Monthly Train-Calendar Report for May 2017

“Click-click-click-click-click” = one has to be right! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—Every once-in-a-while the stars align and I get a great picture.
The May 2017 entry in my own calendar is one I’m very happy with.
It’s loaded Norfolk Southern coal-train #590, eastbound on Track One, rounding the curve towards Carney’s Crossing.
I’ve avoided Carney’s in the past. Both approaches are long tangents, particularly westbound. Eastbound is a little better, but can be a lighting problem.
My brother and I were chasing trains near Altoony, and we heard 590 on our railroad-radio scanners.
Carney’s was the only place we had time to go.
I set up my tripod at Carney’s; I would use telephoto — about 200 mm.
I decided to take multiple shots, but not motor-drive. That’s too fast.
Here it came, slowly hammering up The Hill. Carney’s is the west slope.
590 is a heavy train, but had only one helper-set pushing. “Click-click-click-click-click;” one has to work. Five altogether; this calendar picture is my third or fourth.
No sky, just trees in the background, and track in the foreground.
Keep it simple, dude.
Very dramatic, and if I may say so, not a helper-set, or a Crescent Cab (which I think looks awful).
7267 is an EMD SD70-ACu, rebuilt by Norfolk Southern from the many Union Pacific SD90MACS it acquired via EMD for conversion in its Juniata (“june-eee-AT-uh”) Shops.




Lookit the purty flowers. (Photo by Bruce Kerr.)

—The May 2017 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern intermodal freight framed by green foliage, and lavender flowers.
The flowers must be right in front of the camera, because they’re outta-focus. You can’t tilt current SLR digital cameras, to focus both near (foreground) and far (back).
Seems the contest judges do this every year = predictable as rain. Flowers in May.
Entrants can count on it. Photographer Kerr goes out to snag a flower picture — and thereby gets in the calendar. I’m sure others did the same.
Not that exciting a picture to me.
The railroad uses the calendar to promote itself.
The lead locomotive, #3602, is a new General Electric ET44AC, meant to meet Tier-4 emission regulations.
Burning hydrocarbon fuels, like gasoline or diesel-fuel, is dirty; it pollutes the atmosphere.
Railroad locomotives were unregulated until not too long ago. Tier-2 limited pollutants, Tier-3 more so. Now we have Tier-4, which severely limits pollutants.
Behind 3602 is 2760, an SD70-ACu, one of the ex Union Pacific EMD SD90-MACs rebuilt by Norfolk Southern in its ex-Pennsy Juniata shops.
Behind 2760 is 7519, a General Electric ES44DC, built in 1996.
All units are six-axle road power, 7519 is 4,400 horsepower, as is 3602.
2760 is 4,300 horsepower. (“AC” is alternating-current traction-motors, “DC” is direct-current — which had been the norm.)
The train is at the entrance of Rutherford (PA) Intermodal Terminal on the old Reading (“redd-ing;” not “reed-ing”) toward New York City. Reading became the Conrail main toward New York City after Pennsy’s electrified line became Amtrak.
The train appears to be trailer-on-flatcar.
I wonder if it’s 21E, the UPS train. 21E gets an extra unit = three instead of two. It’s very priority, vans cross-country, mainly UPS, but now also FedEx.
It’ll switch to BNSF (Burlington-Northern Santa Fe) near Chicago.




Stompin’ out of Englewood. (Joe Suo Collection©.)

—Another photograph from the Joe Suo Collection.
The May 2017 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a PRR M-1 (4-8-2) locomotive stomping out of Englewood, IL.
It’s 1941.
The reason Suo chose it is because the M-1 has a gigantic coast-to-coast tender; 25 tons of coal.
With a scoop to replenish boiler-water from track-pans, such a locomotive could go 7&1/2 hours without stopping.
As far as I know, Suo is the most recent owner of Audio-Visual Designs, founded in 1964 by Carl H. Sturner.
The calendar began as a collaboration between Sturner and photographer Don Wood to publish some of Wood’s fabulous train-pictures into a black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar.
Sturner was a railfan, and Audio-Visual Designs also published small railroad photo-cards for sale.
Audio-Visual Designs may also be involved in paraphernalia for tourist railroads; I’m not sure, and can’t get a helpful “Audio-Visual Designs” hit.
My first Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar was 1968 or ’69.
Wood’s most fabulous Pennsy pictures — the Mt. Carmel ore-train in snow, and the GG-1 through Elizabeth Curve — ran in the calendar.


His BEST photograph. (Photo by Don Wood©.)


STAND BACK! (Photo by Don Wood©.)

I cut out the pictures, matted ‘em, and put ‘em on my walls.
Thankfully I have both images in this computer.
Sturner died some time ago, Wood not too long ago. Audio-Visual Designs went through various owners, and is now apparently owned by Suo.
That calendar may have been Audio-Visual’s most successful product. Audio-Visual Designs is not a major calendar publisher.
I’d get that calendar every year, although I guess there were a few years it didn’t publish.
For years it was my only calendar. Now I’m up to seven; but mainly as wall-art that changes every month. Only one is an actual calendar.
Plus one is my own calendar, published by Shutterfly, with train pictures by my brother and I.
Would that Wood had what my brother and I have. He was using a 4x5 Speed Graphic, the norm as a news-camera back then.
He couldn’t take the multiple shots I often take — “one has to work!”
He was also setting shutter-speed and lens-opening himself. I shoot “shutter-priority;” lens-opening is automatic per metering by the camera.
My camera could also automatically set shutter-speed, but I shoot 1/400th or faster to stop blurring of a locomotive-front.
My brother’s camera is more “point-and-shoot.” Shutter-priority for him is nearly impossible, so locomotive fronts often blur in marginal light.
So there’s Wood out there with only one chance to snag a fabulous picture.
He better have his lens-opening right. Plus he has to be steady on his feet. I’ve seen pictures of him without a tripod. I tripod my telephotos; usually I can hand-hold 150mm or less at 1/400th or so — but not if it’s frigid. Tripod below freezing.
Wood was also using film and a darkroom.
During the ‘70s I was using the same, but 35mm versus his 4x5.
I’d roll my own Tri-X from bulk, and didn’t do color because Yellow Father (Kodak) wouldn’t let me.
I switched to digital 15-20 years ago with a Nikon D100.
Lenses were pretty good in the ‘70s, if you avoided zoomers.
Now all my lenses are zoomers, and I only have three. Back in the ‘70s I had seven or eight.
What’s really great is no more darkroom with stinky chemicals browning my fingers.
And no more Yellow Father dictating my color output.
Everything is now in this personal-computer, and I dicker with Photoshop®.
Need to boost fall-foliage color? I can do that; it’s called “saturation.”
Need to lighten locomotive running-gear to make it visible? it’s called “lighten shadows.”
I can also add sizzle to a picture with “unsharp mask” or “adjust sharpness.”
I couldn’t do any of that with Yellow Father.
But as always the photographer has to be an artist. —A) savvy enough to set up a fabulous picture, or —B) able to recognize a fabulous shot when they get one by accident.
That’s my dictum:  “Shaddup-and-shoot; ya never know what you’ll get.”
I have two photographs at the same location of the same Mt. Carmel ore-train. The one by Wood is fabulous, the other ordinary.
Wood would look at a scene and assess. There’s a mountain back there, but with any luck that column of belching steam will obliterate it.
Here comes a GG-1 charging Elizabeth Curve in north Jersey. Pan it, baby! It’s probably pushing 100!
That background building blurs, but what a shot!
Wood’s pictures eventually ran out. The Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar had to start using other photographers. One is Jim Shaughnessy.
But now the Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar seems to be faltering.
Suo is probably a railfan, but he’s not Wood.
Every once-in-a-while they publish a Wood picture. But they look like his rejects.
I continue to get the Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar. But it often has “Courtesy of Joe Suo collection;” the dreaded three-quarter views that clog train-books.
This calendar picture is a three-quarter, as was last month — also Joe Suo.
Three-quarters aren’t very dramatic. I think my brother and I do better — and that’s without steam.




Probably off Mighty Rockville. (Photo by Walter Zullig.)

—The east end of Rockville Bridge is always a lighting challenge.
The May 2017 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is two Pennsy freights probably coming off Rockville Bridge.
It’s 1963.
The train with the F-units is waiting for the Geep-powered hotshot to pass, although that hotshot also has Fs.
It says the trains are eastbound, but I don’t know where I’m looking, like west across the river (not visible), or east toward Harrisburg.
I wonder if the trains are headed north up the Susquehanna. To Pennsy that’s east too. The hotshot is symboled BNY16 — that sounds like Buffalo.
Rockville is where Pennsy bridged the Susquehanna. The current bridge, a giant stone-masonry structure, is the third. It opened in 1902.
I always say it would take a direct hit from a thermonuclear warhead — an H-bomb — to take out that bridge. Although part of it washed-out and collapsed not too long ago.
The Susquehanna was a major barrier to building Pennsy. As Pennsy became a success, its bridge over the Susquehanna had to become substantial.
The current bridge can accommodate four tracks, although it’s been reduced to two and three. Two tracks across the Susquehanna were not enough back then.
The light in this picture tells me it’s early morning.
Later in the day, looking west especially, everything would be stridently backlit.
Even early morning is a challenge. Sunlight is coming from east-southeast = backlit yet again.
About the only place the bridge works is the western end, or far downriver in morning — and from the river’s west side.
Interstate-81’s crossing of the Susquehanna considered building atop Rockville. Thankfully that wasn’t done — it woulda ruined the view. I-81 uses it own bridge south of Rockville.
The bridge is a barrier to river navigation, although the Susquehanna isn’t deep enough to allow deep-draft ships.
That allowed Pennsy to build a massive low-level river-crossing; that is, it didn’t need a clear span, high enough or wide enough to permit large ships.
Yet Rockville is very substantial; it had to be to permit four tracks.
It’s endured numerous floods; the Susquehanna can run high. It’s draining a very large watershed.