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36

Palisades are parading south. It is hard to sense our speed because it is all done so quietly, so smoothly, and without apparent effort. It is like riding on a toboggan, like sliding without friction. We seem to sail up to long station platforms, there is a slither of vertical columns past our window, and again the open road. The suburban stations, most of them are familiar names, pass in swift review, flashing by one after the other--Glenwood, Greystone, Hastings-on-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Ardsley-on-Hudson, Irvington, Tarrytown, Philipse Manor, Scarborough, Ossining--we are coasting now, with Harmon station in the distance. At exactly the right point, the brake valve handle is moved skillfully to a service application--hiss-hiss-hiss-hiss-hiss--and we cruise into the long platform and come to perfect stop, on time and so smoothly done that not a cocktail is upset, not a beer bottle tipped over in the now booming club car. On the track ahead of us, stands the magnificent Hudson-type steam locomotive which will take our fifteen Pullmans for the next six hundred miles into Collinwood, Ohio. We thank the engineer and fireman and drop off onto the platform. The T-3 is uncoupled from the train and slips away to await its next assignment, which will be to take another "liner" in tow and return to Grand Central.
   In spite of having played a small part in the downfall of the steam locomotive, I have never ceased to be fascinated by them. One of the best ways to go from Erie to Schenectady and get a reasonable night's sleep, was to take an early train out of Erie and change in Buffalo to the "Albany sleeper" wherein you could retire and have two or three hours sleep before it was picked up by a later through train, getting you to Schectady at about 9 a.m. Often in Buffalo before retiring, I'd stand on the platform and watch a few of the "hot shots" come in and pull out and never got tired of it. It was really a thrill to watch a big Hudson walk off into the night with a string of steel Pullmans that would make you gasp at its length. The huge locomotive would stand at the head of the train waiting for the signal to go, its mighty bulk silhouetted blackly against the station lights, the engineer in his cab but leaning out the window peering back along the platform. There would be last goodbyes, the cries of "all aboard," the hollow slamming of steel doors, and the gradually the noises would cease until all was quiet except for the hum of the headlight turbo-generator and the low pant of the compressor exhaust. Then you'd hear the tiny, high-pitched whistle of the train signal in the locomotive cab. And what a sequence this touched off.
   The bell began to clang. The brilliant headlight beam flashed on, cutting its way ahead through a myriad of switches and colored lights. Sand began to flow onto the rails ahead of the driving wheels. The engineer yanked a throttle that hung down from the towering boiler head above him like a steel strap-hanger. Live steam hissed from the main cylinder cocks. The booster contributed another cloud from beneath the cab. The