Viewing page 26 of 291

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

24

the pump current varied from 7 to 10 amps in a regular cycle of three to four times a minute and Jim Bracken thought it might be another rag but Burnham said it was okay--they all did that. So we put her in service the next day and she did all right. However, we got into another hassle with Burnham at Van Nest. He measured the air into the transformer radiator and discovered he was getting only four inches of water pressure when he'd been promised six. Consequently he renewed his drive to get additional ventilation over and around his pet. I couldn't help but agree with him. I told him we'd known he was being shortchanged a little on air but thought it inadvisable to speed up the blowers and take that added auxiliary loss 100% of the time when we needed the aded air say 1% of the time. Nevertheless he insisted he wanted cyclic ampere curves to check before he could agree.

Meanwhile 0363 went back to work by hauling #14, ten cars, Engineer Bradley, from Grand Central to New Haven, but not without a little trouble of a different nature, indicating taht 0363 was proving to be a sort of a Jonah in the early stages of her career. She lost three minutes at Mt. Vernon, right after going onto the AC section, when a third-rail shoe refused to life into its retracted position for AC operation. However, when they got her into Kelsey's Place in New Haven after the run, the shoe operated perfectly. She returned to GCT on #51, eleven cars, Engineer Barron, and leaving New Haven five minutes late although they wanted to get into GCT four minutes early because they had the mayor of New Britain aboard the train and a police escort was lined up to take him across town to Penn. Station for a close connection to Washington. Arriving at Mott Haven 2.5 minutes early, they got plugged s they got into GCT exactly on time (which was four minutes later than they wanted to get there). However, he got to Penn Station in time to catch his train anyhow. 0363 then turned her attention to handling tough #376, her original nemesis, to New Haven and carried it off very nicely as covered by my page of notes exhibited on P.19. She completed the day's labor by taking #29 back to GCT with an on-time, perfect performance. On the #376 run, maximum Pyranol temperature was 66[degree symbol] C compared to 100[degree symbol] C on the horrific run of May 25th and covered by my sheet of notes on P.17. So we seemed to be over the hump for the time being on 0363, who had had her share of troubles.

On Monday, June 20th, we had a meeting at Van Nest to agree on a tentative program for cooling the locomotive in an attempt to put an end to all the conflict over this subject. The meeting was attended by Jim Bracken, Jim Smith, Alf Bredenberg and me. Burnham wasn't present but I presume that Alf was supposedly looking out for his interests since the transformer was considered part of the control equipment and was worked out with Pittsfield by our Erie control people. We agreed on the following, subject to further testing: