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For these reasons, I'm going to tell the story of each locomotive pretty much as if it were the only one in the picture rather than attempt to carry their stories along together. And since I've just finished a story about an Ingersoll-Rand project, Railcar 1140, and the I-R locomotive was shipped first, I'll start the account with I-R.
On the I-R job, we had two groups to deal with: 1) the I-R engineering people from Phillipsburg, N.J. and 2) the Illinois Central engineering and maintenance people from Chicago. The I-R crowd were the same as on the 1140 job largely plus a couple of new people. Jim Chambers and Jim Hyde were very active and I believe that on this job, we also had contacts with Ralph Miller, Chief Designer, Oil Engine Dept. at Phillipsburg. Ralph was a lanky, pleasant, somewhat unprepossessing man around 50 who never impressed me as having too much Moxie but he must have had something to hold the job he did. However, I liked Ralph and saw quite a bit of him over the next few years. I believe it was on this job that I first met L. G. Coleman, Manager Locomotive Dept., who was an ex-railroader (B & M I think) who impressed me as being somewhat of a stuffed shirt. He was the type who'd deign to talk only to the big bosses in GE such as H. L. Andrews preferably. He had a Boston accent as I recall and that made him sound affected even if he wasn't. In spite of his actions and affectations, he ran a business which was doomed to failure and snuffed out in the late 30s. Also, I met O'Neil, the chief engineer of Ingersoll-Rand, a short, stout, florid, businesslike man, but I find I met him in Boston in September "on the B & M railcar job," so evidently I did return to 1140 after all. What might have happened on that trip? I haven't the faintest idea but it may have been interesting if O'Neil was there-- probably big engine troubles of some sort. And there was the service man (we seemed to get a new one on every job) who was named Normal Spielberg and I remember nothing whatever about him.
The Illinois Central gang was a mixed bag. The highest ranking individual with whom we worked was Jack Walker (A. R. Walker), Electrical Engineer--Equipment, out of headquarters in Chicago. Jack was medium-build, ultra-bald man in his 40s who enjoyed entertainment, didn't seem to take the job too seriously, and hence seldom gave us much trouble. He'd visit us once or twice a month for a few days, leaving the bulk of the inspection work to his inspection force in temporary residence and headed by George Bennett, the handsome young Alabaman who'd married the daughter of the president of Federal Bearing and was undoubtedly one of the most remarkably sex-oriented men I ever expect to know. His escapades were almost unbelievable. He was in the Engineering Dept. whereas the others were maintenance bosses of one sort or another, all from Chicago. And none of them seemed to serious about the job but were very serious about raising all kinds of hell after 5 p.m. and weekends. They provided a remarkable contrast to any other inspection team that