Monthly Calendar-Report for May 2016

Amtrak’s westbound Pennsylvanian. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—The May 2016 entry in my own calendar is the only passenger-train left across PA, Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian, westbound in this case — there is an eastbound in the morning.
Westbound through Allegheny Crossing is late afternoon.
The mighty Pennsylvania Railroad once had many passenger-trains across PA.
Pennsy is long-gone, although this line is ex-Pennsy.
And Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian is state-sponsored.
If not for that, Amtrak might have no passenger-trains across PA.

Amtrak’s eastbound Broadway Limited years ago atop The Hill in Gallitzin. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Amtrak’s Broadway Limited from Chicago to New York City once crossed the state, but the Broadway is gone.
Amtrak’s Broadway Limited was Pennsy’s Broadway Limited continued, named after the four-track main across PA, not the street in New York City. Now that main is only two tracks, three over Allegheny Summit.
The picture was taken by my brother at Cassandra Railfan Overlook (“kuh-SANN-druh;” as in the name “Anne”).
That colored text is a link, dudes. Click it with your mouse and your browser goes to a You-Tube video at Cassandra Railfan Overlook.
In my opinion Cassandra Railfan Overlook is even better than Horseshoe Curve. But only because at the Mighty Curve the sun beats down on you unless you snag a picnic-table under a tree.
At Cassandra you’re still trackside, but in shade.
Cassandra is one of many old coal-mining towns out along this line.
The railroad succeeded in PA because of coal.
The railroad first went through Cassandra, but in 1898 a long straight bypass was put in that cut out the many curves approaching and through town.
That bypass entailed a massive rock cut, beyond grading technology when the original railroad was laid down.
There also was a long fill west of the cut toward the town of Portage. The bypass ended in Portage.
Some of the original railroad through Portage still exists as a branch to a coal loadout.
Years ago the highway also went through Cassandra, and got there via a bridge over the bypass just north of the cut.
A bridge remains at that location, and I’ve read various reports that -a) it’s the original highway bridge, and -b) the original highway bridge was replaced by the one that’s there now.
If it’s the original bridge, it’s only one lane, and wide enough to clear a Model-A.
The road grade to it is still visible.

The Cassandra Railfan Overlook bridge. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

The bridge is sturdy: a concrete deck with heavy iron truss-work.
And it looks like it’s been raised over the years, perhaps even recently to clear doublestacks.
The bridge was raised by adding to the abutments.
Whatever, the bridge was kept to allow miners from Cassandra to cross over the tracks to coal-mines east of Cassandra.
There is a hillside excavation exposing coal just east of Cassandra.
Railfans started congregating on the bridge to watch Pennsy slug it out up the west slope of Allegheny Mountain.
The west slope is not as steep as the east slope, but still challenging.
The mines closed, but a Cassandra resident noticed railfans still using the bridge.
He started mowing lawn in the area, and brought in benches and old restaurant tables.
“Cassandra Railroad Overlook” was thus born, although I call it “Cassandra Railfan Overlook.”
The guy eventually became mayor of Cassandra.
Se here are my brother and I at Cassandra Railfan Overlook. Others were also there.
My brother and I had our railroad-radio scanners.
“Norfolk Southern milepost 253.1, Track Two, no defects,” the defect-detector just east of the Overlook.
“That’s 07T,” we concluded, Amtrak’s westbound Pennsylvanian. The others started to leave.
“Don’t go yet,” my brother shouted. “Amtrak is coming. It’ll be here in a minute!”
We set up, and the others stayed.
Sure enough, Amtrak’s westbound Pennsylvanian showed up, and we photographed it.
I photographed it too, but my brother’s picture was much better.




GORGEOUS! (Photo by Dan Lyons©.)

—The May 2016 entry in my Tide-mark Classic-Car calendar is a 1959 Corvette.

A ’57 Fuelly. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

It looks pretty good, although I think the ’56 and the ’57 are the best-looking early Corvettes.
For 1958 Corvette’s stylists caved to the sudden requirement for four headlights. The 1959 is essentially the 1958 with less chrome trim.
The motor was phenomenal, but it was still the same old chassis — a sportscar body on Chevy sedan underpinnings.
Enter it in a sportscar race, and you might be able to out-accelerate the Jaguars and Maseratis. But they were more likely to stay on the track than a Corvette.
In 1959 I was in ninth grade. And a friend’s friend bought a white Jaguar XK-E coupe, although that may have been 1961.
Corvette never got around to a decent chassis until 1963.
But Chevrolet’s new V8 of 1955 was a slam-dunk.
And Chevrolet got Borg-Warner to make a four-speed manual transmission.
Even a Corvette with its antediluvian chassis was attractive.

Dreams! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Mitchell’s trade (note moons). (Photo by BobbaLew.)

A guy at a local store — his name was Mitchell — traded his really nice ’55 Chevy hardtop for a 1958 Corvette.
That ’55 Chevy had been converted to a 283 four-on-the-floor. To me that’s more attractive.
I pictured both cars at left.
But the lighter ’58 ‘Vette would probably beat the ’55 in a straight line.
And I doubt a ’55 Chevy hardtop could keep up with with it over a curvy road.
When Mitchell traded his ’55 Chevy hardtop for that ‘Vette I felt awful. By now both have probably been shredded.
This ’59 ‘Vette is gorgeous; assuming you disregard what it looks like, an over-styled Corvette.
It has that phenomenal V8, what is now called the “SmallBlock.” It probably also has four-on-the-floor.
Even the Big-Block Corvettes of later years get skonked by the new Corvette, which has a heavily dickered SmallBlock.
All through high-school and college I lusted after a ’55 Chevy hardtop along the lines of what Mitchell had. My parents got a 283 PowerGlide ’57 wagon, which tilted me toward the ’55 wagons, but with the SmallBlock four-speed, eventually at 327 cubic-inches.
Now the crate SmallBlocks are 350 cubic-inches. NASCAR limits to 358.




An E-5 Atlantic (4-4-2). (Photo by Bill Price.)

—Proof that Pennsy engines always looked great,  even though what we have here is a teakettle.
The May 2016 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is a Pennsy E-5 Atlantic (4-4-2) in Potomac Yard near Washington D.C. in 1948, ready for duty.
Probably pulling some commuter-train over a spindly branch not up to a heavier engine.

An earlier PRR E-5.

This Pennsy engine has a KW trailing-truck under the firebox-grate.

The engine has been modernized. I picture an earlier E-5 for comparison.
The calendar-engine is still the teakettle boiler, but the running-gear has been updated.
It has piston-valves instead of slide-valves. And the valve-gear is outside Walschaerts instead of inside Stephenson.
It even has a KW trailing-truck, used by Pennsy locomotives since the E-6 Atlantics (also 4-4-2, but with a much larger boiler).
The earlier E-5 pictured is not the KW trailing-truck.
The calendar-engine also has an electric headlight. I think the earlier boxy affair was a kerosene lantern.

An actual-size Pennsy number-plate (this one is plastic).

Pennsy’s E-6 Atlantic, also the KW trailing-truck.

The engine also has a Keystone number-plate.
I don’t know if this is true, but I suspect that Keystone number-plate is industrial-designer Raymond Loewy (“Lo-weee;” is in “low”). Loewy had had been engaged by Pennsy. He also improved the appearance of the GG-1, the greatest railroad locomotive of all time.
Loewy had a penchant for icons, in this case the keystone number-plate.
The E-5 wasn’t much of an engine after the century turned. Pennsy’s pinnacle of Atlantic development was the E-6, a locomotive used Washington D.C. toward New York City.
The E-6s didn’t actually access New York. That was through tubes under the Hudson River that were electrified. Ya couldn’t run steam through a long tunnel. It would asphyxiate the crew.
The E-6s got swapped for electrics at Manhattan Transfer in north Jersey across from New York City.
Pennsy could have developed Pacifics (4-6-2) for the service. But their philosophy at that time was as few driving-axles as possible. Hence the E-6.
At that time what is now the Northeast Corridor wasn’t fully electrified. Full electrification didn’t come until the ‘30s, a New Deal project.
So this teakettle looks great. Especially that Keystone number-plate.
I used to love the appearance of Pennsy’s last steam-locomotives. Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines used both Pennsy and Reading steam-engines.
The first steam-engines I saw were PRSL.
But I preferred Pennsy. I used to look for that red keystone on the front of approaching trains. It signified I’d see a great-looking steam-locomotive.




1932 Ford pickup hotrod. (Photo by Scott Williamson.)

—I generally don’t like pickup hotrods.
The May 2016 entry in my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a ’32 Ford pickup, but tastefully done.
The top has been chopped 2&1/2 inches, then the body channeled five. The frame was also Z-ed 11 inches.
“Chopping” means hacking out part of the verticals, like the door-posts and rear window panel, to allow the top to sit lower — in this case 2&1/2 inches.
“Channeling” means fabricating channels in the body floor to allow it to sit lower on the frame-rails. In this case the channels are five inches deep.
“Z-ing the frame” means the frame was cut to reconfigure it. A vertical was welded in, the vertical of the “Z,” so the rear of the truck could be lowered, and permit coil-over suspension with a Posi rear.
“Coil-over suspension” means coil springs wound around tube-type shocks absorbers.
“Posi” is Positraction, a differential that locks a spinning drive-axle and wheel.
A normal differential allows all the power to go to a spinning axle, which makes negotiating snow near impossible. It also offsets a spinning axle in drag-racing.
My Vega had Posi; it would negotiate snow over a foot.
“Four-speed, dual-quad, Positraction 409.”
The motor is 383 Chevy with triple Strombergs.
A lot of work is in this truck, mainly getting it to sit right.
At which point the practiced eye of the builder engages.
Z-ing the frame 11 inches is extreme, but that’s what it took to get it to sit right.
Anything less and the back-end sits too high.
It’s probably a trailer-queen, but it looks drivable.
As an old friend said “What fun is a hotrod, if ya can’t drive it?”
I remember seeing he and another guy in an open ’32 Ford roadster hotrod, top-down in 30-degree weather. My friend was the passenger, the other guy was driving.
They were shivering in the cold, but my friend was smiling ear-to-ear.
A nice truck, but I wouldn’t carry manure in it.

(Not very inspiring from here on.)



Transfer into Enola Yard. (Photo courtesy Joe Suo Collection©.)

—The May 2016 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is an M-1 (4-8-2) bringing a transfer from Harrisburg toward Enola (“Aye-NOLE-uh”) across the river.

Mighty Rockville. (Photo by Robert Malinoski.)

It crossed the river on Pennsy’s Rockville Bridge. The current bridge is number-three, and was completed in 1902.
I’ve read it’s stone casing on a concrete interior. It’s almost a mile long (3,820 feet), and can accommodate four tracks.
It would take a direct hit from a thermonuclear warhead to take it out.
(Will the nearby Interstate-81 bridge last as long?)
For years it was four tracks, but now it’s mostly two.
Enola Yard was built by Pennsy because Harrisburg became a bottleneck. The original Pennsy was Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, but became phenomenally successful. Pennsy became a major conduit for trade between the nation’s interior and the east-coast megalopolis. (The other was New York Central.)
The picture was taken in 1950 — I was six.
Pennsy was still using steam, but dieselization was gaining.
Pennsy, a coal-road, wanted to remain steam. Pennsy built post-war steam-locomotives that were successful — some weren’t. But dieselization was extremely well-suited for railroading.
Drive-torque was constant, unlike a side-rod steam-locomotive. And diesels didn’t hammer the rail with piston thrusts and rod weight.
Diesels were also much easier to use. All they needed was fuel, which unlike coal was liquid.
Steamers needed water as well as coal, requiring trackside water-towers and coal docks.
The pressure for dieselization was intense. Even coal-roads like Pennsy and Norfolk & Western had to dieselize.
Steam-engines also require heavy maintenance. Every few years a steam-engine has to be completely inspected and overhauled. A boiler can explode, and the rods and valve-gear are thrashing themselves apart.
The picture is not extraordinary. A westbound freight is also visible leaving the yard at right.
But that’s how it was on Pennsy.
And that M-1 pictured was the best steam-locomotive Pennsy ever had, and it’s from the ‘20s.
Diesel finally conquered steam on Pennsy in late 1957.




Another biplane. (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—And one I’m not familiar with.
The May 2016 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Bücker Bü 133 Jungmeister.
I can’t imagine being thrilled seeing one of these things fly. Not like a Mustang, a Corsair, or a P-38 Lightning. And also the Grumman Bearcat, a hotrod if there ever was one.
Although apparently the Jungmeister excelled at aerobatics.
I watched a Bearcat fly once. It was as thrilling as a Mustang. It seemed as agile. 2,100 horsepower in a tiny airframe.
The Jungmeister is not on my WWII warbirds site.
I hafta let Wikipedia weigh in, and even that ain’t much:
“The Bücker Bü 133 Jungmeister (Young master) was an advanced trainer of the Luftwaffe in the ‘30s. It was a single-engine, single-seat biplane of wood and tubular steel construction, covered with fabric.
The Bü 133 was a development of the Bücker Bü 131 Jungmann two-seat basic trainer. First flown in 1935 by Luise Hoffmann, the first female works pilot in Germany.
It was slightly smaller than the Bü 131. The prototype, D-EVEO, was powered by a 140 horsepower Hirth HM506 inverted, air-cooled inline-6 engine.
The main production type had the 160 horsepower Siemens-Bramo Sh 14A radial. The Bü 133C had a distinctive cowling and a 5.1 inch shorter fuselage. It had the same fine aerobatic performance as the Bü 133A.
The Bü 133C racked up numerous victories in international aerobatic competition, and by 1938 was the Luftwaffe's standard advanced trainer.
At the Brussels meet that year, a three-man Luftwaffe team made a strong impression on Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, who ordered a nine-man team be formed. It dazzled crowds at the International Flying meet in Brussels the next year.
The Jungmeister design remained competitive in international aerobatic competition into the ‘60s.”
Sorry, but the hardest part in blabbering about this airplane is the “ü” character with the double dots.
There may already be a way of doing that with this standard Apple keyboard, or maybe I hafta hit the app-store to add to my font collection.
I haven’t bothered. My use of weird characters is so infrequent I just steal ‘em from Wiki, Google, whatever, and put ‘em in my weird character file. From that I copy/paste.
My dotted-u (ü) came from Wagner’s “Die Walküre.”
Not as fast as having them as an app, or whatever, but my need is too infrequent.
The Bü 133 became the Luftwaffe’s advanced trainer, but I can’t imagine easily transferring to a Messerschmitt.
Perhaps there was an intermediate step, like North-American’s Texan trainer.




A disaster. (Photo by Sabrina Butcher.)

—Spring has sprung, political correctness, etc., etc.
The May 2016 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a photograph by Sabrina Butcher.
I’d be embarrassed.
The train is lost in shrubbery.
I think of another photograph by a woman.
I wish I could get it; it’s extraordinary.
It was a southbound Norfolk Southern freight skirting Lake Pontchartrain toward New Orleans.
She took it with her Smartphone.
They used it as a cover for the Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar a couple years ago.
Compared to that this calendar-picture is a disaster.
It’s that one branch more than anything. It comes out of the left and obscures the locomotive cab.
Take out that branch and the picture would be acceptable.

In Letchworth Gorge with a Smartphone. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

The barcode engine. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

I’ve used Smartphone pictures in this blog myself. Smartphone pictures are pretty good. The picture at left is a Smartphone picture.
The only trouble is my camera is easier to use.
I saw a lady in Letchworth trying to take the same picture with her iPad.
1101 is an EMD SD70-ACe, 4,300 horsepower, AC traction-motors.
My brother got #1111, also an SD70-ACe, the so-called “barcode engine.”
This is railroad photography. It zeroes in on the locomotive. There’s drama and excitement.
My goal as a railfan photographer is to portray that.
Okay, it’s a train, but the locomotive is obscured by a branch.
The caption says the locomotive is framed.
It’s not.
It’s partially obscured by that branch.

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—Another Sting-Ray.
The May 2016 entry in my Jerry Powell “Classic-Car” calendar is a Corvette Sting-Ray coupe. No idea what year — it’s not indicated — probably a 327 SmallBlock.
Many years ago, while in college in the middle ‘60s, I hitchhiked a ride in a Corvette Sting-Ray coupe, probably ’64 or ’65, not a Split-Window, which was 1963.
What a downer! I felt like I was riding in a barrel. Behind the seats was open to the rear of the car. That was to load luggage between the seats.
There was no trunklid. Not too practical. Luggage had to go between the seats, and ricocheted behind the seats once loaded.
The first thing I did was look for the steering-wheel. It’s on the left — at least they didn’t flop the picture, as they’ve done in the past.
And surely the Corvette experts would know what year it is by the venting on the front-fender sides. I’m not a Corvette expert. And the ‘Vette I prefer is the roadster.
Although that didn’t have a trunklid either.
What keeps a suitcase from rattling around the trunk?
Although that would be the case in a car with a trunklid.
But in a Corvette yer gonna hear it.
Strafe a corner, and yer suitcase clobbers the sidewall of the trunk.
Stab the brakes and yer suitcase hits yer seat.
I hope to own a Sting-Ray ‘Vette some day. 327 four-speed.
But it will be a roadster.