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they do all their work there and handle some fair sized engines there too. Neil had a "morning's morning" in the shop toilet and thought later he caught a case of crabs. We made ourselves known to the crew who were quite friendly, particularly the engineer, Bill Rivette, a tall, thin, seamy faced old Frenchman with a rare sense of humor and a twinkle in his eye behind horn rimmed spectacles. Did some light switching around Montpelier and then ran the six miles over to Barre. En route we saw "Johnny-Cake Hill," a rather menacing 2% grade but not long. Still it was just long enough and steep enough to pretty well knock a 43 ton job out of the picture.

At Barre we switched some of the "sheds," which is the name applied to the granite finishing shops, and Bill Rivette carried on a rapid fire conversation pointing out all the high spots from the mountains where the granite workers go to die of TB to the buxom ladies living along the right of way. We saw the "Hill Job" (Barre & Chelsea) come in with several carloads of granite from the quarries. We ride that on Wednesday. Our train returning to Montpelier consisted of the locomotive, one empty car and the buggy. The fireman gave me an earful of dirt - how the railroad didn't want any business - how Thomas had been brought in to cut expenses and he had as well as the business too. Thomas seems none too popular which is natural.

Ran into Putnam at the Tavern at lunch and sat with him and Mac Hugo, the freight agent, a personable young fellow whose father was an engineer on the "Hill Job." Putnam had to catch the train for Boston and Mac Hugo took us back to the office where we spent most of the afternoon looking at profiles with Woods, the little hunch backed civil engineer, and talking with Thomas about things in general. We finally took Thomas to dinner with us in Barre where he recommended a spaghetti place and we got to know him pretty well. The surprise of the evening came when it developed he went to Syracuse University, paying his way playing ball for Lew Carr, and he took engineering - class of 1912 I think but he took only three years. I had no idea