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We finally got word to start and tried unsuccessfully to do so a half dozen times until I was afraid of flat spots from the abuse the motors were getting. I told Charlie finally I didn't think we had a helper. So out Charlie goes into the storm and we wait another half hour. Charlie returns at last, confirming my suspicions but saying we have one now and presently we get a highball and drag out at 3400 amps again. But we get over the hump OK and are "on our own" again.

We hadn't gone far down the cut when the tracks disappeared in what appeared to be a pond - and it was. The cut was full well over the tops of the rails. We shut off and drifted through it and when we struck it, the water shot straight up in the air almost as high as the trolley wire, then settled in sheets over the windshield, flooded in through the louvers, amazing Jim Smith who was back in the aisle. And all this time, the rain was driving in harder and harder through the grilles, splashing over onto the equipment. Jim closed all the slides except those through which the thermocouple wires to the tracking motors went, and he stood in front of these desperately holding up the engineer's raincoat to guard the equipment from the water, and getting soaked himself. Bob, I understand, was in the back end, looking out the window at the inundation. Finally in disgust, Jim cut "the god damn" wires and let Felix's readings go. (Believe this particular incident actually occurred going from Oak Pt. to Bay Ridge & they spliced the wires at Bay Ridge but couldn't get any indication thereafter.)

Jim's sense of humor is endless. He declared the engines were well named "Battleships"- that he had ridden the hurricane deck all day, and when we hit 

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