Viewing page 30 of 141

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[underline]] To Mother, January 31, 1926 [[/underline]]: They tell me that Mr. Dutton is a DD and was Congregational minister at one time, his father being one. I also know he studied law too, all of which makes him more interesting. ......Friday night, Hoddy, another new testman friend, and I ate supper about 8:30 up at the New York Central restaurant next to the roundhouse, with the trains tearing by outside and in company of real, honest-to-goodness railroad men. It was lots of fun -- rather like a story book to me.

[[underline]] To Willie, January 1926 [[/underline]]: Last Friday night, we worked until 8 and then Hoddy took me up the New York Central roundhouse restaurant, where we got supper. You see, the main line of the Central runs about a half mile from the house here, so in the evening, one can see the trains tearing along the road and at any time of the day or night their whistles come screeching across at us, lending a very "railroady" atmosphere to the place, which, of course, pleases me immensely. There is a roundhouse not far from us, the very one I spoke of above, and also some small shops, I guess. Well, at any rate, Hoddy took me up there and we say at a long counter with a lot of honest-to-goodness railroad men all around us, and ate our supper. We could look out the window and see the roundhouse not thirty feet away and hear the trains go tearing by on the tracks outside. It was thrilling to me -- seemed like a story book somehow. After we were through, we went into the roundhouse as though we owned the place, looked over all the locomotives, wandered around, and had a great time generally. They had two freight locos in there that were the hugest things I've ever seen, perfectly enormous. And yet they are so crude when put beside a sleek, powerful electric locomotive, not nearly as large, but with the stuff in it to back one of them right off the road, and without one murmer in contrast with the terrific bellowings of the steam giant. Perhaps you heard the story of the test they put the new Milwaukee electrics to before they sent them est. They coupled [[underline]]two [[/underline]] of the Central's most powerful freight locomotives to [[underline]]one [[/underline]] of the new Milwaukees, the combined horsepower of the steamers being greater than that of the electric. Then they let the steamers get a good start pulling the electric. Then the regenerative brakes of the electric began to be applied. She stopped the two steamers dead, and ended by pulling [[underline]] them [[/underline]] back up the track, with their drivers tearing the rails to pieces, still rotating in the other direction. The regenerative brakes do not apply any friction to the wheels at all. Regenerative braking is merely the transforming of the motors temporarily into generators and pumping power back into the line, braking the train at the same time.

[[underline]] To Mother, February 2, 1926 [[/underline]]: How many people seem to live only by what they do and not by what they think. They must be doing, doing, doing something. I was much like that in college and you used to urge me it was unnecessary to be everlastingly "doing" something. Now I have partially outgrown that stage and can