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3.) There was much anecdote concerning mountain railroading. Wreck in blizzard with snow blowing so hard it was almost impossible for the section gangs to repair the track - they couldn't keep it uncovered long enough! Working at night in mountain ravines and valleys so utterly black once a man didn't know if his train was on the track or not, and couldn't find out!

4.) Story of how tough George Hannover, former B&M president, once stood in a yard and thinking an engineer on a switcher wasn't going fast enough, yelled at him, "Step on it!" The engineer leaned out the window and yelled back, "go [[line]] yourself, you god damn son-of-a-bitch!" All trembled lest Hannover fire him on the spot. Instead he only roared with laughter - that was language that he, an old railroader, knew and loved.

About noon Neil and I started for Montpelier for some promotional work on Putnam. Over the mountains we hit a blizzard, icy roads. Neil started our interview with Put by referring to his talk with Douglas, Pres. of the Maine Central, relative to the St. Johnsbury switcher. ie sharing the cost with Put or agreeing to pay steam costs until Put had paid for the unit out of savings. It was obvious that Put was irked by this approach to the Maine Central and he said he advised us to deal with [[underlined]] him [[underlined]] on the job if we expected to get anywhere. I was afraid we were in dutch but after Put had expressed himself on this question, he then opened up and told us he was studying a scheme for rearranging the locomotive assignments on the Barre & Chelsea and the Montpelier & Wells River so they could use a diesel! The scheme is to use a diesel on the "Hill Job" (B&C) in the winter slack season and on