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22

The organization outlined on P.15 was the result more of what had been than what was at the moment or what was to be in the immediate future and it was to undergo gradually decided changes in emphasis on its various lines of business. In this process, many changed assignments and others retired while a few dropped out of TED completely to transfer to other areas of the Company. It is interesting, therefore, to review this at this point and help to set the stage for what was to come over the next few years.

[[underlined]] ELECTIFICATION SYSTEMS [[/underlined]]: This was the group who had been involved in handling equipment for various railroad electrifications. With the exception of old Ernie Thiele, who was primarily a calculator for the others, each of these men was capable of coming up with a railroad electrification study and directing the GE end of the procurement of the heavy equipment involved. They were pretty high class guys from my observation, were paid well relatively speaking (say $7,000 to $9,000 a year), dressed well, handled themselves well, and lived well--but unfortunately they were running out of work as railroad electrification was being pushed into the background by the Depression as well as a more permanent force, the diesel-electric locomotive. Each had been associated with some important electrification projects, some of which had involved GE heavily and some lightly. The following shows the involvements I'm familiar with:

J.B. Cox | Mexicano -- Great Northern
Sam Fortenbaugh | Paris Orleans -- South African Railways
E.S.Johnson | Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul
E.E.Kimball | West Jersey & Seashore
A.I.Totten | Spanish Northern

These men gradually dropped off the vine into retirement and apparently there was just about enough work to keep the shrinking group moderately busy as they faded away. I don't recall any of these men switching to other lines of work.

[[underlined]] MANUAL SUBSTATIONS [[/underlined]]: People of my generation are inclined to forget the booming business in trolley-car equipments and trolley-line power supply apparatus, particularly substations, over at least a thirty-year period ending along in the 1920's. Bldg.6 at Erie, during its first decade, say 1910 to 1920, turned out hundreds of trolley-car motors a week. And the business in rotary-converters and associated transformers and switchgear was correspondingly large. This accounts for the two relatively large substation groups primarily although there was also some business in substations for railroad electrifications. The [[underlined]] AUTOMATIC SUBSTATION [[/underlined]] group is the second I refer to. By the 1940's this activity had dwindled to one