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Erie, Penna.
Thursday, Feb.2. 1939.
Jake was supposed to be back today to entertain Messrs Walker of the Canadian National, and McRae, McKeever and Holgate of the Canadian G.E. Co., but as Jake didn't get back, I was delegated and had quite an interesting day of it. Spade bearded Mr Walker proved to be less formitable than he appeared and the CGE men were very pleasant. The thing that amused me was that when the inevitable politics came up for discussion, the Canadians had about as much belly-aching to do as we did about crooked politicians, taxes, grafters, inefficiency, etc. McRae, who is Asst. Mgr. at Peterborough, said he knew he would have to drive to Ottawa to see the King and Queen when they are here this year, but if he didn't have to go at the insistence of his kids, he'd never go for himself. All very interesting and eye opening.

We had the devil's own time giving  Walker a ride on one of the small diesels. When they started the engines on the 43 ton job one knocked on the crankcase where it had been dented in and the other had a disability because the fan scraped the shrouding. So we undertook to show him a 23 ton in action. Having been assured on of them was all set to go. I was surprised to learn that "all set" meant it had been filled with water, fuel and lube oil, but the engine had never been run at Erie. When they tried to start it, there was air in the fuel lines and it coughed to a stop several times. Walker remarked