They’re all different

My all-time favorite rides, our first “artics” (“arr-TICK”), the 300s. But only because they rode so well; otherwise they were bog-slow. (German design [M-A-N], manufactured in America.) Get on the expressway, head for the passing-lane, and PUT THE HAMMER DOWN! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“Every bus is different,” I used to say.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) Yrs Trly 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 suddenly ended that. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper, the Daily-Messenger in nearby Canandaigua.
Bus-driving was a stupid, meaningless job; rife with ignorant four-wheelers, NASCAR wannabees, and our rancorous clientele. We bus-drivers had an unspoken rule: DON’T GET SHOT! Most passengers were pleasant, but there were exceptions.
Bus-driving paid well, thanks to our union; and I enjoyed mastering large vehicles. So I stayed with it, although originally it was supposed to be temporary while I sought employ as a scribe (writer = slinger of words).
During that time I drove all kinds of equipment to who-knows-where in varying weather (sometimes dreadful); GMC, Flxible, Gillig. Now anyone manufactures buses, or so it seems.
I guess the format is simple. Standards and measurements apply. Any manufacturer can meet ‘em with a frame, bus-body, seats, and motor/tranny. Much of that is available from outside suppliers.
When I started GMC and Flxible dominated the market. Much of our fleet were GMC, plus we had a large contingent of Flxibles.
GMC left the business.
I haven’t paid attention since my stroke — I don’t live in Rochester. Everything I drove was retired years ago, and various classes have come and gone.

A GMC “RTS” bus, but not Regional Transit. (This bus looks like a wide-body [102 inches]. Our first RTS’s were 96 inches [eight feet].)

Two years after I began, RTS got new buses, the new “RTS” from GMC. “RTS” stood for “Rapid Transit Series,” not Regional Transit.
I called ‘em “starships.” Styling was exceptional for a bus, perhaps the best styling General Motors ever did.
The GMC “RTS” was an attempt to make bus-transit more attractive. The RTS has more-or-less the same suspension as a car = separate independent A-arms up front instead of a side-to-side beam axle.
This was a mistake. The RTS’s rode like lumber-wagons; our older beam-axle buses rode better.
Everything was air-suspension. If one side drooped under a heavier load, that side got more air to increase the spring-rate — and level the bus.
Within a month each new RTS was different. 735 became a rocket. You had to caress the accelerator lest you toss passengers outta their seats.
Each 700 had its own tricks, and I’m sure within a year 735 became something else — like maybe a pig.
Some of our old Flxibles refused to shift into High Gear; they were two-speed auto-tranny.
Others shifted too early, laying down a thick black cloud of diesel-exhaust as they lugged up to speed.
229 didn’t like to turn left. Many of our bus-loops were left turn, but 229 refused. It went wide against the steering-stop, and had to be backed like docking a ship = call for a road-supervisor.
229 turned over-sharply right.
1993 is long ago. Occasionally I see new Regional Transit buses — at least I think so.
I bet within a month each individual bus within its number-class is different.
“Easy on the accelerator with this 735. Floor it and ya throw everyone on the floor.”

• “Artic” means articulated = bendable in the middle. The bus was 60 feet long, but hinged in the middle so it could sharply turn a corner. The bus-body was two halves connected by a bellows. The motor was slung under the lead half. The idea was to increase the number of passengers per single driver. —I drove ‘em often, but usually with no more than 20-25 passengers; they could seat many more. Usually an “artic” replaced two individual bus-trips, which some passengers hated. A single bus had to cover two source-areas.
• “Tranny” is of course transmission. Everything I drove was auto-tranny. Our city buses were Lo and Direct, two speeds. Over-the-road Park-and-Ride buses were three-speed, and I think our 700s were too. The city-buses were governed to 55 mph. Over-the-road weren’t governed. Once I got 728 up to 80 mph. Dead-head; no passengers. Never again! Bucketing the expressway in something the size of a living-room.
• “Park-and-Rides” were trips from suburban or rural end-points, usually through Park-and-Ride parking-lots, where passengers would park their cars for a bus-ride to work in Rochester.
• A “road-supervisor” was an official of the company that rode around in a supervisor-car, supervised bus-drivers, and settled arguments with bus-passengers. They also attended bus accidents. —Our rule was you couldn’t back a bus without a road-supervisor.

“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

(That head is a link, dudes.)
It’s July 20th, 1969. 48 years + three days ago.
My wife and I are returning from a family reunion in northwestern PA.
We married about one year and six months earlier.
Her father was driving, and her parents were in the front seats. We were in their humble white 1963 Plymouth Valiant; “the refrigerator.”
We were driving winding two-lanes in Potter County, so-called “God’s Country.”
Her father had the car-radio on, AM.
Mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin were in the descending Lunar Module.
I was riveted.
“Contact light!” “Shutdown.” “Okay, engine stop. ACA – out of detent.” “Out of detent. Auto.” Aldrin continued “Mode control – both auto. Descent engine command override off. Engine arm – off. 413 is in.”
“We copy you down, Eagle.” said Charles Duke, CAPCOM in Houston.
“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
“Roger, Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot.”
I tear up every time I read this: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
Here we were in the utter desolation of rural northwestern PA, returning from a family reunion that got rained inside, where the road ended at my wife’s great-aunt’s house (never seen that before), and WE DID IT!
And with less computing power than is in my iPhone.
Armstrong also overrode the computer; it had them landing on rocky ground. Armstrong took over and landed that module himself.
Incredible moxie and daring; needed to bring about President John Kennedy’s desire to land a man on the Moon during the following decade.
“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” WE DID IT!
(Goin’ to my grave, dudes. Right up there with Don “Big Daddy” Garlits.)

T-Bone

“T-Bone.”

Years ago when I worked at the Mighty Mezz, there was a girl there I nicknamed “man-hating string-bean.”
I never called her that to her face. We got along pretty well, but it seemed she hated men.
Every day her mother called, and they badmouthed men. This despite a picture of her husband in her cubicle. She was in her 30s and extremely thin.
She was a “Postie,” from Post Newspapers, which the Messenger purchased shortly before their CEO-founder died.
Posties could be elitists compared to we down-to-earth Messenger mockers. My guess is that was Post management style. Build up the employees so they could be paid peanuts.
“Man-hating string-bean” and I worked in adjacent cubicle rows. She was maybe 15-20 feet away across an aisle.
One day my friend Marcy, who worked in the cubicle next to mine, sneezed.
It was the exact moment I fired up a picture of a hotrod Model T Ford in my iMac, so I shouted “T-Bone.”
“T-Bone” is old hotrod lingo. Model T Fords were “T-Bones;” Model-A Fords were “A-Bones.”
Marcy was flummoxed. Why had I shouted “T-Bone” instead of “gesundheit?”
From then on any time anyone sneezed at the Mighty Mezz, someone uttered “T-Bone.”
One time man-hating string-bean sneezed, so I called her up from my cubicle 15-20 feet away.
“T-Bone,” I said quietly.
She laughed.
No fair! I made her laugh, and men were disgusting scoundrels.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 11 years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]).
• “Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. She has since married.

51 long years ago.....

In August of 1966, yr fthfl srvnt was granted a Bachelor of Arts degree at nearby Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”) — despite his inability to master French.
Houghton is about 80 miles south of Rochester.
I was first in my family to do so, although I’m sure my father coulda done it, but he was Depression, when the imperative was to Get a job.
I also owed them 400 smackaroos, which I quickly paid after graduation.
I did well in other courses, so they graduated me anyway.
Houghton was founded in 1883, but not as a college. It’s evangelical, affiliated with the Wesleyan-Methodist Connection. It was a reaction by Willard Houghton, a Wesleyan-Methodist minister, to what the town that later became Houghton was, a den of iniquity.
The town was originally named “Jockey Street,” and was along the Genesee Valley Canal (“jen-uh-SEE”), from Rochester south to Olean in vast Genesee valley.
The canal shipped grain (mainly wheat) north to Rochester, where it might get shipped east on the Erie Canal. Rochester also had mills powered by the Genesee river.
Genesee valley was this nation’s first bread-basket.
Jockey Street was rife with bawdiness, taverns and prostitution to serve the “canalers” (“kin-ALL-ers”).
The town was so-named because people raced their horses over the town’s long main street.
So Willard arrived and decided to clean up the town. He established a seminary (a high-school), a “little island of decency.”
In 1899 a few college classes were offered; the college department’s first diploma was awarded in 1901. Houghton College received its provisional charter from New York State in 1923, and awarded its first 19 baccalaureate degrees two years later. A permanent charter was granted in 1927, and accreditation by the Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges came in 1935.
Houghton acquired its first academically-trained president, James S. Luckey, who served until his death in 1937. He was succeeded by Stephen W. Paine, who served until 1972.
Under Paine’s leadership the college expanded from about 300 students to 1,200, necessitating new buildings. The percentage of faculty with earned doctorates tripled.
Under Paine Houghton became the second-best evangelical college behind Wheaton College near Chicago.
I’m sure for Paine it was a constant wrastling-match = his evangelical desire to make Houghton serious, versus the protective Wesleyan-Methodist zealots.
Paine got a compromise that allowed the National Defense Student-Loan program by no longer requiring chapel-attendance.
No doubt the zealots wrung their hands = “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
“Hell in a handbasket,” I tell ya!
If not for the National Defense Student-Loan program (NDSL) I woulda never attended college = dead, a ‘Nam-victim.
“Chapel-checkers” recorded attendance, and if you failed to show you got fined. But you weren’t required to attend — at least I don’t think you were; I always attended.
NY state seems to have nurtured who-knows-how-many fervent religious institutions. Nearby in the Town of Lima (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”) is Elim Bible Institute. It’s not a four-year college — all it offers are two-year associate degrees.
Yet what buildings it has remind me of Houghton’s old buildings. Like Elim crashed whereas Houghton didn’t. No Steve Paine.
My going to Houghton resulted from a great compromise with my hyper-religious father, who wanted me to attend Moody Bible Institute like he did in the late ‘30s.
Trouble at that time, about 1960, was Moody wasn’t a college. All it could render was a two-year Associate Degree. I wanted a four-year college degree. (I think by now Moody is a four-year college.)
In summer of 1960 my family took a vacation including through Chicago to visit Moody, and also Wheaton.
We stayed overnight in a Moody dorm, and I was nervous. Moody was urban, and I’m from the suburbs. —My father was from the city.
So Moody was comfortable for him, but not for me.
Moody was also hot to convert students into brow-beating street evangelists = rendering judgment on anyone other than themselves.
Not this kid! No way was I gonna scream at some vagrant = hellfire and damnation.
In the summer of ’61 I worked at a Christian Boys Camp that had Houghton students on staff.
Houghton sounded interesting, so we visited, probably early in ’62.
Thus ensued “the Great Compromise” (my terminology) = Houghton or Wheaton instead of Moody — since both were evangelical colleges.
I applied to both, but Wheaton turned me down. Houghton would admit me if I proved I could do college-level study = six weeks of Houghton Summer-School.
My course would be Bible Introduction; somehow I managed a “B.” Pass-or-fail; and “‘Nam for you baby” if you fail!
“So what did you get outta Houghton?” friends ask.
“A wife, “ I always say.
“And a really good one,” I add. “Also an unbeliever like me;” totally unexpected at Houghton.
My father was angry; Houghton had not “straightened me out.”
Instead of beating me to a pulp, adult authority figures valued and solicited my opinions.
This was revelatory compared to the way I was brought up. Always declared stupid and rebellious, even by my parents.
I’ve never regretted Houghton. My younger sister (deceased), who also attended Houghton, but only two years — she didn’t graduate — said I “flowered” there. Discussion replaced intimidation.
I majored in history — two good professors instead of only one — and minored in secondary education. I set about to teach high-school history, and even did a short stint of student-teaching.
But high-school teaching seemed loaded with politics, or so seemed my mentor teacher. So I didn’t complete my student-teaching.
Houghton had other presidents since I graduated, mainly Daniel Chamberlain from 1976 to 2006.
I’m probably misreading him, but I always felt he was a clown; that he was cashing in on the extraordinary legacy Steve Paine left.

Faire Shirley.

The current prez is Shirley Mullen, who graduated Houghton in 1976.
I’m told a college president’s ability to generate funding is all-important, and apparently Shirley is good at it.
I felt she was a shill at first, but now I’m impressed. She’s a good discussion; my wife was like that. Also a cousin I knew long ago. That cousin was such an excellent discussion I wanted to marry a girl like her. And I did.
Houghton e-mails a monthly newsletter, and Shirley leads. Although Shirley and I are far apart, I always read her.
I attended my 50-year class reunion last year. Quite a few were pleased to see me, although there were the usual judgmental nay-sayers.
I never really fit at Houghton, almost canned on an attitude rap.
Others in my class are far more religious than me.
I graduated unprepared for the work-a-day world, but I’m glad I attended. It set my values; mainly because adults cared about me, which made me a bleeding-heart Liberal (gasp!) like them.
I graduated with the makings of a self I could accept. I was able to walk away from parental badmouthing.
My “self” has been tenuous ever since. Houghton was the start.
I was finally able to shut down my father.

“It’s a miracle, Bobby!”

(Sorry dudes; the back of the coupon is bleeding through, and ain’t worth fixin’.)

That’s what my mother said about anything lacking easy explanation. It had religious import.
I get a packet of advertising every month in my mail. I shred most, but one flyer stood out.
It’s above.
Filter-screens atop your gutters — to keep leaves from piling up.
I looked at the flyer, “before” and “after.”
“After” is clean enough to eat off. The gutters are spotless, as is the roof.
“Before” is grungy. Leaves clutter everything. Some are rotting.
Install these leaf-filters, and leaves no longer fall off trees. If they do, “they in deep trouble.”
Leaf-filter or not, I bet leaves still pile up.
Whatever; I don’t have that problem.
My roof is spotless, as are my gutters.
No trees are near my house.
Why is it some contractor has to make a killing fleecing dreamers?
Worse yet, why does anyone believe this stuff?
A buffet meal at a nearby gambling casino costs 26 buckaroos.
Whadda they servin’? Beluga caviar?
My niece, my only local relative, suggests for that $26 I also get a ticket to the gambling floor. “If you used that ticket instead of being so pinch-penny, yer meal might cost less.”
“It also might cost more,” I say. “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all!” TWANG!
Pass! No leaf-filters fer this kid!
If I plant trees next to my house, I’m gonna get leaves.  —Unless them leaf-filters magically stop the growing season.

• “Bobby” is me, Bob Hughes, BobbaLew.

“It’s workin’ ain’t it!”

Yrs Trly is fiddling photographs for yesterday’s blog.
My pictures are at PhotoBucket®, accessed to BlogSpot via HTML tag.
I go to upload a picture to PhotoBucket, and can’t.
“PhotoBucket bombs yet again: ‘your browser can’t access the address.’”
I quickly discerned none of my browser tabs worked.
To do so I hafta “refresh” each tab, since unrefreshed tabs still display.
I been dreading this. Lost Internet with my new briefcase modem, the way Spectrum® upgraded me from 20 megabytes-per-second to 60.
I set about doing what I used to do with my old modem. Cut power (pull plug), wait 20 seconds, then reinsert power plug. This would force a modem reboot — or so I hoped.
Still no Internet. I’m hard-wired, so go wireless. I also can do wireless.
Still no Internet. “Now what?”
“Call Spectrum,” I instruct Siri on my iPhone.
“I found all these ‘Spectrums.’ Tap the one you want.”
I tap the one on Mt. Hope Ave. in Rochester, my cable Spectrum.
“Welcome to Spectrum. This call will be monitored,” yada-yada.
So began their machines. “No Internet. Right?”
At which point I’m tempted to say “Oh ease up, fer cryin’ out loud.”
The machine would say “I don’t understand.”
I can’t imagine my 73 year old friend dickerin’ this; he’d walk away. (I’m 73 myself.)
My navigation was fairly successful, except one tumble into confused lock-up.
Finally, after maybe 10 minutes, a real person.
“Lemme access your modem,” she said. I guess she disconnected me and then reconnected.
Still no Internet; except wi-fi reappeared (perhaps). But no hard-wired.
Madness, as usual. Maybe wi-fi was back, but I’m not sure.
“Happened before,” I said. “I suspect the plug.” The little plastic thingy that keeps the plug tight had broken off. The plug can go adrift.
Jiggle-jiggle-jiggle. But I have wi-fi Internet, where I didn’t previously — or so I thought.
Suddenly my hard-wire is working.
Just the same I’m inclined to get a new wire.
“So am I gonna hafta call you guys every time this happens? Seems I had no wi-fi until you reconnected me.
Talking to the moon, of course. The techie, a youngster, was convinced my hard-wire connection was suspect.
Whatever! Back in business for the time being = until it tanks again.
If there’s anything I’ve learned drivin’ this ‘pyooter, it’s understanding doesn’t matter.
All that matters are RESULTS; “‘Pyooter-Guru” at the Mighty Mezz would concur.
“It’s workin’ ain’t it!”

• This is a “BlogSpot” blog.
• “HTML” is Hyper-Text Markup Language, a background instruction system made invisible in text by surrounding carets (“<” and “>”). I use it only to embolden, underline and italicize text, although it can do other things. My picture-inserts and links are also via HTML-tag.
• RE: “PhotoBucket bombs yet again.......” —PhotoBucket is somewhat unstable, and may tank once per week.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 11 years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern). “‘Pyooter-Guru” was the Messenger’s technology (computer) manager.
• 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. My biggest challenge is phonecalls.

Click-click-click-click-click!

“If **** is one of yer Facebook-friends, what ya do is go to his Facebook to see all the fabulous landscape photographs he posted.”
“Is that how it works?” I asked. “Seems not long ago I was getting Facebook notifications for every post a Facebook friend made. I never understand Facebook. Looks like they changed something.”
I was talking to *** *****, a lady I once worked with at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. We both are ex; me retired, and she laid off.
**** is also ex Messenger. He moved to Denver. Together we did the Messenger website.
****, like me, fell to the allure of photography. With me it’s trains (I’m a railfan), with him it’s landscape, especially if weather is dramatic.
Weather is more extreme out west than here in Western NY. And landscape more interesting.
Giant thunderheads tower over purple-mountain majesties, and amber waves of grain.
**** sees it and photographs.
Another friend and I are discussing whether photography is art.
He suggests it isn’t when it’s so easy to snag an excellent photograph.
*** and I discussed this. Ansel Adams, perhaps the most famous photographer of all, was in Yosemite Valley, and had only one chance to snag his famous “Half-Dome” photograph.


Moon over Half-Dome. (Photo by Ansel Adams.)

One of my best photographs is one of 12 I took in quick succession. (Multiple exposures = “motor-drive.”)
After that I could jazz up the photograph with my Photoshop-Elements®.


Last or second-to-last. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

There’s Adams in his darkroom, burning-and-dodging his 8-by-10 negative to get the print-results he wanted.
I do that too, but on this computer. No more darkroom for The Keed.
Composition also plays a part.
*** noted how she and her husband (deceased) would photograph the same topic. Yet his pictures looked better than hers. It was his eye for composition, versus her alleged lack thereof.
“There are things I’ve learned,” I said.
“—Every picture needs a foreground. I’m at the park with my dog, and a couple is photographing the pond with their hyper-expensive camera, usually with a gigantic telephoto lens.
‘I hate to butt in, but I suggest ya move back 30 feet.’
‘I do that, and that picnic table will obscure the pond.’
‘For viewers to get a handle on what they’re looking at, ya need that picnic-table. Tree-trunks too.’


”Step back 30 feet.” (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—Simple as possible:
‘Goodie-goodie. No sky to distract; just woods in the background.’


Goodie-goodie! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—Frame if I can get it: “That overpass will frame the subject.” Various siblings objected, but with a frame viewers can more easily make sense of what they’re looking at.


The overpass is the frame. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


Ditto. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—Modeling if I can get it. That is, my subject partially in shadow.
Gotta be careful though. Shadows can ruin a picture. There are locations I can’t take because they’re too backlit if the sun is out.


Modeling exemplified. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

All of this is figgerin’ into whatever I take, and I’m sure **** does it too.
So there’s **** bombing along in the Colorado outback: “Wow! Lookit that sky!” Unholster camera, engage artistic input, then click; or perhaps as in my case click-click-click-click-click!

• “****” in Denver is photographer at Rocky Lakes Photography.
• The “Canandaigua Daily-Messenger” is the newspaper from where I retired over 11 years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]). (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)
• “The Keed” is me, Bob Hughes, “BobbaLew.”

BlogSpot

BlogSpot®, which this blog is, is a subsidiary of Google®.
Which wants to take over the the entire known universe.
I admit to using Google quite a bit.
It started as a search-engine, I think, and became the search-engine everyone uses. Others remain: Yahoo®, and “Jeeves” (“Ask Jeeves,” now just “ASK”), what I used first.
Google is now into everything. As far as I know, both YouTube® and BlogSpot are Google, along with 89 bazilyun other computer apps.
Apparently Google is working on a self-driving car.
I’m a retired bus-driver. I always allowed incredible following distance, perhaps five times what was suggested. I didn’t wanna slam on the brakes = toss passenger outta their seats.
I’d be bopping along, a huge gap in front of me, and some NASCAR wannabee charged into the gap.
“Did you see that?” my shotgun rider exclaimed.
“Which is why I’m way back here,” I said.
Google wants bumper-to-bumper 80 mph on Los Angeles’ 405.
I don’t think I could do it.
I need “slop;” which is what I called it.
I still do it, though no longer carrying passengers.
Used to be I got my ‘50s rock-n-roll from various sites: Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Danny and the Juniors.
Now I get them from YouTube, with video that may be little more than a spinning 45. (Anyone know what a “45” is?)
I’ve pictured BlogSpot’s thingy for manipulating blog posts. My blogs aren’t written into BlogSpot. I do ‘em on this computer in a word-processor, Apple’s “Pages.”
When finished I copy/paste to BlogSpot, then publish.
Quite often “editing” has to be done: cutting, fixing errors, etc.
I don’t edit BlogSpot. I edit my word-processor document, then copy/paste again.
That thingy is also telling me how many readers I had, plus if anyone commented.
I don’t know who they are, or if anyone out there in cyberspace is reading my blog.
I get 15-20 readers on average, and most of those, if not all, were from e-malled blog links.
A blog link goes to perhaps 30 or more. I have e-mail lists: “family,” “trains” (railfans like me), ex-Messenger (the newspaper where I once worked), and my vaunted “Ne’er-do-Well” list (people like me declared reprehensible and disgusting).
Once a blog is published I send out an e-mail of “Today’s blog-post.” It has my BlogSpot link, which their Internet browser fires up.
I’ve noticed I get one blog reader almost immediately. I don’t think people are waiting with baited breath to click my link.
My guess is someone programmed their e-mail to fire up links, or safer yet, my links alone.
Whatever, someone already fired up my blog as soon as I published it.
Or something fired up my link as soon as I published.

• I’m told my perception of Google is eclipsed. As I understood it, YouTube and BlogSpot were Google apps. Now that has been superseded by a holding-company named “Alphabet,” and Google is part of that. YouTube and BlogSpot may be standalone Alphabet subsidiaries. Whatever; they’re gonna have to pry my cold dead hands from the steering-wheel!
• “Little Richard,” “Jerry Lee Lewis,” and “Danny and the Juniors” are all YouTube links that play the song. Click away, dudes.

“Future son has a rust belt”

Yrs Trly was thumbing through checks from my deceased mother before throwing things out.
A notation-line on one had what’s quoted above.
Engage brain to perceive what she really meant.
—A) How about “son-in-law,” since my mother is before ultrasound to determine the sex of babies before birth.
And....
I also doubt a future son could earn a karate-belt before birth.
—B) How about “black belt?” I don’t think karate has a “rust belt” program.
Pittsburgh and Ohio are part of the “rust-belt;” giant factories shuttered.
A while ago my sister-in-law purchased a new Ford Focus. “But not the Titanic model.”
“Uhm, don’t you mean ‘Titanium’?”
“Yeah, Titanic!”
Let it go; my sister-in-law isn’t stupid.
I don’t wanna hurt her feelings.
It just so happens I have talent slinging words.
I still have it, yet my stroke slightly compromised my speech.
Being used to criticism, I didn’t think much of my talent.
My 12th-grade English-teacher said I could write really well. I thought him joking.
My voluntary newsletter for my bus-union convinced me otherwise.
People loved reading that newsletter, especially the politicians who funded Transit.
It became less a newsletter and more a vehicle for my writing. I’d crank “bus-stories” at layovers.
Even management loved them; what it was like to drive bus was getting out.
The Grannies, the NASCAR wannabees; “Oh look Dora! A bus! PULL OUT! PULL OUT!
I don’t trumpet that talent.
I happen to have it; while most don’t.
I occasionally get e-mails like the following:
“I will ask him yes I am painting not a very good year so far with all the rain I was going to call you this week anyway I was working next-door at the White House you see me at I was wondering how you were doing sorry to hear about Scarlet I will let you know what Mike says”
This lady is my painter. I ain’t about to make fun of her — despite her lack of a single period.
And her dangling participle. “What’s a participle?” a friend asked. The participles go dingle-dangle-dingle!
I also don’t live next to the “White-House.” (No comments from the peanut-gallery!)
I know what she meant. More challenging was a friend who used his Smartphone’s voice-recognition, then refused to edit. I had to translate, knowing how voice-recognition can muck things.
“Future son has a rust belt.” It’s humorous, but no fair poking fun at it.
Some can sling words, and some can’t. Thems that can shouldn’t claim superiority.

• 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.
• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke ended that. I retired on medical-disability, and recovered fairly well.
• “Scarlett” (two “Ts,” as in Scarlett O’Hara) is my current dog; a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s thirteen, 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.) —I recently had to take her to an emergency vet; she seemed in pain. We concluded it was chronic arthritis in her hip.

I made her day

“I tried the free pizza-slice at the new Byrne Dairy on West Ave.,” I told the pizza-clerk at the Canandaigua Weggers.
No;” I said pointing; “this is better.”
The lady smiled. Usually she’s an old sourpuss. The kind Weggers eventually fires.
She growled at me before when I ordered pizza — must be I interrupted her day-long donut break.
“Uh-oh; there she is again — dread!”
“It’s good pizza,” she said, smiling. Grinning from ear-to-ear!
I been on this planet 73 years. My wife died five years ago.
That being the case, I’m now on-my-own.
I’ve deduced it makes sense to say it — ya never know what you’ll get.
It will probably be worthwhile.
So I’m more likely to blurt things out than I was in the past; when I kept to myself.
Last year I went to my wife’s mother’s 100th birthday celebration in FL. She outlived her daughter, and died recently herself.
My brother-in-law, my wife’s only sibling, and I hit a Mickey-D’s to avoid lunch with “mother,” who I’m sure would yet-again ask me to fix her ancient typewriter. (“What’s a typewriter?” people ask.)
We sat down, and in walked “Harmon,” wearing a WWII veteran hat.
“Holy mackerel,” I exclaimed. “I thought you guys were all dying off.”
So began Harmon’s entire life story: abandonment by his parents in WV, working for a farmer in TX, driving to Californy in a ’32 Ford.
We weren’t able to get outta there for at least two hours.
As I recall he was a Coast-Guard veteran, who joined the war-effort by lying about his age. By now he was 93 or 94.
My niece from Rochester strode in with her boyfriend and daughter, a chance for Harmon to repeat his life story.
“Ya never know what you’ll get,” I noted to my brother-in-law; “but that’s the last time I do that.” That guy needed someone to spill to, and we were it.
Complete strangers from far away; yada-yada-yada-yada.
“If you wish,” I said to the pretty clerk at my local post-office; “I could give you the useless facts regarding that July train-calendar photo.”
“Oh goodie,” the girl smiled silently. “I never know what he’s talking about, but he’s paying attention to ME.”
Years ago I was afraid to talk to pretty girls. But my parents and Sunday-School Superintendent were WRONGO-WRONGO-WRONGO-WRONGO. They were just intimidating me, and they succeeded.
“Dare I say this?” I asked our pretty young waitress at the Canandaigua **********.
“You’ll make someone a wonderful wife, if ya haven’t already.”
“What makes ya say that?” she asked.
Utter silence on my part; stroke-effect, verbal lockup, aphasia, whatever.
“Yer a nice person,” I finally said.
She projected still being single, so “I’m gonna relate the advice I once gave to another girl.
‘Yer gonna get married some day. Whatever ya do, marry someone that can make ya laugh. Do that and yer in it for the long haul,’” I said.
“All kinds of things are gonna go horribly wrong, but if the guy can make ya laugh, you’ll get over ‘em.”
I no longer have my wife around to cover for me.
I’ve noted saying anything is a gamble, but results have been too positive.
If people are negatory, it ain’t my fault.
Go ahead and say it. Ya never know what you’ll get.
I made that sourpuss pizza-lady smile.

• “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester where I often buy groceries. They have a store in nearby Canandaigua.
• “Mickey-D’s” is of course McDonald's.
• As a railfan I do 75-80 computer calendars every year with train pictures my brother-and-I took near Altoona, PA. I send them out as Christmas-presents, and my local post-office gets one too. Altoona is where the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny mountain = an engineering triumph for the 1840s. The railroad is still extremely busy, but is no longer Pennsy. It’s Norfolk Southern.

Useless facts

My most SATISFYING ever. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“If you wish,” I said to the clerk at our tiny West Bloomfield Post-Office; “I could give you the useless facts on that calendar-picture, which I consider one of the best I ever snagged.”
“Oh goodie,” the girl smiled silently. “I never know what he’s talking about, but he’s talking to ME.”
Every year Shutterfly® makes me 75-80+ train calendars which I give to relatives and friends as Christmas presents.
One goes to West Bloomfield Post-Office, where I mail ‘em. They appreciate it, and hang it as their office calendar.
“Where’d-ja get that calendar? It’s great!”
“A guy in town made it. The pictures are by him and his brother.”
“That picture had a lotta planning,” I said.
“For years I been tryin’ to get that beautiful station in a train picture.
I always failed. —A) The train was too far from the station, OR —B) it blocked the station.
A while ago I noticed if I shot from this location, under an interstate overpass not visible, it worked.
—Problem: I need eastbound on Two, the track nearest the station.
Two is normally westbound, but the tracks are signaled both ways. Occasionally the dispatcher sends a train east on Two. But the only train I can depend on is Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian.
It makes a stop at Tyrone (“tie-RONE;” as in “own”), and does it on Two so passengers don’t hafta cross tracks.
—Next problem: This location is not station-property. People park randomly under the interstate overpass. I hafta make this location work amidst scattershot parking.
My brother was driving — I let him drive. Getting to this location was a wild charge between decrepit buildings, and cars parked hither-and-yon.
I probably coulda done it, but am more easily discouraged than my brother. So I let him drive.
—We’re cheating here. My camera takes multiple shots, and compared to film digital images are cheap.
This is probably the last or second-to-last of five or six shots.
Plus the train had stopped at the station, and it was cloudy.
If the sun were out, the interstate overpass woulda shaded the locomotive.”
“Wow; I never realized so much planning was involved,” the girl said.
—“More cheatin’,” I added. “I use Photoshop-Elements®, and it allows me to boost color-saturation. Gotta be careful though; too much looks obvious. I wanted to enhance that station.
That also boosted the locomotive. So the blue is a bit deeper.
Ya can’t overdo it. It could look unreal.”
“Looks fine to me,” the girl said. “I never woulda known.”
“The camera image wasn’t bad,” I said. “But not as good as slightly boosted.”
I left. “I never know what he’s talking about, but he’s talking to ME.”
And unlike some, she loves it.

• My brother is Jack Hughes; 13 years younger than me. (I’m the first-born, he the fifth [of seven].)

“So what’s ‘Houghton’?”

(“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”)
That’s my good friend *****, a custodian at the Canandaigua YMCA, pointing at my teeshirt.
“It’s where I went to college,” I said; “about 75 miles south of Rochester in the Genesee (“Jen-uh-SEE”) valley.
As a matter fact, I’m first in my family to earn a college degree, although my father coulda done it, except he was Depression, when the imperative was to Get a job.”
“Well, all I did was high-school,” ***** said. “After that lay low and stay outta trouble.”
“So I graduated college,” I said. “La-dee-dah!”
I don’t lord that over people. I can’t. Too many of my best friends are non-college.
It’s been that way all my life. One of my best friends during my college summer job was illiterate.
Smart as a tack, yet illiterate.
My parents convinced me I was stupid and rebellious. As a result, I’m a “bleeding-heart Liberal” (Gasp!), even worse a DEMOCRAT (Double-gasp!).
Often college-graduates are elitists. Maybe they were groomed to be that way.
Not this kid.
Once while driving transit bus in Rochester, a group of young hot-shot lawyers badmouthed cripples in wheelchairs crossing the Genesee River on Main Street.
“They belong in the river,” one snapped.
“There, but for the grace of God, go you and I,” I said.
Shut ‘em right up! They picked the wrong bus-driver.
I’ve never regretted attending Houghton. It seemed more interested is shaping my values — than preparing me for employ.
It was the first time I wasn’t badmouthed. Adult authority figures valued and solicited my opinions.
My slightly younger sister (deceased), who also attended Houghton, but only two years — she didn’t graduate — says I “flowered” at Houghton.
So when I returned home after four years at Houghton, I walked out. I’d had enough. I wasn’t constantly badmouthed at Houghton.
Off to Rochester I went, 360+ miles from constant badmouthing.
And much to my hyper-religious father’s dismay, I didn’t return “the Prodigal Son” — “slay the fatted calf, etc.” (To which I always add “What does the ‘fatted calf’ think?”)
So yes, I graduated college.
But it meant more than “graduating college.”

• 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 well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that 11 years ago.
• “Home” was Wilmington, DE.

“Step away from the computer, please!”

“Up the creek yet again!” I said regarding PhotoBucket®, my digital photo service.
“The 404 message: ‘Unable to process your browser’s request.’
Give ‘em a night to get their act together, and maybe I can use PhotoBucket tomorrow morning.”
I store all my blog-pictures at PhotoBucket, accessed to BlogSpot® by http-tag. I have hundreds, but only 12% usage. My pictures are small — 72 pixels-per-inch, 5.597 inches wide.
5.597 inches is the width of this blog column. Anything larger steps on my blurb at right. They also have to be 72 ppi = screen-rez.
My use of PhotoBucket goes back years. My wife (deceased) and I discovered it when BlogSpot’s picture app stopped working — perhaps I maxxed it.
An all-knowing friend tells me PhotoBucket is evil; the fact I use ‘em advances evil.
As if some computer apps aren’t evil. In my humble opinion, the most evil of all is Google. They wanna take over the entire known universe. Bumper-to-bumper at 80 mph on Interstate-5 in self-driving cars while we blithely Facebook our Googlephones.
Nevertheless, PhotoBucket is gettin’ exasperatin’. Seems it hangs once a week, often twice.
I wonder if other digital photo services bomb as often.
I don’t look forward to switching. I no longer have a wife to help me = my cheering section.
I’d be in a dreadful funk, and she’d say “try this.”
Since it was interesting, I would, and usually end up solving the hairball myself.
Now I no longer have that. I hafta surmise solutions on my own; which often happens mowing or walking my dog.
(“Step away from the computer, please!”)

• This is a BlogSpot blog.
• My 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. She actually liked me.
• PhotoBucket is still not 100% fixed — but slowly getting there.

Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk!

“What a mess!” I kept exclaiming. “What a royal, royal mess!”
My Excel® “Expenses” spreadsheet was messed up.
All of February 2017 was missing, although it was actually mislabeled.
“Sub-totals for February 2017” was mislabeled “3/31;” there were two sub-totals labeled “3/31.”
Although I didn’t see that until poking around later.
My Excel “Expenses” spreadsheet is for my tax-lady. Don’t know as I need it, since as a senior I get the “standard-deduction.” But I keep driving it because I can.
My spreadsheets are .xls, an earlier Excel format. The latest format, .xlsx, I don’t know. My years-ago Excel training was .xls.
My tax-lady may need it this year — I gave away my motorcycle to the classical-music radio-station out of Rochester I listen to, WXXI.
That’s a $1,700 deduction = the auction price. My charity deductions may make my expenses exceed the “standard-deduction.”
I didn’t wanna sell my motorcycle to someone I knew, and have themselves killed on it.
That happened to my brother, and his motorcycle wasn’t a crotch-rocket like mine.
The person he sold to was killed, although it wasn’t his fault.
People wanted my motorcycle, which I never rode, and they were unlikely to be killed on it.
But it might happen. I would feel awful if it did.
So how do I correct this grievous error, the worst I’d ever seen?
I find errors occasionally, and so far enough marbles were present to fix.
And that’s despite having a stroke 24 years ago, plus my cheering-section, sometimes a contributor, died five years ago.
—First hairball: Excel wants the new .xlsx format. I want the .xls format.
I grabbed a 2014 .xls and deleted everything — one fell swoop. I saved that as my “fixedexpenses.xls.”
—Next move: Everything in my messed “Expenses.xls” was right, except it was missing February.
I would construct a “Fixed” from everything right.
I copied all the January rows, and “pasted” into “Fixed.” February I would reconstruct from scratch.
“February” was in this rig somewhere, but I couldn’t think of a way to find it.
Then I discovered February was still there, sub-totaled as March. I didn’t hafta reconstruct. All I had to do was correct the mislabel.
WHEW! Reconstructing would have taken another hour, maybe two. I’d already blown at least two — mainly deducing the error.
What’s amazing is I do this despite my long-ago stroke.
So far I’ve fixed quite a few errors, but none as intimidating.
I know people who throw up their hands; especially those my age (73). Plus, I don’t need it. My wife wondered why I bothered.
I do it because it’s fun; and so far I’ve been able to solve the hairballs.

Monthly Train-Calendar Report for July 2017

Lotta planning here. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—The July 2017 entry in my own calendar is the most satisfying I’ve ever taken.
It slam-dunks the question of how can I successfully include that gorgeous old Tyrone (“tie-RONE;” as on “own”) station-building in an “Allegheny-Crossing” photo?
It’s Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian, which runs in the morning east from Pittsburgh, pulling away from its Tyrone stop.
Tyrone is where the railroad turns east toward Harrisburg, after running along Allegheny front north of Altoona.
I’m not sure the building is the old Tyrone station. I’ve seen another.
It currently houses the Tyrone Area Historical Society.
Over-and-over I’ve tried to include that gorgeous building in a train-picture.
I’ve tried various angles: none worked: —A) the tracks are too far from the building, OR —B) a train blocks it.
I needed eastbound on Track Two, the track nearest the building.
Trouble is, Track Two is normally westbound. There’s one dependable exception: Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian, which uses Track Two to safely make its Tyrone station-stop. Passengers are not required to cross tracks.
Both tracks are signaled both ways, which means dispatchers can send a train west on an eastbound track.
Similarly Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian, can run east on the westbound track.
Sometimes eastbounds get Track Two, but the only train I’m sure of is Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian.
Things are falling into place. I have my eastbound on Track Two.
Next was my location. It’s not part of the station complex.
My brother was driving — I let him drive.
Off into scattershot parking under the interstate overpass. Zagging around we got trackside. Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian, would stop at Tyrone about 9:30-10 a.m.
It was slightly overcast. Direct sunlight wouldn’t work.
Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam! Five or six multiple shots. My calendar shot is probably the last or second-to-last.
Finally got it; that gorgeous building behind the train.
Later at home I decided to boost color saturation with my Photoshop-Elements® — but not much; too much is obvious.
All to boost that yellow building with its green roof.
It was also boosting the train, the blue on that GENESIS® unit.
First time I tried it, after also boosting my October fall-foliage picture.
The main thing is I finally included that building in an Allegheny-Crossing picture.
A large amount of analysis and forethought was involved, and it worked.




Industry on parade. (Photo by Kyle Ori.)

—The July 2017 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern SD40-2 serving the ArcelorMittal steel plant in Cleveland.
The calendar says it’s moving coke cars, perhaps retrieving.
Coke is coal degassed, essentially carbon, which will burn. Coal is heated in ovens to produce coke. It’s not burned.
Railroading made the Industrial Revolution possible. This steel plant is the Industrial Revolution exemplified, although much later.
Vast quantities of iron-ore and coke (or coal) are needed to produce vast quantities of steel — stronger than iron.
Visible is the huge infrastructure needed to produce vast quantities of steel.

The Pennsylvania Railroad’s WWII poster. (Art by Dean Cornwall.)

This nation’s response to Hitler and Imperial Japan was smoke-belching plants like this. Coal-smoke and pollution be damned.
I look at this, but don’t see belching coal-smoke. I’m not savvy, but I think I see two blast-furnaces. Giant ductwork is atop each one, perhaps to draw off smoke and burn it again.
To make steel I think coke mixed with iron-ore gets burned in a blast-furnace. I think that’s what melts out the iron. Making steel is after the blast-furnace, when other molten metals and/or carbon are alloyed with the molten iron.
Whatever, the huge quantities of iron-ore and coke (or coal to make coke) are readily transported by railroad.
And they appear to be coke cars. Coal-cars are not as high-sided. Coal is heavier than coke.
Often coal-cars get converted to coke cars by adding paneling that increases side-height.
It’s nice to see something other than road engines in this calendar. It’s also nice to see “Industry on parade.”




PRR Decapod prepares to couple coal-cars for shoving up on Sodus Bay wharf (track at left). (Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.)

—It’s July 4th 1956, and photographer Shaughnessy is at one of his favorite haunts, Sodus Bay wharf up on Lake Ontario, where coal from Pennsy trains was loaded into lake-ship for Canada.
The July 2017 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is PRR I-1 Decapod (2-10-0) #4524 preparing to couple coal-cars to shove up onto Sodus Bay wharf.
The coal will be transloaded into a lake-ship bound for Canada.
Sodus Bay became a terminus for the old Northern Central, in which Pennsy got control in 1861. Actually NC originally went from Baltimore to Sunbury (PA) via York (PA). Pennsy wanted to counter Baltimore & Ohio.
Northern Central later extended into NY.
North of Sunbury were other railroads I don’t know, but they all became Northern Central = Pennsy’s Elmira branch north from Williamsport (PA) into NY.
NC bought the Sodus Point & Southern in 1884 allowing shipment of PA coal on Lake Ontario.
A gigantic wooden trestle-wharf was built at Sodus Bay. Pennsy used it to transload coal into lake ships. The one pictured is the second wharf, which accidentally caught fire and burned in 1971 during dismantling. (The first wharf was smaller.)

The Sodus Bay wharf. (Long ago photo by BobbaLew.)

The line to Sodus Bay was a branch off a line to Canandaigua (NY), or vice-versa. Pennsy ran passenger-trains to Canandaigua, and coal to Sodus Bay.
Most of the Elmira branch was abandoned, although portions remain operated by Finger-Lakes Railway and Ontario Midland.
Finger Lakes operates a segment from Penn Yan to Watkins Glen, junctioning at Himrod to an old New York Central line to Williamsport (PA) south.
Finger Lakes also operates some of that old Central line with trackage-rights, although Norfolk Southern owns it as its Corning-Secondary.
Ontario Midland operates from east of Webster (NY) to a junction with the old NYC Hojack. (That portion of the Hojack is also OMID.)
That junction was the NC’s (Pennsy) Sodus Point & Southern. OMID operates from that junction south to Newark (NY) where the railroad bridged the CSX main and OMID now interchanges.
Both Ontario Midland and Finger Lakes are shortlines.
Shaughnessy took a lot of photographs of Pennsy’s Elmira branch. It was a final stomping-ground for Pennsy steam.
The picture is 1956; Pennsy ended steam in 1957.
From Watkins Glen to Penn Yan was difficult, uphill and torturous with many curves. I’ve driven along it.
As such it was well-suited for Pennsy Decapods = powerful plodders slamming heavy coal-trains to Sodus Bay wharf.


(Photo by Jim Shaughnessy.)

Shaughnessy snagged one of his best-ever photographs there: a Dek up on the wharf. Sodus Point still uses it on its website.

(From the April 2016 Audio-Visual calendar.) (Photo by Jim Shaughnessy©.)

This calendar has used this location before. It even looks like 4524. Shaughnessy snags this month’s picture, than jumps across the wharf tracks to snag the April picture in Audio-Visual’s 2016 calendar.





Grunge city. (Photo by Robert Malinoski.)

—Allow the Industrial Revolution, as symbolized by the Pennsylvania Railroad, to take over the bucolic PA countryside, and this is what you get.
Seedy industrial buildings covered with soot.
The July 2017 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is a passenger-train in Altoona (PA) waiting for helpers to get it up Allegheny Mountain.
9838 is an FP-7, four feet longer than an F-7 to accommodate a steam-generator for train heat.
Altoona is east of Allegheny Mountain. It was Pennsy’s base of operations to climb the mountain — its greatest challenge.
Helper locomotives have to be added to make the climb. At least it’s not so steep a train has to be broken up.
Altoona became Pennsy’s shop town. The railroad even built locomotives there.
It became “grunge-city.” The air would be so loaded with coal-smoke it was just about unbreathable. That’s railroad steam-locomotives burning coal.
Altoona is no longer railroad-city, although it still has a giant locomotive shop to the north, Juniata (“june-eee-AT-uh;” not “Juanita,” as my mother used to say) Shops.
The railroad is no longer Pennsy; it’s now Norfolk Southern. And NS still uses Juniata Shops. They were a prime selling-point when NS purchased the old Pennsy line from Conrail.
Most of the old railroad facilities in Altoona are gone, which means the sooty buildings pictured here are probably gone. Gone too are the many railroad yards Pennsy had.
The buildings were called “Altoona Works.” Pennsy even had a testing facility for its locomotives.
Even Pennsy switched to buying its locomotives from outside suppliers when it dieselized.
Works still exists as a control-point on the railroad. It’s next to where Altoona Works was.
The light in this picture is familiar: direct afternoon sunlight exaggerating soot on the buildings.
A mountain to the east is visible; it’s not Allegheny Mountain. The train is headed railroad-west (compass southwest), and will turn right to climb Allegheny Mountain.
That mountain to the east has a notch in it at Tyrone. Little Juniata River goes through, as does the railroad toward Harrisburg.
Allegheny Mountain has no breach.