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31

My recollection is that Bert first took us to E. B. Moffatt, General Superintendent, but it wasn't long before we were working with the engineering people headed by old Sam Reigel, whom we'd got to know very well on the 3-power job for Hoboken in 1930. Sam was a slightly-paunchy old boy approaching sixty, friendly, even fatherly, always dressed in beautifully-tailored light-colored tweeds. He loved a good time and was a great devotee of the grape, around 100-proof. He was always cordial, seldom seemed perturbed by anything, and was very soothing to deal with. His title was Chief Engineer. Tom McDermott was Mechanical Engineer and reported to Sam. Tom was a very skinny, long-nosed, almost emaciated-looking Irishman who, like his boss, was always cordial and had strong penchant for bourbon whisky. But, while old Sam seemed to have unlimited capacity for alcohol without its affecting his command of himself, Tom occasionally would get badly stoned and would become even paler than normal, with his eyes glassy but always friendly--a real nice guy. The other member of the engineering trio we contacted was the famed Charlie Williams whose title was Foreman Electrician, which was somewhat strange because my impression always was that Charlie wasn't a foreman in the sense we usually think of it. Charlie was a small man, around forty maybe, and in his clothes he didn't appear strong or muscular, but when he removed his shirt, he displayed arm and shoulder muscles that looked like Mr. Atlas. He was an amateur strongman and gymnast. He took poor care of himself, smoking and drinking heavily, and also love to get out on the town with the boys. He was a good friend of ours and pleasant to be with and I have had a few wing-dings with him over the years. As I recall the story, he finally came close to falling under a moving train when inebriated and the shock of realising that he'd come within an ace of being killed because of his drinking made him go on the wagon permanently. Bob Wade and I also had contacts with many lesser lights in Scranton in the process of gathering information but the ones I've reviewed are the ones I remember. Perhaps I should mention that the Electrical Engineer was a man named Thorpe but he was located in Hoboken to be near the electrification and he played no part in the diesel work that I recall.

In 1936, the road-freight diesel was several years in offing. The Evolution of the diesel-electric locomotive was: switcher, transfer unit, passenger unit headed by the locomotives for the early stremlined glamor trains, and then road freight with a special, heavy duty special application thrown in at the No.2 spot like this Scranton Grade pusher job. The Lackawanna main line drops down a steep grade into Scranton from both east and west, and these two hills are the only heavy-grade sections on their main line between Hoboken and Buffalo. The westbound grade lies between Scranton and Clarks Summit, and the eastbound, between Scranton and Elmhurst,