Monthly Calendar-Report for April 2016
10N leaves Altoona. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)
—Every time we go to Altoona, my brother-from-Boston arrives a day before me.
The April 2016 entry in my own calendar is an eastbound freight leaving Altoona yard.
The picture was taken by my brother the day before I arrived.
So my brother is photographing trains two days, and me only one.
I do what I call a “surgical strike.” Drive to Altoona the first day, photograph the next day, then drive back the day after that. To Altoona is a five-hour trip for me — for him it’s nine.
This is because I don’t want to abandon my dog at the kennel four days.
I also doubt I could stand chasing trains two days. I’d get bored.
Altoona is the marshaling-point where the Pennsylvania Railroad faced its greatest challenge, Allegheny Mountain, which had made trade with the nation’s interior almost impossible.
New York had been able to skirt Allegheny Mountain with its Erie Canal — Allegheny Mountain didn’t go that far north.
The Erie Canal faced numerous challenges, particularly the Niagara Escarpment, which required seven locks to climb — now it’s three — in Lockport, NY.
But the Erie Canal didn’t have an Allegheny Mountain.
Capitalists in Philadelphia were afraid the Erie Canal would allow New York City to leap ahead — it did.
They instituted the Public Works System, a state-sponsored combination canal and railroad to get across PA.
Philadelphia to the Susquehanna River was railroad that already existed.
The Susquehanna to Allegheny Mountain was canal.
Public Works had to build an inclined-plane railroad over Allegheny Mountain; it couldn’t be canaled.
Johnstown to Pittsburgh was canal.
Grading back then was unable to build railroads over mountains without inclined-planes.
Canal-packets got transferred to railroad flatcars, then winched up the inclined-planes by stationary steam-engines at the top of the plane.
Ten inclined-planes, five each side, were required to get Public Works over Allegheny Mountain.
Horses were used on the railroad at first.
But Public Works was incredibly cumbersome compared to the Erie Canal, which required no transloading.
Meanwhile, railroad engineering was leaping ahead, as was grading.
Even the Erie Canal paled compared to a New York Central railway.
Philadelphia capitalists founded the Pennsylvania Railroad, mainly because Public Works was so cumbersome and time-consuming.
John Edgar Thomson was brought in from building railroads in GA to lay down a railroad across PA, including Allegheny Mountain.
Thomson had earlier contributed to building the Philadelphia & Columbia and Camden & Amboy railroads.
Surveys were made putting the railroad up on mountainsides to ease the grade over Allegheny summit.
But Thomson refused. He knew railroad traffic gathered in valleys. He would tackle Allegheny Mountain with a giant leap — a hill requiring helper locomotives.
So Altoona was founded at the base of Allegheny Mountain, a place to add helpers to trains.
Altoona would never have existed but for Pennsy. The railroad came and bought a couple farms. Altoona thereafter germinated.
Pennsy at first used Public Works to get over the mountain.
But finally Allegheny Crossing was complete, which includes mighty Horseshoe Curve, Thomson’s trick to get over the mountain without impossibly steep grades, which would slow traffic.
Unlike Public Works there was no transloading. A train would need helpers to get over the mountain, but it was still a through train.
Pennsy quickly put Public Works out of business. The railroad bought it for a pittance, and quickly abandoned it. Although in 1890 Pennsy incorporated the right-of-way and tunnel of a New Portage Railroad, which had replaced the original inclined-plane railroad, to give Pennsy a second tunnel, plus an alternate route, beside Pennsy’s original tunnel and route.
Altoona became the locus of Pennsy operation. Shops were erected to build and repair locomotives. Car-shops were also built.
Altoona is out in the country. It was possible to easily expand.
Yard upon yard was built as Pennsy became a busy conduit for cross-state traffic to and from our nation’s interior.
Some of those yards have since closed. Go north of Altoona and you’ll find vacant land where a yard once was.
This picture was taken at a location the railroad calls “Rose.”
A long highway overpass crosses the old Pennsy main, plus many yard tracks.
Rose is in the town of Juniata (“june-eee-AT-uh”) north of Altoona, where Pennsy built a giant shop-facility called “Juniata Shops.”
Those shops still exist, a main shop facility for Norfolk Southern Railroad.
Rose is also a crew-change point.
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| Crew-change complete at Rose. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.) |
Except the new crew had already got on the train. No one was visible, but the front locomotive door was open.
10N is leaving one of Altoona’s many yards.
It had stopped in Altoona, probably to drop helpers or change crews.
Helper locomotives also hold back a train down The Hill. They add dynamic-braking, and thereby help prevent runaways.
Ready to couple. (Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.)
—The April 2016 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a Pennsy Decapod (2-10-0) about to couple onto a cut of loaded coal-cars to shove them up onto the trestle at Sodus Point, NY to unload into a ship.
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| A Dek is on the trestle to position coal-cars. |
The railroad is the old Northern Central from Baltimore up to Sunbury, PA, then Canandaigua (NY), and also Sodus Point.
Pennsy took control of Northern Central in 1861, to counter Baltimore & Ohio. The Sodus Point coal-wharf was an outlet for coal.
Pennsy never actually merged Northern Central. It just controlled it, but operated it as a subsidiary.
Pennsy fell to using Decapods to get heavy coal-trains up to Sodus Point. Coal would be shipped to Williamsport in central PA. From there it would be taken up to Sodus Point wharf for transloading onto lake-ships.
The line was torturous and difficult. I’ve driven part of it toward Penn Yan, NY. Curve after curve, and uphill.
No wonder Pennsy used Decapods — they were suited for difficult railroading.
The line was still used after dieselization, but eventually quit. Sodus Point wharf was abandoned, and accidentally burned during disassembly in 1971. It was wood.
Parts of the line still remain in service, but much was abandoned.
Finger-Lakes Railway operates the segment from Watkins Glen to Penn Yan, and Ontario Midland operates from the old Hojack near Webster (NY) down to Newark (NY).
The Hojack was originally Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg’s main up along Lake Ontario, but later became part of New York Central.
It served the Xerox plant in Webster, but now is gone.
It became so grown over Penn-Central crews called it the “Jungle.”
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| Uh-oh...... (Messenger news-photo by Jack Haley.) |
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| #4483, the only remaining Pennsy Decapod. |
The abandoned line had been converted into a walking-trail.
Not much is left of what constitutes this picture.
The only remaining Pennsy Dek, #4483 near Buffalo, was used on this line, but the wharf and line to it are gone.
Pennsy used the Deks to get coal traffic up to Sodus Point, and then to switch the coal-trains up onto the wharf.
Audio-Visual Designs apparently thought very much of this photo. They used it as their calendar-cover.
In my humble opinion Shaughnessy did much better. He stood across Sodus Bay, and let the Dek and wharf silhouette the sky.
In fact, my trestle picture above may be Shaughnessy.
I learned how to drive in one of these things. (Photo by Dan Lyons©.)
—A ’53 Chevy? One of the worst turkeys ever foisted on the American car-buying public.
The April 2016 entry in my Tide-mark Classic-Car calendar is a 1953 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible.
The car I learned to drive in was my family’s 1953 Two-Ten two-door sedan.
At 5,000 miles, it was the newest car my father ever bought. He bought it after the 1954 model-year began.
It cost $1,200 used, and he bought it directly from a matron in Philadelphia.
He had to borrow from my paternal grandfather to buy it, which I’m sure caused weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. My grandfather would be continually harassing my father to get repaid.
The motor was the ancient “Stovebolt” inline six updated in 1937 by Chevrolet. “Stovebolt” because it could be repaired with bolts available at a hardware.
The Stovebolt was introduced in 1929 at 194 cubic-inches, but only had three main crankshaft bearings. The 1937 update had four.
The 1937 update was 216 cubic-inches, but our ’53 was 235.5. That increase came in 1950.
Various improvements came to the Stovebolt after WWII. The engine gained full-pressure lubrication (as opposed to splash), and also hydraulic valve-lifters (as opposed to solid).
The Stovebolt was known as the “cast-iron wonder,” but was hardly inspiring like the fabulous new V8s introduced by Cadillac and Oldsmobile. Chevrolet wouldn’t introduce a V8 until its 1955 model-year, and it weighed about the same as the Stovebolt, if not less.
Our car was automatic-transmission: “slip-and-slide with PowerGlide.” At that time auto-tranny was anathema compared to standard transmission. They were slow, and sapped power.
Our ’53 Chevy was our first car with auto-tranny. It was also our first car with turn-signals. Prior to the ’53, my mother had to stick her arm out the window to signal a turn.
She also had to clutch-and-shift, and the shift-lever was on the steering-column, and it was probably vacuum-assisted on our ’41.
The ’53 replaced the ’41, which was sold to a hot-rodder.
My father had considered ’49 though ’52, and brought home a couple. Then the ’53 presented itself.
A PowerGlide was only two speeds, “Lo” gear, and I think then direct.
I remember Dinah Shore belting out Chevrolet ads in the early ‘50s. “See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet.”
I thought the world of those Dinah ads, but the was plugging the ’53 Chevy.
My father, mad at me as always, refused to allow me to drive. By then we had moved to DE, where teenagers could drive at 16, 1960 in my case.
My mother weighed in at age-17. “Thomas, you have to let him drive.” I think another factor might have been that I could be the family taxi-driver instead of her.
Whatever, my father finally took me for my first driving-lesson in a junior high-school parking-lot in our ’53 Chevy.
No Driver-Ed for this kid. But I coulda done it that way.
Perhaps my father was against Drivers-Ed. —Or was at least then.
I still remember the car slowly moving as I carefully depressed the gas-pedal.
I think by then the ’53 may have already become our second car.
My father bought a two-tone green ’57 Bel Air four-door sedan from a car-dealer.
It was even slower than our ’53; it was also a PowerGlide Stovebolt.
I passed the state driver’s test, and soon it was “sink-or-swim” with my mother.
What I remember most is careering through deepest, darkest Philadelphia on expressway at night. “Sink-or-swim!”
Later I made a left turn in a shopping-center parking-lot at the behest of yelling backseat drivers, including my mother.
I almost got clobbered. It was a shining moment. I decided it was me driving, and I wasn’t listening to anyone.
They could yell all they wanted, a decision that boded well later when I began driving transit bus.
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| Me at 17 (1961) with the “Blue Bomb.” (Photo by Lynne Huntsberger, now Killheffer.) |
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| After the accident. (Photo by BobbaLew.) |
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| At my high-school. (Photo by BobbaLew.) |
One Sunday morning on my way to church I slid on ice at a railroad-crossing into the rear of a Mercedes Benz sedan. The Benz had no damage, but the Blue Bomb’s front-end was caved in. The radiator was also holed.
A local garage made it operable, just not pretty. I drove it that way into my first year at college, no heat.
But unlike our ’57 it would start in the cold. It finally failed state-inspection. My father never maintained it, and the brakes were worn to the backing-plates. Over 100,000 miles, including to St. Paul and back in 1960.
It was the only family car to not break down on vacation.
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| Sergey’s car. (Photo by BobbaLew.) |
But it was a convertible, like this calendar-car. My sister loved convertibles.
Her second boyfriend, the one she married and later divorced, also had a convertible, a blue-metallic 1964 326 Pontiac Tempest. She loved driving it.
Our ’53 Chevy was awful, hardly a car that helped you on a curvy road. It could hardly get out of its own way, and the shocks were gone. Bouncy-bouncy!
I pushed it hard, even found passing-gear. 60+ mph in “Lo” gear, held manually.
Once it left 17 feet of tire-rubber at an intersection making a left turn. Amazing! I measured.
E-units head a passenger-train at Duncannon (PA) in 1964. (Photo by Robert Malinoski.)—The April 2016 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is two EMD E-8As pulling a westbound passenger-train through Duncannon, PA, next to the Susquehanna River.
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| Mail leaves Chicago. (Photo by Robert Olmsted.) |
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| Mighty Rockville. (It would take a direct hit from a thermonuclear warhead to take this thing out.) (Photo by Robert Malinoski.) |
Pennsy followed the Susquehanna after crossing it on mighty Rockville Bridge north of Harrisburg.
It follows it to where the Juniata River joins.
From there it follows the Juniata inland across PA.
The picture was taken in 1964. The locomotives look pretty spiffy, but passenger service was winding down.
By decade’s end those locomotives were looking bedraggled; deferred maintenance.
Pennsy merged with arch-rival New York Central in 1968, and Penn-Central went bankrupt in 1970.
That bankruptcy was the final blow to railroad passenger service, and many railroads exited the passenger business with the coming of Amtrak in 1971, including Pennsy. The multitude of Pennsy passenger trains once crossing PA are now down to one Amtrak, and that is state-sponsored.
Duncannon is a famous location for railroad photography. The railroad is the original Pennsy main laid down in 1847 with the founding of the railroad.
Pennsy was still moving a lot of freight over its main stem, much of it behind steam, its M-1 Mountains, 4-8-2, extremely well-suited for Harrisburg to Altoona.
Beyond Altoona Pennsy faced Allegheny Mountain, and M-1s got changed out for locomotives better suited for mountain-climbing.
Pennsy, a coal-carrier, stayed with steam as long as it could. Steam-locomotion of course burned coal.
But diesels were incredibly attractive. Steam was difficult and costly to maintain. It also required lineside watering facilities, and often coaling-towers.
Diesels didn’t require much of anything; just fuel, which unlike coal was liquid.
Here we see evidence of dieselization of passenger trains.
Gooney-bird. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)
—It’s been said the three things that won WWII for us are 1) the Douglas DC-3, 2) the Jeep, and 3) the GMC 6-by truck.
The April 2016 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Douglas C-47, the military version of the DC-3.
The DC-3 was nicknamed the “Gooney-bird.”
The C-47 had a larger cargo-door toward the rear of the plane to allow swallowing larger cargo.
It also made it easier for paratroopers to jump out of the plane.
I think at least two other factors allowed us to defeat the Japanese and Hitler.
They should have known better than to engage a nation protected by two vast oceans.
And they should have known better than to engage a nation of farmers used to fashioning solutions from the most rudimentary elements.
Americans got even more horsepower out of the Merlin V12 aircraft-engine than the Brits. (The Merlin was Roll-Royce.)
But all three things were instrumental in the war effort. A lot of war is moving people and supplies. The humble DC-3 was perfect.
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site weigh in:
“The designation ‘DC’ stands for ‘Douglas Commercial.’
The DC-3 was the culmination of a development effort that began after an inquiry from Transcontinental and Western Airlines (TWA) to Donald Douglas. TWA’s rival in transcontinental air service, United Airlines, was starting service with the Boeing 247, and Boeing refused to sell any 247s to other airlines until United’s order for 60 aircraft had been filled.
TWA asked Douglas to design and build an aircraft to allow TWA to compete with United. Douglas’ design, the 1933 DC-1, was promising, and led to the DC-2 in 1934. The DC-2 was a success, but there was room for improvement.
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| A TWA DC-3. |
Douglas agreed to go ahead with development only after Smith informed him of American’s intention to purchase 20 aircraft.
The new aircraft was engineered by a team led by chief engineer Arthur E. Raymond over the next two years, and the prototype DST (for Douglas Sleeper Transport) first flew on December 17, 1935.
Its cabin was 92 inches wide, and a version with 21 seats instead of the 14-16 sleeping berths of the DST was given the designation DC-3.
There was no prototype DC-3; the first DC-3 built followed seven DSTs off the production line and was delivered to American Airlines.
The DC-3 popularized air travel in the United States. Eastbound transcontinental flights could cross the U.S. in about 15 hours with three refueling stops; westbound trips against the wind took 17&1/2 hours.
A few years earlier such a trip entailed short hops in slower and shorter-range aircraft during the day, coupled with train travel overnight.”
The C-47 is not as dramatic as the Mustang or the Corsair. But when the Allies invaded German-occupied France on D-Day, the paratroopers were jumping out of multiple C-47s.
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| Whiskey-Seven. |
Paratroopers jumped out of Whiskey-Seven to re-enact that. Whiskey-Seven was the actual lead C-47 in the second wave of the invasion.
Even 75+ years hence the DC-3 is still in use. People change out the ancient radial piston engines for modern turboprops, and have for years.
But the airframe remains; although I’ve seen different rear rudders, and fuselages were extended.
Recently the feds decided the DC-3 could no longer be used as an airliner. They don’t have escape-chutes.
Kookie, Kookie, lend me your comb. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)
—Ya hafta be my age to understand that caption.
It’s from the TV crime-program “77 Sunset Strip” that ran from 1958 through 1964.
1958 to 1962 are the years I was in high-school. I graduated in 1962.
“Kookie” (Gerald Lloyd Kookson III) was a parking valet for Dino’s Lounge, actually Dean Martin, next door to 77 Sunset Strip.
“77 Sunset Strip” is a misnomer, as all addresses on Sunset Boulevard were four-digit.
Two private detectives worked out of 77 Sunset Strip, and “Kookie,” played by Edd Byrnes, was a young hipster hot to help solve crimes.
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| Much better. This car is also a remake, but identical to the original Kookie-car, which got changed. |
The guy who built the first car, Norm Grabowski, built this calendar-car 37 years later.
But in my opinion, the first car looked much better. It’s an open 1922 T-bucket pickup, but actually a ’22 T-bucket with a shortened Model-A pickup-bed.
The calendar-car is a “tub,” the open body found on many cars, seating four or more. It’s not a two-seater like the original Kookie car.
It’s interesting, but not very attractive. That nose is too long, and then there’s that two-piece windshield.
It also uses a ’33 Dodge radiator surround. Not as pretty as Ford.
And generally I don’t like flames. Those on the original look okay. But those on the calendar-car look poor.
Why Grabowski used a tub is debatable. Tubs were supposedly chick-magnets.
Your girlfriend might wedge herself into your T-bucket, yet a tub might attract four or five.
Quite simply, the calendar remake is only in concept. The only homage it makes to the original are the color, and Grabowski’s carved-wood skull shift-knob. (The shifter-knob on the original car was actually a plaster casting from Disneyland.)
That original engine is Cadillac.
I don’t like bucket-T pickups that much, but the original is much more attractive than the remake.
I was tempted to post the original as the calendar-picture, but it ain’t the calendar-picture.
The calendar-car uses a supercharged 500 cubic-inch Cadillac engine. For Heaven sake! It could do very well with a SmallBlock Chevy.
Somewhere, Grabowski, now dead, is smiling.
But not for this kid. “A sucker is born every minute.”
Grabowski is a hot-rodding icon. The T-bucket was his idea.
77 Sunset Strip did extremely well. The “Kookie” character made the show. A rock and roll-loving, wisecracking, hair-combing, hipster and aspiring private-investigator.
He was an inspiration for all us would-be hipsters in high-school.
Not this time. (Photo by Roger Durfee.)
—Another picture by Roger Durfee.
The April 2016 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a photograph by Norfolk Southern Conductor Roger Durfee.
Durfee has had many photographs in this calendar, and usually does pretty well.
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| The April 2014 entry. (Photo by Roger Durfee.) |
So there’s Durfee out there with his Canon Rebel, shielded from the elements in his car.
It’s raining cats and dogs, and like my brother-and-I in Altoona, he has his railroad-radio scanner monitoring Norfolk Southern’s operating frequency.
He notices a train of crude-oil tankcars passing in Cleveland, OH, so he drives out ahead to photograph it.
The downpour gets worse, but the train appears.
Window down, Durfee photographs the train in the downpour.
He got soaked.
How many times have I protected my Nikon D7000 from the elements, whipping it out at the last minute to snag a photograph? I get drenched, but the camera doesn’t.
Then I wipe the raindrops off my camera and lens.
Interviewed regarding this picture, Durfee notes how the average photographer might skip this picture.
But not Durfee, and not me. With me it’s “shaddup-and-shoot” — what I get might look pretty good.
I imagine it’s the same with Durfee. He sees a location that might work, sets up accordingly, then it’s shaddup-and-shoot.
What he gets might look good, and others might not.
As far as I’m concerned, this location didn’t work. Ditch that switch in the foreground, and it might work. There is that signal-tower.
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| Loaded coal-train 534 heads east on Track One near Cresson. (Photo by BobbaLew.) |
The train in the calendar-picture is led by the Penn-Central heritage-unit. It’s one of 20 new Norfolk Southern road-locomotives painted the colors of predecessor railroads.
The heritage-units are very popular. Railfans chase ‘em all over the system.
Penn-Central’s colors weren’t much to look at. Just black with white lettering and the fornicating snakes symbol — it’s on the nose.
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| The Nickel Plate heritage-unit. (Photo also by Roger Durfee.) |
The train might look better with the Pennsy heritage-unit, or Virginian or Illinois Terminal.
The Nickel Plate heritage-unit is the best-looking of them all.
Unflopped.—They did it again!
The April 2016 entry in my Jerry Powell “Classic-Car” calendar is a Corvette Sting-Ray, flopped again.
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| The way it was published. |
Jerry told me the only Sting-Ray with that power-bulge hood was the 427 Big-Block.
Could be; I’m not an authority on Corvettes.
I noticed the car pictured has the medallion on the side. So I got out my spee-glass. “396” it said.
I also noticed 396 was backward. So I looked for the steering-wheel. On the right side!
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| As published. |
Details, details! “The car looks better that way. Who will notice?”
ME; and anyone else looking hard.
The Sting-Ray Corvettes were very important. Corvette was becoming a great car.
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| Zora. |
The first Corvette was a joke. Sportscar styling on sedan underpinnings. With the old Chevy Stovebolt six, slightly souped.
Field a Corvette in a sportscar race and it would probably blow, if it didn’t slide off-course first.
Zora took over. He wanted to make the Corvette a true sportscar. He had a great engine to start with, Chevrolet’s new V8.
His first move was to stick that new V8 into an early ‘Vette.
The ’55 ‘Vette was available with the V8.
For ’56 and ’57, Corvette styling was dickered.
It looked better; to me those two years are the best-looking of the early ‘Vettes.
In 1958 four headlights were grafted on, and for 1961 a ducktail rear.
But it was still the same old chassis.
Independent-Rear-Suspension was the coming thing in the early ‘60s, so the new Sting-Ray had to have IRS.
The fact Zora got through a complete remake of the Corvette is amazing.
GM management was stodgy. The Corvette wasn’t a Granny’s car.
(Neither were Bunkie Knudson’s Wide-Track Pontiacs.)
To me what’s pictured is a bad Corvette. Put that heavy Big-Block up front and you’re throwing the balance off.
A Corvette would be a better sportscar with the original V8 of 1955 that wouldn’t be as heavy.
Unfortunately I let the following Corvette go.
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| My hairdresser’s Corvette. |
A carb-car you could drive and enjoy — an F.I. would forever be in the shop, confusing mechanics.
The car pictured belonged to my hairdresser, who bought it after his first wife died.
He remarried, and put the car up for sale.
If I’d had any idea what was gonna happen, that I’d lose my wife too, I woulda bought the car.
My wife was still alive at that time, and seemed like she’d survive. We had two cars, both of which we garaged.
If I’d bought my hairdresser’s ‘Vette, something would have to go outside.
Now my wife is gone, and I only have one car, occupying only half of my two-car garage.
My hairdresser’s Corvette is long-gone too.
I have a garage where I could park my hairdresser’s ‘Vette.
Labels: Monthly Calendar Report
posted by BobbaLew at 8:11 AM
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