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26

I have almost no record of what jobs I worked on in TED from say February, when I transferred, until early October, when I went out on the DL&W job for the rest of the year. So what I put down is the result of an intense delving into my memory plus historical data now available with which I can identify. In this connection, there is an excellent article in the December 1970 TRAINS Magazine by David H. Hamley entitled "Ingersoll-Rand: Catalyst of Dieselization," which presents a fine history of what went on in diesel-electric locomotive development during the early years and which recounts much of what I was personally involved with. It has been very helpful in helping me to reconstruct my own 1930 activities as well as my work during the following several years.

The triumvirate of Alco-IR-GE combined in the twenties to promote the diesel-electric switcher business. Alco built the mechanical portions, GE supplied the electrical equipment and assembled the units at Erie, and Ingersoll-Rand supplied the diesel engine and did the selling. The head of the I-R group working on this project was L. G. Coleman, a dynamic operator who made things move and pushed the sales effort hard and I believe came from the Boston & Maine. His top salesman was Jim Chambers whom I got to know very well. Ralph Miller was the engine designer, Jim Hyde, the service manager as I recall, and I think there was a bird named Garrison who also sold but I didn't know him as well as Chambers. But in 1929, Alco began to appreciate the future of the diesel and its grave threat to steam, and decided to get on their own in the business. So they bought MacIntosh & Seymour, the fine diesel engine builder located in Auburn, N.Y. which I'd visited when in college, and departed the triumvirate to produce locomotives with M&S engines but retaining GE electrical equipment. Rudy Krape had been handling the GE end of the Alco-IR-GE business and when Alco departed, Rudy continued to handle the Alco portion of the new set-up. GE and I-R continued to do business with I-R taking the lead, placing stock orders, and doing the selling with whatever help from us that they needed on the GE portion. Under these conditions, I don't see how Rudy could in good conscience handle both the Alco and I-R accounts, they now being competitors, and I think he gradually divested himself of the I-R portion, with me acquiring at least some of it. Actually with the Depression coming on strong, there was little business done in locomotives by anyone over the next few years so my activities were largely exercises with little outcome. But I do remember having numerous contacts with Jim Chambers and other I-R men beginning soon after entering TED. One amusing thing about this reconstruction on my part is the fact that Jim, because of satisfactory liquor being difficult to get during Prohibition, had acquired a huge stock of excellent apple-jack, hundreds of gallons, which he would always have a quart or so of along with him, and which made his visits desirable if for no other reason, so this had to be before 1933 when Prohibition terminated.