conquer The Hill without helpers. But if the train is heavy, helpers are needed.
The helpers are serviced at Cresson (“KRESS-in”), just west of the summit, but get dispatched down to Altoona.
And helpers often run all the way to Pittsburgh. They provide extra braking (dynamic-braking) for a train going downhill.
With dynamic-braking, the locomotive’s traction-motors are switched to generators.
So now Altoona is a city out in the rural outback.
Beyond Altoona civilization gravitated near the railroad. Many of the towns are old coal-mining towns, and coal would get shipped on the railroad.
The towns heave this-way-and-that over mountainous terrain.
And most still have streets only 19th-century wide.
South Fork is a prime example; South Fork being south (railroad-west) of the summit, and also the junction of a coal spur.
South Fork is the south fork of the Conemaugh River, which Pennsy followed to Pittsburgh. South Fork was the starting-point of the Johnstown Flood.
Through Altoona the railroad splits into express-tracks and drag-tracks, the drag-tracks being for slow heavy trains.
21J is on the express-tracks.
Altoona is no longer what it was with Pennsy. —And of course Pennsy is long-gone, owned and operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad.
But Altoona still has a large shop in adjacent Juniata (“june-eee-AT-uh”), to maintain and rebuild Norfolk Southern locomotives.
And that second unit is not a wide-cab.
I’ve been here, but things are much different now. (Photo courtesy Joe Suo Collection ©.)
—This picture is not dramatic, but I know exactly where it is.
The September 2015 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a train not far from the summit tunnels of The Hill in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”), PA.
Next to the tracks is the dirt road my brother and I call “Cemetery Road.”
It goes to a rural cemetery called “Bennington Cemetery.” —Google calls it “Bird Eye Road,” and it goes past the cemetery. I’ve never been to the cemetery.
But I’ve driven the road to get pictures for my calendar.
To the left of the train is The Slide, the ramp Pennsy built to get up to Portage Tunnel.
The New Portage Railroad was part of railroad the state built for its Public Works System. As first built the Public Works crossed Allegheny Mountain with a difficult inclined-plane railroad. Stationary steam-engines would winch cars up the planes.
Public Works was a combination canal and railroad. Canal packets would get put on railroad flatcars.
New Portage Tunnel was part of the New Portage Railroad. Pennsy got it when PA’s Public Works System failed. Pennsy had put it out of business.
Private capital triumphed over public capital — plus newer technology.
A railroad could run any time in any season. Canals froze in Winter, and Public Works did not operate at night.
Pennsy decided New Portage Tunnel would give them a second summit tunnel.
But they had to ramp up to it, since New Portage Tunnel was higher than Pennsy’s original tunnel.
“The Slide” (the ramp) is 2.36% — or was. Now it’s 2.28 %. the grade was decreased slightly when the floor of the tunnel was lowered to clear doublestacks. That’s 2.28 feet down for every 100 feet forward, fairly steep, but not extremely.
The Slide and New Portage Tunnel are eastbound. The train pictured is westbound, approaching the original Pennsy tunnel at Gallitzin.
A third tunnel was also built. So much traffic was on Pennsy the original tunnel became a bottleneck. Only one track could be in it. —It was originally two tracks, but railroad equipment became large.
Recently that third tunnel was abandoned and closed, and the original Pennsy tunnel was enlarged and widened to clear doublestacks and two tracks.
Shrubbery has grown in around everything, and almost obliterates The Slide. But if a train is descending The Slide it’s obvious.
That swale beside the road is grown over.
The locomotives are Baldwin’s distinctive Sharknose cab-units.
The Sharknose is industrial designer Raymond Loewy (“low-eee”) from 1949 on.
They’re attractive, but even the Sharknose couldn’t save Baldwin.
Baldwin diesel locomotives were too unreliable. And when a locomotive cripples, its train blocks the railroad. You can’t just go around the cripple.
Not on a railroad, where everything is using the same track.
Ram-Air. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)
—The September 2015 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecar calendar is a 1970&1/2 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am Ram-Air IV.
That’s the incredibly powerful, and heavy, 455 cubic-inch Ram-Air motor. A scoop is on the hood to ram cold-air into the gigantic four-barrel carburetor. Cold air is denser and renders more horsepower.
You could watch the scoop vibrate as you revved the engine. It was on the carb, independent of the hood.
I used to think the Endura-bumpered 1970&1/2 Camaro was one of the best-looking cars ever made.
But then I remembered this Firebird, that it doesn’t resort to a Ferrari egg-crate grille.
And the best-looking car ever is the early Jaguar XK-E.
Both the Camaro and Firebird are a little too big. They also have gigantic sedan doors.
That heavy 455 cubic-inch engine is a bit much. Too much weight on the front-end. A humble two-liter BMW 2002 could out-corner it.
Sadly, the Firebird got worse-looking as the decade progressed. So too did the Camaro. The 5-mph bumper-requirement ruined both.
A Pennsy 0-4-0 switcher in Atlantic City. (Photo by Charles Houser, Sr.)
—The September 2015 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is a tiny Pennsy 0-4-0 switcher in Atlantic City yard.
Pennsy never got into heavy 0-8-0 switchers like other railroads.
They developed one but only built just a few.
What they’d do is reassign Consolidations (2-8-0) retired from road-duty.
Ya might find an H-6 teakettle yarding cars.
Pennsy did build quite a few smaller switchers, particularly 0-6-0.
Usually when I saw a switcher they were 0-6-0. They had slope-back tenders to improve rearward engineer vision.
But there was one application where a smaller driver wheelbase was required, an 0-4-0.
That was the docks and piers in Philadelphia. Curves were so tight only an 0-4-0 would do ‘em. An 0-6-0, even with flangeless center drivers, might derail.
So Pennsy developed 0-4-0s instead of giving up on the dock-tracks.
Reading (“REDDing;” not ”READing”) had ‘em too. Reading also served the Philadelphia waterfront.
And Pennsy’s 0-4-0 was fairly modern. They’re piston-valve, not ancient slide-valve, and have the same locomotive-cab as Pennsy’s K-4 Pacific (4-6-2).
Of course this locomotive is in Atlantic City, NJ, not the Philadelphia waterfront. Atlantic City isn’t major yard, so switching cars could be done by an 0-4-0.
1950 Merc lead-sled custom. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)
—The September 2015 entry in my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a modified 1950 Mercury custom.
Such customs were called “lead-sleds,” because so much molten lead was paddled to smooth body-welds.
The ’49-’51 Mercs are perhaps the most desirable custom-car of all time.
Ford Motor Company, without a styling-section, produced some of the greatest looking cars ever; e.g. the Model-A Ford, the ’32 Ford, the ’34, the ’39/’40 five-window coupe, and these Mercuries.
Customizers loved to exercise their craft on these Mercuries, although in my humble opinion they don’t need much.
This car looks only chopped and lowered.
I’ve seen these things with perhaps a four-inch section taken out of the doors and side-sections.
I saw one as a high-school teenager. It was flat-black primer, yet very well done.
But it was so low it scraped the ground just leaving the burger-joint.
Plus it’s driver had to sit on the floor in the back.
Imagine getting it into a driveway, or into a parking-lot. So goes your 89-bazilyun dollar paint-job — the bottom will scrape the pavement.
This car has air-suspension, which supposedly raises the car enough to not scrape.
If I am correct, these Mercuries were supposed to be Ford’s 1949 Ford.
Except Henry Ford II, “The Deuce,” shoved through Ford’s revolutionary Shoebox Ford.
As far as I know, these ’49-’51 Mercuries also use pretty much the same chassis as the Shoebox — no more buggy-springs.
Dawn over Bellevue Yard in Ohio. (Photo by Jermaine Ashby.)
—Another Jermaine Ashby picture, which I don’t think is that good.
It seems all this picture displays is Ashby’s proficiency with Photoshop©.
The September 2015 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is dawn at the yard in Bellevue, OH.
Ashby aimed his camera into the dawning sun.
Then he dodged the front of the train so it would render not as dark as other locomotives in the picture.
“Dodge” is an old darkroom term. It refers to limiting the amount of enlarger light through a negative so the area “dodged” is exposed less than the surrounding area, and therefore renders lighter.
In that case the “dodging” tool was something to block out the enlarger light, like a piece of cardboard.
Photoshop has the computer equivalent of a “dodge” tool. You mouse the area you want lighter with the tool.
I imagine my Photoshop-Elements-10, a cheaper and less powerful Photoshop, has some version of the “dodge” tool, something to lighten the area selected.
I don’t use it. I’m one of these fustian old users who think a photo shouldn’t be heavily treated.
I use my Photoshop-Elements to do a little, mainly to crop and resize. My PE-10 also has an “enhance” function to lighten shadows. I use it, if it looks better.
But I don’t do what Ashby did, to lighten just an area of the picture: namely the front of the central locomotive. If I can “lighten shadows” in an entire picture, I might.
But with this picture only the front of the central locomotive is lightened. Other locomotives off to the left are dark-city.
Plus Ashby couldn’t be too precise about selecting out just the central locomotive — which he probably tried. Instead, it looks like he only used the dodge-tool, and had to be careful with the locomotive number-boards atop the cab.
He couldn’t get too close to the top edge lest he start lightening the sky.
To me all this horsing around is only photography because that’s what you started with.
At the Canandaigua Daily Messenger newspaper, from where I retired, Ashby’s photograph would be called a “photo-illustration.” It looks pretty good, but only because Ashby horsed around with the file.
“Peashooter.” (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)
—The September 2015 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is Boeing P-26A “Peashooter.”
I’ll let Wikipedia weigh in, since my WWII warbirds site rightly doesn’t think the Peashooter is a WWII warbird:
“The Boeing P-26 Peashooter was the first American all-metal production fighter aircraft and the first pursuit monoplane used by the United States Army Air Corps. Designed and built by Boeing; the prototype first flew in 1932, and the type was still in use with the U.S. Army Air Corps as late as 1941 in the Philippines.
The project, funded by Boeing, began in September 1931, with the Army Air Corps supplying the engines and instruments. The design, which included an open cockpit, fixed landing gear and externally braced wings, was the last such design procured by the USAAC as a fighter aircraft.
The diminutive ‘Peashooter,’ as it became affectionately known by service pilots, was faster than previous American combat aircraft. Nonetheless, due to the rapid progress in aviation design in the 1930s, its design quickly became an anachronism, with its wire-braced wings, fixed landing gear and open cockpit. The Curtiss P-36, Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Hawker Hurricane, with enclosed cockpits, retractable landing gear and cantilever wings, all flew for the first time in 1935, just three years later than the P-26.
However, the P-26 was easy to fly, and it remained in service until the U.S. entered World War II.
Deliveries to USAAC pursuit squadrons began in December 1933 with the last production aircraft in the series coming off the assembly line in 1936, designated the P-26C. Ultimately, 22 squadrons flew the Peashooter, with peak service being six squadrons in 1936. P-26s were the frontline fighters of the USAAC until 1938, when Seversky P-35s and Curtiss P-36s began to replace the P-26.
The first Boeing P-26 to experience major combat operation was a Chinese Model 281. On August 15th,1937, eight P-26/281s from the Chinese Nationalist Air Force 3rd Pursuit Group, 17th Squadron, based at Chuyung airfield, engaged eight out of 20 Mitsubishi G3M ‘Nell’ medium bombers from the Kisarazu Air Group sent to attack Nanking.
The Chinese Boeing fighters helped shoot down two of the four Japanese bombers destroyed that day without suffering any losses. Subsequent engagements between the Chinese Peashooter pilots and pilots of the Imperial Japanese Navy flying the Mitsubishi A5M ‘Claudes’ were the first aerial dogfights and kills between all-metal monoplane fighter aircraft.”
I’m only vaguely familiar with the Peashooter.
It looks like a turkey, hardly the fabulous airplane a Mustang or Lightning is. Or even a P-40 Warhawk. How far aviation advanced in just a decade.
It’s hard to think of the Peashooter as a fighter-plane compared to what came later.
But after the biplanes of WWI, the Peashooter was an advance.
1970 455 Buick GS.
—The September 2015 entry of my Jim LePore muscle-car calendar is a 1970 GS (Grand Sport) Buick, 455 cubic-inches.
I had to call my brother-in-Boston. He’s an authority on GS Buicks, since they’re from his time as a teenager, and after my time.
Plus the musclecar he likes most is a GS Buick, the GSX, which is the most extreme GS.
Years ago I took a photo of a GS Buick at an antique car-show, but it’s the small motor.
I didn’t realize at that time you could get a GS Buick with their small V8, 350 cubic-inches.
Apparently there were four versions of the 455 cubic-inch GS Buick, up to and including the “Stage-IV,” the GSX.
The car pictured is a Stage-I, only 370 horsepower, but still a lotta torque.
It’s only a single four-barrel carburetor. A Stage-IV had two four-barrel carbs, cold-air induction, etc.
GS Buicks generated the highest torque-rating of any musclecar, although not by much. The car pictured is 510 foot-pounds.
And the drag-guys know, torque is what matters, especially at the start, and halfway through the quarter-mile.
For those not hip to drag-racing, it’s start to the end of a flat quarter-mile drag-strip, side-by-side, two cars.The first to finish is the winner, which means a lot of factors are at play. A car might be faster, but might have started shortly after the winning car.
If you jump the start (start early), you’ve “red-lighted,” and your run doesn’t count.
Winning drag-racers were usually consistent starting, and could get a jump on their competitor.
Once the cars get rolling, perhaps half-way through the quarter-mile, horsepower becomes pre-emanate, except that’s just maintaining a heavy torque-input at higher engine-speeds.
In which case how well an engine can breathe may limit the horsepower generated. Chrysler’s “Hemi” (“hem-ee;” not “he-mee”) was an excellent breather.
A 455 GS-Buick had big valves, helping it breathe well at high revs.
My guess is this car local, as are all cars in the calendar.
Its license-plate is New York, obliterated with Photoshop.
Well, it ain’t the hyper-extreme GSX, but it is a 455 GS Buick.
And convertible GS Buicks are rare.
In fact, I wonder if it’s actually the 350 GS Buick I photographed long ago, and the calendar is claiming it’s a 455. It’s the same color.
But the side-medallion on the car says “GS 455.”
21J westbound through Altoona. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)
—In my humble opinion, this is the best photo my brother ever took.
The September 2015 entry of my own calendar is westbound Norfolk Southern train 21J threading downtown Altoona.
It’s not exactly what he wanted. That giant warehouse at right, with the vertically corrugated steel siding panels, is “Altoona Pipe and Steel.” “Altoona Pipe and Steel” is atop the siding panels. He got one photo with “Altoona Pipe and Steel” in it, but cut off the locomotive pilot.
This photo was not long after my brother broke his leg. He was on crutches, and had to sit in a folding-chair while waiting.
He broke his leg getting off the bottom rung of his ladder. He was trying to dislodge a hornets’ nest.
He hobbled up two flights of stairs to this footbridge over the old Pennsy main through Altoona.
Altoona has a long and storied past for the Pennsylvania Railroad.
It’s at the base of Allegheny Mountain, once a barrier to trade across PA.
Helpers get added to help trains over the mountain.
Altoona is half-way across PA, half-way between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh.
Pennsy built shops to build and service locomotives.
Vast marshaling yards were also installed.
Locomotives specific to duty were assigned. Faster locomotives ran to Harrisburg, since it wasn’t so challenging.
Powerful plodders were assigned to get trains over Allegheny Mountain (“The Hill”). —Plus the additional helpers.
Things are slightly different with dieselization.
But “The Hill” still intimidates.
Often a lighter train can conquer The Hill without helpers. But if the train is heavy, helpers are needed.
The helpers are serviced at Cresson (“KRESS-in”), just west of the summit, but get dispatched down to Altoona.
And helpers often run all the way to Pittsburgh. They provide extra braking (dynamic-braking) for a train going downhill.
With dynamic-braking, the locomotive’s traction-motors are switched to generators.
So now Altoona is a city out in the rural outback.
Beyond Altoona civilization gravitated near the railroad. Many of the towns are old coal-mining towns, and coal would get shipped on the railroad.
The towns heave this-way-and-that over mountainous terrain.
And most still have streets only 19th-century wide.
South Fork is a prime example; South Fork being south (railroad-west) of the summit, and also the junction of a coal spur.
South Fork is the south fork of the Conemaugh River, which Pennsy followed to Pittsburgh. South Fork was the starting-point of the Johnstown Flood.
Through Altoona the railroad splits into express-tracks and drag-tracks, the drag-tracks being for slow heavy trains.
21J is on the express-tracks.
Altoona is no longer what it was with Pennsy. —And of course Pennsy is long-gone, owned and operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad.
But Altoona still has a large shop in adjacent Juniata (“june-eee-AT-uh”), to maintain and rebuild Norfolk Southern locomotives.
And that second unit is not a wide-cab.
I’ve been here, but things are much different now. (Photo courtesy Joe Suo Collection ©.)
—This picture is not dramatic, but I know exactly where it is.
The September 2015 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a train not far from the summit tunnels of The Hill in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”), PA.
Next to the tracks is the dirt road my brother and I call “Cemetery Road.”
It goes to a rural cemetery called “Bennington Cemetery.” —Google calls it “Bird Eye Road,” and it goes past the cemetery. I’ve never been to the cemetery.
But I’ve driven the road to get pictures for my calendar.
To the left of the train is The Slide, the ramp Pennsy built to get up to Portage Tunnel.
The New Portage Railroad was part of railroad the state built for its Public Works System. As first built the Public Works crossed Allegheny Mountain with a difficult inclined-plane railroad. Stationary steam-engines would winch cars up the planes.
Public Works was a combination canal and railroad. Canal packets would get put on railroad flatcars.
New Portage Tunnel was part of the New Portage Railroad. Pennsy got it when PA’s Public Works System failed. Pennsy had put it out of business.
Private capital triumphed over public capital — plus newer technology.
A railroad could run any time in any season. Canals froze in Winter, and Public Works did not operate at night.
Pennsy decided New Portage Tunnel would give them a second summit tunnel.
But they had to ramp up to it, since New Portage Tunnel was higher than Pennsy’s original tunnel.
“The Slide” (the ramp) is 2.36% — or was. Now it’s 2.28 %. the grade was decreased slightly when the floor of the tunnel was lowered to clear doublestacks. That’s 2.28 feet down for every 100 feet forward, fairly steep, but not extremely.
The Slide and New Portage Tunnel are eastbound. The train pictured is westbound, approaching the original Pennsy tunnel at Gallitzin.
A third tunnel was also built. So much traffic was on Pennsy the original tunnel became a bottleneck. Only one track could be in it. —It was originally two tracks, but railroad equipment became large.
Recently that third tunnel was abandoned and closed, and the original Pennsy tunnel was enlarged and widened to clear doublestacks and two tracks.
 |
| An eastbound descends The Slide. (Photo by Jack Hughes.) |
That swale beside the road is grown over.
The locomotives are Baldwin’s distinctive Sharknose cab-units.
The Sharknose is industrial designer Raymond Loewy (“low-eee”) from 1949 on.
They’re attractive, but even the Sharknose couldn’t save Baldwin.
Baldwin diesel locomotives were too unreliable. And when a locomotive cripples, its train blocks the railroad. You can’t just go around the cripple.
Not on a railroad, where everything is using the same track.
Ram-Air. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)
—The September 2015 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecar calendar is a 1970&1/2 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am Ram-Air IV.
That’s the incredibly powerful, and heavy, 455 cubic-inch Ram-Air motor. A scoop is on the hood to ram cold-air into the gigantic four-barrel carburetor. Cold air is denser and renders more horsepower.
You could watch the scoop vibrate as you revved the engine. It was on the carb, independent of the hood.
I used to think the Endura-bumpered 1970&1/2 Camaro was one of the best-looking cars ever made.
 |
| An Endura-bumpered Z-28. |
And the best-looking car ever is the early Jaguar XK-E.
 |
| An early Jaguar XK-E. (Photo by BobbaLew.) |
That heavy 455 cubic-inch engine is a bit much. Too much weight on the front-end. A humble two-liter BMW 2002 could out-corner it.
Sadly, the Firebird got worse-looking as the decade progressed. So too did the Camaro. The 5-mph bumper-requirement ruined both.
A Pennsy 0-4-0 switcher in Atlantic City. (Photo by Charles Houser, Sr.)—The September 2015 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is a tiny Pennsy 0-4-0 switcher in Atlantic City yard.
Pennsy never got into heavy 0-8-0 switchers like other railroads.
They developed one but only built just a few.
What they’d do is reassign Consolidations (2-8-0) retired from road-duty.
Ya might find an H-6 teakettle yarding cars.
Pennsy did build quite a few smaller switchers, particularly 0-6-0.
Usually when I saw a switcher they were 0-6-0. They had slope-back tenders to improve rearward engineer vision.
 |
| A Pennsy 0-6-0. |
That was the docks and piers in Philadelphia. Curves were so tight only an 0-4-0 would do ‘em. An 0-6-0, even with flangeless center drivers, might derail.
So Pennsy developed 0-4-0s instead of giving up on the dock-tracks.
Reading (“REDDing;” not ”READing”) had ‘em too. Reading also served the Philadelphia waterfront.
And Pennsy’s 0-4-0 was fairly modern. They’re piston-valve, not ancient slide-valve, and have the same locomotive-cab as Pennsy’s K-4 Pacific (4-6-2).
Of course this locomotive is in Atlantic City, NJ, not the Philadelphia waterfront. Atlantic City isn’t major yard, so switching cars could be done by an 0-4-0.
1950 Merc lead-sled custom. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)
—The September 2015 entry in my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a modified 1950 Mercury custom.
Such customs were called “lead-sleds,” because so much molten lead was paddled to smooth body-welds.
The ’49-’51 Mercs are perhaps the most desirable custom-car of all time.
Ford Motor Company, without a styling-section, produced some of the greatest looking cars ever; e.g. the Model-A Ford, the ’32 Ford, the ’34, the ’39/’40 five-window coupe, and these Mercuries.
Customizers loved to exercise their craft on these Mercuries, although in my humble opinion they don’t need much.
 |
| A Jimmy-Dean Merc. Just nosed-and-decked and skirts; and lowered a bit. |
I’ve seen these things with perhaps a four-inch section taken out of the doors and side-sections.
I saw one as a high-school teenager. It was flat-black primer, yet very well done.
But it was so low it scraped the ground just leaving the burger-joint.
Plus it’s driver had to sit on the floor in the back.
Imagine getting it into a driveway, or into a parking-lot. So goes your 89-bazilyun dollar paint-job — the bottom will scrape the pavement.
This car has air-suspension, which supposedly raises the car enough to not scrape.
If I am correct, these Mercuries were supposed to be Ford’s 1949 Ford.
 |
| A 1949 Shoebox Ford. |
As far as I know, these ’49-’51 Mercuries also use pretty much the same chassis as the Shoebox — no more buggy-springs.
Dawn over Bellevue Yard in Ohio. (Photo by Jermaine Ashby.)
—Another Jermaine Ashby picture, which I don’t think is that good.
It seems all this picture displays is Ashby’s proficiency with Photoshop©.
The September 2015 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is dawn at the yard in Bellevue, OH.
Ashby aimed his camera into the dawning sun.
Then he dodged the front of the train so it would render not as dark as other locomotives in the picture.
“Dodge” is an old darkroom term. It refers to limiting the amount of enlarger light through a negative so the area “dodged” is exposed less than the surrounding area, and therefore renders lighter.
In that case the “dodging” tool was something to block out the enlarger light, like a piece of cardboard.
Photoshop has the computer equivalent of a “dodge” tool. You mouse the area you want lighter with the tool.
I imagine my Photoshop-Elements-10, a cheaper and less powerful Photoshop, has some version of the “dodge” tool, something to lighten the area selected.
I don’t use it. I’m one of these fustian old users who think a photo shouldn’t be heavily treated.
I use my Photoshop-Elements to do a little, mainly to crop and resize. My PE-10 also has an “enhance” function to lighten shadows. I use it, if it looks better.
But I don’t do what Ashby did, to lighten just an area of the picture: namely the front of the central locomotive. If I can “lighten shadows” in an entire picture, I might.
But with this picture only the front of the central locomotive is lightened. Other locomotives off to the left are dark-city.
Plus Ashby couldn’t be too precise about selecting out just the central locomotive — which he probably tried. Instead, it looks like he only used the dodge-tool, and had to be careful with the locomotive number-boards atop the cab.
He couldn’t get too close to the top edge lest he start lightening the sky.
To me all this horsing around is only photography because that’s what you started with.
At the Canandaigua Daily Messenger newspaper, from where I retired, Ashby’s photograph would be called a “photo-illustration.” It looks pretty good, but only because Ashby horsed around with the file.
“Peashooter.” (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)
—The September 2015 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is Boeing P-26A “Peashooter.”
I’ll let Wikipedia weigh in, since my WWII warbirds site rightly doesn’t think the Peashooter is a WWII warbird:
“The Boeing P-26 Peashooter was the first American all-metal production fighter aircraft and the first pursuit monoplane used by the United States Army Air Corps. Designed and built by Boeing; the prototype first flew in 1932, and the type was still in use with the U.S. Army Air Corps as late as 1941 in the Philippines.
The project, funded by Boeing, began in September 1931, with the Army Air Corps supplying the engines and instruments. The design, which included an open cockpit, fixed landing gear and externally braced wings, was the last such design procured by the USAAC as a fighter aircraft.
The diminutive ‘Peashooter,’ as it became affectionately known by service pilots, was faster than previous American combat aircraft. Nonetheless, due to the rapid progress in aviation design in the 1930s, its design quickly became an anachronism, with its wire-braced wings, fixed landing gear and open cockpit. The Curtiss P-36, Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Hawker Hurricane, with enclosed cockpits, retractable landing gear and cantilever wings, all flew for the first time in 1935, just three years later than the P-26.
However, the P-26 was easy to fly, and it remained in service until the U.S. entered World War II.
Deliveries to USAAC pursuit squadrons began in December 1933 with the last production aircraft in the series coming off the assembly line in 1936, designated the P-26C. Ultimately, 22 squadrons flew the Peashooter, with peak service being six squadrons in 1936. P-26s were the frontline fighters of the USAAC until 1938, when Seversky P-35s and Curtiss P-36s began to replace the P-26.
The first Boeing P-26 to experience major combat operation was a Chinese Model 281. On August 15th,1937, eight P-26/281s from the Chinese Nationalist Air Force 3rd Pursuit Group, 17th Squadron, based at Chuyung airfield, engaged eight out of 20 Mitsubishi G3M ‘Nell’ medium bombers from the Kisarazu Air Group sent to attack Nanking.
The Chinese Boeing fighters helped shoot down two of the four Japanese bombers destroyed that day without suffering any losses. Subsequent engagements between the Chinese Peashooter pilots and pilots of the Imperial Japanese Navy flying the Mitsubishi A5M ‘Claudes’ were the first aerial dogfights and kills between all-metal monoplane fighter aircraft.”
I’m only vaguely familiar with the Peashooter.
It looks like a turkey, hardly the fabulous airplane a Mustang or Lightning is. Or even a P-40 Warhawk. How far aviation advanced in just a decade.
It’s hard to think of the Peashooter as a fighter-plane compared to what came later.
But after the biplanes of WWI, the Peashooter was an advance.
1970 455 Buick GS.—The September 2015 entry of my Jim LePore muscle-car calendar is a 1970 GS (Grand Sport) Buick, 455 cubic-inches.
I had to call my brother-in-Boston. He’s an authority on GS Buicks, since they’re from his time as a teenager, and after my time.
Plus the musclecar he likes most is a GS Buick, the GSX, which is the most extreme GS.
Years ago I took a photo of a GS Buick at an antique car-show, but it’s the small motor.
 |
| 350 GS Buick. (Photo by BobbaLew.) |
Apparently there were four versions of the 455 cubic-inch GS Buick, up to and including the “Stage-IV,” the GSX.
The car pictured is a Stage-I, only 370 horsepower, but still a lotta torque.
It’s only a single four-barrel carburetor. A Stage-IV had two four-barrel carbs, cold-air induction, etc.
GS Buicks generated the highest torque-rating of any musclecar, although not by much. The car pictured is 510 foot-pounds.
And the drag-guys know, torque is what matters, especially at the start, and halfway through the quarter-mile.
For those not hip to drag-racing, it’s start to the end of a flat quarter-mile drag-strip, side-by-side, two cars.The first to finish is the winner, which means a lot of factors are at play. A car might be faster, but might have started shortly after the winning car.
If you jump the start (start early), you’ve “red-lighted,” and your run doesn’t count.
Winning drag-racers were usually consistent starting, and could get a jump on their competitor.
Once the cars get rolling, perhaps half-way through the quarter-mile, horsepower becomes pre-emanate, except that’s just maintaining a heavy torque-input at higher engine-speeds.
In which case how well an engine can breathe may limit the horsepower generated. Chrysler’s “Hemi” (“hem-ee;” not “he-mee”) was an excellent breather.
A 455 GS-Buick had big valves, helping it breathe well at high revs.
My guess is this car local, as are all cars in the calendar.
Its license-plate is New York, obliterated with Photoshop.
Well, it ain’t the hyper-extreme GSX, but it is a 455 GS Buick.
And convertible GS Buicks are rare.
In fact, I wonder if it’s actually the 350 GS Buick I photographed long ago, and the calendar is claiming it’s a 455. It’s the same color.
But the side-medallion on the car says “GS 455.”
Labels: Monthly Calendar Report
posted by BobbaLew at 2:24 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home