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contacted Mr. Kroehl, Supt. of Maintenance, who appeared in old clothes and a leather jerkin. Riley opened up by asking Mr. Kroehl if he had ever considered the use of diesels in the plant. Reply: "Not until I have better reports of them than I've been hearing on the "Yankee Flyer" and the New Haven. I hear they're in trouble [[underlined]] all [/underlined]] the time," and Mr. Kroehl's slightly sour puss surveyed us closely to see how that opening jab would affect us. My talk to Mr. Came yesterday re the "Yankee Flyer" was a life saver. I was able to give Mr. Kroehl a convincing comeback. The rest of the conference was occupied in changing Mr. Kroehl's mind about diesel and I do think we did that and fairly well. But there's no real prospect there now for sales. When I told Kroehl the maintenance would be half of steam, he lit into me on that; he couldn't understand how it could be because their expensive work was on running gear because of the bad curvature, etc. When he saw a photo of a swivel truck diesel he quickly did see it and admitted it. But they have good steam power and are not spending "a nickel" now if they can avoid it. The oil burners and electric heat are cutting into their coke and gas business badly and they feel the pinch of tough competition. So we planted a seed and that's all. 

As a matter of fact, Riley said he made the date purely because Roy asked him to. He called Merrimac Chemical also, and they simply declined to discuss the question. They have "fireless cooker" locomotives (stored steam) and aren't interested. As nearly as I can see, the

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