Monthly Train-Calendar Report for September 2017

Stacker 26T charges through Altoona. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—Finally!
The September 2017 entry in my own calendar is eastbound Norfolk Southern doublestack 26T passing through Altoona (PA).
I was tiring of this location. It seemed like every time I arrived my brother had already set up there.
It’s under a street overpass, one of at least four in Altoona. Trains are so frequent, road-crossings at grade would be unsafe. Plus traffic would be snarled.
The railroad divides into express tracks and drag tracks through Altoona. 26T is on the express tracks. The drag tracks are visible at left.
Heavy coal extras usually get the drag tracks.
Anything on the drag tracks is in-your-face. The express tracks are a ways away.
I’d already shot this location many times, so what to do this time?
I cranked a lotta telephoto, and aimed west down the tracks through town.
The background is always messy. Visible is the roofed pedestrian overpass from Altoona’s Amtrak station to Railroaders Memorial Museum.
Altoona was once the basis of Pennsylvania Railroad’s operations. Shops were there, plus facilities to test and build locomotives.
Altoona is at the base of Allegheny Mountain, Pennsy’s biggest challenge when it was built in the 1840s.
If I crank telephoto that pedestrian bridge is less a distraction.
“26T, 238; One; CLEAR!” on our railroad-radio scanners.
“I see lights,” my brother says. It’s 26T miles away curving onto the long straight through town.
Here it comes! Under 17th St. bridge next to venerable Alto Tower, now closed. Then the roofed pedestrian bridge, then the unroofed overpass also toward the museum.
Around the bend it charges, headed east toward Rose, probably for a crew-change.
Click-click-click-click-click! Multiple shots — one has to be right. This is probably second or third to last.
The railroad is now Norfolk Southern. But it’s still Pennsy to me. It’s Pennsy’s railroad, and I’m a Pennsy man.




Way to go Mr. Shull! (Photo by Mark Shull.)

—The September 2017 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern freight of auto-racks near Madison, NC.
Photographer Mark Shull, a Charlotte (NC) Roadway Shop supervisor, has been in this calendar before. He’s one of the regulars. Another is NS conductor Roger Durfee of Cleveland.
But what I’ve seen of Shull is not that inspiring. Shull always had the May flower-shot. Extravagant color perhaps a little over-saturated with Photoshop. (I’ve done it myself, but ya can’t push much.)
He hasn’t always been flowers. Once he shot an NS freight passing a large cornfield. That cornfield filled the foreground. He had to get the farmer’s permission.
Once he photographed a train on tracks across from a pretty bungalow. The bungalow was his background. He asked the homeowner’s permission — the owner probably got a reprint.
No way could a railfan like me live in such a house. Sleep would be impossible.
This time he snagged a really good one; the kind I encounter occasionally.
I look in my viewfinder, and why did I never see this?
The train looks like solid auto-racks. Enclosed excessive-height cars with two or three floors inside. —Two for trucks.
My brother and I see auto-racks often at Allegheny Crossing.
A solid auto-rack train is light.
100+ 120-ton coal gondolas will need help over Allegheny summit.
But not auto-racks.
The train pictured has two locomotives. I’ve seen auto-racks with only one. And that’s to take on Allegheny Mountain, although it may need help.
My guess is photographer Shull, like me, is doing multiple shots. Where would we be if not for multiple shots?
Shull has the locomotives right where they belong. I’ve done it myself. Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam! One has to be right.




Can there be an All-Pennsy calendar without a GG-1? (Photo by Fred Kern.)

—As I’ve said many times, can there be an All-Pennsy calendar without a GG-1?
The September 2017 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is Tuscan-red GG-1 #4912, pulling the Congressional Limited through Frankford Junction in north Philadelphia in 1952.
P-5 freighter #4788, followed by 4792, passes going the other way.
Pennsy’s GG-1 was the best locomotive they ever had. To me the GG-1 is the greatest locomotive of all time.
My family moved to northern DE in 1957. I began seeing GG-1s often, and most times they were doing 80-90 mph!
Pennsy’s New York City to Washington DC electrified line, now Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, went through northern DE.
It was still stick-rail, 33 feet per section, but 143 pounds per yard, and maintained to the hilt. A GG-1 could put the pedal-to-the-metal.
A GG-1 could crank 9,000 horsepower to railhead. That’s incredible! Current diesel locomotives are good for 4,400 horsepower,
9,000 horsepower was temporary. At that rate traction-motors overheat.
But it could be applied long enough to rocket a train out of a station.
In 1959, at age 15, a neighbor and I travelled to Philadelphia to pursue railfaning.
We returned via Pennsy’s Congressional, which by then had coaches.


(Please disregard the switcher.) (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Pictured is our train, the “Congo,” approaching Philadelphia’s 30th Street station.
26 cars pulled by a single GG-1.
We quickly boarded the last car, then left.
Once on the main, the engineer put the hammer down!
Within minutes we hit 80 mph, then 90.
No wonder my grandfather was impressed.
He rode the Congo, and it blew him away.
From then on, every time he saw a GG-1 express on that electrified line: “must be the Congressional,” awe in his voice.
Quite a few GG-1s were saved. Best is #4935 at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.


#4935. (Photo by Tom Hughes.)

It was repainted the cat-whisker scheme, five gold pin stripes, as first applied by industrial-designer Raymond Loewy at the behest of Pennsy.
4935 is Brunswick-green, how most GG-1s were painted.
4912 is one of the few Tuscan-red GG-1s, and it’s still cat-whiskers.
By the time I arrived in DE, most GG-1s were no longer cat-whiskers. A wide single yellow stripe replaced the pin stripes.
But it still looked pretty good — it followed the original striping. I only saw one cat-whiskers.
4896, long ago scrapped, is the picture on this computer’s desktop.


#4896. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

4896 is the only GG-1 I went through, at Washington Union Terminal in early 1966.
That desktop picture is the only photograph I got of 4896. I saw it many times, but only snagged one photograph.
Those steeple-cab P-5a’s (there were both steeple-cab and box-cab versions — all GG-1s are steeple-cab) were supposed to become Pennsy’s electrified engines.
Electrification on PRR predates the GG-1.
But the GG-1 was so successful the P-5s were regeared for slower freight-service.
I didn’t even know they existed until I started seeing them.
The GG-1s lasted many years. —I used to say to an old high-school railfan “When the last GG-1 is retired, we’ll know we’re getting old.”
They were developed in the ‘30s, yet a few lasted until 1983 assigned to New Jersey Transit. Steam locomotives might last 30 years; diesels maybe 20.
No GG-1s are operable. They had transformers filled with PCB-based fluid, found to be cancerous.
Those transformer casings were drained and filled with sand or concrete.




2-8-2 L-1 Mikado maneuvers Freight Advance S-81 north of Catawissa, PA, in 1946. (Photo by Robert Malinoski©.)

—In 1946 I was two years old. Pennsy was dieselizing, but steam-locomotives were still in use. Which means I was lucky enough to see ‘em in actual revenue service.
The September 2017 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a 2-8-2 L-1 Mikado maneuvering cars of an Advance Freight in 1946.
In 1946 our family lived in a small Philadelphia suburb in south Jersey, just north of Haddonfield, an old Revolutionary War town. —I remember a cemetery with headstones dating back to the 1700s.
Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines, a 1933 merger of Pennsy and Reading lines to counter too much parallel track toward south Jersey’s seashore, went through Haddonfield.
PRSL was still using steam locomotives, usually Pennsy or Reading, although PRSL had a few of its own.
PRSL was why I became a railfan, and “dirty old steam-engines” (my mother) were the reason.
My father would take me by bicycle trackside in Haddonfield to watch the PRSL steamers.
I was thrilled!
Free entertainment! (My cheapskate father loved it.)
The locomotive engineers were whistling for grade-crossings in Haddonfield, but my father claimed they were whistling at me!
I’ve been a railfan ever since.


Where it all began — the EXACT location. (Photo by Robert Long©.)

We’d go back to Haddonfield’s passenger station where the trains stopped. I was terrified of thunderstorms, but could stand right next to a panting steamer.
Notable is the L-1 Mikado is the same boiler and firebox as Pennsy’s famous K-4 Pacific (4-6-2) passenger engine. It’s the K-4 boiler/firebox on 2-8-2 underpinnings.
Both the K-4 and the L-1 were developed at the same time, 1914.
Pennsy was hot for standardization.
Many earlier Consolidations (2-8-0) were also built as Atlantics (4-4-2). Later Consols (H-8 through H-10) are also the G-5 4-6-0 commuter engine, and also the E-6 Atlantic (4-4-2).
The K-5 4-6-2 Pacific (not successful — only two were built) was the gigantic boiler/firebox of the I-1 Decapod (2-10-0). Plus the M-1 4-8-2 Mountains were also the boiler/firebox of the Decapod, although with an added combustion-chamber.
I don’t think I ever saw anything other than Consols on PRSL. South Jersey railroading wasn’t very successful. About the only freight-traffic was around Camden across from Philadelphia.
East of Camden was nothing. Except for shipping produce, and serving small farm-supply outfits. There was sand-mining, but that’s not coal or heavy industry.
Haddonfield did have a small coal-supply for residential heating. The only freights I saw were Consolidations delivering loaded hoppers to that coal-supply. The hoppers got shoved on a trestle to dump into trucks below. And by the late ‘40s coal-heat was withering away.
The main traffic was only in Summer: Philadelphians to the Jersey seashore to escape city heat.
Peak traffic in summer meant south Jersey’s railroads often had to use rented power and equipment, plus pay heavy overtime. Pennsy and competing Reading used to race to the seashore, sometimes exceeding 100 mph through south Jersey’s Pine-Barrens.
PRSL came about because Pennsy’s line and Reading’s Atlantic City Railroad served many south Jersey seashore points, and also had parallel lines to Atlantic City.
Auto-travel was also replacing train travel, and distances in south Jersey were short. To the seashore from our house was about 50 miles = fire up the Chevrolet.
At the turn-of-the-century train travel to “da showah” was a viable option. By the ‘50s, as roads were improved — and the state was doing it — train travel to “da showah” fizzled.
PRSL was response to the failure of south Jersey railroading.
But I did see steam locomotives in actual revenue service. I remember a rusty K-4 pulling a horse-track race excursion in 1956.
The last steam-powered train I saw was in 1957: a Consol powered peddler-freight heading east out the railroad toward Atlantic City. I saw it from a Piper Tri-Pacer at maybe 1,000 feet; first time flying.
Pennsy quit using steam in late 1957. Here we see a 31 year-old L-1 Mikado still in revenue service in 1946.
It’s more than I saw. PRSL wasn’t serious. Railroading in south Jersey filled the need before auto-travel and trucking.
The old Pennsy (PRSL) line to Atlantic City remains, now operated by Jersey Transit. Although I think Conrail Shared Assets delivers coal to Atlantic City’s power-plant, and may own the railroad.
Shortlines own some of the other ex-PRSL railroads.
Into Camden through Haddonfield is now the extremely successful PATCO rapid-transit. It’s below grade through Haddonfield, so my beginning vantage-point can’t be repeated.
PATCO goes into Philadelphia over a much earlier rapid-transit that used what is now called “Ben Franklin Bridge.” When built it was called “Delaware River Bridge.”
My uncle claimed he built that entire bridge single-handed with only a toothpick (“Marcy, it’s everywhere”).
My paternal grandfather claimed he was first across that bridge in his ’34 Packard when it opened in 1926. (Ditto).
The caption is unclear. It says “maneuvers” instead “leads.” —#1799 may be a yard shifter.

“Unsubscribe”

For the past couple days I have been “unsubscribing,” hoping to staunch the my torrent of junk e-mails.
This laptop’s e-mail program junks 20-30 e-mails per day; SLAM! Into junk! Then into TRASH; then into the ground!
Two steps (if already junked): first trashed, then deleted entirely. Takes maybe 30 seconds.
But my iPhone doesn’t junk anything. I suppose I could get an e-mail app that did.
What I do instead is “edit.” Click to trash, then in the trash! Takes maybe a minute.
Then maybe once per week, delete trash into cyberspace. 10 seconds.
“Unsubscribing” is irksome. At least a minute per unsubscribe.
Often it’s the same unsubscribe for each junk e-mail. Enter my e-mail address, often automatically, then unsubscribe.
Others are more difficult. I hafta enter my e-mail address manually, or figger out “unsubscribe;” usually deftly hidden in tiny type. Sometimes it’s in the graphic.
Then there are those that demand I explain why I have the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to not want their daily blessing. “Fill-in required.”
Usually I go legit, saying “I didn’t subscribe.”
Occasionally I become a smarty-pants saying “not interested.”
That is, not interested in yer bikini-clad, balloon-breasted floozies on glittering unmuffled Harleys. Usually they’re brandishing AK-47s.
Fodder for Tweet-Prez.
I and my wife (deceased) upgraded our windows maybe 7-8 years ago. Warranted for life. Why should I wanna upgrade my windows again?
Yesterday I opened a junker and was hit with a scantily-clad screen-height tart with eyes made up like coals.
Can she discuss philosophy? Would she even wanna? (“Kant.”)
20-30 “unsubscribes” is 20-30 minutes. I’d rather do something interesting, but it’s getting ridiculous.

“Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher-guts!”

The summers of 1959, 1960, and 1961, aged 15 through 17, Yrs Trly was on the staff of a religious boys camp in northeastern MD.
The camp’s name was “Sandy Hill.” In ’59 I did the first five weeks (one week of prep and four of camp), ’60 I did the final five weeks, and in ’61 I did the full 10 weeks.
Google “Sandy Hill” and you get the camp there now. Same location, but not my original Sandy Hill. The original Sandy Hill was sold to pay off debt.
What I, an agnostic, was doing on a religious camp staff is debatable.
But perhaps only one-fourth of staff were “burdened” with “saving” the souls of campers. The rest of us were more concerned with camp operations, and not losing campers. (It happened once, a runaway.)
I was a CIT (Counselor-In-Training). I lived in a cabin of 10 campers with their regular counselor. I filled in when regular counselors had the day off.
I was supposed to be religious myself, but wasn’t.
I set up Bible verses so I could lead late-night cabin devotions under kerosene lantern-light — no electricity in the cabins.
I’d quickly read the verse, then “sleep tight, campers; reveille and calisthenics at 6:45 a.m.” Most campers, sick of religious brow-beating, loved it.
More fun was Edgar Allen Poe, chin atop yer flashlight for eerie lighting. “Cask of Amontillado.” Terrorize yer campers. “Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher-guts!”
One could wonder how I encountered this religious boys camp. It was my hyper-religious father wishing to “straighten me out.” I began there in 1954 (age-10) as a camper, two weeks.
Dreadfully homesick at first, avoiding participation — I’d hide on my bunk.
Two weeks per summer through 1957, then four in 1958. By then I became interested in horseback riding, the macho pursuit at camp. Be a cowboy! Yet our horses were nags.
My goal was horsemanship staff — pursuit of machoness — despite inability to ride and control a horse.
The camp was for boys 5-6 through 13-14. It overlooked Chesapeake Bay, so had canoeing, swimming, and also horseback riding.
I always feel the reason I made the staff was because I could sling a pretty-good story. I still do it. Yer reading an example, if I haven’t bored you already.
Religious zealotry ran the gamut = overly judgmental to bleeding-heart liberal.
The horsey-guys quickly surmised I was little of a rider. Yet I was expert at -a) mucking stalls, and -b) teaching horsemanship to campers. Those horsey-guys could thereby return to their macho pursuits = desire to be a cowboy.
As one of the horsemanship staff I was assigned a horse. His name was “Barney,” a very placid gelding (a fixed stallion).

Me and Barney (me probably 80 pounds less than now). (Photo by J.D. Jenkins, horsemanship director at that time.)

“Barney” was so dumb he was little threat to me. I could pretend to be somewhat confident.
Three others were on horsemanship staff. None had a cabin. There was a fourth, also a cabin-CIT like me, but he was the other weeks.
He was also far more confident. The horsemanship director was cutting me slack because I mucked stalls, and taught the classes.
My greatest leap that year was leading trail-rides, which happened only occasionally. Our campers were scared of horseback riding, yet the camp rule was every camper should have the opportunity to ride a horse.
“Don’t hold the horn, Johnny. That’s why yer bouncing!”
Plus the horses automatically followed the trail, especially when back toward the stables.
By 1960 my horseback riding got better. The number-two in horsemanship, who also counseled a cabin, got fired for (allegedly) tossing a knife at a camper. He had a horse named “Rebel,” big and very spunky, part Tennessee Walking Horse, so very classy and pretty.
Tennessee Walkers kick up there feet when walking, and Rebel was 16&1/2 hands, our tallest horse.
When that guy was fired, the horsemanship director suggested I take over Rebel. I was dumbfounded. Rebel was a head-tosser; we used a restraint.
But Rebel and I became fast friends. Rebel seemed to know me, and came when called. Unlike the fired guy, I was not abusive and difficult. Rebel seemed to like that.
I led trail-rides often with Rebel, and even rode Rebel alone far from camp.
For 1961 the previous horsemanship director quit and was replaced by a horse-savvy farmboy. That guy was also a cabin counselor. I was now number-two, but in effect I was the de facto horsemanship director. But only in the sense I pretty much arranged everything (feeding, etc). Farmboy was still head honcho.
By 1961 I was so experienced my cabin-counselor let me run our cabin. Everyone wanted in my cabin. I was eminently fair, but demanded order. I showed my campers how to win the weekly cabin inspection award. We often did, and were treated at an off-camp ice-cream stand (the “Wayside” on Route 272, sibs).
I called it “benevolent dictatorship.” Nice idea, but it only worked at camp. Not in marriage, for example.
Campers wanted my benevolent dictatorship, since so many other cabins were rife with madness. Zealots cutting deals with blowhards, or posturing.
As a bleeding-heart liberal I gained the confidence of a trouble-making camper from the slums of urban Philadelphia. That kid, who was put in my cabin as a challenge, asked me to quit punishing him all the time, and do something special for him.
Since I was horsemanship I suggested he learn to jump a horse, “but let me run it by my other campers first. They need to know I’m making a special effort in your case.”
It worked; my other campers agreed. I taught that slum-kid to jump a horse. 56 years later, if he survived ‘Nam, he probably still remembers me.
I inadvertently turned that kid around; I cut him a break. Zealots on the staff wrung their hands I was so successful, yet I didn’t “save” him.
’61 was my last summer at Sandy Hill. ’62 I had to do college summer-school to prove I could do college-level work.
I was lined up to be camp horsemanship director in ’63, after my Freshman year at college, but my father intervened. My wages would have been $50 per week. No way was $500 gonna offset the cost of college.
My father lined up a job with an independent painting contractor at his oil-refinery in northern DE. With that I might earn $1,800 — about half the cost of college at that time.
So much for “faith.”
Sandy Hill prompts many fond memories. Perhaps most memorable is drifting serenely in a canoe on the glass-smooth bay, watching a far-away thunderhead cast cloud-side lightning bolts.
Sandy Hill was previously a summer estate for the duPonts. It was surrounded by pastures. Go up to the corner in one, and you could see my father’s oil-refinery 20-25 miles away.

• The “Wayside” (click the link, dudes) didn’t look anything like that 56 years ago.

The Forward Look

’56 Chrysler four-door hardtop. (This looks like the car featured in Classic car.)

In 1956 Yr Fthfl Srvnt was 12.
Which means in late ’55 when the ’56 Chryslers were introduced, I was 11.
The October 2017 issue of my Classic Car magazine features a ’56 Chrysler, what I consider one of the best-looking cars of all time.
Right up there with the ’61 Pontiac.
Prior to the ’55 model-year, Chrysler products were staid. Very well engineered, but not much to look at.
Walter P. Chrysler, founder of the company, required his cars have enough headroom to allow a hat, usually a fedora.
Having just made the word safe for democracy, Americans wanted more.
General Motors was cashing in. Glitzy styling and chrome was in demand, and more power.
Ford and Chrysler played catch-up. Independents like Hudson, Studebaker, and Nash wasted away. Even mighty Packard couldn’t afford drama. They managed a new V8, but not an auto-tranny. Its ’51 model, heavily restyled, had to last through 1956. (Packard merged Studebaker in 1954.)

(I don’t like using scans of magazine pictures because what’s on the back page often bleeds through. But it’s the better picture.) (Photo by Richard Lentinello.)

(Slightly customized = brows over headlights.)

Chrysler hired Virgil T. Exner to glitz up its cars. The styling requirement was fins, liberally applied.
Fins sprouted on Chrysler’s ’55 offering. Finning became more extensive on Chrysler’s ’56 models.
In my opinion the rear of the ’56 Chrysler is weak. The front-end is fabulous.
This blog is titled “The Forward Look.” That was Exner. Chrysler’s ’55 and ’56 models were the beginning. How does one add glitz yet keep the cost down?
For 1957 the “Forward Look” found full-flower. Some of Chrysler’s cars became garish. The ’57 Dodge is a joke!
And for ’57 Chrysler didn’t look as good as this ’56.

“Lord-have-mercy!”

My neighbor with his crotch-rocket. (Old Glory [“FlagOut”] and my zero-turn lawnmower are also visible.) (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

Motorbike number-seven has taken residence in my garage.
Before nattering nabobs of negativism poo-poo motorcycles as evil and dangerous....
It’s not mine. It’s my neighbor’s, a 1995 Kawasaki ZX-9R, what would prompt my deceased sister to utter “Lord-have-mercy!”
I gave up motorcycling at least six months ago, when I gave my 2003 Honda CB600-RR to Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi, the classical-music radio-station out of Rochester I listen to. It’s publicly supported.
I didn’t wanna sell to someone I knew.
I suppose you could say I gave up motorcycling when my wife died. That was five years ago. I no longer was interested.
You could even say I gave up motorcycling 11 years ago when I retired from the Messenger newspaper. By then I was down to just commuting.
I can’t say I want my garage to become storage for my neighbor’s motorcycles. But I also don’t want him to have to store that motorbike out in the weather.
His ZX-9R had apparently been stored outside, but under a roof. It still looked pretty good.
Shortly after we brought it inside it rained torrents.
Years ago a fellow bus-driver asked to borrow $100. I refused. “That’s the best way I know to ruin a good friendship,” I commented.
“I never get that $100 back, and it becomes a bone of contention.”
He disappeared after that.
I’m my father’s son. My father borrowed from my paternal grandfather to help purchase a car, then yada-yada-yada-yada.
My father cosigned an installment loan for $600 to help me buy a used Corvair after college. I couldn’t make the payments, so despite many later $500 gifts to help my younger siblings attend college, I kept hearing about that $600 until my father died 28 years later.
My friend lives nearby, but in an apartment without a garage. That’s not forever, so some day number-seven will be gone.
Yrs Trly did sit on it.

• 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.
• When I was teenager I had a mentally-retarded (Down Syndrome) younger brother who daily insisted the flag be flown. “Sun comes up, flag goes up; sun goes down, flag comes down.” He’d grab someone and say “FlagOut!”

CHOMP!

“Ya gonna eat that? Ya gonna eat that? I could eat that! I could eat that!”
Irish-Setter Rescue of New Jersey does annual calendars. My dog is a rescue Irish-Setter, but from Irish-Setter Rescue of Ohio.
The calendar is the work of the one who heads that New Jersey Irish-Setter Rescue, plus an artist-friend and ‘pyooter-geek who produces the actual calendar.
This is like what I do with my annual train-calendar, with train photos by my brother and I. Except I give mine away as Christmas presents, whereas the Irish-Setter Rescue Calendars are for sale.
It’s probably people like me who buy ‘em = people with rescue Irish-Setters.
What happens is the producers select from the 89 bazilyun digital photos submitted, then purchasers vote. The winners become the monthly calendar entries.
I’ve purchased this calendar for some time, but deferred from including it in my Monthly Calendar-Report.
I have seven other calendars, one of which is the train calendar I produced.
To me they’re not really calendars; they’re wall-art that changes every month. I use only one as an actual calendar.
I used to blog ‘em all, but that took too much time. I cut back to blogging only my four train calendars.
This Irish-Setter Rescue Calendar is number eight.
Pictured above is “Maggie Mae.”
“That’s my dog,” I said, as soon as I saw the photo. But I couldn’t vote for it; for me it’s not a calendar picture.
“Oh boy! For me?
Meat. Yippee!”
CHOMP!

E-mail to ******

(“******” is my friend *** ******, ex of the Mighty Mezz. ****** was a graphic-artist; me sort of an editorial-assistant.
I called him “The MacEvangelist;” he is more-or-less responsible for my using an Apple Macintosh computer instead of a Windoze PC.
He now lives in Syracuse, and had been offline a couple months while his ‘pyooter needed repair.
What follows is my response to his e-mail announcing he was back online. He mentioned he didn’t miss Facebook at all)

RE: “Cesspool that is Facebook”
I still have one — I more-or-less put up with it. I haven’t looked at it a couple weeks.
Perhaps the only reason I even looked at it, so it seems, is when you used it to promote yourself, usually a graphic you created.
I’d notice I had “notifications,” so I triggered ‘em.
Don’t know as I can rely on that any more. Seems Facebook changed something. No longer do I get Facebook e-mails a ”friend” posted something.
Facebook always does that: sudden unannounced changes by their vaunted tech-mavens.
I don’t miss those e-mails. But if I wanna see a “friend’s” most recent posts, I have to go to their Facebook. Like I have nothing better or more enjoyable to do.
Various of my siblings set up a private family Facebook group, although it seems tilted toward the younguns. —I’m the oldest, the first-born of seven. Only four remain. Of the other three, only two participate in Facebook, and they use it as e-mail.
I was always badmouthed as rebellious and reprehensible, mainly because I don’t attend church, plus I’m not REPUBLICAN/
CONSERVATIVE like them. I’m a “bleeding-heart liberal” (gasp) and worse-yet a Democrat. (Double-gasp!)
It’s like I don’t exist! My baby-sister from VA is threatening to visit, but I don’t know details because I don’t Facebook.
Haven’t they heard of e-mail, or the phone?
My brother-from-Boston, who I chase trains with, and is 13 years younger than me, is the other non-participant.
“I got plenty of friends,” he says. He never joined. I did, but that was because of a fast-one on their part. (Thank you SuckerBird!)
And every time I fire up Facebook it parades a forest of complete unknowns I might wanna “friend.” —As if my number of “friends” determines my worth.
I let it continue because so many actual friends have Facebooks. But as an actual friend said, “Facebook is for those lacking a life.”

• 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]).
• “SuckerBird” is Mark Zuckerberg, head-honcho of Facebook.

“You need people”

Shortly after my wife died, over five years ago, well-meaning good friends weighed in telling me I needed people.
I was devastated — still am, somewhat.
As a result I began attending a church-sponsored grief-share, a chance to be devastated to tears without roiling the unbereaved.
I attended about a year, but tired of what seemed to be “same-old, same-old.”
Finally I left, but friends still advised I needed people.
By then I had lived on my own over a year, and though still devastated, began to question my need for people.
I’ve said it many times: my wife was the best friend I ever had. But I began to realize the best friend I ever had was me (gasp).
I’ve always been able to entertain myself, sometimes to the dismay of others.
I remember in college a good friend wondering why I was happy drawing ’55 Chevys over-and-over.
I was doing them from scratch = no cross-hatch from a side-elevation photograph. So getting things right was a struggle.
Proportions would be WRONG, yet they determined the outcome.
The poor guy seemed climbing walls, yet I wasn’t. College could be irritable  and boring, yet I had an outlet.
I still do it, although no longer drawing ’55 Chevys. I can’t even draw since my stroke; my fingers are too sloppy.
But every morning as I begin breakfast I take my pencil, engage legal-pad, and start slingin’ words.
“Writing” I guess, although I ain’t Tolstoy or Thomas Pynchon.
I’ve called it “slinging words” since high-school, when a 12th-grade English-teacher told me I could write well. “But Dr. Zink,” I said; his name was “Zink.” “All it is ‘slinging words.’”
And every night before bed I fire up this laptop to process train photographs my brother and I took — we’re railfans.
Artist at work, and the artist is me. Artistic input figgered into each photo. But an artist selected the good pictures.
Often this laptop was on earlier to key in what I wrote. I have to wedge that in among all the other duties I’ve incurred since my wife died: laundry, grocery shopping, meals, bill-pay, lawn mowing, plus the 89 bazilyun medical appointments that began with my aging.
My guess is this is what angered my father most; I didn’t need his approval. The fact I could disregard his occasional beatings and continual badmouthing drove him nuts.
The fact I never got that approval is depressing. Perhaps because of that I became my own advocate and judge.
My counselor tells me I’m lucky to have so many interests. Many people my age don’t. All they had was their job.
The other night the national TV-news featured a retired judge who lost his beloved wife. Like me he was alone; nothing but four silent walls with which to interact.
His solution was to build a backyard swimming-pool, then invite the neighbor-kids.
So there he’d sit in his lawn-chair, watching the neighbor-kids frolic in his pool.
I don’t have that problem.
It’s approaching midnight, but here I am alone in my house slamming away on this ‘pyooter, pleased as punch!
Sure beats Oprah, Facebook too. Both boring as Hell!

Here we are again

“Here we are again,” I said to my dog. “Just you and me living our strange little life unsuited for what the world seems to have become.”
Over 50 years ago, at nearby Houghton college (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”), I befriended a girl named ***** ********.
I don’t remember why, other than we worked in the college dining hall. ***** racked dishes for the dishwasher, and I began as a “cart-boy.” Meals were served by waiters at four-person tables, and afterward I collected/sorted dishes/glasses/etc and carted them to the dishwasher room.
***** started before I did; with me it was exchange for a summer-job my father scotched. Employ in the dining-hall partially offset the cost of college.
I gravitated toward that dishwasher, mainly as a sub for another employee who became editor of the college yearbook. So ***** and I worked together quite a bit.
I gained the reputation as a “nice guy,” mainly because I avoided hurting my fellow employees — especially the racker girls. There were guys hot to slam heavy dishes into the girls’ hands.
I preferred working with the racker girls so they didn’t have some macho dude trying to smash their hands. (A bleeding-heart liberal — GASP!)
Last year I attended the 50-year reunion of my college class. ***** was there, so we renewed our friendship. ***** and I were the same class, but she didn’t finish Houghton. Her senior year was somewhere else. —Her boyfriend’s mother was dying, so she married that guy before his mother died.
My beloved wife died around four years before the reunion. She didn’t make it, and she was the same class as me.
“I’m so lucky,” I always say. “Knee-replacement, prostate removed, lousy balance, hernia repair, but still here.”
*****’s husband now has some degenerative brain-disease, and became a toddler. —That is, a toddler in an adult body. ***** has to parry this, and has become head-of-household by default.
All I lack is “the best friend I ever had.” One never gets over that. Five years have passed, but I’m still deeply saddened.
Travel is almost impossible. What fun is it without “the best friend I ever had?”
Almost 24 years ago I had a stroke — due to an undiagnosed heart-defect. I recovered fairly well (“miraculously” they say), enough to pass as never having had a stroke.
One of my small remaining stroke-effects is aphasia, difficulty getting words out verbally in my case. Aphasia can also effect writing, or precipitate total inability to communicate. My writing still works extremely well: it’s what I’m doing here.
“Sometimes I think my verbal communication has worsened” = stony silences for lack of ability to get words out. Mental lockup.
Of course it’s now me doing all the speaking; I no longer have a wife to cover for me.
***** and I decided to get together yesterday; including another girl in our class whose husband (also our class) died years ago — another stroke-victim.
We would eat out at the Pittsford-Plaza “Market-Café,” essentially a buffet in a supermarket grocery.
This get-together began on a sour note. ***** arrived missing her purse. She guessed she’d left it atop her car, and it fell off into the parking-lot as she drove out of their apartment complex.
Suddenly our get-together was attempting to get her purse back. We left Pittsford-Plaza and returned to the apartment complex. It wasn’t in the parking-lot, so ***** went to the complex office.
They reported the town police had it. Some kindly gentleman took it to the police. He probably feared leaving it with the complex office, lest they go through it.
So off to the town police we zoomed. It was Saturday, so everything was closed. But a nice lady in uniform appeared with *****’s purse.
Drama ended, we returned to the Market-Café.
The Pittsford-Plaza Wegmans is what I used to call “the jewel-in-the-crown,” Wegmans largest and most majestic supermarket.
Not any more. A larger Wegmans has opened.
The Pittsford-Plaza Wegmans is so large ya need a powered cart to shop it. Its parking-lot is so big they have valet service.
The Market-Café is attached, and has two stories. Buffet offerings and payout are on the first floor, then you eat at table on the second floor.
You scoop what you want from the buffet lines, then $1.94 (or thereabouts) per pound, which the checkout weighs.
This is what the Wegmans in nearby Canandaigua does, although their Market-Café is smaller and less glitzy.
“We’re a supermarket, not a restaurant,” Robert Wegman, deceased, used to say.
Wegmans is a family business.
As soon as Robert died, his son Danny started opening Market-Cafés.
They’re a good idea; I guess they do well. People don’t cook as much as they used to. Often they eat take-out, or hit Mickey-D’s.
Frenzied Wegmans employees in goofy hats handed out free samples, mainly unheated coffee, which they were also hawking in funky bottles. Plus carmelo lotto, chocolate-lotto, etc. At which point I cue Garrison Keillor: “Can’t I just have a cup of coffee?”
******’s husband came along, but was handed off to a friend for “care.” In order to attend I day-cared my dog; what a depressing coincidence.
Food consumed and hubby returned we repaired downstairs to an outside table.
Our classmate left to pursue another visit. The Keed got to observe what life has become as I age. I live in the rural outback, and have little contact with suburban frenzy.
This happened before. Perhaps eight years ago I attended a party for a coworker. It was probably retirement from the newspaper where I worked after my stroke.
The location was hard by the Erie Canal in a ritzy Rochester suburb. Our restaurant was awash with suburban frenzy: people resting in lounge-chairs swilling strange coffee brews topped with whipped creme and chocolate sprinkles.
Cue Keillor again.
I felt completely out-of-it. I feel like civilization has left me behind. I have no interest in Facebook or SnapChat, and my Smartphone can drive me up-the-wall. Every move requires hours of fiddling — that may be a stroke-effect.
Pretty girls strode by heavy with steel pins and body-art. No body-art for this kid! Reminds of graffiti on railroad freight-cars.
A girl walked by with tattoos on her face. NO WAY could I make love to that!
“Wanna go up to ******’s apartment to play dominoes?” ***** asked.
“I wanna get my dog,” I answered.
“You majored in History, and ended up driving bus?” our classmate commented.
“I majored in the good professors,” I said. “That was History. Two instead of one.”
Even though a misfit, I’ve never regretted Houghton.
I also was first in my family to earn a college degree.

• 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. She actually liked me.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)
• Over 11 years ago I retired from the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern).
• “Mickey-D’s” is of course McDonald’s.
• 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 ended that — I retired on medical-disability. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; the Daily-Messenger in Canandaigua.

I don’t answer my phone

“So don’t answer yer phone,” I told my brother.
We were at Allegheny Crossing near Altoona (PA) to chase and photograph trains.
Altoona is where the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain in the 1840s, an engineering triumph at that time. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern, but it’s still Pennsy’s line.
My brother had just instructed his caller to put him on their “do-not-call” list.
“I never answer my phone,” I said; “unless ‘caller-ID’ identifies a caller I have in my phone.”
“I hafta answer,” my brother said. “I’m on-call. Suppose Boston suffers a total electrical blackout?”
(My brother is involved in Boston’s electrical generation.)
“I can’t get this standby running. Boston’s mayor is yelling at me! Next it will be The Donald himself fierily and furiously screaming “Yer fired! I can get someone else to fire in 11 days, then tweet everything at 3 a.m. from the presidential Great White Throne.”
So here we are in the rural outback of central PA, off some woody rutted jeep-track, miles from civilization, nine hours from Boston, and some coworker can still ring up my brother.
Okay, collect six-figure income, plus parry all the charity solicitations wanting money to fund their CEO’s 89-bazilyun dollar salary.
Or...
“Consider this yer final notice. You too can lower yer credit-card interest-rate. Touch ‘One’ now to speak to a live representative.”
My brother and I always find this amusing, since we pay our credit-card bills in full.
They start chargin’ me interest, and they’re toast!
How many voicemails have I deleted trumpeting reduced credit-card interest?
And how many e-mails have I fiddled to “unsubscribe?”
My widower friend bewails his daughter never answers when he calls. And he’s doing it from his landline, where “caller-ID” is blocked.
She’s probably doing what I do. “If it’s that important they can leave a message.”
Often they do. “This is the IRS. You are under arrest. Our storm-troopers are coming. Please call with yer Social-Security number.”
I get so many it’s wasting my time.

Make ‘em smile

Yrs Trly has been thinkin’.
“Gotta watch that there thinkin’ jazz,” I was told at the Mighty Mezz. “Thinkin’ is dangerous.”
“Don’t think, just do,” the webmaster told me.
I was doing the newspaper’s website.
“But ****,” I’d complain; “if I don’t understand it, I can’t do it.”
It occurs making people inadvertently laugh works in my favor.
I’m at Canandaigua Orthopeadic the other day.
The doctor who did my knee-replacement strides in.
“How ya doin’?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I said. “My balance is terrible and seems to be getting worse.”
Yada-yada-yada-yada. Hitting joints with a tiny hammer. He starts to remove a sneaker. It’s double-tied.
“Wait a minute,” I say. “Yer the doctor. You shouldn’t hafta do that. I bet you weren’t doing that in yer residency.”
He laughed. No baloney and posturing from me.
Just recently I got my 700-pound zero-turn lawnmower stuck in a wet spot.
Gloriously stuck, I called a friend I feel bad about because the only time I contact her is when my mower’s stuck.
She has a brother over six feet, 200+ pounds, a really nice guy, but big.
He’s unstuck my mower before. Usually just lifts and pushes me out. I can’t do that; even with levers.
He came over and pushed me out.
“Whaddya need?” I asked. “You saved my butt!”
“Oh nuthin’,” he chirped. “‘Tweren’t nuthin’.”
YOWZUH! All I do is ask, and I get help free.
When I had my knee replaced I was in the hospital perhaps four days, then maybe three weeks in nursing-home rehab.
I boarded my dog the whole time = maybe a month.
When I returned to pick up my dog, I asked the kennel-owner what she needed.
“You don’t owe me anything,” she said.
“Oh come-on *****. Yer running a business.”
“Yeah, it’s MY business, and I do what I want. You remind me of my father.”
No wonder I’m loaded. Nobody charges me anything. All I did was make ‘em laugh.
I have many similar stories.
Make ‘em smile, and they jump through hoops for you.

• 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]). (“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.)
• My “zero-turn” is my 48-inch riding-mower; “zero-turn” because it’s a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass.

And so it goes.....

“No, it didn’t just happen that way,” my counselor says. “You made it happen.”
I guess so.  After 73 years on this planet I’m beginning to realize I made it happen.
It’s interesting my counselor, suggested as a way to deal with my beloved wife dying, deals more with fallout from my difficult childhood.
I consider myself lucky I had a wife willing to look past the mess I was. But my counselor says it wasn’t just luck.
It’s true, I guess. I was unwilling to accept a cheap-shot.
I turned away a really nice girl because I knew our marriage wouldn’t work.
I hope she did all right.
As soon as I married my wife I was scared — like what had I gotten myself into? It seemed like hormones led me astray.
Yet I didn’t allow hormones to lead me astray with that other girl.
College, on the other hand, seemed more luck = that Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”) wasn’t judgmental.
Houghton came from Great Compromise with my hyper-religious father.
He wanted me to attend Moody Bible Institute in Chicago like he did, and thereby become a Bible-beating zealot like he was — want to browbeat and “save” street-vagrants, now called “homeless.”
At that time Moody wasn’t a four-year college; now it is. I wanted a college-degree — so I said.
We also visited Moody in 1960, and I was uncomfortable there. Moody was an urban school; I’m from the suburbs.
Beyond that I wasn’t interested in harassing vagrants.
More may have been at play.
In 1961 I met ***** ******, Houghton Class of ’64. We were on the staff of a religious boys camp in northeastern MD.
****** made Houghton sound interesting, much more than Moody.
So was I rebellious in advocating Houghton instead of Moody?
Perhaps.
For my father the fact Houghton was religious made it worth considering. Later he became angry it didn’t “straighten me out.”
For him “straighten me out” involved beatings and intimidation. Houghton didn’t do that. They attempted to “reason” one into belief.
I still think I’m lucky Houghton wasn’t judgmental. But I woulda resisted intimidation.
The fact it was Houghton instead of Moody seems to prove my counselor right.

Another Altoony train-chase

Every once in a while The Keed snags a really good one. — Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian on Track Two passes Norfolk Southern’s 11V on One. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“Maybe you should just slap me upside the head, and I might get this right,” said my brother.
We were at Allegheny Crossing near Altoona, PA, where the Pennsylvania Railroad took on Allegheny Mountain in the 1840s.
The railroad is still used, but it’s no longer Pennsy. It’s now Norfolk Southern after collapse, bankruptcy, gumint intervention, and finally sellout.
We were listening to our railroad-radio scanner. “21J, 252, Track Three, CLEAR!”
“21J is climbing,” my brother said.
“It is not!” I exclaimed.
“Track Three is down The Hill on this side.”
“Correct. Maybe you should just slap me upside the head,” etc.
In the early 1800s Allegheny Mountain was a barrier to trade between Philadelphia and the midwest.
It had to be crossed by packhorse.
The mountain didn’t extend into NY, so that state was first to open trade with the midwest with its Erie Canal.
Philadelphia capitalists, worried about the success of the Erie Canal, got PA to build competition; but it was combination canal and railroad.
Philadelphia to the Susquehanna River was railroad already in place, canal was built to Hollidaysburg, also from Johnstown to Pittsburgh.
Allegheny Mountain couldn’t be canaled. There were no river notches or low spots.
It couldn’t even be railroaded with 1830s grading.
The state built a portage railroad with inclined planes over the mountain. There were 10 planes about eight percent. That’s eight feet up for every 100 feet forward.
No way could an adhesion railroad climb eight percent. Stationary steam-engines winched the cars up the planes.
The state’s system was so cumbersome and slow, Philadelphia capitalists decided to build a private common-carrier railroad like Baltimore & Ohio.
They engaged John Edgar Thomson to lay out a route, including over Allegheny Mountain.
Thomson’s route over the mountain was sudden, but not impossible. A complete train could conquer the mountain with helper locomotives.
Pennsy became a cash-cow. It merged midwest railroads to feed its main stem in Pittsburgh.
Pennsy succeeded despite Allegheny Mountain. Its competition was New York Central Railroad across NY state. Pennsy and Central dominated railroad trade with the midwest and west.
My brother drove to Allegheny Crossing Wednesday, July 26th. I would drive there Thursday, July 27th.
That meant he could chase and photograph trains alone half the 26th after he arrived, then half the 27th until I arrived.
His first destination was Gray Interlocking, a few miles railroad-west of Tyrone (“tie-RONE;” as in “own”) toward Altoona.
An interlocking is often crossovers between tracks, or where tracks switch off the main, or where another railroad crosses at grade.
Gray is where the two-track railroad becomes three tracks toward the mountain = two plus a long signal-controlled siding. He shot other locations including Tyrone, which is where the railroad turns toward Harrisburg.
The next day he went to a road along the tracks about half-mile railroad-west of Tyrone.


Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian approaches Tyrone. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


22W approaches Tyrone. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


65R negotiates McFarlands Curve. (65R is a unit crude-oil extra; here it’s empty, returning for more crude.) (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

“I gotta go directly to Fostoria,” I said, Bluetoothing via my car.
He’d been there already, but “I gotta shoot Fostoria.”
“You got all day tomorrow,” he said.
“It may rain, and right now the sun is out.”
My brother is management; he’s used to getting his way.
“Tell ya what,” I said. “You go where you want, and I’ll go shoot Fostoria myself.”
He was in Tyrone, so we met there.
After that Fostoria together. I wasn’t buckling. I drove transit bus once.
But my attempt at Fostoria, wide-angle this time, bombed.


Train 60N, steel slabs being shipped to a rolling-mill, passes under the signals in Fostoria. —The right-most track is the signaled siding. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Not bad, but it needs morning sunlight. I’ll try again in a couple weeks.
We hit other locations on our way to supper, particularly the crew-change point in Rose.


20Q rolls into Rose for a crew-change. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


20R, a stacker, heads toward the PA Route 53 overpass. At this point there are FIVE tracks: right to left they are Four, the train is on Three, Two, One, and a storage siding. The original PRR alignment is Four and Three. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Our chase began, all-day Friday, July 28th.

Adventures in Barree
Our first destination was Barree, about 12 miles railroad-east of Tyrone.
Calling Barree part of Allegheny Crossing is a stretch. But it’s a beautiful location, very rural.
The tiny town of Barree is at the west end of what railroaders call the Barree Straightline.
After Barree the railroad curves toward Spruce Creek tunnels — now only one, the second was abandoned.
That remaining tunnel had to be enlarged to clear doublestacks.
We set up at a grade-crossing into Barree, aimed west into the curve. Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian would be coming.
An eastbound local, C42, roared through on Track Two. The eastbound Pennsylvanian would also be on Two, so it could serve Tyrone station without passengers crossing tracks. Two is normally westbound, but signaled both ways.
Track One was closed so Foreman Pearson could drive his shiny new Chevy pickup road-railer to Barree. It was awash with 89 bazilyun flashing yellow mini-strobes.
After getting his pickup off the track, and clearing his track-authority by radio, he came over to check us out.
I’ve successfully parried such encounters myself, but deferred to my brother — he does better.
“Whacha doin’?” Foreman Pearson asked.
“Livin’ the dream!” my brother smiled.
“We’re waitin’ for 04T,” I added. 04T is Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian; it was on our scanner.
“C42 just came through,” Pearson said.
“We just shot that,” I said.
“Obviously these guys ain’t stupid,” Pearson was probably thinking.
“Be sure to move if one our track-worker trucks appears,” Pearson said.
“A big maintenance truck came through earlier,” I said. “We were set to move, but he drove around us.”
Pearson returned to his pickup, apparently satisfied we weren’t terrorists or a threat to railway safety.
11B westbound boomed toward our grade-crossing on Track One doing the long straight.


11B splits Barree. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

My brother crossed the tracks to get it, but I was still set up on my tripod awaiting 04T.
Finally it came, my lede photo. But my brother couldn’t get it, blocked from crossing by 11V.
I had a hunch; two trains at once — a double — 04T on Two with 11V behind.
From Barree we probably went back to Tyrone, but got nothing worth flying.
Almost immediately we went to Lower Riggles Gap Road overpass railroad-west of Tyrone.

Adventures at Lower Riggles Gap Road overpass
I usually avoid this location because it crosses a long tangent — straight both sides. I prefer curvature, although railroad-east the line curves into the straight far away.
That accentuates the length of a train. Locomotives in-yer-face, then perhaps 100 cars back the long train is curving onto the straight.
Add to that train-frequency. Wait 10 minutes, then here comes another.
We hung around the overpass about an hour, and saw at least six or seven trains. Photographed every one, but I won’t bore you with everything.


Extra 67R (empty unit crude-oil tankcars) approaches Lower Riggles Gap Road overpass. —That lead car is an idler to protect the crew in case of a pile-up. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


38Q on the controlled siding passes 67R stopped on One. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

After that we headed toward Altoona, but via the bridge over the Rose crew-change location.
“26T is stopping for a crew-change,” my brother said. “And C42 is coming back. Do we stop?” —We stopped.
The crew-change repeats the earlier picture, but below is C42.


Local C42 returns to the yard. The stacker departing on the express-tracks is 26T. In the middle, helper-sets await duty. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Adventures in Lilly
“Okay, but it’s a long straight westbound toward the overpass,” I said; “and curved eastbound. Nice, but I’ve shot it before.”
“You and yer silly rules,” my brother cracked. “Can’t repeat anything!” At the beginning of the straight, far away, the tracks curve into town. I thought I could telephoto out to that curve.
At least three westbounds passed, including the hotshot UPS-train.
“It sure looks like the UPS-train,” I observed. “Three units pulling — only the UPS-train gets three units.


21J — perhaps the UPS-train — approaches the overpass in Lilly. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I get various inputs regarding the UPS-train. What’s pictured is actually 21J. My railfan friend in Altoona, Phil Faudi, who years ago showed me many of my photo locations, claims 21E is the UPS-train.
My brother claims both 21E and 21J can be UPS. Both had three locomotives.
21J is the better shot, so that’s what I’m running. It may or may not be the vaunted UPS-train.
The UPS-train is cross-country, very high priority. NS turns it over to Burlington Northern Santa-Fe near Chicago.


Eastbound 20Q approaches the overpass in Lilly. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

After Lilly we charged to the other side of The Hill to The Slide, where Track One descends from New Portage tunnel to the original Pennsy alignment.
The Slide is steeper than Pennsy’s original alignment: 2.28% versus 1.8% on average. New Portage Tunnel is higher than Pennsy’s original tunnel. The tunnel became part of Pennsy, who had to ramp up to it.
We stopped at a signal across the tracks from Bennington Cemetery Road, which is trackside.


20Q again after descending The Slide toward Altoona. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

Then headlong to Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”) where Tracks Two and Three duck under Jackson St. Bridge.
Nothing worth flying. I never can get Jackson St. Bridge to work.
A street is right next to the tracks, and it ruins pictures. I (we) need to cross the tracks, if possible. (I don’t like directly crossing railroad-tracks. But there’s a grade-crossing in Gallitzin.)
Next was Cresson (“KRESS-in”) toward MO interlocking. ”MO” are old telegraph call-letters for a signal-tower once there.
The railroad is a long straight through Cresson, and the grade visibly increases (slightly). But I thought I could do okay with strong telephoto.


A slam-dunk! Why did I not see this earlier? —20T approaches MO interlocking. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

It was beginning to rain. Rain was predicted, but held off all day.
Back down to Altoona. We went to Altoona’s Amtrak station. It was late enough in the afternoon for Amtrak’s westbound Pennsylvanian.
I snagged another picture across from the station; a pedestrian overpass to Altoona’s Railroaders Memorial Museum is visible over the railroad.


39Q passes the Amtrak station. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

It began to rain harder. We went up on the pedestrian-bridge to escape the rain. The westbound Pennsylvanian arrived.


Amtrak’s westbound Pennsylvanian is stopped at Altoona’s station. 39Q (earlier photo) cools its heels until the westbound Pennsylvanian clears. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

We then set up under Seventh St. Bridge. Let it pour! —Under the bridge was dry.
A helper-set of two SD40Es came under the overpass, right next to us. Only one of the two locomotives was running.
The set pulled ahead so a guy on the non-running locomotive could come out on the gangway without getting drenched.
He opened a hood-door, opened two valves, then returned to the cab. Suddenly the locomotive came to life, started by an air-starter.


SHADDUP-AND-SHOOT! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“Shaddup-and-shoot!” I screamed. “It’s right next to us!”
I quickly mounted my wide-angle on my camera and shot. Light was low, but I had my ISO at 1250; usually I shoot at 400, 800 if cloudy.
The helper-set disappeared and coupled to a westbound up the mountain.

Saturday, July 29th.

Back to reality.
I stopped at a Sunoco in Gang Mills to gas up.
“Clerk inside has receipt,” the pump said.
“Clerk has receipt,” I said to the clerk.
“Excuse me?”
“Clerk has receipt,” I repeated.
“Before I leave I should use the bathroom.”
“Excuse me?”
Repeat request; slightly angrier this time.
“Hire the handicapped,” my widower friend would say.

Monthly Train-Calendar Report for August 2017

Solid crude-oil moves toward the PBF refinery in Delaware City, DE. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—My brother Jack hung around a few hours at Allegheny Crossing before driving home to near Boston, a nine-hour trip for him.
I already left; five hours for me.
It was a beautiful morning, and 64R was headed east toward the PBF refinery in Delaware City.
The August 2017 entry in my own calendar is Norfolk Southern train 64R heading toward Lower Riggles Gap road overpass north (railroad east) of Altoona.
64R is solid crude-oil, all loaded tankcars, except for idlers at each end. The idlers supposedly supposedly protect the crew in a pile-up. Those tankcars have incredible momentum.
I avoid Lower Riggles Gap road overpass, because the railroad is long tangents on each side. I like curvature.
The railroad runs northeast to southwest from Tyrone (“tie-RONE;” as in “own”) along Allegheny front to Altoona, about 14 miles. In Altoona it turns west to cross Allegheny Mountain.
If the sun is out, it’s perfect light in the morning at the east end of the overpass.
That’s what makes this picture work — despite the long straight.
64R is loaded, so it’s heavy. It needed help over the mountain; loaded crude always get help over the mountain.

65R with only one unit, #1111, the so-called “Barcode unit.” (Same overpass looking railroad-east.) (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

64R will go down the Susquehanna River to Perryville on Chesapeake Bay. Then it will go up the Northeast Corridor toward Wilmington, DE.
Before Wilmington it will branch off toward the PBF refinery to unload. Then empty it returns as 65R for another load.
The oil fields are not Norfolk Southern. 64R began near Chicago, handed over from Burlington-Northern Santa Fe or Canadian Pacific.
Westbound may even use Norfolk Southern’s locomotives, although unloaded might have been only one.




A local! (Photo by Greg Ropp.)

—What a joy to see a local in this calendar.
The August  2017 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a local mixed freight in Norcross, GA.
Furthermore, 5080 is one of the old high-nose GP38-2s, probably built in 1973 for Southern Railway.
I wonder how old this picture is, since I don’t see 5080 in the active roster.
5080 doesn’t have the chopped nose that became popular back then. NS has since rebuilt many of its GP38-2s with chop-nose “Admiral” cabs.
Some railroads were chopping the noses of their GP-7s and GP-9s, which were well before the chop-nose phenomenon.
Yet Southern and Norfolk & Western continued ordering high-nose power.
It assumes an engineer and fireman, since the engineer can’t see left. Now that fireman may well be the train-conductor.
I think I see two locomotives, and it’s single track.
Most of Allegheny Crossing is two or three tracks. One section has five tracks = four running tracks, and one storage track.
The multiple track is across Allegheny Mountain. North (railroad-east) of Altoona, both eastbound and westbound are two running tracks, plus a third signal-controlled siding.
After Gray Interlocking, before Tyrone, it’s back to only two tracks.
Snagging a local is not that common. If I hear C42 on my railroad-radio scanner, I know that’s a local.

I think this is C42 at Gray. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Locals run fairly often out of Altoona, but mostly I see long-distance freight pulled by road power.
It’s double-stack (intermodal), trailer-on-flatcar, or unit coal or crude-oil. Grain also runs as unit-trains, as do auto-racks.
Mixed-freights are fairly common, but mostly I see double-stacks. Yard-to-yard mixed freight isn’t that common any more.




Transfer to Enola curves off mighty Rockville. (Photo courtesy Bob’s Photo©.)

—When the Pennsylvania Railroad was proposed back in the 1840s, Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, there were two major natural barriers, Susquehanna River and Allegheny Mountain.
The August 2017 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a long transfer snaking off Rockville Bridge across the Susquehanna.
The Susquehanna wasn’t too difficult. Pictured is bridge number-three.
The first bridge was wood, and I think only one track.
The second was iron, and two tracks.
Still a bottleneck for what mighty Pennsy became.
Pictured is its replacement, four tracks wide, built entirely of stone, opened in 1902.
I used to say “it would take a direct hit from a thermonuclear warhead to take it out, but a washout occurred not long ago. Putting paid to the rumor the bridge had a concrete core. It was stone through-and-through.
Rockville is 3,820 feet long, forty-eight 70-foot arches, almost three-quarters of a mile. The Susquehanna isn’t deep; it can’t accommodate deep-draft shipping.
As such the footiings don’t go deep.
When Interstate-81 encountered the Susquehanna, building atop Rockville was considered. Thankfully it wasn’t done. I-81 crosses downriver on its own bridge.
Rockville is wide enough for four tracks, as originally used. But was cut back to two and three when Pennsy modernized its cross-state mainline.
More trackage was removed by Norfolk Southern after an intermodal container blew into the river. NS now owns Rockville; it purchased the old Pennsy main from Conrail in 1999.
Conrail succeeded Penn-Central after it went bankrupt. Conrail operated both the old Pennsy main, and also the old New York Central main across NY. (That line is now CSX.)
Rockville is no longer the linchpin it was.
Even Harrisburg became a bottleneck = no room to expand.
Enola yard (“aye-NOLE-uh;” as in “hay”) opened in 1905 on the west bank of the Susquehanna across from Harrisburg. Pennsy could thereby avoid Harrisburg.
Pennsy redirected its torrent of freight through Enola, then east on additional lines back to its main.
Enola was also where electrification began. Freight got switched to electric power for lines east of Enola.
Harrisburg still saw plenty of freight, and here we see a single Alco RS-11 transferring a long drag from Harrisburg to Enola.
The RS-11 was fairly successful, Alco built 425, 38 for Pennsy.
1,800 horsepower on two four-wheel trucks. I’m sure RS-11s were also used as road power. They were intended to counter EMD’s GP-9.
The RS-11 is not the so-called “alligator;” that’s the RSD-15. Railfans called ‘em alligators because of their long short-hood — which could be high or chopped.
The RSD-15 was on six-wheel trucks, 2,400 horsepower.
Both are the road-switcher format, initiated by Alco in 1941 with its RS-1.
Dieselization was by cab-units first, but road-switchers were easier to operate, especially backing.
Operation was easier still when the short hood started being chopped. It allowed a full cab-width windshield; the engineer could thereafter see left.




Rare birds. (Photo by Jim Buckley.)

—The August 2017 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is a Pennsy freight toward Enola pulled by two Westinghouse E-3b locomotives. 4996 and 4995 were the only two locomotives in the class, purchased in 1951. Westinghouse built four experimental locomotives, promoted by the desire of electrified railroading to use direct-current (DC) traction-motors, as in diesel-electric locomotives.
The overhead wire on Pennsy was alternating-current (AC). GG-1s were AC, as were most Pennsy electric locomotives. Only the third-rail DD-1s were direct-current.
Alternating-current didn’t degrade over distance as much as direct-current.
Yet the traction-motors in diesel-electrics were direct-current. In order to use overhead wire current with DC traction-motors, it had to be rectified from AC to DC.
Westinghouse’s experimentals used on-board ignitron rectification.
It wasn’t until much later, the ‘60s, that railroading began to use dependable rectification, silicon rectifiers in the E-44.

E-44s. (Photo by Dave Sweetland.)

The E-44 was ignitron rectification at first, but switched to silicon rectification.
“44” stood for 4,400 horsepower, but some E-44s were uprated to 5,000 horsepower.
Pennsy also wanted to replace its aging P-5 freighter fleet. The P-5s were originally passenger engines, but the GG-1s were so successful Pennsy regeared the P-5s  for freight service.
Westinghouse’s experimentals were an effort to replace the P-5, as well as use direct-current traction motors.
The experimentals didn’t work very well. Pennsy put up with ‘em, but they were scrapped in 1964.

An E-2b in Wilmington Shops. (Long-ago photo by BobbaLew.)

Other experimentals were the E-2bs, but they were alternating-current. Only six were built. General Electric built ‘em in 1952, and they were also scrapped in 1964.
There were both box-cab and steeple-cab versions of the P-5. The steeple-cab resulted from a grade-crossing accident that killed the crew in a box-cab. GG-1s are steeple-cab too = not Raymond Loewy (“LOW-eee”); all he did was restyle ‘em.

Both the DD-2 and an E-3c are visible. (Long-ago photo by BobbaLew.)

I’ll never forget the first time I saw the experimentals at PRR’s Wilmington Shops.
I was completely clueless.
It wasn’t until my “Pennsy Power” book by Al Staufer that I knew what I saw. I also saw the one-and-only DD-2.
I still have my “Pennsy Power” books, both I and II — there was a third, but I don’t have it.
Those books are as long as I live, and go to my railfan nephew when I’m gone. —Now even mighty Pennsy is gone.
—The Staufer books identify 4996 and 4995 as E-3bs; the calendar misidentifies ‘em as E-3c; the E-3cs are two six-axle trucks. (The E-3bs have the three four-axle trucks pictured.)
The calendar also misidentifies the actual E-3cs as E-2bs.
I trust Staufer; that calendar has mucked up before.
Also, the calendar says the train is eastbound — the light tells me it’s westbound. (Although I may have Enola’s track layout wrong. As I recall, electrification is into the east side of the yard — like the train is approaching Enola from the east.)