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53 pistons ground down five mils. Also Phil issued orders not to run any compressor when the water was under 100°. Archie and I absorbed a tongue lashing from Terwilliger, a New Haven air brake expert, who said a pump with only 58% efficiency was a damned poor pump. He'd just run some comparative tests of the CP38 against our CP26, which was on the electrics and was one of the very best in the business. We couldn't do much but take the hell he handed out and assure him we'd do everything possible to straighten the mess out to the railroad's satisfaction. On December 8th, Currie and I met in New Haven with Hatch and Dr. Jennings, the New Haven's chief chemist, plus three representatives of the Texas Co. to set up some tests on new lubricating oils for the CP38, with weekly inspections on which carbon deposits would be removed and weighed and so on. And that is where my record ends. I think the CP38 was made reasonably passable finally but it was a sad story. The five Ingersoll-Rand units, 0906-0910 were sold by the New Haven in 1953 to industrial concerns, principally Republic Steel, and they continued in use until the early 1960s principally. They had a useful life of 25 to 30 years before being scrapped. I don't know the story of the Cooper-Bessemer units, 0901-0905. If Phil Hatch weren't off on a trip to Alaska right now, I'd phone him in North East and find out, although he may not know either. ****** This final subject in the 1936 record concerns a meeting at Van Nest Shop on December 10th to discuss the requirements for numerous locomotives for service between New York and New Haven, and later, if the electrification materialized for the Shore Line, all the way to Boston. I believe this was the first conference of a long negotiation which finally wound up in our receiving an order the following summer for the six passenger locomotives 0361-0366 on which I worked right from the beginning at this meeting clean through to their installation into service and final service testing in 1938. This meeting was attended by Stanley MacKay, General Superintendent of Transportation, A. L. Ralston, General Mechanical Superintendent, Jim Bracken, Mechanical Engineer of Van Nest Shop, J. J. Smith and I. Jim Smith was our New York Office Engineering man who'd handled the New Haven for many years. MacKay, a solidly-built man of around 45 with gray crewcut, opened things by stating they are much interested in the Boston electrification and if they can get the costs down, it will go through. In November 1936, 37 1/2% of the trains out of Oak Point were 4,900-tons or over. For the freight work, they were thinking of a 4,800-hp GG-1 type (like the Pennsy) and wanted us to figure the freight tonnage from Bay Ridge to Oak Point, Oak Point to Cedar Hill, Cedar Hill to New London, New London to Providence, and Providence to Boston. MacKay said that if they
