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The locomotive would move ahead a foot or so until the slack was taken up and then, after stopping momentarily, would start moving ahead again, the crosshead, rods, pins, valvegear, all swinging into an ever faster and faster cycle. The cars would be rolling by, car after car, car after car, faster and faster. The sharp bark of the mighty exhaust up ahead came more and more rapidly. Finally the red tail lights would whip by and away, and grow smaller and smaller in a jewelled distance. I never tired of watching this sight. It isn't available any more and it's a pity in a way.
   In February, there was a meeting of the Buffalo Railroad Club at which Bill Hamilton was scheduled to read a paper on the New York Central DEs-3's. However, Bill had the grippe and Tex Weinberg read the paper for Bill. I'd been assigned the job of answering the question, "What are the respective fields of application of the diesel-electric and the diesel-electric-battery locomotives?" It was February 11th and the weather was astounding. It was 72 [[degrees]] in Erie officially although thermometers had been seen at 78 [[degrees]], and it was 68 [[degrees]] in Buffalo, breaking the alltime February record. I can still remember being in our shirtsleeves in a room in the Statler and having the window wide open to cool the place off. Fred Brehob and I drove to Buffalo in the morning and met the rest of the gang at the Statler for lunch, which was attended by Walter Hedley, Bert Pero, Herb Morse from Schenectady, Tex Weinberg, D. P. Orcutt of Exide, Ralph Darren of the Buffalo Office, and Gleusing from Schenectady who was to put on his GE Magic Show in the evening. We spent the day in the hotel killing time and laying plans for the evening. Buddy Keyes, who was our New York District Transportation Sales Manager, came in from Erie late in the afternoon and we all had dinner together. Then the meeting. Doing a good job of answering my question was quite a challenge to me because there were five to six hundred in the audience but I was told that my presence was good. Although I felt as though my knees were wobbling, I remembered how Dr. Hull had looked at the AIEE meeting in New York in January and tried to emulate him. Apparently it worked pretty well. Fred and I drove back to Erie after the meeting, in a terrific rain and windstorm, getting home at 2:30 a.m. We harmonized some during the ride and I got quite a lift out of it as Fred was a member of the Shrine Chorus, having an excellent baritone, and it pleased me that I could collaborate with such an expert and help to produce some quite satisfactory effects now and then. Moreover, it had been quite a satisfactory day in which I felt that I was an integral part of a fine organization and making a contribution--that I was getting somewhere. But back in Erie I slid into gradual despondence in a few days because once more there was so little to do. On February I wrote a long plea to myself to snapout of it and get on the ball again. It was while I was living with Perk, who was very disgruntled also and hence of little help in cheering me up or inspiring me.