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!

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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.