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Frank Sahlman had been given the individual responsibility for following the development work for us. Frank then being on diesel-electric work of which there was almost none (as I well knew.)So Frank was transferred to Earl's section where he expected to follow this new line and where Earl also expected him to follow it. Earl being the boss and knowing very little about the equipment, asked Frank to educate him a bit on it, which was natural enough.However, a few days before Earl had requested this, an out-of-town customer had arrived in the office before Sahl had gotten to work, so Earl tried to entertain him until Sahl arrived and even took him in to meet the big boss, Cash Davis, where they were when Sahl arrived. Sahl was livid. He was sure Earl was trying to "steal his customer" away from him and when Earl asked Sahl for information on the equipment,Sahl was certain it was so Earl could do this. Earl, on the other hand, simply wanted to have a speaking acquaintance with the equipment so he could at least talk intelligently about it and Earl was convinced that Saul was simply an unreasonable, squirrely, resentful boob, not realizing at all what was bugging Sahl. The situation got so heated finally that Sahl insisted they go in and put it up to Cash Davis. But, although Cash got it calmed down somehow, evidently the true gripes of the two contestants didn't get out into the open because they told me their respective stories entirely independently and out of a clear sky. But here's a situation that still bugs these two after forty years! And it was 95% the result of a misunderstanding.
[[paragraph indentation]]But as far as I was concerned, my assignment to the New Haven Railroad account was the big event of my business life in 1934. Traditionally the New Haven, in which the Pennsylvania owned a controlling interest, had been a "Westinghouse railroad," just as had the Pennsy. But as GE expanded and developed big plants on both the Pennsy and the New Haven, it was inevitable that GE would eventually participate^[[and here is a handwritten note]]more[[/and here is a handwritten note]]in their business. There was another factor at that time. GE was the leading proponent of direct current for railroad electrification while Westinghouse was the alternating current proponent and the New Haven electrification had been AC from the start. GE had participated minimally on the New Haven in the early days and had supplied more-or-less experimental multiple-unit car equipments--two I believe--as well as a side-rod freight locomotive called the "Bull Moose," but none of this stuff was successful. I've heard Jim Smith, our New York Office service engineer who was on the job, talk about "broken brushes by the bushel" on the MU cars. One of the Bull Moose's major problems was inability to get the bearings so they wouldn't burn out almost continuously. The day they tackled the "Cannon Ball," which was the extra-special fast freight, all the Bull Moose's bearings were on fire. I believe there were more than two GE equipped MU cars because one of Jim Smith's stories has to do with changing out auto-transformers weighing four-tons apiece [[end page]]     

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