GG1

The Best Railroad Locomotive of All Time (restored GG1 #4935 at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania at Strasburg, PA. (Photo by Tom Hughes [Agent 44].)

Constant readers of this blog, assuming there are actually any, will know I consider the Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 electric locomotive the best railroad locomotive of all time.
The GG1 was classed that way because it’s actually two 4-6-0 wheel-sets hinged together under a common car-body.
The “G” is Pennsy’s 4-6-0 class; e.g. the G5 steam locomotive.
The reason is because I saw so many GG1s as a teenager, and it seemed every time I saw one it was doing 90-100 mph, a truly impressive sight.
The first time I saw one was 1959.
It was my first summer as a staff-member at Sandy Hill Boys Camp on Chesapeake Bay in northeastern Maryland.
It was my first day-off, probably a Sunday, the only days the camp could give us Counselors-in-Training (“C-I-T”).
I was 15, and I had hitchhiked all the way from camp to the tiny town of Northeast, MD, location of a small interlocking on Pennsy’s fabulous New York City-to-Washington D.C. electrified line, three to two tracks.
When I first started attending that camp as a camper at age-10 in 1954, the highway crossed Pennsy at grade, but by 1959 an overpass had been built.
Being a railfan, I gravitated toward that overpass, and set up on the embankment overlooking the tracks with the humble Kodak Hawkeye camera I had inherited from my father.
After a while a southbound GG1 passenger express blasted by, doing about 100 mph.

This is it; picture #1. (The Hawkeye leaked light; bottom-left.) (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Kodak Hawkeye.)

That’s my first GG1 picture; published above, and I was hooked. A GG1 at speed is an impressive sight.
It helps that the railroad was built to sustain such speeds.
It was still individual stick-rail in 33-foot sections, but the heaviest available at 143 pounds per yard.
As such it was about a foot high.
And track-maintainers had to make sure the track-joints didn’t sag, as they usually did with jointed rail.
A speeding train couldn’t be bouncing up-and-down at 100 mph.
And so began my effort to try to stop a 100 mph train with only 1/125th of a second.
It could be done, sort of.
Photograph an approaching train from trackside, the standard three-quarter view, and you could stop it.

The mighty G earned its way into the Pennsy roster.
The P5a 4-6-4 electric was being overwhelmed by increasing train weights.
Pennsy needed a more powerful electric locomotive, and built a 4-8-4 experimental, the R1 (#4800), an eight-drivered version of the six-drivered P5a.
As an afterthought they also built a GG1 experimental, #4899, soon to be renumbered #4800, patterned after the 4-6-6-4 electric wheel-arrangement pioneered by New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad (NYNH&H).
Both the R1 and GG1 were taken to a high-speed section of track near Claymont, DE.
Pennsy was expecting the R1 to succeed, but it was the GG1 that triumphed.
It tracked slightly better at high speed.
So Pennsy decided to get the GG1 in quantity, 139 units over nine years.
Pennsy had also begun a relationship with industrial designer Raymond Loewy about that time.
Loewy had designed trashcans for Pennsylvania Station in New York City.
Loewy set about trying to convince Pennsy to use a welded steel body-shell for the GG1 instead of the shell pieced together from tiny panels held together by rivets, the arrangement on the first G, now #4800 (“old Rivets”).
He also changed the end man-doors, so they wrapped around the headlight at the top.
Small input, but in so doing he made it the most gorgeous and visually impressive railroad locomotive ever.
Loewy came to Wilmington, DE, to see his masterpiece when the first G, #4840, was delivered.
He was impressed.
He also was at trackside once in northern New Jersey, and a GG1 passenger express flashed by at 100 mph.
Same reaction as me; like, WOW!
The GG1 was an impressive piece of equipment.
My paternal grandfather rode behind one once and was supremely impressed.
Probably rode the Congressional Limited, which at first was an all-Pullman extra-fare express train between New York City and Washington, D.C.
How Pullman that could be is debatable, since such a trip could be made in three hours — although the GG1 kept reducing that.
That’s not sleeping-accommodations (“Pullman”).
That’s parlor-cars and lounges, and perhaps dining-car service.
By the time my grandfather rode it, it had probably started using coaches — I can hardly see my grandfather paying extra fare.
Nevertheless, he was impressed. Within a short time the train was already up to 80.
We were returning north in our family’s ‘53 Chevy from Sandy Hill Boys Camp in 1954 on U.S. Route 40 near Elkton, MD, my first time as a camper. A southbound GG1 express flashed by on the parallel Pennsy.
It was fluted stainless-steel cars — probably a Florida train — but “must be the Congressional,” my grandfather said, with obvious awe and veneration in his voice.
In the late ‘60s, my grandparents moved into an apartment in Edgemoor, DE, overlooking the distant Pennsy electrified line to Washington.
We’d be in the kitchen, closed off from the outside, but heard a train roaring by far away. “Must be the Congressional,” he’d say.
About 1958 or 1959, my neighbor friend Bruce Stewart, also a railfan, and I rode to Philadelphia from Wilmington on a passenger-train, to visit some of the various railfan sites in Philadelphia, but mainly just to ride the train.
We decided to take the southbound Afternoon Congressional back to Wilmington. We’re at Pennsy’s 30th St. Station.

Southbound “Congo” at 30th St. Station, GG1 on the point. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Kodak Hawkeye.)

Suddenly, here it comes! (See pik above), 17 cars, single GG1 on the point. (Regrettably there’s also a Baldwin switcher in the pik.)
We got on the train, and within three miles it was already up to 80 despite 17 cars.
A GG1 could withstand a short electrical overload, and generate 9,000 horsepower. —Just notch it out, and give her the juice.
12 385-horsepower electric traction motors are down in the power-trucks; two per drive-axle.
The G was extremely powerful, and overloaded those motors were putting out far more than 385 horsepower. —They were the same motors used in Pennsy’s self-powered “Owl-face” commuter cars.
Current to the overhead wire was 11,000-volt single-phase 25-cycle alternating-current (AC); the G was AC.
Hitchhiking atop the cars was guaranteed electrocution.
The pantograph (“pant-uh-GRAFF”) also bounced at least a foot or so off the wire, in which case a giant arc occurred, wire-to-pantograph.
Here it comes; lightning bolts flashing.
A railfan friend named “Buggs” Kipp (Leslie) and I attended a rainy football game of our high school against Newark High.
The bleachers paralleled the Pennsy New York-to-Washington main, and we spent the whole game in the top rearmost row watching GG1s flash by.
We weren’t paying attention to the game at all; and it was a championship game.
The last GG1 ran in 1983, 21 years after I graduated high school.
My note to my friend Kipp, for our 20-year high school reunion, was “when the last GG1 is retired, we’ll know we’re getting old.”
They lasted way longer than the average railroad locomotive. 1983 minus 1935 is almost 50 years. The average steam-locomotive lasted 30 years. A diesel-locomotive might last 15-20.
But best of all was the impression they left; incredible speed and power in a gorgeous Loewy-designed body.
A dramatic Cyclops eye.
And you couldn’t hear ‘em comin’.
Silent stealth machines — all-of-a-sudden they’re right on top of you; comin’ atcha at 100 mph.
My parents crossed that railroad with my younger brothers to see a just-built aircraft carrier floated down the parallel Delaware River.
I gave them the third degree.
“Crossing that railroad is courting certain death. It’s very active, and since it’s electric, ya don’t hear anything until it’s right on top of you.
That railroad is serious business. Ya carefully look both ways into the distance, before even considering walking across it. People get killed on that railroad.
I wouldn’t have crossed the kids across that railroad.”
I chased GG1s all over the system.

Three photos follow:

Boomin’-and-zoomin’ over the flyover. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Kodak Hawkeye.)

—1) Is a northbound GG1 express rocketing over the Edgemoor Yard entrance north of Wilmington.
It’s a classic Pennsy flyover; that G will quickly be descending a roller-coaster downgrade.
By doing flyovers Pennsy avoided yard-entrance bottlenecks.
That downgrade also helped that train get up to 100 mph.

Boomin’ across the Susquehanna. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Kodak Hawkeye.)

—2) Is a northbound GG1 express on the bridge over the Susquehanna River.
It’s doing 80 mph; the speed-limit on the bridge.
Somehow I hitchhiked all the way from camp down to Port Deposit, MD, where that bridge is.
I sat on a low concrete/stone wall at a VA center, unfortunately aimed into the sun (it’s afternoon).
Back then I wasn’t aware of lighting issues — now I’d probably cross the river, or show up in the morning.

STAND BACK! (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Kodak Hawkeye.)

—3) Is a result of my most dramatic encounter with a GG1.
In 1961 or ‘62 I went to Claymont station north of Wilmington on the old PRR electrified line, now Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
There were four tracks, and I was used to seeing express passenger trains on the middle tracks. Commuter trains and freight usually ran the outside tracks.
So here I am arm hooked around a light-pole about eight feet from the outside track.
I hear a southbound train coming; sounds like a GG1 express.
But it was on the outside track!
It blasted by at about 100 mph, and almost sucked me into it.
Had I not had my arm hooked around that lightpole, I wouldn’t be here.

My March 1964 issue of Trains Magazine is still my favorite; it has a giant 17-page treatment of the GG1 by Frederick Westing.
In 1964 I was a sophomore in college, which means the magazine came in my college-mail lockbox — row upon row of cast brass lockboxes for every student.
I still have that magazine, and dragged it out again to reread.
Is it any wonder that magazine is still my favorite, despite almost 45 years of subscribing?
The Pennsy GG1 is the greatest railroad locomotive ever.
At the end of the article Mr. Westing describes cab-riding a single GG1 westbound into Harrisburg Station ahead of an express passenger-train.
On time of course.
Three E7 diesels are ahead waiting to back up and pull the train west. Harrisburg is the end of electrification.
“I don’t know why they fiddle with them diesels when they got a locomotive like this?” the engineer said.

“Tom Hughes” (“Agent-44”) is my brother-from-Delaware’s onliest son Tom. —Like me, he’s a railfan; which I’ve been all my life.

“Strasburg, PA” is a small rural town in southeastern Pennsylvania, in the Amish Country near Lancaster. It’s the location of Strasburg Railroad, a small tourist railroad. Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is right across the highway — and mainly comprised of all the old steam-engines the Pennsylvania Railroad saved for posterity.

The Pennsylvania Railroad (“Pennsy”) is no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world.

“Sandy Hill” is the religious boys camp in northeastern Maryland I worked at 1959-‘61. I first attended there as a camper in 1954.

An “interlocking” is where crossover switches, or switches, connect adjacent tracks. Everything was interlocked so that switches couldn’t be thrown in conflict, or without a signal indication. “Interlockings” are now called “Control-Points;” and used to be switched by lineside towers. They can now be switched electronically from a central location.

RE: “‘Old guy........’” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest).

“Stick-rail” is the common nomenclature for rail lengths bolted together to form a continuous railroad, usually 33 feet long per rail. More common today is welded rail, rail welded into quarter-mile lengths or more.

“1/125th of a second” was the fastest shutter-speed of my Hawkeye camera. It used a small iris shutter in front of the lens; interleafings of tiny panels that would retract when tripped, so that light would be emitted to the film for exposure. The time of this exposure was “1/125th of a second.”

“Claymont” is an old suburb north of Wilmington, DE; which the old Pennsy New York-to-Washington D.C. mainline skirts. The line is now Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, and the station has been rebuilt. It is now a stop for railroad commuter-service, actually SouthEastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA), although in Delaware it’s Delaware Area Rapid Transit (“DART”) paying for the SEPTA service, which goes all the way south to Newark, DE, a suburb southwest of Wilmington on the Corridor.

“Pennsylvania Station” is the Pennsylvania Railroad’s station in New York City. Pennsy was the only railroad from the west to access Manhattan Island — by tunneling under the Hudson River. The station was torn down awhile ago, and Madison Square Garden built on the site. But the underground tracks still exist, so the station still exists as Amtrak’s New York station. (Amtrak is a government sponsored rail passenger service that took over rail passenger service from the independent railroads in 1970. It mostly operates trains over those independent railroads with its own equipment, but owns and operates the old Pennsylvania Railroad electrified line from Washington D.C. to New York City. They call it their “Northeast Corridor” service, and it has since been extended to Boston, over the old New York, New Haven & Hartford [NYNH&H] route, which was later included in Penn-Central.)

“Wilmington, DE” was the location of the main Pennsylvania Railroad shops for electric locomotives. It still is for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.

“Pullman” was a company that ran special passenger cars for the railroads; usually sleeping-cars. Pullman Company, based in Chicago, built its own cars; and ran them in service. I.e. A passenger-train running Pullman equipment, wasn’t actually running the railroad’s own cars. The cars were “Pullmans,” and staffed by Pullman employees. Pullman equipment usually charged an extra fare; lounge-cars, or parlor-cars, or sleeping-cars, or dining-cars. Pullman cars were more than mere coach accommodation. (Pullman is gone.)

“Fluted stainless-steel cars” were really just passenger-cars with corrugated (“fluted”) stainless-steel sheathing. Although it was mainly a manufacture of the Budd Company (no longer in existence).

“30th St. Station” became the main Pennsy railroad-station in Philadelphia after Broad St. Terminal was closed. Unfortunately, it’s not on the New York-to-Chicago routing; it’s on the Washington D.C. line. Trains from New York to Chicago, have to pull into 30th St., and then be dragged out backwards.

“Congo” is the nickname for the Congressional Limited.

“‘Owl-face’ commuter cars” were the standard Pennsylvania Railroad MP-54 self-powered (electrical) commuter coach for years. They had two round porthole shaped windows in each end — a motorman would drive the car from behind the window. —The round windows made them look like owls. A train might be only one car; but could be two or more; each powering itself, but driven from the front (multiple-unit).

“Single-phase 25-cycle” meant the current alternated at 25 cycles per second — standard house AC is 60 cycle. “Single-phase” meant the current pulses were all one polarity; they didn’t alternate back-and-forth.

RE: “The G was AC........” —Many railroad electrifications were 660-volt direct-current (“DC”), usually delivered by a third-rail down low beside the tracks. Electric locomotives had a pickup shoe that rode underneath the third-rail. Many trolley electrifications had an overhead wire, followed by a wheel on a trolley-pole. This wire also delivered 660-volt direct-current — Pennsy did this at first, and at first their tunnels under the Hudson River were third-rail. But suppliers Westinghouse and General Electric made alternating-current electric motors feasible, and AC transferred better over long distances. So Pennsy switched to AC over overhead wire.

“Newark” is a small town southwest of Wilmington, DE; the location of the University of Delaware. The old Pennsy New York-to-Washington electrified line skirts it. It also is the location of two automotive assembly plants, served by the railroad.

“VA” is Veterans Administration.

This should get a few laughs.......

My wife and I both turn 65 next year.
Linda January 2, and me February 5.
65 is Medicare age; the time our ever-beneficent healthcare insurance industry, so abhorrent of nationwide gumint healthcare, pawn us off on the dreaded gumint they abhor to reduce their outlay to the aging.
Healthcare insurance compensation is already a joke.
Even before we were on Medicare, healthcare insurance compensation went on for years and years.
We still get notifications of claims for colonoscopies performed two years ago.
Five years after my stroke we were still getting billed for my medical transport from one hospital to another.
But of course my healthcare insurance was supposed to pay that.
Around-and-around we went: phonecalls, letters, contacts.
It’s like the private (“private,” everyone) insurance carriers were stalling.
When my wife had cancer we used Finger Lakes Ambulance one night.
Her medical insurance was supposed to pay that.
Around-and-around we went.
We eventually paid it ourselves; it was only $125.
All the private carriers were stalling.
125 smackaroos out of our pocket stopped a blizzard of contacts: hour-long “Please hold during the silence: Boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom-chicka. We value your call; please continue holding.”
I.e. Our time was more valuable than that $125.
So the private carriers won one; by stalling they got the client to pay.
So now the question was what happens when we get forced into Medicare?
Linda received a blizzard of communications from Blue Cross, including a Part D prescription-coverage she didn’t want.
This is because she has Aetna® pensioners’ health coverage from her long-time employer. If she signed up for Part D from anyone it canceled Aetna.
Complications arose.
Our dreaded bus-union negotiated continuing healthcare insurance for us retirees. That includes coverage for my wife — so the question is should we switch to Transit healthcare insurance from Aetna? If I kick the bucket, Linda no longer has healthcare coverage, unless she sticks with Aetna.
If Linda goes first, it doesn’t matter, because I still have Transit healthcare insurance.
Meanwhile, Linda is getting this blizzard of stuff from Blue Cross, which we thought was Transit forcing her to switch. —Plus I hadn’t received anything yet. I thought I was supposed to be getting a sign-up.
So, begin fevered calls to Transit; “Please hold; please leave message,” etc., etc.
No call-backs whatsoever.
“Ya won’t need to do anything,” said Joe Carey, president of our bus-union.
“They change ya to Medicare coverage automatically when ya turn 65. Your wife is covered too.”
“Wait a minute,” we thought.
“What if they’re forcing us into a Part D that cancels Aetna?”
“The best time to call that Christie lady is at 8 o’clock in the morning; I have no idea what they do after that,” Joe said.
(“Christie” is Transit’s healthcare “generalist;” what we used to call “mindless management minions.”)
“From 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. must be donut-break,” I observed.
So my wife calls “Christie” at 8 a.m. — got her, live; miracle of miracles.
She explains the whole sorry mess; including the blizzard of material we got from Blue Cross.
Also that we switched to another healthcare insurance provider (“Preferred Care”) a year ago because Blue Cross was ending our healthcare insurance plan.
That rang a bell: “Wait a minute,” Christie says.
“I’ll have to check into that. Sounds like you’re covered by both Blue Cross and Preferred Care.”
So Linda has both Blue Cross and Preferred Care, but me only Preferred Care. She’s supposed to be only Preferred Care.
RE: “I’ll have to check into that.” —Um; hello. Prior messages and questions went nowhere, but the possibility of duplicate coverage rang a bell — the possibility of Transit shelling out to Blue Cross for coverage not intended.
“I’ll have to check into that.”
This still doesn’t answer if -a) I need to sign up for Preferred Care Medicare coverage, and -b) if Linda should just dump Preferred Care so she can continue Aetna.......
And of course, January 2 is only two days away.

“Linda” is my wife of 41 years. She had lymphatic cancer. It was treatable — she survived.

“Gumint” is the Ronald Reagan pronunciation of “government.”

RE: “Dreaded gumint” and “dreaded union.......” —My siblings are all anti-government and anti-union. They’re all pro “private” sector. (For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. —As a bus driver I belonged to the Rochester-area local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union.)

“Finger Lakes Ambulance” is the local private supplier of ambulance service. (There is no volunteer ambulance in our area.)

41 years

For whatever it’s worth, TODAY IS THE DAY (Tuesday, December 30, 2008); our 41st wedding anniversary.

Why not $500; why not $10,000? (Epson 10000 XL.)

Pictured above is the $100 check from Linda’s mother.
For a while it was always $1 per year; then suddenly it was $100.
....Leading us to question how we suddenly managed to be married 100 years.
The other reaction is that of Linda; like how can Linda’s mother afford $100?
Her only income is Social Security, although she also inherited a large sum from her deceased sister, but “that’s Ethelyn’s money,” and it doesn’t get touched.
Actually what happened is that most of “Ethelyn’s money” got given away, much to the chagrin of Linda’s brother.
A portion also got invested in one of those religious charities that pay Linda’s mother interest.
So add that to her Social Security.
Still not much, and her rent is horrific, with no promise of continuing care.
So 41 years ago we piled into my humble Corvair to journey to Linda’s tiny town to get married.
Jack woulda been 10, or at least that’s what I get when I subtract 1957 from 1967.
But of course maybe there was a REPUBLICAN fudge-factor at work here, whereby the Bluster-Boy was actually 37.
Then too, maybe this entire marriage bit was just a dream.
Of course, a lot has happened in those 41 years, which led us to worry about Rachel.
Who knows what can happen — her Jimmi may get smacked.
In our case it was my stroke, a supposed non-event that made a different person out of me.
I suppose I might be less difficult to get along with, but I’m frustrated by all the after-effects of my stroke: dropsy, poor balance, mucked-up speech.
The frustration reaches fever-pitch sometimes, but Linda hasn’t walked out yet.
“My sister woulda walked out years ago,” I once observed.
“I’m not your sister.”

“Linda” is my wife of 41 years. (We got married 12/30/67.)

“Ethelyn” was Linda’s mother’s sister — Linda’s aunt. She died about five years ago at age 98.

“Jack” (“the Bluster-Boy”) is my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He’s 13 years younger than me — born in 1957; me 1944. His only daughter is named “Rachel,” and she’s all grown up now, and married a guy named “Jimmi.”

My siblings are all tub-thumping conservative Limbaugh Republicans, and noisily insist I’m reprehensible because I’m not. (I’m the oldest.)

My brother noisily insisted he was 12 in a photo where he’s about three.

RE: “This entire marriage bit was just a dream.......... —My brother noisily insists my coming up to Rochester in late 1966 “was just a dream.”

I had a stroke October 26, 1993. My siblings all noisily insist it was of little consequence.

“Dropsy” is continually dropping things.

Monday morning dreaming

This morning’s dream was good old Marky-Mark of the Messenger newspaper and I slapping together the final page, the front page, of a Sunday Messenger at midnight the Saturday night before publication.
I don’t recall Marky-Mark ever being Sunday-editor, but he could have been.
This slap-dash process always surprised me as to the extent to which a mere grunt like me could determine the content of that newspaper.
I’m sure page-editors weeding through the blizzard of Associated-Press feeds off “the wire” (how many times did I sweep snow out of that satellite-dish?), were determining the content of that newspaper.
But when the final push came to shove, it wasn’t the dictum of the New York Times that determined the content of that newspaper: “all the news that’s fit to print.”
It was “whatever news fits,” so that in the end it was us paste-up grunts trying to fit everything into a reasonable facsimile of a newspaper.
Our front-page still had two unfilled holes, and I had three AP stories — on galleys.
One story was a slam-dunk fit for one hole; just overlap the white spaces a little.
An AP story could be cut, but a locally-written story (our reporters) couldn’t.
The second hole was small, yet my remaining stories were large.
I lined up one story with a hole, and suggested to Marky-Mark the last two paragraphs could be cut off.
“Do it, Hughsey; I’m goin’ home!”

For almost 10 years after my stroke (I had a stroke October 26, 1993), I worked at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired three years ago. Best job I ever had. “Marky-Mark” is Mark Syverud (“sye-ver-UHD”), an editor there, also retired.

We got our Associated-Press feeds off a satellite. (If it snowed, our dish receiver would fill up, obstructing the feeds.)

“Paste-up” was gluing waxed galleys to cardboard page-dummies, which when completed could be photographed, and the resulting negative used to “burn” a page-size printing-plate.

RE: “Just overlap the white spaces......” —Between the headline and the story-copy was about a quarter-inch of “white space.”

100 Best Train-Photographs

I am in receipt of my “100 Greatest Railroad Photos” from Trains Magazine. (I almost didn’t get it.)
I have been a subscriber to Trains Magazine since the middle ‘60s, since college.
When I moved to Rochester after college, I transferred my Trains subscription to the humble sleeping-room I had in an old rooming-house at 136 Chili (“Cheye-lie;” both parts rhyme) Ave. in Rochester.
The sleeping-room wasn’t much, but I couldn’t survive without Trains.
Trains Magazine has been around since 1940.
They hired a really great rail enthusiast and writer to be editor, one David P. Morgan, and he set the tone of the magazine.
—Which inadvertently followed the direction of my enthusiasm: namely, the efficacy of the steel wheel on the steel rail.
Since he retired, and since died, the magazine stumbled a bit, but now seems to be in good hands, although it’s not the enthusiasm of David P. Morgan.
A lot of my writing style is David P. Morgan, and Car & Driver Magazine. (I’m also a car nut.)
Morgan had the ability to look at his enthusiasm from a higher and different angle.
It wasn’t just “gee whiz.”
Railroading was fulfilling his philosophy. It made sense, “and here’s why.”
When Penn-Central proposed ending their old service of supplying newsprint via the old Rochester Subway to Rochester’s newspapers, and the newspapers cried foul, I took my inspiration from David P. Morgan and wrote a letter-to-the-editor suggesting the newspapers were on a form of welfare; getting their newsprint way cheaper than otherwise, by getting Penn-Central to supply it at the railroad’s expense.
It’s a David P. Morgan viewpoint: unrationalized rail-service is welfare for the customers.

I’ve posted some photos from the 100 Greatest.

As uncounted thousands of their brothers have done since the dawn of railroading, GG1 engineer W.J. Kepner and his conductor W.L. Walzer, compare watches at New York’s Pennsylvania Station in 1939. (Photo by A.F. Sozio of the Pennsylvania Railroad.)

#1. Is a train conductor comparing watches with his engineer aboard a GG1 locomotive.
First of all, contrary to the common misconception, the train conductor is the captain of the ship, not the engineer.
The engineer is only driving the locomotive. (I’ve seen locomotive-engineers called the “conductor,” which is wrong.)
On a passenger-train, the conductor is often far back in the train, in the passenger coaches.
Before radio communication, the conductor and engineer had no way of communicating, except perhaps by a train-length cord that stretched all the way into the locomotive cab, where it activated a small air-whistle.
By pulling it, and thereby blowing the whistle, the train conductor, far back in the train, could signal the engineer when to start.
The engineer was also trying to keep schedule, so his watch had to agree with the conductor’s.
Here the two are comparing watches.
The train conductor has walked the long raised loading platform at New York’s Pennsylvania Station, to compare watches with his engineer, in the driver-seat of his fabulous GG1 electric locomotive.
Lucky engineer. He’s piloting the greatest railroad locomotive ever; a locomotive that could cruise sedately at 100 mph.
I suppose that’s part of the reason I think this is a great photograph.
It’s 1939.

The cigar is out, but this Burlington Route road foreman on E7 #9947A is all concentration as he pilots the North Coast Limited out of La Crosse, WI at 90 mph in July of 1955, oblivious to the photographer at his side. (Photo by W.A. Akin, Jr.)

#2. What we see here is an engineer totally engrossed in his job.
He knows every inch of his railroad; where the grade-crossings are, where to accelerate, and where to brake.
A train isn’t a car, or even a truck.
Shock it, and it can break apart.
After cresting a hill, the front is pulling down, yet the rear is still dragging the other way.
Couplers between cars can break.
The engineer has to know where to apply power and where to brake.
Not enough power and the train can stall, tying up the railroad. Other trains can’t just drive around the stalled train — they need the track.
Do other things wrong and the train can break apart or run away.
So what we have here is an engineer totally engrossed in his job; oblivious to the photographer at his side.
I have the same thing on a cab-ride video of the Norfolk Southern RoadRailer being navigated up the infamous Rat-hole Division through Kentucky.
Engineman Sam Burton, number-two in seniority, is oblivious to the video cameraman taking his picture.
His sunglasses and Stanford baseball cap equal the unlit cigar and the fedora of the engineer pictured here,
The picture-date is July of 1955.
The engine is an E7, and it’s doing 90 mph: the North Coast Limited.

With 120 cars for hauling iron-ore, that is helping to fuel America’s post-war boom, a mammoth Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Baldwin “Yellowstone” 2-8-8-4 crosses over another DM&IR line as it leaves Two Harbors, MN for the mines. (Photo by Franklin A. King.)

#3. Is a giant Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range articulated on a small trestle-bridge.
The engine is gigantic, a 2-8-8-4 Yellowstone.
It’s hauling 120 empty ore-jennies destined for iron mines uphill.
The engine is slightly bigger than the bridge. It looks like it’s a wonder the bridge ain’t collapsing, but it’s deep girders on pilings.
Sadly, I had to use a tiny cover shot of this picture, because the one inside is spread over two pages.
I can’t scan it with a fold in the middle.

My favorite Trains Magazine is still their March,1964 issue. It had a gigantic 17-page Frederick Westing article about the GG1.
I’ll say it again: the GG1 was the greatest railroad locomotive ever. A common misconception is that it was designed by industrial designer Raymond Loewy.
But not really.
The original design was Pennsy, patterned after their steeple-cab P5a modifications.
Loewy’s input was to convince Pennsy to use a welded-steel shell, instead of tiny pieces riveted together.
He also -a) penned the original five pinstripe paint scheme, and -b) changed the design of the end man-doors, so they’d wrap around the headlight at the top.
His input was rather minimal, but made the GG1 the best looking railroad locomotive ever.
Loewy went on to design other engines for Pennsy — most notably the T1 steam engine, that was supposed to replace the K4 Pacific, after WWII.
He also styled diesel-engines for Pennsy supplier Baldwin Locomotive Works.
Shortly after the first GG1 (#4840) was built, he went to see it. He was very proud.
He also remarked on seeing a GG1 at speed in north Jersey; an awesome experience.
I have been similarly impressed.
In 1961 or ‘62 I went to Claymont station north of Wilmington on the old PRR electrified line to Washington, D.C., now Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
There were four tracks, and I was used to seeing express passenger trains on the middle tracks. Commuter trains and freight usually ran the outside tracks.
So here I am arm hooked around a light-pole about eight feet from the outside track.
I hear a southbound train coming; sounds like a GG1 express.
But it was on the outside track!
It blasted by at about 100 mph, and almost sucked me into it.
Had I not had my arm hooked around that lightpole, I wouldn’t be here.

There are other pictures from this book I should post.

By this bone-chilling day in January 1962, steam had disappeared from all major U.S. and Canadian lines. But at Cloquet, MN 2-8-0 #16 on 11.4-mile log-hauler Duluth & Northeastern keeps the faith. (Photo by John Gruber.)

Impressive by day, intimidating by night, a Southern Pacific cab-forward 4-8-8-2 simmers under the floodlights at Colton, CA. A water-column, used for filling steam locomotive tenders, frames the scene. (Photo by Richard Steinheimer.)

Which one, we wonder, of the 90 trains a day still serving Kansas City Union Station in 1963, is this man waiting to board? Oblivious to all but his magazine, he strikes a timeless pose on an old hard wooden bench. (Photo by Ed Wojtas.)

Much of Southern Pacific’s historic 138-mile crossing of Donner Pass, between Roseville, CA and Reno, NV, is as rugged at this photo attests. Amtrak’s eastbound San Francisco Zephyr, with an SP unit leading, is high above Dutch Flat. (This is the route through the Sierra-Nevada Mountains taken by the original transcontinental railroad, originally Central Pacific. CP was purchased by SP.) (Photo by Richard Steinheimer.)

From a roadside observation point perched high above West Virginia’s spectacular New River Gorge, we see a westbound CSX empty hopper train following the river at dawn January 24, 2005. The vantage point for this winter birds-eye view is an aptly named location: Hawks Nest. (I’ve been to that vantage-point, people, and rode numerous rail-excursions through that bridge, one powered by restored Nickel-Plate steam-engine #765.) (Photo by Scott Lothes.)

A soft September 1998 afternoon in North Carolina is interrupted by the roar of three Norfolk Southern diesels struggling with 10 loaded woodchip cars on the steepest railroad grade in the nation near Saluda (“suh-LEW-da”). (I’ve been here, everyone. It looks like a roller-coaster; pushing 5%. They just slammed the railroad right up the side of the mountain. [That switch to the left is a runaway track.] The line is now rail-banked.) (Photo by Charles Brewster.)

RE: “I couldn’t survive without Trains........” —I’ve been a railfan all my life.

“Penn-Central” is a merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad, both of whom had duplicate track in Ohio and Indiana. The merger was promulgated in 1968, and tanked in about eight years, after declaring bankruptcy much earlier. It was the largest business failure at that time, and prompted the formation of Conrail, since the failure of Penn-Central, and other east-coast railroads, would have stopped eastern rail service. (“Conrail” was a government amalgamation of east-coast railroads that went bankrupt pretty much at the same time as Penn-Central. Conrail included other bankrupt east-coast railroads, like Erie-Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley; but eventually went private as it became more successful. Conrail has since been broken up, sold to CSX Transportation Industries (railroad) and Norfolk Southern railroad. CSX got mainly the old New York Central routes, and NS got the old PRR routes.)

The “Rochester Subway” was laid down in the old Erie Canal bed, which had once threaded Rochester, but was rebuilt to the south. —The Subway ended service (it was only single cars, much like trolley-cars) in 1956, but a short segment remained underneath the Rochester newspapers. Since it was there, newsprint could be delivered by railroad.

The “Pennsylvania Railroad” was once the largest, and most profitable, railroad in the world. It no longer exists. It failed due to -a) overtaxation, -b) costly commuter service, and -c) highway transportation and airlines.

“New York’s Pennsylvania Station” is the Pennsylvania Railroad’s station in New York City. Pennsy was the only railroad from the west to access Manhattan Island — by tunneling under the Hudson River. The station was torn down awhile ago, and Madison Square Garden built on the site. But the underground tracks still exist, so the station still exists as Amtrak’s New York station. (Amtrak is a government sponsored rail passenger service that took over rail passenger service from the independent railroads in 1970. It mostly operates trains over those independent railroads with its own equipment, but owns and operates the old Pennsylvania Railroad electrified line from Washington D.C. to New York City. They call it their “Northeast Corridor” service, and it has since been extended to Boston, over the old New York, New Haven & Hartford [NYNH&H] route, which was later included in Penn-Central.)

An “E7” is a standard full-bodied passenger locomotive made by EMD. (“EMD” is Electromotive Division of General Motors, GM’s manufacturer of diesel railroad-locomotives. Most railroads used EMD when they dieselized; although many now use General-Electric diesel railroad-locomotives.) —It was rated at 2,000 horsepower, having two 1,000-horsepower V12 diesel engines. It had six-axle trucks, although the center axle wasn’t powered. There were other EMD E-units; like the E6, E8, and E9.

To “run away” is for the train to lose control, usually downhill, usually due to brake failure. It can’t be stopped until it hits an uphill. —A “runaway track” is a separate track switched off the downhill to route a runaway train off the line. A runaway track may be short and into the woods, so the runaway train derails. At Saluda the routing is permanently switched to the runaway track, so a downhill train has to stop to throw the switch. (Uphill is the same.)

“RoadRailer” is a train of highway trailers on rail bogies (railroad trucks [wheel-sets]); engineered to allow highway trailers to travel the railways. “RoadRailer” trailers can’t couple to regular railroad equipment.

The “Rat-hole” division was a railroad across Kentucky, through its mountains. It had many small difficult tunnels, nicknamed “rat-holes.” The line has since been rebuilt, removing many of the tunnels.

A “steeple-cab” is a locomotive designed with the cab in the center between two ends. The GG1 is a steeple-cab; although the “steeple” is elongated. Pennsy built a P5 (4-6-4) electric locomotive earlier, at first with a box-cab. Later the P5a was built, an improvement of the P5. Later yet a “steeple-cab” version of the P5a was built, to improve crew survival in collisions. (The P5a was seen in both box-cab and steeple-cab versions.)

The “T1” was essentially a Pennsylvania Railroad 4-8-4 steam locomotive, with four cylinders (a “duplex), each powering four wheels (so it looked like a 4-4-4-4). It went into service after WWII, but wasn’t very successful. It was poorly developed; too much too quickly.

The “K4 Pacific” (4-6-2) was Pennsylvania Railroad’s standard passenger steam locomotive for many years. It was designed in the ‘teens, and never replaced with more modern power. To handle increased train-weights, Pennsy would double-head two K4s at the front — that’s two crews, since steam-engines can’t be MU-ed (multiple-unit) like diesel-locomotives. But Pennsy was making so much money they could afford to double-head. Development after the K4 went into electrification. (There were earlier Pacific locomotives; e.g. the K2.)

“Baldwin Locomotive Works,” near Philadelphia, PA, was one of the two main constructors of railroad steam-locomotives. The other was American Locomotive Company in Schenectady, NY. Neither exist any longer. —A third (but smaller) was Lima (“LYE-mah” not “LEE-mah”) Locomotive Works in Lima, OH. All are out of the locomotive business, and began failing when railroads began switching over to diesel power; mainly from General Motors’ ElectroMotive Division. (Both Alco and Baldwin are gone.)

A “cab-forward” is a steam-locomotive with the cab/firebox/boiler turned 180° so the cab faces forward. “Cab-forwards” burned fuel-oil, since coal could not be transported up front from the following tender, yet fuel-oil could be pumped. The engine pictured is an “articulated:” two (or more; but usually two) driver-sets, both powered by the same boiler. But one driver-set is hinged to the other so the locomotive can track through sharp turns (e.g. crossover-switches) despite its extreme length. One set is permanently attached to the boiler, but the other is hinged — the definition of “articulated.” (Crossover-switches are tracks to get from one track to an adjacent track on a multiple-track railroad.)

Saluda Grade was originally Southern Railway, but then 25 years ago Norfolk & Western Railroad and Southern Railway merged, forming Norfolk Southern. NS has since become a major player in east-coast railroading. NS got most of the ex-Pennsy lines when Conrail was broken up.

A “5%” grade is five feet up for every 100 feet forward; extremely steep for an adhesion railroad (one that depends on adhesion of the powered wheels against the railheads — as opposed to a cog railway. Go any steeper and the driving-wheels won’t hold the rail; they slip. —A train climbing Saluda grade had to be broken into three or more sections — too heavy for 5%.

“Restored Nickel-Plate steam-engine #765” is a restored Nickel-Plate Berkshire (2-8-4) steam locomotive that operates in railfan excursion service. It’s the best there is, mainly because it’s run like it was designed: fast and hard. (“Nickel Plate,” which no longer exists, is the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, called the “Nickel Plate” long ago by a New York Central executive because it was so competitive. The railroad eventually renamed itself the “Nickel Plate.” Nickel Plate never actually attained New York city; it stopped at Buffalo. —The locomotive is owned, and operated, by a historical society.

Matt Ried

Matt Ried.

One of the more pleasant surprises of my nearly 10-year employ at the mighty Mezz was Matt Ried (“REED”).
Matt Ried is a Postie (“Post-eee”); that is, he came with the Messenger’s purchase of the Post weeklies from Andy Wolfe.
The Post newspapers were nine weekly newspapers published by Post Publications, which Publisher/Owner Andy Wolfe sold to the Messenger when he retired. (He died shortly after that.)
They were suburban weeklies around Rochester.
Compared to the Messenger they seemed elitist — although I don’t consider that a bad thing. If they were, it was Andy’s solution to minimal pay.
The Messenger paid low too; but were very feet-on-the-ground. Things were a bit disorganized and messy, but we put out a quality product. The Messenger was a happy ship; and the staff was all on the same mission: to put out a superior product.
The Post papers were similar.
At first the Post newspapers continued production in their old buildings, but then production was brought to Canandaigua, and the Post buildings sold.
When first there, the Posties and Messenger people aligned into two separate camps; Posties along here, and Messenger people over there.
Staffs were slowly merged, and various Posties bumped out Messenger people, particularly ‘pyooter-guru, who had been a Postie.
The Messenger had significantly expanded its office building, making integration of the Post newspapers possible.
It was decided Messenger-Post should do a web-site, which at first was a function of the Photo-Department; i.e. the old waazoo that if someone can do it, they get assigned to it.
Then it was decided Messenger-Post should wick up its Internet presence, so the vaunted “Electronics Team” was established: Matt Ried, page-editor Bill Robinson, and me.
My inclusion in this erstwhile group seemed a bit strange, since I was a stroke-survivor, and not running on all eight.
The one really ‘pyooter-savvy was Matt Ried, although as I recall the team-leader was Bill Robinson, who was also quite savvy.
Our main function was to do the web-site, which I had to learn, and wanted to.
I pretty much learned it according to my usual procedure; figuring out what we were doing so I could do it, although this was frustrating to others. (“Too many questions, Hughsey. Don’t think; just do,” I was told.)
Then Robinson left, leaving just Ried and I to do all the electronic functions.
We also aligned with a new web service, thus instituting web-site iteration number three.
The new site included sub-sites for all the Post weeklies, which had been separate before.
Ried was also producing Post and Messenger pages.
So we divided up the web functions; Ried doing the Messenger, and me the Post sites.
But often we were off or out, so we covered for each other.
Then we swapped so I could reduce my hours and go part-time.
I began to exercise my tastes, namely that the Messenger site should have as much artistic content (photos) as possible, it being a visual medium.
I also had written macros to streamline some of our processing.
When the Electronics-Team was formed, Robinson, Ried and I were set up along the back wall of the office, and everything we did was from our ‘pyooters; although web-site iteration number-two had to be published from our single remaining PC, a clunker at a faraway table.
Everything else, including our own ‘pyooters, were Apple Macintosh.
I suppose it helped I wasn’t all there; I might have been more negative if I had been.
I certainly witnessed enough negativism among other staff-members.
When Robinson left he was replaced by Marcy Dewey, who kind of did what Robinson did, minus the web-site.
She got roped into other things, and Ried and I seemed to be able to do the web-site ourselves, although I was doing other things too.
One day we were all beavering away, and someone commented about vegetarianism.
“Well, vegetables have rights too,” Ried said.
VIOLA! The kind of insanity I would come up with. “All is forgiven, Ried. Ya got potential!”
All of us have since left the Messenger; me retired, Marcy to Boston with her ex-Messenger reporter husband (“the best reporter I ever knew”) Bryan Mahoney, and Ried to Denver.
Ried is I guess now a radio-dispatcher for a hospital, similar to secondary employment here; and Marcy is currently unemployed.
Robinson went with nearby Guardian Glass, a “stupid, meaningless job,” I said; much like my 16&1/2 years of driving bus.
“Don’t ever put your pen down,” I told him.
Sometimes I think I should tell Marcy to do the same; a “stupid, meaningless job,” yet not put her pen down — drawing, whatever.
And there’s Ried out in Colorado, reduced to a stupid, meaningless job because his money was about to run out.
So much for journalism and similar intellectual pursuits.
This culture doesn’t have much room for intellectual pursuits.
With Obama we get to build bridges.

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired three years ago. Best job I ever had.

“‘Pyooter” is computer. “‘Pyooter-guru” was the manager of technical stuff at the Messenger, mainly computers used in newspaper production.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993, prior to my employ at the Messenger. RE: “Not running on all eight.......” —As a result of the stroke, I was slightly brain-damaged.

Toward the end of my employ, I went part-time to reduce my working.

“Macros” are essentially tiny ‘pyooter programs that do functions. My “macros” were all Appleworks, the Apple word-processing software we used.

A “PC” is the usual Windows computer; “PC” meaning “Personal-Computer.”

RE: “Much like my 16&1/2 years of driving bus........” —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. My stroke ended that.

“Nobody could touch the Flexible-Flyer”

Center St. Hill. (Screenshot on the so-called “silly MAC.”)

Last night the ABC Evening News did a report on a giant snowstorm in Seattle.
The reporter was buffaloed because an urban street had been closed and was being used as a sledding-hill by kids.
The street was a hill and was icy.
“We used to do that in Haddonfield,” I said.
Center St. hill — a drop of about 100-200 feet from the plateau Haddonfield was on, down into the Cooper Crick (“Crick” is the kerreck south Jersey pronunciation, not “creek”) defile.
I used to try to climb that hill on my bicycle as a child.
Bicycles back then lacked gears, so they only had one gear: cruising speed; about 10 mph.
There was no gearing down for hills.
Cresting the entire Center St. hill was a struggle; very steep toward the top.
But it could be done.
Too steep for traffic on snow.
They’d close off the entire hill when it snowed.
But it was a residential street crossed by two level side-streets (see map).
As such it had three segments.
The top two had side-streets at their bottoms, so ya couldn’t sled the entire hill.
The part ya sledded was the bottom segment, which went down into woods, and climbed back up the opposite side.
My sled was rocket fast.
It was my father’s infamous “Flexible-Flyer,” the fastest sled in the entire known universe.
That sled lasted a long time, despite the frame being broken, and held together with string.
It was so fast Ted Hinderer bought a new sled for use at Hercules hill.
I still whomped him — even after he waxed his runners with wax-paper, an old sledding trick.
I was the king of Center St. Hill.
Nobody could touch the Flexible-Flyer.

RE: “Silly MAC......” —All my siblings use Windows PCs, but I use an Apple MacIntosh, so am therefore reprehensible and stupid.

“Haddonfield” is the small suburb of Philadelphia in south Jersey near where I lived until I was 13. We lived in adjacent “Erlton” (‘EARL-tin’); founded in the ‘30s, named after its developer, whose name was Earl. Erlton was north of Haddonfield, an old Revolutionary town. “Cooper Crick” was a small river (creek) north of Haddonfield.

“Ted Hinderer,” my age, was my sister Elz’s first husband. (“Elz” is my sister Betty [Elizabeth]. She’s second after me, 63 [I’m the oldest at 64+ (almost 65)]. She lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. She’s been married four times — me only once.)

“Hercules hill” was a good sledding-hill near our home north of Wilmington, DE. It was on Hercules golf-course.

“I’m a certified train-aholic!”

Yesterday afternoon (Saturday, December 20, 2008) we attended the annual bring-a-dish-to-pass Christmas dinner of the vaunted 282-Alumni.
The so-called “Alumni” are the union retirees (Local 282) of Regional Transit Service in Rochester, N.Y.
It was a reaction to the fact Transit management retirees ran roughshod over union retirees — a continuation of the bad vibes at Transit: management versus union.
Transit had a club for long-time employees, and I was in it.
It was called the “15/25-year Club;” I guess at first the “25-year Club.”
But they lowered the employment requirement, and renamed it “15/25-year Club.”
The employment requirement was lowered even more; I joined at 10 years.
My employ there ended in 1993 with my stroke; and the “Alumni” didn’t exist then.
The Alumni is a special club — you have to join.
It negotiates advantageous pricing of services; e.g. dental services.
It holds biannual breakfast meetings at a restaurant, and also has its own web-site. (One of the retirees is a ‘pyooter geek.)
So here we are at this shindig, having brought a cake.
A loudmouth appears with a railroad-engineer cap — the kind hardly used any more.
It had a tiny railroad crossing-lights pin, its lights flashing red, side-to-side.
DREAD; a railfan. Do I dare introduce myself? Some goggle-eyed geek accosts me at the mighty Canandaigua Weggers seeing my Horseshoe Curve jacket.
I like watching trains, but I’m not an idiot.
“I’m a certified train-aholic!” he loudly proclaims.
“Do you know this guy?” Linda quietly asks.
“No,” I say.
“I worked as a mechanic at Transit 30 YEARS,” he loudly blared.
Okay; this is why I don’t know him. I hardly knew any mechanics; mostly drivers.
He kept repeating that 30-year bit, and that he was “a certified train-aholic!”
An album was unveiled; 89 bazilyun awful pictures of trains.
“We drove out Interstate-80 west of Cheyenne, right next to the Union Pacific mainline in Echo Canyon through the “Watich” (sic: “Wasatch” [“wa-SATCH”]) Mountains.
Pictures of dashboards and steering-wheels with blurred freight-cars behind shrubbery off to the side.
“Ever been to Horseshoe Curve?” I asked.
“I took care of my wife’s caboose for 15 years!” he loudly trumpeted. (So much for Horseshoe Curve.)
This was apparently wife number-two. Number-one walked out — this was never explained; I guess we were supposed to know that.
Number-two had had a stroke, couldn’t talk, and was confined to a wheelchair.
“We used to live in that trailer-park on Wayneport (‘WAINE-port’) Road,” he loudly declared. (Wayneport Road crosses the cross-state CSX Railroad mainline at a grade-crossing near the trailer-park.)
“Ya could hear the trains blowing for that grade-crossing all night long.”
“So when they finally threw us out” (??????????????), “I took my boombox down to the crossing, and recorded every train that passed.
Now I play that tape to go to sleep!
I’m a certified train-aholic!” (“Certified,” everyone.)
“The best restored steam locomotive is Nickel Plate #765, and the reason is because they run it like it was designed to run: hard and fast,” I said.
“My wife” (don’t know which) “volunteered me to be a Cub-Scout pack-leader.
I led a Cub-Scout pack for 10 years!
And I always wanted to coach a baseball-team; so my cub-scout pack went into Little League — used to play at the old Palmyra Airport. I welded up a pole with a rubber hose a baseball could be put on, so the kids could get used to swingin’ the bats!
And my son went out to Cheyenne, and was invited by Union Pacific into their roundhouse there. Got in the cab of both the Challenger and 844.”
“I rode behind that Challenger,” I said. “60 mph!”
“They ran that thing on Clinchfield (Railroad) to head up their Santa Claus train” (Clinchfield had similar engines) — “I have that tape,” I said.
“But one leg of the wye where they were going to turn it had been removed, so they had to back it 80 miles.
Never again. Every time they send it anyplace they send out people in advance to make sure they can operate with ease.”
“I feel sorry for that guy,” my wife observed.
“Probably alone if wife number-two had died, like he said.”
“Ever been to Marengo?” he bellowed.
Apparently there’s a Live Steam model-railroad site near Clyde, NY, on Clyde-Marengo Road; i.e. a model-railroad outfit that uses tiny live-steam locomotives to pull trains outdoors on a large layout of track.
The model-trains are large enough to ride.
“Live Steam” means the model-railroad locomotives are actually steam-engines: fuel is burned in the tiny fireboxes, and the heat generates steam in a boiler, so that they’re actually steam-engines.
The site is near the N.Y. State Thruway between Rochester and Syracuse.
“Gerry here” (the ‘pyooter geek, and also a railfan) “went out there last fall and had a ball!
He got on a model train, and around-and-around he went; photographing everything!
He flat-out disappeared.”
“Had a ball!” 89 bazilyun times, everyone.
“And every time ya go there, something is different!” (More 89 bazilyun times.)
“I hate to be a pest, but I only like the real thing,” I said.
“I’m a certified train-aholic!” he shouted again, spraying me liberally, and soaking his album next to my plate.
He had taken off his engineer’s hat, but the crossing-lights pin kept flashing red side-to-side.

For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (“Transit”), the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.

“Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in nearby Canandaigua.

“‘Pyooter” is computer.

“Linda” is my wife of almost 41 years.

“Cheyenne,” Wyoming.

“Union Pacific” Railroad, still in existence; the eastern part of the original transcontinental of 1869.

Horseshoe Curve, west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.)

“CSX” is CSX Transportation, mainly a railroad.

“Nickel Plate #765” is a restored Nickel Plate Railroad 2-8-4 Berkshire steam-engine, the best there is. —I’ve ridden behind it. (“Nickel Plate” is the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, called the “Nickel Plate” long ago by a New York Central executive because it was so competitive. The railroad eventually renamed itself the “Nickel Plate.” Norfolk & Western Railroad bought the Nickel Plate years ago, and N&W has since merged with Southern Railway, to become Norfolk Southern. Nickel Plate never actually attained New York city; it stopped at Buffalo. [“New York Central” was fairly large from the middle-west (Indiana, Ohio) to the Atlantic coast (mainly New York City), but no longer exists. It merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years.])

“Palmyra,” NY is a small town on the Erie Canal north of where we live. The airport, now closed, was for small private airplanes; it was only a single grass-strip.

The “Challenger and 844” are both restored Union Pacific (Railroad) steam locomotives, the Challenger, #3985, a 4-6-6-4 articulated and #844 a 4-8-4 Northern. (An “articulated” steam-locomotive has one driver-set hinged to the other, so the locomotive can bend through sharp turns [e.g. crossover switches]. One driver-set [the rear] is attached to the boiler, but the other [front] is hinged, so it can angle off-center.) —I have ridden behind #3985; never seen #844.

“Clinchfield” Railroad mainly operates in Kentucky and Tennessee. It no longer exists; was merged into Seaboard System, which was merged into CSX.

The “N.Y. State Thruway” is the cross-state interstate highway, but toll. —Interstate-90; Massachusetts to Buffalo and beyond. (The Thruway also includes a stretch from Albany to New York City, Interstate-87.)

“I ain’t cold yet. Whadya need?”

Gigantic snow-storm yesterday (Friday, December 19, 2008).

(Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

Ended up with about a foot.
Blew out driveway with my utterly reprehensible Jap tinker-toy not blessed with bobbie-pins and paper-clips.
Billy, across the street, the onliest son of the recently deceased 94 year old nosy neighbor, and living in their house, called last night to ask the following:
“What kind of snowblower is your husband using?”
His blower broke, so he had to have his mower-man come plow him out.
Plus he’s in his 70s.
“A Honda,” we said.
“Boy, that thing sure does the job,” he said. “It’s throwin’ the snow about 50 feet.”
“Where’dja buy it? Gotta get me a blower like that.”
“Brodner Equipment” (“BRAH-dner,” as in “bra”), we said; “long ago.”
“Don’t go all the way up to Brodner,” I interjected.
“Victor Power Equipment. That’s Ontario County; only 7.25% sales-tax. Brodner is Monroe County; 8.5%.”
“Plus Victor Power Equipment is nearer.”
“Or ya could just as well go to the Canandaigua Lowes. You’re pretty-much on your own anyway. I’ve done a lotta work on that blower.”
“Although Brodner was the one suggesting I not buy a tractor/blower combination. —That the blower I had was the best blower money could buy.”
“How big is the motor on that thing?” Billy asked.
“I don’t know,” I said; “except I know it’s big.”
“It’s a 28-inch cut, and it chewed right through the snowplow drift at the end of our driveway.
That was about two feet deep, and mostly ice.”
Just lash that there Ariens to your GeezerGlide, Boobie; and we’ll go at it, mano-a-mano.
Billy’s plow-man left a big drift in front of one garage door.
“I’m hopin’ he comes back tomorry and dresses it up.”
I took my wuss-machine across the street and removed the drift for him.
“I ain’t cold yet,” I said. “Whadya need?”

RE: “‘Old guy’ with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.......” —My loudmouthed, macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). I also am loudly excoriated by all my siblings for preferring a professional camera (like the Nikon D100) instead of a point-and-shoot. This is because I long ago sold photos to nationally published magazines.

We live in “Ontario County;” Rochester is in adjacent “Monroe County.” “Victor” is a small town near where we live, and is in “Ontario County.”

RE: “Just lash that there Ariens to your GeezerGlide, Boobie; and we’ll go at it, mano-a-mano........” —My brother-in-Boston has an Ariens (“ar-eee-ENZ;” as in “arrow”) snowblower, which he noisily claims is superior to my so-called “Jap-crap” snowblower; except his snowblower has minor repairs done by him with bobbie-pins and paperclips. Mine needed a new housing after the original got torn up on our stone driveway; and when I replaced the housing, I put the augurs in backwards (so they moved snow out instead of toward the rotating paddle). A cotter-pin broke, messing up the belt-idler clutch, and I repaired that. I also reinstalled the augurs the right way. But by then, it hardly moved snow at all, despite running fine, so I had the shop “tune up” the belt-drive. Now it’s a bear. —“GeezerGlide” is what I call all Harley Davidson ElectraGlide cruiser-bikes. My brother-from-Boston has a very laid back Harley Davidson cruiser-bike, and, like many Harley Davidson riders, is over 50 (51). So I call it his GeezerGlide. —I call him “Boobie.”

I threw Brodner’s “that the blower I had was the best blower money could buy” at my loudmouthed brother-in-Boston who noisily claimed Honda snowblowers were nothing compared to Ariens. He called my Honda a “wuss-machine.”

No fireworks this time

Yet another regular monthly business meeting of Local 282 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (“What’s Ah-Two?”) drifts into the filmy past.

—1) No fireworks this time.
Although it could have degraded to that.
Seems like just about every union meeting I’ve attended migrated to screaming and yelling and loud accusations of sell-out.
Only about eight members were in attendance, but enough, together with the morning and afternoon meetings, to constitute a quorum I guess.
One of the 89 bazilyun proposed arbitrations to be voted on was how the bus-runs were laid out.
Apparently the Company is no longer following a judge’s decision, that school-trippers are actually line-service, and go out even if there’s no school.
I used to do that.
If school was off, the run was canceled.
I still got a full day’s pay, but worked only four-five hours.
If my morning half was all school, I’d get the morning off.
But a yellow-bus company challenged Transit’s doing the schoolwork, and cost came into play.
Transit doing the schoolwork cost way less than the yellow-bus company, so a court sided with Transit saying the schoolwork was actually line-service.
But the stipulation was the work had to run every day, school or not.
Transit did that for a few months, then flip-flopped the judge’s decision and stopped doing the work if school was closed. (Probably ran outta buses.)
At issue were the number of runs over 9&1/2 hours; Transit not counting them, because they were supposedly NOT regular runs (i.e. they were “schoolwork”), yet on the other hand for the judge they claimed they were regular runs (i.e. not schoolwork, but line-service).
“This effects me personally,” a member said. “I pick that work because I get time off if school is closed.”
“Well, there are 157 school-trip runs,” the dais said. “Them 156 other drivers should be here too.”
“I’ll tell ya why them 156 other drivers ain’t here,” someone bellowed.
“They’ve decided this union is a joke; that ya’ve all sold out, and are in bed with management.”
“Uh-ohhhhhh.......” I thought. “FIREWORKS ALERT!”
But nothing came of it.
Everyone on the dais was preparing for a blast.
But we adjourned at 9:30 p.m.; a record.
It probably woulda made me address the crowd.
I usually just sit quietly, but got involved in one of these noisy fracases a while ago.
“This is the same yelling I heard at these meetings 20 years ago; that our union was a sell-out.
We ain’t actually a union, except the mechanics, bless ‘em.
No one participates.
Will I see you at the next meeting? I’ll be here.”

—2) It looks like the guy way up the road by the Thruway along my route into Rochester for the union-meeting has finally given up on decorating his 100-foot Blue Spruce tree.
It’s dark when I start out for the December meeting, and every year that guy had colored lights on that tree, all the way to the top.
I wondered how he did it.
That thing is so tall, ya’d need a cherry-picker; although I suppose ya could do it with a humungous extension-ladder.
Yet every year it was decorated, except last night.
Richards used to do that next to us in Erlton.
Their Blue Spruce in their front yard was about 30-40 feet high, and Ed Richards would hoist up his extension-ladder, and string lights all around it.
Erlton was good for outdoor Christmas decorations.
The family on the southwest corner of Jefferson and Cooper went completely bonkers.
They had lights along every possible edge, and even far away atop their fence.
Ya could tell when they turned ‘em all on; streetlights and house-lights inside dimmed. —The refrigerator would drop its hum.
The Hall family on Wesley Ave. had a notable display. Mrs. Hall was my Cub-Scout den-mother; and Mr. Hall was an electrician.
Mr. Hall had rigged up a washing-machine timer in his basement to energize various Christmas-light circuits he had on his house.
First red; then green; then blue; then white; then altogether.
His house was like watching a theater marquis.

—3) Part of the reason I attended this meeting, was because I turn 65 on February 5, 2009; Medicare age.
I managed to buttonhole the union-prez after the meeting, one Joe Carey (“Carry”); who’s already Medicare age.
Every attempt at my speaking is always a mess; halting silences while I try to put words together, and/or decide what to say.
The old speech-center doesn’t work very well, and hasn’t since the stroke; but since it works fairly well, people assume I’m normal.
And get frustrated when it doesn’t, or think I’m angry because I can’t get words out.
Whether my concerns were answered is questionable, since I probably didn’t get the right questions out.
“My wife turns 65 on January 2, 2009, and got a communication from Transit last October. —Yet I haven’t got anything yet.”
“You don’t need to worry,” Joe said. “You’re already on Medicare.”
“No I’m not,” I said.
“But you’re disabled. You’re on Social Security,” Joe said.
“Social Security, but not Social Security Disability.”
“But once you’re on SSDI you’re on it for life.”
“Negatory,” I said. “That ended about seven years ago so I could go full-time at the Messenger.”
The import, I guess, was that Transit already has what’s needed for me to Medicare Cut-Out; but needed input from Linda.
“On it for life?” I thought. Hmmmmmmnnnnnnnn. “Are ya saying I shouldna discontinued SSDI?”
Around-and-around we went; my halting silences trying to decide what to say.
“If you’re not on Medicare, what health insurance are ya on?” Joe asked.
“Preferred Care,” I said. “We had to fill out a change-form; also when I went off SSDI.”
“Your wife was never on Medicare, which was why Transit needed a change-form.”
So it sounds like we have to drive all the way to Transit to -a) make sure they don’t have me as disabled; and -b) if I need to do a change-form. A “grandstand,” as it were; since they won’t respond to our phone inquiries — probably disturbing their coffee-breaks.
“Yeah, they never call back,” Joe said. “It’s pulling teeth!”
“Yeah, but ya can write,” a compatriot said.
“But that’s different,” I said. “Writing ain’t speaking. The writing works fine, but the speaking doesn’t. I have to let my wife speak for me.”
Driving home afterward I realized my driving works fine too; but not the speaking. —It’s frustrating that everyone thinks I can speak fine when I can’t.

(CUE BLUSTER-KING; and the usual anti-union tirades.)

“Local 282” is the Rochester local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union. (“What’s ‘ah-two?’” is something my mother asked seeing my ATU [Amalgamated Transit Union] button.) —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (“Transit”), the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. (282 was our union.)

RE: “Adjourned at 9:30 p.m.; a record........” —The regular monthly business meetings of Local 282 usually last until 10 p.m., or later.

The “Thruway” is the New York State Thruway (Interstate-90), which I cross under to get to Rochester.

“Erlton” (‘EARL-tin’) is the small suburb of Philadelphia in south Jersey where I lived until I was 13. Erlton was founded in the ‘30s, named after its developer, whose name was Earl. The “Richards” were our immediate neighbors to the southeast.

“Jefferson” Ave. was the main east-west drag through Erlton we lived on. Both Wesley and Cooper Aves. crossed it.

RE: “Medicare Cut-Out......” —Medicare is primary, and pays its part first. I also have supplementary healthcare insurance from Transit that pays the shortage.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

The “Bluster-King” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. —My siblings are all flagrantly anti-union.

Facebook fulminations

RE: Bill’s “trying to keep up with Facebook.......”
“Do I even wanna do this?” I heard from the old ‘pyooter-programmer in the other room.
“Facebook is turning into a monstrous hairball.
Click friends in common, and invitations to be friends, and before ya know it ya got 89 bazilyun friends.
In which case I get a gigantic scroll-down home page noting every burp and fart listed on the left: somebody picked their nose; someone’s building an ark because it’s raining.
How am I supposed to weed through all that stuff? —Find interesting stuff amidst 89 bazilyun postings? —Do I even care?
It was already a struggle trying to keep up with FlagOut: Jack’s latest tirade — seems there were always at least seven.
Now we just multiply all the postings by about 100, and dumb everything down.”
“YEP,” I said. “I inadvertently joined Facebook because Anmari Linardi (“Anne-Marie lynn-AR-dee”) had invited me as a friend.
By responding to a Facebook e-mail, I joined Facebook.
And FireFox (“Fox-Fire”) keeps me logged in.
It’s their old “save tabs” feature that also keeps me logged into my blog and FlagOut.
I have it saving four active tabs: -1) the Curve web-cam; -2) my blog; -3) FlagOut; and -4) Facebook.
Facebook is arraying every belch and fart everyone did since the beginning of time.
What I look for is the Marcy posts.
Facebook is only a means of communicating, and it reflects the intellectual wherewithal of its users.
And Marcy, bless her, far as I’ve noticed, is the onliest one posting at my level.
I posted a comment on her “wall” about “Twitter” perhaps being better than Facebook.
So she blasted back she was aware of that, but thought Facebook was better.
“Twitter” reminds me of Bobby Day’s “Rockin Robin;” so I Googled Rockin Robin lyrics and posted the first verse on Marcy’s wall.
Marcy, of course, ran with it.
She fired back the second verse.
So I fired back the chorus:
“Rockin’ robin (tweet tweet tweedlee-DEET!)
Rockin’ robin (tweet tweet tweedlee-DEET!)
Oh rockin' robin well you really gonna rock tonight......”
Our exchange is the longest and most entertaining on my otherwise turgid Facebook home page.
Which proves to me yet again it ain’t the software, it’s the user!
If you’re entertained by reading about every fart and belch of your 89 bazilyun friends, use Facebook.
If ya need 89 bazilyun friends to feel viable, use Facebook.
I have a Facebook account, by default, but all I look at is the Marcy posts (and other Ne’er-do-Wells). That’s about 5% of the posts.
Other than that, Facebook is a hairball; seems Marcy and I could be just as well using e-mail as Facebook.

“Bill” is my younger brother in northern Delaware. He has opened a Facebook account, and now has over 150 “friends.” —He is trumpeting the superiority of Facebook over our family’s web-site (“FlagOut”), and those that don’t agree with him are out-of-it. He fiddles his Facebook account instead of our family’s web-site.

“The old ‘pyooter-programmer in the other room” is of course my wife of 40+ years, “Linda.” She retired as a computer-programmer at a large printing company where she worked over 30 years. She has her own computer in our spare bedroom.

“FlagOut” is our family’s web-site, named that because I had a mentally-retarded kid-brother (Down Syndrome) who lived at home, and loudly insisted the flag be flown every day. “Flag-Out! Sun comes up, the flag goes up! Sun goes down, the flag comes down.” I fly the flag partly in his honor. (He died at 14 in 1968.)

“Jack” is my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston. He noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He’s older than Bill — but only by a year. He’s 13 years younger than me.

“Anmari Linardi” is an ex photographer for the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. She’s one of my Ne’er-do-Wells. (The “Ne’er-do-Wells” are an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to.)

“FireFox” is my Internet browser. My siblings all call it “Fox-Fire” because they think it’s abhorrent and unGodly compared to Microsoft Internet-Explorer. “FireFox” is the browser I use to fiddle this blog, and was suggested by them. Internet-Explorer doesn’t even work properly.

The Curve (“Horseshoe Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.) —Horseshoe Curve has a web-cam, but it’s awful.

“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, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. She lives near Boston, and married an ex Messenger reporter.

“Rockin Robin,” a rock-n-roll song by Bobby Day, was popular back in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. It featured a jazzy flute.

Monthly Calendar Report for December 2008

Three of my calendars saved the best for last.

P-51D Mustang “Kimberly Kaye.” (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

The December 2008 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar has the greatest propeller fighter-plane of all time, the fabulous North-American Aviation P-51 Mustang.
Every American, by law, should be required to see a P-51 Mustang fly.
I saw one fly at the Geneseo Air Show a few years ago, and I will never forget it.
It was doing aerobatics: hammerhead stalls, and loops, and 500+ mph power-dives.
The V12 Merlin motor, which is unmuffled, puts out an incredible crackle. That alone is reason enough to experience it.
I’ll see if I can get the link to the P-51 .wav; here it is: http://www.mustangsmustangs.com/p-51/avi.audio/P-51FlyBy.wav
Although once I saw a Navy Grumman Bearcat fighter put on an aerial display equal to a Mustang.
It was arcing all over the sky, and putting out an incredible sound.
But the P-51 has grace.
It looks like a streamlined air-racer, which is what it mimics — plus it was later raced.
The radial-engine racers were probably faster — they had more powerful engines.
But the Packard built Rolls-Royce Merlin in a P-51 could be souped up.
Plus the P-51 was a fabulous airplane; enough to give the more powerful Navy fighters a good race.

The greatest railroad locomotive of all time. (Photo by Dr. Carl Smetko.)

The December entry of my All-Pennsy Color Calendar is the greatest railroad locomotive of all time, the fabulous Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 electric locomotive.
It’s in the single-stripe paint scheme I saw so much of in the ‘60s. Earlier was the five pinstripe “cat-whisker” scheme promulgated by industrial designer Raymond Loewy.
I saw only one cat-whisker GG1, in 1960.
#4913 is still around, preserved at the Railroaders’ Memorial Museum in Altoona, PA. But it’s been repainted into the Tuscan Red cat-whisker-scheme, and it’s stored outside, so is rusting to smithereens.
And its pantograph is reaching toward nothing — no overhead catenary (wire).
All the others I saw, and there were hundreds, were the single-stripe scheme pictured here.
People think the cat-whisker scheme looked better, but I think the single-stripe scheme looked just as good.
The train pictured is at North Philadelphia Station, a feeble attempt by Pennsy to get its New York-to-Chicago trains out of Philadelphia’s grand Broad St. Terminal.
Broad St. Terminal is long-gone, and reflected the fact the Pennsy was originally to Philadelphia.
A through New York-to-Chicago train had to reverse out of Broad St.
Amtrak still does this; reversing out of Philadelphia’s 30th St. Station.
North Philly is also the junction of a commuter line.
Plus it’s an interlocking with a maze of crossover switches.
It’s so rough the ride-test of a train is how well it rides through the North Philly interlocking.
We once caught a train at North Philly in the late ‘60s.
Years ago, Pennsy operated trains over the “Pennsylvania-Reading (‘RED-ing,’ not ‘READ-ing’) Seashore Lines” (PRSL) to south Jersey seashore resorts. (In fact, go back far enough and both Pennsylvania Railroad and arch-rival Reading ran trains from south Jersey seashore resorts to ferry-slips in Camden, and then across the Delaware river from Camden, NJ to Philadelphia by passenger-ferry. Although Pennsy was on Camden & Atlantic, which was chartered in 1852, which they came to control; and Reading was on competitor Atlantic City Railroad, taken over by Reading. The C&A was slightly more circuitous, but both railroads were running competing “Boardwalk Flyers” at over 100 mph through the south Jersey Pine-Barrens. A train might get across south Jersey in 50 minutes — it’s 55 miles. The two railroads were competing to be fastest.
“Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines” (PRSL) was an amalgamation of Pennsylvania and Reading railroad-lines in south Jersey to counter the fact the two railroads had too much track. It was promulgated in 1933. Both railroads had competing lines serving just about every south Jersey seashore resort, and were losing money.
Pennsy opened a Delaware river crossing in 1896, so it could run trains direct from Philadelphia to the Jersey seashore (“da show-ah”) without ferries. It also allowed them to railroad freight direct into south Jersey without ferries.
This was the service we were using, and it was still PRSL — Amtrak didn’t begin until 1970.
And at that time, Atlantic City was the only PRSL service that ran with a locomotive and coaches, instead of the self-propelled Budd RDC car. (Even Atlantic City eventually switched to the RDC.)
But I don’t think the Atlantic City service ran all the way to 30th St. Station in Philly. You had to get off at North Philly.
So here we were at grungy old North Philly Station waiting for a southbound GG1-powered passenger train that would take us to Wilmington, DE. —My parents were living in Wilmington then, so we were staying with them.
It was all train trips; up to North Philly, over to Atlantic City, and then back home via North Philly.
Even the island rain-shelters were falling apart. They had wooden roofs that were rotting.
I had wanted to make that Atlantic City train-ride for years. My first encounter with trains was the seashore trips on the PRSL on the old Camden & Atlantic through Haddonfield, NJ in the late ‘40s.
And it was still steam-engines. I’m lucky enough to have witnessed steam-locomotives.
My last steamer was a rusty Pennsy K4 Pacific in 1956 at the Garden State Park horse-track near Erlton. It was Pennsy’s racetrack excursion service from Philly.
In 1961 or ‘62 I went to Claymont station north of Wilmington on the old PRR electrified line to Washington, D.C., now Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
There were four tracks, and I was used to seeing express passenger trains on the middle tracks. Commuter trains and freight usually ran the outside tracks.
So here I am arm hooked around a light-pole about eight feet from the outside track.
I hear a southbound train coming; sounds like a GG1 express.
But it was on the outside track!
It blasted by at about 100 mph, and almost sucked me into it.
Had I not had my arm hooked around that lightpole, I wouldn’t be here.
The GG1 was the greatest railroad locomotive ever.
I remember a GG1 hitting a bulldozer on a flatbed south of Wilmington.
It tossed the ‘dozer about 200 feet; and the G was hardly damaged — didn’t even derail.

“Callaway SuperNatural.” (Photo by Richard Prince.)

The December entry of my All-Corvette calendar has a Callaway “SuperNatural” C6 Corvette.
My friend Tim Belknap thinks Corvettes are disgusting, and look like shampoo bottles.
Well, it’s not the C3, but I still think it looks pretty good.
The previous C5 was indeed a shampoo bottle; big and overstyled. The C6, which this car is, rectified all the styling flaws of the C5, namely that it was too big.
The other problem is the motor is still based on the ancient Small-Block which debuted in the 1955 model-year.
The Small-Block was a fabulous and ground-breaking design.
And Zora Arkus-Duntov was hired, and made the Corvette a great car.
His first move was to wrench the fabulous Small-Block into the ‘Vette.
And that was the standard motor for years. (The only other motor available was the Chevy Big-Block, and that was overkill — massively powerful but too heavy.)
But over-the-years engine technology has advanced beyond the Small-Block.
Even arch-competitor Ford is using 4-overhead-cam V8s in its Mustangs.
Even Cadillac has a 4-cam 32-valve V8; but Corvette still soldiers on with its V8 based on the hoary old Small-Block.
The Small-Block can be made very powerful, and it is in the C6.
They’ve even resorted to supercharging it, and it’s been hogged out to nearly (and occasionally) seven liters — that’s 427 cubic inches, a size the Big-Block was available in.
But it’s still only two valves per cylinder, and only one cam, nestled between the cylinder banks under the intake paraphernalia; the same layout that’s been used by Detroit for eons.
Where are the double overhead cams? Where are the four valves per cylinder?
All are available from other makers (especially motorcycles — the goal for power-mad speed crazies).
Yet Corvette soldiers on with a gigantic mega-power boat-anchor.
Still, I’d take one — although I have a dog to carry.
Shove your foot into a ‘Vette, and it’ll throw you back in the seat.
NICE, but where do I carry a dog?
And it’s still essentially the C4 chassis, which was introduced in the 1984 model-year.
The car pictured is a special model from Callaway Engineering (“kal-o-WAY”); the so-called “SuperNatural.”
It uses a 550-horsepower seven-liter motor with forged crankshaft, connecting rods, and pistons, so it hangs together at high output.
There are other Corvette specialists; e.g. Lingenfelter, (“lynn-gin-FELT-rrrrr;” as in “get,” not the liquor) although they’re more dealing with Chevy motors, not just the Corvette.
Lingenfelter puts twin turbochargers on the ‘Vette, which is asking for trouble. Lingenfelter ‘Vettes have broken when road-tested.
Both Callaway and Lingenfelter improve the handling of the ‘Vette, and use bigger brakes (less likely to fade when used hard).
But it’s still the same hoary old Small-Block layout, although much improved since 1955.
The ‘Vette is supposed to be GM’s premier sportscar offering, yet gets by with an over-strung, antique and gas-guzzling boat-anchor for a motor. It needs double overhead cams, and four-valves per cylinder. It’s no longer the ‘70s.

Pennsylvania Railroad T1 #5520 at 80 mph. (Photo by Otto Perry©.)

The December entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black & white All-Pennsy calendar has a Pennsy T1 4-4-4-4 at 80 mph on the wide-open Fort Wayne division across Indiana from Chicago.
The T1 was Pennsy’s attempt to replace the K4 Pacific after World War II — plus an attempt to replace with a steam-engine.
But it wasn’t very successful.
For one thing, it’s not actually an articulated; although it looks like one.
That front driver-set isn’t hinged to move independently of the rear driver-set; the definition of “articulated.”
What it really is, is a 4-8-4 with four drive pistons, the eight drivers broken into two groups of four each.
All eight drivers are on the same frame, and move with the attached boiler.
Pennsy could do this because their curvature was fairly open. The Fort Wayne division pictured is arrow straight.
But the T1 suffered from the affliction that effects all steam-locomotives with two-or-more driver-sets, namely that one driver-set (usually the front) was carrying less weight than the other(s), and was therefore more likely to slip.
And on the T1 the drivers are big: 80 inches in diameter (same size as a K4).
So a T1 might accelerate out of a station stop, it’s front driver-set spinning wildly.
This even happened at speed.
80 mph cruising, and a driver-set starts spinning.
The only way to catch a slip on a steam-engine is close the throttle; which cuts off steam to all driver-sets on a locomotive with multiple driver-sets (unless there were separate throttles to each piston-set, which I don’t think anyone did).
Train slows, or is a bear to start.
The other problem was that T1s were smoky — why, I don’t know.
What this usually means is it wasn’t burning its fuel (soft coal) efficiently.
Pennsy never got to develop steam-locomotives in the ‘30s.
They were developing electrification, including the fabulous GG1 electric locomotive.
If they had developed steam engines in the ‘30s, they might have got around to a good 4-8-4 to replace the K4 Pacific.
But such was not to be. (The T1 was too much too quickly.)
Nevertheless, the T1s were gorgeous to look at; particularly the first two styled by Raymond Loewy.
But Pennsy fiddled the Loewy design to make the locomotive easier to build and maintain.
Loewy’s shark-nose was massively shortened, the gorgeous smokebox chamfers reduced.
Still, it looked pretty good.
And a T1 could gobble up the miles.
The picture looks like it was taken with a focal-plane shutter — the train is slightly tilted forward at the top.
But it’s 1946, not 1933, like that picture of the K4 Pacific on Rockville Bridge, the October entry in my Audio-Visual Designs black & white All-Pennsy calendar.
Same photographer, better camera.

Mega-slammed ‘32 Ford fendered roadster of Stanley Wanlass. (Photo by Peter Vincent.)

The December entry of my All-1932 Ford hot-rod calendar is a slammed 1932 Ford roadster.
That front is so low, ya wonder how it got in a driveway. It would probably scrape just pulling into the burger-joint.
With a corroded Moon fuel canister between the frame-rails in front of the radiator, it looks great.
But it’s so low, where do ya drive it other than billiard-table flat pavement; e.g. an airport runway?
Years ago a chopped, channeled, sectioned and lowered lead-sled ‘49 Mercury pulled into the Charcoal Pit burger-joint in northern Delaware.
It looked really great pulling in, but scraped the driveway entrance.
To negotiate the average driveway entrance, ya need at least three inches of clearance; maybe four-to-six or more.
At only four feet tall the lead-sled looked great, but had only 1.5 to two inches of ground clearance.
Someone did a fabulous job, but made it impractical.
Another problem with the car pictured is where do ya sit?
That roof is so low, about the only way to comfortably drive the thing is with the top off.
A couple years ago I saw a pickup truck at a Canandaigua car-show with a top-chop of five-to-six inches.
I looked at it, and wondered how ya drive it.
The owner thereupon got in and scrunched. His view forward was a gun-slit windshield atop the dashboard.
What pleasure could there ever be croozing like that?
The Charcoal Pit led-sled was so low the driver had to sit in the back — a specially constructed seat where the rear seats were.
And still he was scrunched.

The December entry of my Three Stooges calendar is only flown because the Stooges are dressed up so funny.
With Larry it’s that cowboy hat, and with Moe it’s the bandana.
They also have their pants hiked up to their chins — the perfect Stooges attire.
One wonders why Curly is exiting that cave in Napoleon garb.
I bet it’s a great movie, but like all movie-still cut-outs of Stooges movies, it doesn’t work too well as a photograph.
Moe looks put off, and Larry is putting on an act.
Minor details that don’t destroy a movie, but degrade a photograph.
Like most photos in this calendar, it stumbles because it’s not a posed photograph.
I doubt if there are any.
The Stooges are slapstick action comedy.
The comedy is the action; not the poses.
Great movies, but sayonara Stooges calendar.
I did not reorder; muscle-cars instead.

The December entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees calendar is not worth flying.
It’s a mood-shot: parallel yard tracks under about two inches of thin snow fading into a dense fog.
There’s a train coming far away, but all you can see of it are its headlight, and the ditch lights.
It’s a train calendar; make the train visible.

The “Geneseo Air Show” is an air-show for classic propeller airplanes at a grass airstrip near the small western New York town of Geneseo, south of Rochester. It’s been around for years.

“Aerobatics” are acrobatics by airplanes.

A “hammerhead stall” is to fly straight up until the propeller (or jet) thrust can no longer lift the airplane, at which points it tumbles over (“hammerhead”) into a dive.

A “V12 Merlin motor” is a water-cooled 12-cylinder airplane engine, arranged in a V, six cylinders per side. The motor was originally designed by Roll Royce in Britain (called the “Merlin”); but manufactured (and improved) by Packard Motorcar Company, for their effort during WWII.

The “Navy Grumman Bearcat” was a fighter-plane made by Grumman Aircraft for the U.S. Navy; last (and best) of a series of Grumman Navy WWII fighter-planes. —They had to have extraordinarily strong landing-gear, since they were slammed into aircraft-carrier decks.

A “radial” engine is multiple cylinders (usually air-cooled) arranged in a circle on a common crankshaft; usually seven or nine cylinders per row. Often the engines were two rows or more; 18 or as many 28 cylinders (four rows). Air-cooled “Radials” were quite common on WWII propeller aircraft, and were developed to generate a lot of horsepower. —Contrasting is the water-cooled V12 Merlin.

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world.

“Raymond Loewy” is a long-ago industrial designer hired by the Pennsylvania Railroad. He convinced Pennsy to use a welded-steel shell on its GG1 locomotive (as opposed to small individual skin-panels pieced together with rivets), thereby making it the most beautiful railroad locomotive of all time. He also did a number of other small styling improvements on the GG1; and did quite a few other designs for Pennsy. —Loewy had other accounts beyond Pennsy.

“Tuscan Red” (“TUHSS-kin”) was a standard Pennsylvania Railroad paint-color, the brownish-red on preserved #4913. Their passenger-coaches were painted Tuscan Red.

The “catenary” (“cat-in-ARY”) is the overhead trolley-wire that delivered electric power to the electric locomotives. It was suspended in a catenary-style wire assemblage between towers. The electric-locomotives slid “pantographs” (“pant-uh-GRAFF”) along (and under) the trolley-wire, instead of the usual trolley-poles and flanged wheels found on trolley-cars. The “pantograph” was what collected electric power from the overhead wire.

“30th St. Station” became the main Pennsy railroad-station in Philadelphia after Broad St. Terminal was closed. Unfortunately, it’s not on the New York-to-Chicago routing; it’s on the Washington D.C. line. Trains from New York to Chicago, have to pull into 30th St., and then be dragged out backwards.

“Philly” is of course “Philadelphia,” PA.

An “interlocking” is where crossover switches, or switches, connect adjacent tracks. “Interlockings” are now called “Control-Points;” and used to be switched by lineside towers. They can now be switched electronically from a central location.

“Crossover switches” are switches from one track to an adjacent track on a multiple-track railroad.

Quite a bit of southern New Jersey, toward the ocean, is sand, which engendered never-ending pine forests. This area is known as the “Pine-Barrens.”

“Amtrak” is the government sponsored railroad passenger service that took over railroad passenger service from the railroads in 1970. —It mostly runs passenger-trains over the private railroads with its own equipment, but does own the old Pennsy Washington D.C. to New York City electrified mainline, which became its “Northeast Corridor” service, and has since been extended to Boston.

“Erlton” (‘EARL-tin’) is the small suburb of Philadelphia in south Jersey where I lived until I was 13. Erlton was founded in the ‘30s, named after its developer, whose name was Earl. Erlton was north of “Haddonfield,” an old Revolutionary town. “Garden State Park” was a large horse-racing track now closed. It was near Erlton where we lived.

“Claymont” is an old suburb north of Wilmington, DE; which the old Pennsy New York-to-Washington D.C. mainline skirts. The line is now Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, and the station has been rebuilt. It is now a stop for railroad commuter-service, actually SouthEastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA), although in Delaware it’s Delaware Area Rapid Transit (“DART”) paying for the SEPTA service, which goes all the way south to Newark, DE, a suburb southwest of Wilmington on the Corridor.

Various Corvettes have been marketed over the years; 1953-1962; the Sting-Ray from 1963-1967; the mako-sharks (also Sting-Rays) from 1968-1982; the C4s from 1983-1996; the C5s from 1997-2004; and currently the C6 (2005-to date). Earlier Corvettes didn’t go by the “C” nomenclature, and “C” nomenclature is essentially a fan thing. Ergo, C1 is 1953-1962; C2 is 1963-1967; and C3 is 1968-1982. The car pictured is a C6.

“Tim Belknap” was an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked; one of about seven. Belknap like me is a car-guy, so we continue to keep in contact. He has retired.

The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first at 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. It was made in various larger displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation.

RE: “4-overhead-cam V8s........” —For years, the rotating camshaft, which trips open the cylinder-valves, was a single shaft in the cylinder-block, which operated the valves in an overhead-valve engine via pushrods, and rocker-arms, which turn the valve motion 180°. (A side-valve engine, ancient practice, kept the valves and manifolding in the engine-block; but overhead valves breathed better.) But the system was unstable at high speeds, so camshafts were moved up into the cylinder-head, to open the valves directly; no pushrods or rocker-arms. This is two camshafts per cylinder-bank; one for exhaust valves, and one for intake. (There also were single overhead cam applications, that opened both intake and exhaust.) A V8 has two cylinder-banks; so that’s four overhead camshafts. —At first it was two valves per cylinder, but four valves per cylinder breathes better, so four valves per cylinder became preferred. Such a V8 would have 32 valves (four valves times eight cylinders).

“Supercharging” is to force intake air into the engine cylinders with a blower powered directly by the engine — usually gears or pulleys. Forcing intake air into an engine increases breathing and performance. The new ZR1 Corvette is supercharged.

“Turbocharging” is to drive a supercharger with an exhaust driven turbine, instead of directly.

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s three-plus, and is our sixth Irish-Setter.

A “forging” means the semi-molten metal has been hammered into essentially its final shape. By so doing, porosity is hammered out, and the grains of metal align to its final shape. A “forging” is significantly stronger (and less likely to break) than cast metal. I.e. “Forged” metal parts in an engine are less likely to fly apart at high output/speed. —The side-rods on a steam-locomotive were forgings.

A “K4 Pacific” was Pennsy’s standard passenger steam-locomotive; Pacific being a 4-6-2, and “K4” being the class. (Earlier was K2; smaller.) —The engine was developed in the ‘teens, and never replaced. Pennsy never developed a more modern passenger steam locomotive; they were developing electrification. (Pennsy developed its own locomotives; outside purchases were to their own designs.) They had many K4s; and ended up doubleheading steam-engines on heavy passenger trains; when a single more modern engine might have cost less to operate. Doubleheading is two crews, since steam-locomotives can’t be MU-ed like diesel locomotives. But Pennsy could afford the added expense. (“MU” means multiple-unit.)

A “focal-plane shutter” is a slit that passes over the film (“focal-plane”), instead of a shutter right behind (or in front of) the lens. A focal-plane shutter allowed much higher speeds than a regular shutter (e.g a regular iris shutter might achieve 1/125th or so; but a focal-plane shutter could effect much faster speeds; like 1/500th or faster). But early on, the slit moved so slowly the train would advance as the shutter exposed. Plus it was a large negative, usually four-by-five inches. A moving train tilted forward at the top — this was especially noticeable early in train photography, but as cameras got better, their focal-plane shutters got fast enough to decrease the tilting. The 35 mm Single-Lens-Reflex camera prevalent after the ‘60s. used focal-plane shutters; but the negative was so small, tilt was unnoticeable.

“Slammed” refers to a low look; the car lowered so much it appears “slammed” down onto the pavement.

A “roadster,” in earlier parlance, referred to an open two-seater with a non-convertible canvas top, which could be removed. The top wasn’t fold-down (“convertible”); but recent parlance has a convertible two-seater as a “roadster.” (The car pictured is not convertible.)

A “Moon fuel canister” is a small beer-keg like canister made by Moon Equipment in southern California. It held only enough fuel for a run or two.

“Chopped” refers to a section removed from the side-window pillars of the car’s roof; usually about three inches or more. By removing this, the car’s roof is lowered. “Channeled” is to weld channels into the body-floor, so the car-body can sit lower on the frame-rails. “Sectioned” is to remove a horizontal section out of the car-body side, so the car-body is not as high as stock. “Lowered” is to insert lowering-blocks between the rear leaf-springs and rear axle so the car rides lower on its rear axle. Lowering may also be engineered into how low the body sits over its front wheels. —How this is done depends on the front suspension. A front beam-axle could be bent to lower itself relative to the wheels. (Beam-axle front suspension is rarely seen any more; only on large trucks.)

A so-called “lead-sled” referred to the practice of using lead filler to smooth body alterations (like chopping or sectioning). It used to be that body-smoothing (and repair of car-wrecks) was done with lead filler; now it’s Bondo (or whatever the most recent plastic replacement is). —A so-modified ‘49 Mercury sedan was called a “lead-sled.”

“Yard tracks” are parallel tracks in a railroad freight yard. A freight train would be brought in, and then broken up according to destination. Segments of the arriving train would get shunted (“yarded”) on the “yard tracks” according to destination, so that a train could be assembled on that track, and later be forwarded. “Yard tracks” are essentially storage-tracks for classification.

“Ditch lights” are additional headlights on the pilot of the front of a locomotive. There’s one at each end; right and left aimed forward; and being down low, can be said to illuminate “the ditches.” But they’re more for warning traffic at grade-crossings, since the single headlight on a locomotive won’t tell how close the train is. Add ditch-lights, and the closeness of a train becomes apparent. The “ditch lights” can also be flashed side-to-side to be more noticeable. “Ditch lights” were a government requirement.