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13

avoid their vengeance although innocent. He left behind a girl whom he loved dearly but who was opposed by his family, who wanted him to marry someone else. Finally he was cleared of squealing on the horse thieves and returned home. His family deceived him by telling him his beloved had been unfaithful to him during his absence, and cajoled him into marrying the family's choice. He spent one night with her and then left her but it had been a productive night and she bore him a daughter in due time. She refused to divorce him so he was unable to marry his first choice, who, he learned subsequently, hadn't been unfaithful to him. Ever since this, he has corresponded with her. It embittered his whole life. He cut loose from his family, took up railroading,and has been at it every since. His daughter works in a big railroad executive office but he rarely sees or acknowledges her. He has a farm and a hobby for guns. His farm is run by a couple with a daughter named Dolly who is more like Didoe's own daughter. I believe this story is essentially accurate.
The following day, May 23rd, was another active one for 0362 and included five runs, two of which were a bit unusual. Alf Bredenberg had arrived from Erie to do a little locomotive riding and checking up on his control apparatus. He'd spent the night in New haven and rode down on her first thing in the morning hauling #367, a 14-car commuter job. They got plugged in Park Avenue Tunnel and came in five minutes late. Also the transformer hit 71° maximum and we began to realize that these commuter trains were proving to be the toughest of all. The return trip to New Haven on #10 with eight cars, Engineer Barron, was merely light exercise by comparison, the transformer temperature at New Haven having backed down to 47°.
This dropped a few more degrees on the run back to New York with #51, eight cars, again Engineer Barron. The next trip was with good, old #376 again, the "millionaires special" we'd handled on our second day and discovered it was a real chore--only today we had fourteen cars instead of twelve but the same engineer, H. Fay. We knew it was going to be a warm one and gave everything all the air we could. The transformer was 45° when we hit the overhead at CHO and then began to climb--Darien 47°, South Norwalk 49°, East Norwalk 51°, Westport 56°, Southport 59°, Fairfield 61°, Bridgeport 65°, Stratford 67°, Milford 70°, and New Haven 69°. We were plugged west of Stamford and about five minutes late out of South Norwalk but got to New Haven one minute early and everything okay. Engineer Fay acted as though getting to New Haven on time was his most important mission in life and he walloped 0362 for everything she had on every acceleration, running right up to AC19 and holding there until he either had to brake or the overspeed relay tripped. Twice he kicked out the line at around 2,700 amps on the 18th notch. I believe this was to mark the beginning of complaints by the power supply people over the huge demands these locomotives could put on the line.