Monthly Train-Calendar Report for January 2017

(It wouldn’t be fair to my railfan viewers, especially the steam-junkies, to not fly the following two pictures.
Every year my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar publishes extra pictures.
The steamer is from my 2016 calendar; the second is a December 2016 entry in my 2017 calendar.)


Norfolk & Western 611. (Photo by Michael Breen.)

The first is Norfolk & Western #611, a 4-8-4, classified “J.”
611 was built in Roanoke’s N&W shops in 1950, one of three. 611-613 were the last of Norfolk & Western’s J class begun in 1941.
As such the J class was very modern, reflecting the thinking back then regarding premier steam-locomotives.
Many consider Norfolk & Western’s J to be the finest steam-locomotive ever made.
I don’t know. Most railroads were incorporating 4-8-4 steamers in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Most had much larger driving-wheels, 80 inches diameter versus the J’s 70-inch.
Norfolk & Western had a mountainous operating profile, which is why the J had small drivers. (72 inches is six feet.)
The J was the most powerful 4-8-4 without a booster: 80,000+ pounds tractive effort. Boosters are motors in the locomotive’s trailing-truck. (They’re also steam operated, and add to tractive effort.)
The J had roller-bearings everywhere, including side-rods to driving-wheel pins.
Js rolled easy, and could exceed 100 mph. They were designed for those speeds.
Norfolk & Western was a coal-road. It shipped mountains of coal from the Pocahontas coal region.
It was loathe to switch to diesel locomotion.
Passenger-trains were also winding down. Thank government subsidization of airlines, and the Interstate Highway System.
Norfolk & Western’s Js were somewhat a flop. They cost more to operate than could be taken in.
Thankfully one J wasn’t scrapped, #611. It had derailed and rolled down an embankment in 1956, and was rebuilt. It was retired from revenue service in 1959.
It was sent to Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, but returned to excursion-service by Robert B. Claytor, head honcho since 1980 at Norfolk & Western, and then at Norfolk Southern after Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway merged in 1982.
Mr. Claytor even operated 611 — I have video.
I rode behind 611 at least once — on the old Nickel Plate line west out of Buffalo. Nickel Plate was merged by Norfolk & Western in 1964.
The excursion was before the Dismal Swamp Derailment in 1986.
When I rode it we got up to at least 80 mph. 611 was boomin’-an’-zoomin’.
Sadly, railroad track-construction is no longer engineered for locomotives like 611 with its long, rigid driver wheelbase.
611 didn’t derail, but most of the following excursion coaches did.
It was also suggested a bad flange on a coach picked a switch.
Many were on that train, all Norfolk Southern employees and their families.
Many of the excursion coaches did not have tight-lock couplers.
150 were injured, seven seriously.
Great Dismal Swamp is so remote helicopters had to fly out those injured.
Following that derailment -a) Norfolk Southern retired its non tight-lock excursion coaches, and -b) steamers like 611 were limited to 40 mph, hardly what it’s capable of.
611 was retired from excursion service in 1995, and returned cold to Virginia Museum of Transportation.
But recently railfans wanted it fired up again.
Norfolk Southern seems happy to engage railfans, so 611 was pulled out of the museum for return to service.
Here we have 611 leading a railfan excursion through VA.
611 is a monster — I rode behind it — but I prefer Nickel Plate 765, a 2-8-4 Lima SuperPower Berkshire.
Norfolk Southern has also operated 765, mainly on its Pennsylvania Railroad line it bought from Conrail back in 1999.
I also have ridden behind 765: 70+ mph uphill through New River Gorge in WV with 33 cars.
I’ll never forget! I wasn’t leavin’ that dutch-door!
All green lights! Chessie had given us the railraod.
A gondola was ahead with a large electric generator to power the lead coaches.
It was a-rockin’ an’ a-rollin’.
That’s goin’ to my grave!




(Photo by Tim Calvin.)

—Nice Winter pik, but not as extraordinary as what comes next.
It’s a December 2016 entry in my 2017 Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar.
A Norfolk Southern mixed freight travels east through Williams County, OH.
Engage GoogleMaps. Williams County is the most northwestern of Ohio counties — Indiana is right next door.
The railroad may be the old New York Central toward Chicago; I know Norfolk Southern has ex-New York Central.
Far as I know, the original Pennsy toward Chicago went through Fort Wayne; which is to the south, and may be abandoned.
The light is extraordinary, blue sky and low Winter sunlight.
And snow is on the trees. Often it blows away.
The lead locomotive, #7625, is one of General Electric’s new Evolution Series, an ES44DC.
“DC” stands for direct-current traction-motors, not alternating-current (“AC”).
It was built in 1996 to meet “Tier-Two” emission regulations at that time.
General Electric had to develop a new diesel-engine to meet those regulations. It’s still four-stroke, but V12 instead of V16.
EMD was able to re-engineer its hoary old two-stroke to meet those regulations.
Four-stroke engines generate pollutants more than two-stroke. Two-strokes have cooler combustion temperatures, so generate less oxides of nitrogen.
The engines in our buses were two-stroke. Principles laid down years ago by Charles Kettering (“Boss Kett”) at General Motors.
The original 567 V16 locomotive engine was two-stroke. A mechanical supercharger blew air into cylinders through slots in the cylinder sides at piston bottom.
The piston then rose back up, compressing that air. At piston-top diesel-fuel was injected into that compressed air, and self-ignited = exploded.
That pushed the piston back down — the power-stroke.
Poppet-valves atop the combustion-chamber opened as the piston went down, allowing exhaust to escape.
Air blown in by the supercharger helped blow out exhaust.
That’s Boss-Kett’s two-cycle diesel. Superchargers were replaced with exhaust-driven turbochargers, and cylinders are now 710 cubic inches instead of 567.
Emission regulations for diesel-locomotives are now up to Tier-Four. Often doo-dads are required to meet Tier-Four, much like scrubbers on coal-fired power-plants, or catalytic-converters for cars.
Burn-burn-burn like in China and citizens gotta wear masks.
Back in steam days, air in Altoona (PA) was so full of coal-smoke, it was unbearable.
Coal-ash kept vegetation down along Pennsy’s Horseshoe Curve.
Those days are gone. I wonder how much longer environmentalists allow restored steam-locomotives?
I have video of Nickel Plate 765, the best restored steam-locomotive running, pumping a towering column of black smoke out its stack.
They were probably sanding the flues. Soot builds up.
It was somewhere in WV.
I hope Maudy didn’t have her laundry out!

---

Where is Huntsdale, PA? (Photo by Doug Koontz.)

—Engage GoogleMaps.
The January 2017 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern doublestack passing new Positive-Train-Control signals in Huntsdale, PA.
Positive-Train-Control is not yet activated.
Huntsdale is in southeastern PA, along Norfolk Southern’s new “Crescent Corridor.”
Both Pennsy and Reading (“redd-ing;” not “redd-ing”) had lines out of Harrisburg toward Hagerstown, MD, although I think Reading only went as far as Shippensburg, where it connected to the old Western Maryland, so was part of the storied Alphabet Route of the ‘60s and early ‘70s.
It was called “the Alphabet Route” honoring letters of its many participating railroads.
The Alphabet Route was competition for the major northeast railroads offering service from midwest toward the east coast, New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The four railroads were Pennsy, New York Central, Erie, and Baltimore & Ohio.
Trains ran from Chicago and St. Louis to Hagerstown, then back up along the east coast.
Freight trains along the middle section of the route, mainly Nickel Plate, were known as “Alpha Jets.”
The participating railroads ran freights across the route through connecting yards. Of particular interest was an Alpha Jet trailer-on-flatcar train that competed with Pennsy’s “Truc-Train.”
Truc-Train offered 23-hour service between Philadelphia and Chicago. Alpha Jet was much longer at 34 hours, but Pennsy Truc-Train departures/arrivals were about midnight, whereas Alpha Jet was during the day.
That made Alpha Jet competitive.
The Alphabet Route was discontinued during the early ‘80s, as Western Maryland was merged into Chesapeake & Ohio — which later became part of CSX.
Baltimore & Ohio merged into Chesapeake & Ohio in 1962.
The railroads south out of Harrisburg became moribund after Conrail was formed.
Except Norfolk Southern decided those railroads could be improved to enhance Norfolk Southern’s access to the south.
And so the “Crescent Corridor” was created.
The old Reading line south out of Harrisburg would be improved to enhance the railroad’s access to the south. (I think it’s the Reading line, but I ain’t sure.)
Various railroad-lines were cobbled together to create the Crescent Corridor — toward Atlanta, Memphis, and New Orleans. Out of Harrisburg is Reading’s old Alphabet line.
Positive-Train-Control, an alleged do-all and save-all from horrible conflagrations, is meant to offset human error.
Railroads have been countering human error since time immemorial.
Junctions are interlocked so trains won’t crash into each other. Overspeed on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, and your train automatically stops.
Quite simply, the guy running the train has to care.
All systems, including Positive-Train-Control, won’t prevent disaster.
It’s quite possible the train’s engineer might fall asleep. Railroads don’t require constant input — you’re not steering.
Train crews work long hours, often irregular.
I used to get this driving transit bus.
I’d be driving in from outside Rochester, dead tired, and I’d doze off for a second or two.
I’d jolt awake. A dreadful feeling. Nine or ten tons of steel hurtling uncontrolled down the highway. Passengers depend on me.
Positive-Train-Control takes over when the train engineer makes a mistake.
With PTC that Amtrak train at Frankford Junction in Philadelphia would have self-limited to 50 mph, the curve’s speed-limit, offsetting the engineer mistakenly putting the hammer down.
Perhaps he was dozing off, or was distracted. Miscreants were hurling rock-ballast at passing trains.
Positive-Train-Control would not allow overspeed, or entering a block signaled for stop.
Nice idea, but I use a computer. —A) Anything that can go wrong, will, and —B) Garbage-in, Garbage-out.
I also fiddle various wondrous technologies. Often my iPhone does imponderables. Voice-command my car to call someone, and it calls someone else.
Railroads justifiably worry Positive-Train-Control might stop everything, delaying operation.
Unfortunately Positive-Train-Control is a product of human engineering.
Behind everything, including computerization, have to be humans who care.
I hear it plenty on railroad-radio down in Altoona, PA: railroaders taking their job very seriously.
And they’d be intervening when Positive-Train-Control bollixed things.
Ruptured tankcars of toxic chemicals, or gigantic fireballs of exploding petrochemicals, are dreadful. But I don’t think Positive-Train-Control will stop ‘em, just reduce ‘em.
Answers are never easy. Ya don’t just slam-dunk a solution.
Unfortunately, computer developers are human. Anything that can go wrong will.




It’s all this thing’s fault. (Photo by John Dziobko.)

—Here it is, everyone. One of the main reasons Yrs Trly has been a railfan over 70 years.
The other is Pennsy’s E-6 Atlantic (4-4-2).
The January 2017 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is a Pennsy K-4 Pacific (4-6-2) at Bay Head Junction on New York & Long Branch.
If I am correct, NY&LB is Central of New Jersey, but Pennsy had trackage-rights.
Pennsy got trackage-rights on NY&LB after threatening to build a competing railroad.
New York & Long Branch was mainly commuter service from the north Jersey seashore to New York City.
Commuter service on NY&LB was mainly Pennsy. Trains would operate to South Amboy in north Jersey, then switch to electric operation onto Manhattan Island through the Hudson Tubes.
CNJ didn’t access Manhattan Island. Its commuter-trains went to a ferry-terminal to Manhattan, or else served Newark, etc.
I decided Pennsy’s E-6 was more attractive.
But only because it had a horizontally slatted cow-catcher — this K-4 has the heavy cast drop-coupler pilot.
Plus E-6s never got the front-end “beauty-treatment;” which was to switch locations of the headlight and generator.
At first K-4s were the slatted pilot. The headlight was atop the smokebox-front like the E-6, not centered (as most railroads did). The electric generator was atop the smokebox behind the stack.
I guess the generator needed more attention, so positions were switched.
The headlight remained up high, but atop the smokebox instead of in front, but in front of the stack.
The generator was relocated where the headlight had been, and a maintenance platform added.
The engine pictured has the so-called “beauty-treatment.”
What attracted me as a child was that red keystone number-plate.


This is 1956, but it’s the actual location in Haddonfield where I first watched trains with my father. (Photo by Robert Long©.)

Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines through Haddonfield (NJ), near where I grew up, also used Reading steam-locomotives, which I thought were ugly.
So I always looked for the red keystone. If I saw it, that meant a Pennsy steamer was coming, which I preferred.
Pennsy’s K-4 Pacific was developed in the ‘teens. There was an earlier, lighter K-2.
K-4s were good size for their time. Big boiler, and large firebox grate (70 square feet).
In a few years they were outmoded. Competing and connecting railroads went to 4-8-2s and 4-8-4s. Pennsy didn’t. It was investing in electrification, plus they could afford to doublehead K-4s to equal an eight-drivered steamer.
Doubleheaded steamers are two crews. You can’t MU steam-locomotives like diesels = a single crew operating multiple units.
Double-crewing a single train is expensive. Pennsy could afford that.
The K-4 was Pennsy’s premier passenger locomotive for years. But its long-haul passenger trains, like to Chicago or St. Louis, started switching to diesels.
With that K-4s were reassigned to shorter routes, like PRSL and NY&LB.
Those lines were the final stomping-grounds of the K-4.
I was lucky enough to witness steam in actual revenue service. Thank you PRSL. (You gave me an avocation.)
Many railfans weren’t so lucky.
Commuter-service in north Jersey was the other final K-4 stomping-ground.
20 K-4s were on-hand to deliver trains from Bay Head Junction on NY&LB to Pennsy at South Amboy.
K-4s and E-6s also ran commuter-service on PRSL. By then many K-4s were almost 40 years old.
“Stand back, here it comes, wave.”
They’d blow the whistle at me. I loved it!
Those K-4s are the reason I’m a railfan.




RoadRailer is kaput! (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—The January 2017 entry of my own calendar is westbound train 261, Norfolk Southern’s RoadRailer, blasting through Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin”) atop Allegheny Mountain west of Altoona, PA.
RoadRailer was experimental. Look carefully and you’ll see the two locomotives are pulling a train of highway trailers.
The trailers ride atop rail bogies that support the ends of trailers ahead and behind. The bogies lift the trailers clear of the rail. Road wheels remain, but don’t touch the tracks.
A ‘Railer can accommodate many trailers, often over 100.
Those trailers hafta be configured for ‘Railer service. Pins or linkages are installed to hook the rail-bogie to the trailer.

A rail-bogie is in position on a RoadRailer trailer.

RoadRailer was difficult to handle. It couldn’t be humped or pushed.
It’s assembled in a paved facility, where trucks can be driven into position.
The rail-bogies are then shoved into place.
It ain’t like assembling a train in a yard, where individual cars get slammed into the car ahead for coupling.
Highway trailers would damage.
Those railroad cars are often humped, or shoved into position by a yard engine.
This is not a very good photograph. My Boston brother was already in Altoona, the same day I was driving there.
In Altoona he heard 261 call a signal on his railroad-radio scanner.
The race was on. Could he get up Allegheny Mountain ahead of 261 to Gallitzin?
We call it train-chasin’. I probably woulda poo-pooed the idea, but my brother is more bull-headed, which I depend on.
There are two ways to get up the mountain. -1) Is the Route 22 expressway, and -2) is Sugar Run Road, plus various back streets leading to it.
Sugar Run is faster = a little more direct, plus getting on the expressway in Altoona involves traffic-lights.
So off he zoomed onto Sugar Run Road.
Ziggity-zag, speed-limit 45 in some places, which you can do if you’re Mario Andretti.
He beat the ‘Railer, but it was just exiting the summit-tunnel as he drove into Gallitzin.
There it is. He jumped from his car, and snagged the above photograph mid-jump.
It’s January 2014, and bitter cold.
RoadRailer is no more. The lease on ‘Railer equipment expired, and no one was willing to recapitalize.




PRR Shark #2017. (Photo courtesy Joe Suo Collection©.)

—Fiddle-de-dee!
The January 2017 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is Baldwin Shark #2017.
The gorgeous Shark was a flop.
Baldwin Locomotive Company, supplier of so many steam-locomotives to Pennsylvania Railroad, was trying to get into the diesel locomotive business.

“Baby-Face.”

There were earlier models, e.g, the “Baby-Faces.” but they were unreliable and bombed.
Industrial-designer Raymond Loewy (“LOW-eee”) was brought in to restyle Baldwin’s diesels.
Loewy improved the styling of Pennsy’s GG-1 electric locomotive.
He also styled Pennsy’s T-1 duplex (4-4-4-4). The T-1 was to replace Pennsy’s aging and outmoded K-4 fleet. But it didn’t really.
By then diesels were making inroads on Pennsy passenger service.
Pennsy ordered diesels from other manufacturers because it needed so many EMD couldn’t fill their need.
EMDs were the most reliable, but many of the others weren’t.
Loewy’s Sharks looked great, but were still unreliable.
Crippled locomotives aren’t like crippled highway trucks. They block the railroad.
Rescue locomotives have to be sent to drag in the crippled train.
Even now model-railroaders love the Shark.
But not the railroads.
If I am correct, the Shark was Baldwin’s final offering; at least its final cab-unit.
Mighty Baldwin went bankrupt.
It started in Philadelphia eons ago, but outgrew that facility, moving to Eddystone, PA, south of Philadelphia.
Baldwin’s giant erecting-floor is now Boeing Rotorcraft, previously Helicopters and Vertol.

Waiting for the Master

“He’s in there somewhere.”(Photo by Ron Palermo.)

Yr Fthfl Srvnt has completed surgery number-three, a hernia repair.
It wasn’t expected. All-of-a-sudden, “What’s killing me?””
It was an Inguinal hernia. The abdominal wall ruptures, intestine pokes through, and thereafter inflames.
Surgeries One and Two were prostate removal over a year ago, and total replacement of my left knee a year ago.
The possibility of hernia increases with advancing age; I’m almost 73.
Hernia repair is outpatient. My surgery was yesterday (12/28).
So I took my dog to the boarder Tuesday night (12/27), and a retired RTS bus-driver came out from Rochester yesterday morning to take me to the hospital.
Someone else took me home, but that bus-driver, whose name is Ron Palermo, offered to help me pick up my dog.
Grooming had been scheduled long before this hernia. Ron and I could get the dog to my groomer, but next would be getting her back home. I can’t drive — two weeks.
After deducing my groomer couldn’t drive the dog home, we cancelled.
Ron and I would just get the dog.
But I was running out of bananas.
“I can pick up bananas on my way out,” said Ron.
“Not that simple,” I said. “I exert rules buying bananas. I don’t feel it’s fair to excoriate a banana-purchaser. I’d rather buy ‘em myself.”
So I asked if I could hit a supermarket on the way home with my dog.
So that’s when Ron snagged the above picture. He and my dog are waiting outside the supermarket.
That silly dog, a bundle of incredible energy, despite being 11 or 12, a rescue Irish-Setter, is extremely attached.
She makes up for my wife dying.
People poo-poo my attachment to that dog.
NO WAY am I abandoning her.
That dog wants me around.
Surgery number-four is to repair a torn rotator-cuff.
I asked my doctor “What next?”

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• My current dog is “Scarlett” (two “Ts,” as in Scarlett O’Hara), a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s eleven or twelve, and is my sixth Irish-Setter, a high-energy dog. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. [Scarlett was from a failed backyard breeder.] By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't bad. She’s my fourth rescue.)
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sure needed one.

Contrition

“It’s working,” I thought to myself.
My niece scheduled an eat-out. It would be with her mother and boyfriend. Also her daughter, who I think is 22.
They invited me along.
It would be at Finger Lakes Racino, a nearby horse-racing track to which a gambling casino was added.
I never gamble, but the place has a buffet.
I got there before the others, so I entered.
Security didn’t hassle me — I guess I look old enough. “72,” I said.
Into the buffet I went. I paid, and got a table for five.
I then went to the pasta bar. “Angel-hair, marinara, plus five or six of those tiny meatballs.”
The cook-lady prepared my dish, then handed it over.
Suddenly my niece’s mother appeared. There was a problem.
My niece’s daughter had not renewed her driver-license, so could not enter the racino.
We would patronize some place else.
“We’ll refund your money,” the racino staff said.
“What about this?” I asked, pointing to my pasta.
“We’ll toss it in the garbage.”
What a downer! “Little children are starving in China!” I thought, recalling my mother, who always said that.
She was a child of the Depression. “EAT YOUR BROCCOLI!”
“A shame we gotta toss that stuff,” I said to the security-lady. She was built like a center for the New England Patriots.
On meeting my niece’s daughter “This is all your fault,” I said.
“I didn’t even wanna come,” she whined.
CRASH! Stepped in it royally this time.
Off we zoomed to an alternate buffet south of Rochester. Perhaps 25-30 miles from the racino.
I walked in, and sat across from my niece’s daughter. “How about if I apologize?” I asked.
WHOA! Worked like a charm. She smiled and doffed her sunglasses.
Many years ago my niece ran away from home, and spent the night in some friend’s basement.
I looked all over for her with my dog, even a closed nearby shopping-mall where she was seen hanging out.
She returned home the next day, and “Boy-oh-boy am I glad to see you!” I blurted as I burst in.
Her mother was justifiably madder than a hornet, or so it seemed.
Yet apparently I said what my niece wanted to hear. She started crying.
I’ll soon turn 73. Over those many years I’ve deduced sometimes it pays to be contrite.
Especially with youngsters, not old enough to be wary.
Just seeing that daughter smile is enough to make me try again.

Efficacy of flanged wheel on steel rail

November 1961, January 2017.

“November 1961,” I said. “That has to be the oldest Trains Magazine I ever saw.”
A friend bought a house AS IS from a recently deceased neighbor, and came upon some train stuff left over by her neighbor’s husband.
The husband died maybe 40 years ago, and the stuff hadn’t been tossed.
Knowing I’m a railfan my friend gave it to me.
I’ve subscribed to Trains since college. My first issue is March, 1964, before I finished college — 1966.
I don’t think I subscribed until after college.
That issue featured Pennsylvania Railroad’s GG-1 electric locomotive.
Anyone who reads this blog knows I think the GG-1 is the BEST locomotive ever made.
“In November of 1961 I would have just started 12th grade in high-school,” I said. I graduated in 1962.
I paged through the magazine. The Editor was venerable David P. Morgan, “DPM.”

DPM.

Morgan was quiet and reserved. He kept to himself. He was hard to get to know. He let his writing, which was extraordinary, speak for him.
“DPM” was of course Morgan, but more a figure for the magazine to hang its hat on. More approachable than Morgan himself.
Trains was more-or-less the first magazine of railfaning.
Morgan was still editor when I first subscribed, and he educated me.
He was attracted by the efficacy of flanged wheel on steel rail, and so was I.
Steam locomotion was incredibly attractive, but even after steam was retired, diesels where still flanged wheel on steel rail.
Capacity is enormous. Coal-cars are now up to 120 tons of coal per car, and coal-trains are often well over 100 cars.
NO WAY do you get that capacity with trucking. Not even close!
And often a crew of only one, two, or three is piloting that mile-long train. On Interstates every truck needs a driver. Anything beyond two trailers is unsafe. It crabs.
Compared to a truck, that 120-ton coal-car is HUGE. But it ain’t crabbing, even 100+ cars. They’re constrained to the rail.

Not clogging the Interstates. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

A train of doublestacked freight containers has more than 200 containers, often more than 250.
That’s 200-or-more trucks not clogging highways.
Morgan retired and eventually died. I think he smoked.
Trains had a couple editors over-the-years since. The one who followed Morgan was just about unbearable.
He seemed obsessed with counting louvers.
Railfans are often like that, trumpeting their vast self-declared knowledge compared to other railfans.
An example is how you tell an EMD GP-7 versus a GP-9. Count the louvers in a specific area. A GP-7 has fewer.
I never cared about that stuff. What I want is drama. Huge trains climbing hills at full fuel-usage — diesels don’t have throttles.
Steam-engines had throttles, and wide-open was “throttle-to-the-roof.”
Usually in a steam-engine cab, the long throttle-lever hung off the cab-roof — or seemed to hang off the roof.
Wide-open was that lever pulled all-the-way back so it angled up and hit the roof.
In diesel locomotives, full fuel-delivery is “Run Eight.” The small accelerator lever has eight positions. “Run Eight” is full fuel-delivery, the equivalent of “throttle-to-the-roof.”
That 1961 Trains had all the old stuff I loved reading: “Editorial Comment,” “News Photos” —a fedoraed photographer with flash Graflex, “Photo Section” with its 35mm Leica, “Railway Post Office” (Letters-to-the-Editor), “Second Section,” and “Running Extra” (X-1027, the number in Trains address at that time — 1027 North Seventh Street, Milwaukee.)
Sections like that became part of my bus-union newsletter.
Of particular interest to me was a photo of steam-locomotives delivered in 1940 to Norfolk-Southern Railway.
At that time Norfolk-Southern was a tiny regional. Now Norfolk Southern is the 1982 merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway. It’s gigantic and serves the eastern half of the nation, including the east-coast megalopolis.
(The other eastern mega-merger is CSX Transportation, which began in the ‘60s with Chesapeake & Ohio.)
The original Norfolk-Southern is part of NS, as is mighty Pennsy, the “Standard Railroad of the World,” and once largest railroad on the planet.
In 1961 CSX and Norfolk Southern didn’t exist, and Pennsy seemed forever.
In 1961 Morgan’s “Editorial Comment” discussed the commuter problem, that east-coast railroads were being waylaid by expensive commuter districts.
The Interstate Commerce Commission suggested subsidy. Others suggested turning the mess over to government. Which is what eventually happened, and the Interstate Commerce Commission was absolved in January, 1996.
Changes-changes-changes!
But we still have efficacy of flanged wheel on steel rail.
The current Trains editorship is pretty good. It relates news of interest to railfans. It also editorializes and publishes long dissertations and blatherings.
But I ain’t sure they have what drew in Morgan, and still draws me. The efficacy of flanged wheel on steel rail.

• RE: “bus-union newsletter....” — For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke in 1993 ended it; I recovered fairly well. Toward the end I generated a voluntary newsletter for our bus-union (mechanics and drivers). —I did it with Word© on my computer. It caused weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth among Transit management.
• “Mighty Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad.

“I’m actually fielding this junk!”

“I worry about him,” my wife told others.
She died over four years ago.
I had a stroke in late 1993. It was serious, but I recovered. Except for slight aphasia, in my case difficulty assembling words for speech.
My wife covered for me, phonecalls and fielding hairballs, like the Social Security Administration.
Perhaps six years ago my wife developed cancer. I was told it was lymphoma, but guess it was breast-cancer at first — no primary site — that spread to her lymph nodes.
We sprang into action. Wilmot Cancer Center (“will-MOTT;” as in Mott’s applesauce) in Rochester administered strong chemo that beat it back, so we thought she’d survive.
But the cancer returned.
I took her to all her cancer treatments. Driving for her, especially in Rochester, was intimidating. I used to say she was “automotively challenged.”
“How come you always know where we parked in this garage?” she’d ask.
“Simple,” I’d say. “We parked on the third floor, so we cross over, then walk down the ramp to the elevator-entrance.
Returning is also simple. Use elevator back to third floor, walk up ramp, and there’s the car.”
“Why do you always know to turn right outta this garage? I wouldn’t know right or left, and people would start angrily blowing their horns at me.”
“Right is south,” I’d say. “We live south of Rochester.”
“How do you know right is south?”
“Because that’s where the sun is.”
“What if it’s cloudy?”
“I been up here when the sun is out. I know where it should be.”
“I never could do it,” she’d say.
She thought it unfair I was always driving her to her cancer treatments.
So she arranged radiation at a hospital in nearby Canandaigua (“cannon-DAY-gwuh”).
She felt she could drive to that, but I woulda taken her.
We also occasionally used that Canandaigua hospital for blood transfusions.
“Theatrics,” I’d say. “I gotta wheel you up there in a wheelchair for the Emergency-Department to ascertain things are serious.”
“I ain’t usin’ no wheelchair!” she’d say.
So much for theatrics; she’d hobble inside barely able to walk.
I miss her immensely. She was the best friend I ever had. She actually liked me. Most didn’t — an intimidation gig. Mostly adults, like my hyper-religious parents, and/or other Bible-beaters.
My questioning things (dread) was a threat to their dominance.
So they convinced me I was a rebellious scumbag. —Like I’m gonna lead a rebellion. (Go figure!)
Then along came college, and my wife-to-be, and they all valued my opinions.
After college I had to walk out of my family, although I think my mother was depressed at losing me.
That made my father angrier still, that I didn’t return the Prodigal Son.
I finally shut him down. That was my bus-driving experience. It gave me confidence I sorely lacked.
Compared to some of the jerks I parried driving bus my father was angelic.
The other day I had to be hospitalized at that hospital in Canandaigua.
I have an inguinal hernia, and it inflamed.
Intestine had popped through the hernia, and was killing me with pain.
Just going to the hospital is a logistical challenge, since I have a dog.
I hafta drop off the dog for boarding while I’m at the hospital.
Fortunately a kennel is along the road to Canandaigua.
So call the kennel to see if they can take my dog.
I also have arranged for that kennel to pick up my dog if I hafta use the ambulance. —No ambulance this time.
And I’ve made so manay phonecalls since my wife died it’s no longer as intimidating as it was.
I’ve learned to mention I had a stroke, and may have difficulty getting words out, or slurring.
At the hospital they stuffed the intestine back where it belongs, and I was eventually discharged after the pain subsided.
Yesterday I fired up this laptop to stream a railfan site over the Internet.
I do that on Saturday afternoons because the classical-music radio-station I usually listen to (WXXI) airs opera, which I can’t stand. Murders, stabbings, gun-shots, jilted lovers jumping off 150-foot castle parapets into madly roiling ocean.
Or 350-pound stringy-haired blonds screaming “Ride of the Valkyries” at the top of their lungs.
Uh-ohhh....... Site alert!
Here we go. Engage brain-cells! They’re lobbing me a new website.
I tried to log in. CRASH!
I still had their old site on; I had logged into it that morning.
“Get temporary password” for new site. CRASH!
“Contact us.” My contact became a “ticket,” but I couldn’t see it. I was “blocked.” Hafta log in to see it, or any responses. Can’t log in.
My cellphone rang; it was from Ypsilante, MI. I didn’t answer. Who do I know in Ypsilante, MI? They probably want money.
They left a message, It was good old *******. (No names, I don’t want preverts hittin’ on her.) I called her back.
“Better I call than we exchange e-mails.”
We dorked all over trying this-and-that. But I kept getting their “404,” wanting me to log in.
******* put me on hold to ask someone about it.
While waiting I tried logging in from their 404.
BAM! Got it.
The old waazoo: try it and see what happens. (The way I learned computers.)
“If you’re still there, I’m in!” I shouted.
“Computers,” ******* said. “Sometimes ya just wanna throw ‘em out the window!”
“Not this kid,” I said. “I have too much fun with mine.”
She hung up. I’m now logged into their new railfan website.
No Wagnerian bellowing for this kid!
“I’m actually parrying all this craziness,” I thought later.
Hospitalization, ‘pyooter hairballs. No prostate, total knee replacement.
72 years old (soon to be 73), had a stroke, and no more wife.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sure needed one.

282 Alumni Christmas Luncheon

At the Local 282 Alumni Christmas Luncheon. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

A retired bus-driver took the microphone:
“I’m driving MarketPlace Mall,” he said. “You remember MarketPlace. Extra fare past Brighton-Henrietta Townline Road, and we’re on the Free-Zone — collect fares as outbound passengers get off.”
Yrs Trly drove transit bus 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered well enough to be employed as a catchall at the Messenger Newspaper in nearby Canandaigua, NY.
“Bopping along, two dudes came up to get off. ‘My friend behind me will pay my fare,’ after which he got off.
‘I don’t know that guy from the Moon,’ then he got off.
Neither paid.
Most passengers weren’t like this, but a few were.
Stiffed, but the old waazoo kicked in: “If they rode the bus out here, they’ll ride the bus back.”
The driver continued his route, then returning saw the dudes waiting in the snow at a bus-stop.
He roared by, waving. Didn’t even open the door or slow.
Downtown he went, then back out to MarketPlace, etc.
Every year retired union employees from RTS, “the Alumni,” hold a Christmas Luncheon, a banquet sorta.
The “Alumni” are union retirees (Local 282, the Rochester local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union) of Regional Transit in Rochester, NY.
Transit had a club for long-time employees, and I was in it. It was called the “15/25-year Club;” I guess at first the “25-year Club.”
But they lowered the employment requirement, and renamed it “15/25-year Club.” The requirement was lowered even more; I joined at 10 years.
The Alumni was a reaction to the fact Transit management retirees ran roughshod over union retirees — a continuation of the bad vibes at Transit: management versus union.
My employ at RTS ended in 1993 with my stroke; and the “Alumni” didn’t exist then. The Alumni is a special club — you have to join. It’s an offshoot of our transit union.
28 degrees outside, an hour had passed. And there were the dudes, hatless, still shivering in the snow at the bus-stop across the street.
Our driver was probably the only bus on the line.
Coming back our driver pulled up to the stop, but refused to open the door.
The dudes flashed money and pounded the door.
The bus roared away, dudes still shivering outside.
I had a rule myself, and occasionally stated it: “Ass, pass, gas or grass; nobody rides free!”
Often the miscreants would hand a pass to the next passenger. I usually caught that. After which I’d decide if I should pursue. I didn’t wanna get shot.
Our driver had the miscreants good.
I often did a morning school trip, when the kids were still asleep.
I’d break rules galore to make sure my kids got to school. (It might get them outta the slums.)
But they better have their school-pass, or they’re payin’ a fare.
Since my wife died, I’ve made it to every Alumni gig. So far, four Christmas Luncheons, and innumerable bimonthly breakfast meetings.
But I always come away saying I feel out-of-it.
As a fairly intelligent college-grad, my brains and education are better than most.
But many of my best friends were Transit employees.
I don’t punctuate every word with F-bombs, nor talk loud.
But I also don’t claim superiority to my friends. —They’re too good, graduates of the school of hard knocks.

• The much-loathed “Free-Zone” was an attempt to encourage downtown shopping by people who worked downtown. To implement it, since fare couldn’t be collected in the “Free-Zone,” outbound passengers paid when they got off, often far from downtown.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. She was the best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sure needed one.

“Did Yates have a Facebook?”

Brock Yates, 1933-2016.

“Pardon me for this heresy, but the launching pad for this magazine was not a better road test, but rather the vitality of the written word as energized by operating in the world’s center of literary and artistic creativity. And that was New York City.” —Brock Yates, 1933-2016, a founding ne’er-do-well of Car and Driver magazine.
My most recent issue chronicles the death of Yates.
There’s little to say I haven’t already said in an earlier blog.
Except that above quote about sums it up.
I’ve subscribed to Car and Driver since college; that’s over 50 years. I discovered it discarded in a laundromat, and it was much more interesting than Hot Rod Magazine, to which I subscribed at that time.
Hot Rod seemed aimed at teeny-boppers.
I subscribed AFTER Car and Driver’s infamous G-T-O flap, which got the sportscar guys all upset.
Car and Driver had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to suggest Pontiac’s G-T-O was better than the Ferrari G-T-O.
It was, sorta. And Pontiac’s G-T-O was a cheater — a 421 cubic-inch motor, to make it equal the Ferrari.
A G-T-O Ferrari is more desirable, but ya don’t buy groceries with it.
To just start it ya’d need a phalanx of mechanics. With the Pontiac ya just hop in and turn they key.
After the war the sportscar guys became elitists.
And well they did. Detroit’s cars were turkeys.
Pontiac’s G-T-O gave people like Yates reason to inflame the elitists.
Sadly, that tendency toward bombast and rebellion overhung most of Yates’ later endeavors.
Yates lived near me, and I met him a few years ago.
“I’m a long-time Car and Driver subscriber,” I told him.
“We gotta set you straight,” he declared. That was after he was fired for costing too much.
Yates suffered from Alzheimer’s, and had to leave his estate in Wyoming, NY, where I met him.
Yates was forever hornswoggled by his desire to appear rebellious, but there was that penchant for “vitality of the written word.”
Would Yates have a Facebook?
“Vitality of the written word” is DOOMED!

“They’re jumping ahead of me.....”

....I said as I paged through my January 2017 Trains Magazine.
Fabulous photographs and many interesting articles.
I’m 72 years old; soon to be 73.
For 70 of those years I’ve been a railfan.
I guess I’m fairly intelligent.
I never was told my I.Q., but -a) my sixth-grade teacher bewailed “so much potential is going to waste,” and -b) I aced an I.Q. test in elementary school.
But only because I followed instructions to-the-letter. Which were just guess the answers, and quickly move to the next question.
So I finished the test while others were mired in thought. Apparently I guessed most right.
I never did anything with what brains I have — at least not what society expects.
In college I was told I could be a scholar; I thought like one. —I perceived new angles unthought of.
Fiddle-dee-deee. I’d rather chase trains.
My railfanning began in Haddonfield, NJ. My father took me to watch trains = free entertainment. I was age-two.


Where it all began, exactly. (Photo by Robert Long©.)

Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (“redd-ing;” not “reeding”), a 1933 amalgamation of Pennsy and Reading lines in south Jersey because -a) they had too much parallel track, and -b) rail service to the Jersey seashore was faltering due to private auto travel.....
PRSL was still using steam-locomotives from the late ‘teens and ‘20s.
I was terrified of thunderstorms, but could stand right next to a panting K-4 Pacific (4-6-2) in Haddonfield station.
Then watch that K-4 blast toward Camden (NJ). Sensory overload! Often it slipped.
“Mommy, a train is in the station.” (Yank-yank.)
“Oh Bobby, you always wanna see those dirty old trains.”
My family moved to northern DE in December of 1957. I was 13.
Almost immediately I noticed Pennsy’s fabulous electrified line from Washington DC to New York City.
GG-1 electrics on 143-pound rail.
Anyone that’s read this blog knows I think the GG-1 is the BEST locomotive ever made.
Every time I saw one it was doing 90-100 mph!


WHAM! (Photo about 1960 by BobbaLew.)

There were other railroads in northern DE, like Baltimore & Ohio to Philadelphia, and a Reading branch.
In college I immediately checked out the railroad situation.
My college was Houghton (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”) about 75-80 miles south of Rochester (NY), in the vast Genesee Valley (“jen-uh-SEE”), our nation’s first breadbasket.
Pennsy had a branch to Rochester, abandoned shortly after I began college.
It had been built independently mostly on the towpath of the old Genesee Valley Canal.
Across the valley Erie Railroad had a line that bypassed heavy grades near Alfred, NY. During 1960 Erie merged with Delaware Lackawanna & Western, so was Erie-Lackawanna before I started college, which was in Fall of ’62.
Instead of the grade near Alfred, cross-country Erie-Lackawanna freights went up another Erie line toward Letchworth Park and Buffalo, but then switched to that bypass before Letchworth.
College was interesting and fun, but every time I heard an Erie-Lackawanna freight grinding that bypass I looked for it.
That bypass had two gigantic trestles. One bridged Genesee Valley near Oramel (NY). The other bridged Fillmore Creek and its wide valley north of Houghton.


Eastbound at Fillmore trestle, about 1970. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Both trestles are gone. That bypass was abandoned along with Erie-Lackawanna railroad service to Chicago.
After I graduated college I moved to Rochester, NY, to be near my wife-to-be.
Again I immediately checked out the railroad situation.
The main railroad through Rochester was New York Central, now CSX.
I was lonely and by myself. I had walked away from my family in DE.


(Photo by BobbaLew.)

Nothing like trackside to absolve depression.
Other railroads served Rochester. The ones I knew were Lehigh Valley and Erie branches.
Baltimore & Ohio also served Rochester, but first that line had been Buffalo Rochester & Pittsburgh, merged into B&O in 1932.
Lehigh Valley’s Buffalo main was also nearby, plus New York Central had lines beside its main. It had a line from Rochester to Niagara Falls known at first as “Falls Road.”


Lehigh Valley freight charges east on the Buffalo-Extension. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


Local on West Shore. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Central also used a small portion of the West Shore to bypass Rochester to the south. The West Shore was built in the late 1800s, financed by Pennsy, to compete with New York Central, which it paralleled.
West Shore became part of New York Central after J.P. Morgan stopped construction of South Pennsylvania Railroad, financed by NYC.
South Pennsylvania was to compete with Pennsy. Andrew Carnegie was upset with what Pennsy wanted to ship steel.
There also was a flimsy New York Central branch up along Lake Ontario. It may have originally been Fonda Johnstown & Gloversville, but I’m not sure of that.
That railroad was a feeble attempt to compete with New York Central.
Just recently its decrepit swing-bridge across the Genesee outlet into Lake Ontario was removed.
That line was nicknamed “Hojack,” and was used to deliver coal to a power-plant. The line also served Xerox.
Much was abandoned years ago.
After marriage I bought camera equipment and started taking pictures. It was film back then.
Many years ago my brother from northern DE was visiting. He had his only son with him, about 5 at that time, a railfan.
How that son became a railfan I’ll never know — his father wasn’t a railfan. Nor was my father.
“Must be the steam-gene,” we’d say.
We were quietly eating breakfast at my house in Rochester, about five minutes from the old NYC main. My nephew was watching my train-videos.
I noticed it was 9:15 a.m.
“Right about now Amtrak’s Niagara Rainbow is at Rochester’s Amtrak station. In a few minutes it will be blasting past ‘the cutout’ up the street.”
All-of-a-sudden we all got up and ran to my brother’s car to drive to “the cutout.”
When we arrived the railroad signals were on. “Out of the car!” I screamed. “It’s in the block!”
I quickly hoisted my brother’s son atop my shoulders, just like my father did, and here it came, Amtrak’s Turbo, spewing exhaust — the engineer had the pedal-to-the-metal.
I grabbed my nephew’s arm, and started pumping up-and-down. “We gotta get ‘em to blow the horn!” —I used to wave at the K-4 engineers as they passed, and they whistled for me.
PRAMP! Into the sun at 65+ mph, dust flying! They saw us.
I wrote a blog about this: “The torch is passed,” I titled it.
23 years ago I had my stroke. It left me feeling things were unreal.
That is, until my brother from northern DE took me to Pennsy’s old Claymont commuter station, by then a DART railroad commuter-station.
It’s on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, the old Pennsy electrified line from Washington DC to new York City.
We stood around, and all-of-sudden here came an Amtrak Metroliner, AEM-7 on the point, 90-100 mph headed north.
It flashed by, and as it continued north up the track the pantograph (“pant-a-GRAFF”) bounced off the overhead wire causing giant lightning-bolts.
“Just like a GG-1,” I shouted. “I am indeed in the real world!”
I now drive down to Altoona, PA, to photograph trains with my Boston brother, who has become a railfan.
Altoona is where the original Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern.
During the early 1800s Allegheny Mountain was a barrier to trade with the nation’s interior.
I’ll soon be 73, but plan to keep going as long as I can.
There’s no experience like the real thing roaring past. (Model railroads are toys.)
My beloved wife died of cancer over 4&1/2 years ago. I was devastated, still am somewhat. But no longer continually grief-stricken.
A while ago I was referred to a counselor to talk about it.
What she tells me is how lucky I am to have a “hobby” (that’s what she calls it) independent of jobs I had.
Many of her retired clients are bored silly.
But I’m not; I’m a railfan.
My railfan nephew, now over 30, married a few years ago.
At their wedding I pulled aside his pretty young bride, and told her “Yer marrying a railfan. Ya gotta be understanding.”
“Better he chases trains than other women,” my wife used to say.
She wasn’t a railfan, but accompanied most every railfan jaunt I made.
She loved seeing me happy; we both had difficult childhoods.
I’ve subscribed to Trains Magazine since college; that’s 50 years.
I still have my first issue; it featured the GG-1 electric.
When I first subscribed, the editor was David P. Morgan, who I quickly came to appreciate.
He was much like me, smitten with the efficacy of the flanged wheel on steel rail.
That railroads have immense capacity, yet don’t require much right-of-way.
A single-track railroad might need 40-50 feet. An interstate highway needs five-to-six times that.
The other thing is crew-size. With trucking, every trailer — sometimes two — needs a driver.
On a railroad a crew of two or three might move well over 200 trailer containers. Complete highway trailers, including their road-wheels, can be put on railroad flatcars.
Current coal-cars are up to 120 tons per car. Unit coal-trains are often well over 100 cars, over a mile long. No way in a million years are ya gonna get that capacity with trucking.
That’s trucks not clogging the Interstates.
Morgan is long-gone, but he appreciated stuff like that.
And so educated me.
Trains Magazine has been through numerous editors since Morgan.
My most recent issue had photographs way better than what I take.
But I don’t think they appreciate the efficacy of the flanged wheel on steel rail, or immense capacity on little right-of-way, etc.
Lonely steam-locomotive whistles echo across vast open prairie, or up some wooded mountainous holler in WV.
“Romance of the rails” ain’t “efficacy of the flanged wheel on steel rail.”
Railroading is HUGE and mind-blowing. But it follows the rail.
Order out of chaos!

• RE: Being “a scholar.....” —After four years of college it seemed the whole point was to qualify anything you said, such that you could wiggle out of any critique. To me that was silly. An entire life of wiggling. Watching trains was much more fun than scholarly pursuit.
• RE: “Exactly where it began......” —The photo is taken at the original dead-end of South Atlantic Ave. in Haddonfield. That’s where my father and I stood. Below is the old Camden & Atlantic Railroad, later taken over by Pennsy. Across the tracks is the standpipe of a nearby water-tower. It’s where Philadelphia Marlton & Medford Railroad, a tiny farm-branch abandoned in 1931, switched off to the north. Little of the PMMR remained; only a wye in the woods near Haddonfield station. PRSL was required to run commuter-service from Haddonfield to Camden (NJ). Locomotives would pull commuter-trains to Haddonfield, then wye for return to Camden. Pennsy built a bridge across Delaware River into north Philadelphia that opened in 1896. Another line was built down to Haddonfield to connect with its Camden & Atlantic. Trains from Atlantic City, and other south Jersey seashore resorts, would stop at Haddonfield so Camden passengers could transfer. By then south Jersey seashore trains were using that bridge to Philadelphia. Wyeing steamers lasted until PRSL started using Budd-cars. I’m pretty sure I saw steamers get wyed. Steamers filled their tenders from that water-tower. Lots of action for a nascent railfan. Atlantic Ave. is no longer dead-end, and the right-of-way is now PATCO Rapid-Transit to Philadelphia. The wye is long-gone.
• “Bobby” is of course me; BobbaLew.

Faire ***** crosses the street

(No names here; I don’t wanna get sued, nor let readers hit on this girl.*)
“Wait just one cotton-pickin’ minute,” I said to pretty ***** behind the counter at the new pharmacy in a supermarket I use.
(What ever happened to corner drug-stores, now that every supermarket hasta have a pharmacy?)
“Whadja do?” I asked. “Cross the street from your old pharmacy to this new pharmacy?”
“Wanna join me?” she asked.
“I know this girl,” I said to others checkin’ the place out. “Not too long ago she gave me a tetanus-shot at her previous pharmacy.”
“Depends,” I answered. “Perhaps the main reason I patronized the old pharmacy was because it has a drive-up.
My dog knew where she was, so I always took her.”
“I know where I am. Let’s get hopping. I’m entitled to a treat. Hup-hup!”
“I’ll switch if you can guarantee a dog-treat.
The hitch is you guys don’t have a drive-up. My silly dog equates all drive-ups with a treat — including banks.”
The girl is no more than 29. Pretty, but a little heavy on the eye makeup.
My wife, now gone, didn’t use it. I didn’t think she needed it, plus I’m sorta against it.
She mighta been by herself; that is, she was the pharmacist.
If so, “congratulations.”
“Ya walked away of national-brand store.
I bet working for them was madness. Sanctimonious jerks asserting their rank.”
I dealt with this myself, especially driving transit bus.
Once I walked into my employer’s mechanical department to report a bus that wouldn’t brake.
“I almost hit a guy! Full 100-pound application, and after maybe six seconds the brakes began to apply. Ya cover a lotta ground over six seconds at 50 mph.”
“Who are you?” I was asked. “Yer just a driver!”
“Yeah, and you’ll fire me if I crack up with lousy equipment. I blow 15 minutes to report lousy equipment, and ya pull rank!”
I had to walk out of the supermarket without switching to her new pharmacy. Not enough time.
The girl noticed. I think she was pleased I remembered her.
I’ll probably switch. -A) Nationally-branded companies can be ridiculous, -B) I doubt my dog will miss that drive-up: “A treat? Yippee;” CHOMP, and -C) I want faire ***** to know I’m with her; walking away from a nationally-branded company is worthwhile.
What I dread most is the possibility her pharmacy may bomb, and she’ll get the blame.
Or Wegmans will set up in that vacant lot across the street and put that supermarket outta business.

* None of my local friends are lechers. They’re the ones I e-mail blog-links to = my readers. As far as I know, this blog goes out over the Internet, so can be accessed all over the planet. I don’t want some prevert from Californy hittin’ on this girl.
• Wegmans is a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester where I often buy groceries. They have stores all over the Rochester area, and are even expanding in the east-coast megalopolis. But no store in my area — yet.

The extent to which I’m an artist

“You’re an artist,” a friend keeps telling me.
I never know what to say.
My parents always inferred I was rebellious and reprehensible, because I couldn’t worship my father, a Bible-beating zealot.
I wasn’t able to shut him down until after five years of driving transit bus. By then I parried so many crazies they made him seem angelic.
My Aunt May is an artist, sorta, and so am I. I’m not supremely confident; I ain’t Picasso. But I know I can do pretty good.
“You take great photographs,” my friend tells me.
I just e-mailed her a link to my most recent Monthly-Calendar-Report, and she apparently viewed it.
I have seven calendars, sometimes eight. To me they’re not calendars. What they are is wall-art that changes monthly.
Four are train-calendars (I’m a railfan), two or three are cars (I’m a car-nut), and one is classic WWII warbirds (propeller airplanes).
“Only four pictures are mine,” I told her.
That Calendar-Report has 18 photographs. Seven or eight are the individual calendar photographs. I scarf up others from Google-Images, or pictures I took myself, often long ago.
One of my train calendars is the one I did myself. Shutterfly does it, my photos placed in their calendar template.
The photos are train-shots my brother and I took near Altoona, PA, where the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern.
Many of the photos in that calendar are by my brother. Many are by me.
Try to convince a macho Harley dude he’s an artist. He gives me good stuff.
It just so happens the December 2016 entry in my calendar is by me.
My hotrod calendar-report also has a picture by me as an aside. I took it two years ago.
My ’57 Fuel-Injection Chevy is last summer. Follmer’s Trans-Am Mustang is 1970.
A friend in Denver, also a photographer, with whom I once worked, tells me my artistic input is choosing good pictures.
Out of the hundreds of photos my brother and I take, I hafta select 13 good ones — 12 months plus a cover.
Admitted there’s artistic input setting up a picture.
But all too many bomb. And some of our best photographs are scattershot — just shaddup and shoot!
The other artistic input is producing my calendar itself.
-Blue background = “NOPE! Hasta be solid red.”
-Snowflake background or stars? “What you been smokin’?”
-Multiple pictures above the month page? “NOPE; only one picture per month, otherwise it looks stupid.”
-Maybe this font = “NOPE!”
-I try another = “NOPE!”
-Finally “There it is!”
I’m drivin’ this here laptop = artistic judgment at play.
“If my name is on that calendar, it better look good.”
Same thing with a brochure I long ago produced for a local park.
“If my name is on that brochure, we ain’t usin’ no crummy Xerox map.
That brochure hasta be a class act.”

32-valve V6

“That motor has 32 valves,” my niece’s husband trumpeted.
“That’s not possible,” I said. “It’s a V6. Four valves per cylinder times six cylinders is 24 valves. That leaves eight valves who-knows-where.”
Shortly after my stroke, 23 long years ago, my Rochester niece, my only nearby relative, beside her mother.....
Married a guy older than her, nine years I think.
I don’t know all the gory details, but I guess he ran them bankrupt.
They had a daughter, my third nearby relative.
My niece lives with her mother in the house outside Rochester where that mother grew up.
After my niece married she continued to live with her mother, and hubby moved in.
All I remember is him showing me -a) the man-cave he built in the basement, and -b) his $50,000 Big Dog motorcycle.
He also strung outside Christmas-lights all over their house and property. Turn ‘em all on, and their electric-meter spun like a 78 rpm phonograph.
His man-cave was rudimentary. Plywood and drywall slammed this-way-and-that. I doubt it woulda passed code.
50,000 buckaroos for a motorcycle is something I don’t understand.
Mine cost about $6,000 — deduct $3,500 for trade.
The best part is his Big Dog wouldn’t get first gear. Navigate a tiny suburban driveway in second.
“150 horsepower!” he bragged. The engine was Harley V-twin based; perhaps 110 cubic inches or more.
Harleys use a knife-and-fork crank to avoid cylinder offset.
It can break.
I doubt it would hold together at the revs needed to generate 150 horsepower, probably over 8,000.
Not too long ago he bought my niece’s mother a new Ford Taurus — they’re available with a 24-valve V6.
He always bought Fords, a new one about every three months.
He showed the car to me, pointing to the ultra-thin tires on 21-inch alloy wheels.
“Them are 200 mph tires,” he bragged.
To which I responded — (cue Al Sharpton: “awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity”) — “and where, pray tell, do you propose to do 200 mph?”
I doubt a 3,500-pound V6 Taurus could manage 200 mph; 140 maybe. For 200 mph ya need a much more powerful V8 in a car weighing maybe 1,500 pounds.
Ya also need a long airport runway for 747s, or Bonneville Salt-Flats.
I remember Car-and-Driver magazine trying to do 200 mph in a tricked-out, hyper-powerful Firebird, and crashing. At that speed a car takes off from the road and flies.
I felt later I shouldna been so hard on the guy. He probably had a difficult childhood like me: “reform-school for you, baby!”
Despite all his blustering, I refused to backdown.
“A 32-valve V6 is clearly impossible!”

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.