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excellent manners, spoke well, and handled himself well in general. He was a salesman and he knew the railroad supply business but his approach to it was via the accessory route rather than complete locomotives. Dick was the head of the Pyle-National sales office in Chicago, the railroad hub of the USA. Pyle-National was an accessory builder, being particularly famed for their headlight turbo-generator sets for stem locomotives. I think Dick was brought into WPB to act as the steam locomotives. I think Dick was brought into WPG to act as the steam locomotive specialty expert and work on any problems that might arise in connection with them and this embraced quite a field like air and hand brakes, superheaters, injectors, lighting equipment, sanders, couplers, and draft gear, stokers, and so on. But I don't recall ever seeing Dick in a real dither about anything; apparently he was largely unflappable. I had one social experience with Dick and his wife. It occurred after Fred Barden's great Christmas cocktail party on December 19, 1942 about which I've written. I went to dinner at the Balalaika with Dick and his wife and his wife's sister and her husband plus an unattached girl of great charm named Barbara Waddell. It proved to be a memorable evening although I hadn't looked forward to it and Dick had very thoughtfully given me a release from it from which I had rejected. It is covered thoroughly in my diary. But it opened my eyes to what a very charming guy Dick was a well as how thoughtful he could be. After Dick's stint in WPB, he hired out with Baldwin and became head of their Chicago sales office, a job which I think Vic Rennix and expected to get. But Vic made out all right in the end as I shall relate in due course. In fact, Dick's getting in Baldwin Chicago job was probably the best business break that Vic never got in his long career in locomotive sales work.

The next to step forth upon the stage of WPG is [[underlined]] Marshall D. Raymond [[/underlined]] of the American Locomotive Company, Marsh was manager of their Cleveland sales office, which was located in the prestigious Terminal Tower Building. Prior to the Cleveland assignment, I believe he'd been their sales manager in San Francisco. Although I'd never met him, Marsh and I were the most logical buddies from a business standpoint because GE and Alco were allied in an unofficial partnership of sorts just as Baldwin and Westinghouse were. And so it turned out, Marsh and I hitting it off very well together and bumming around a lot with each other. Marsh was perhaps five years older than I, having been in the infantry in World War I. He was seriously wounded in France and when in Washington, at least, he always wore a Purple Heart lapel button, possibly to publicize the fact down there that he was a veteran. I don't blame him for doing it. Had I been able, I think I'd have done the same thing because there were times when, even at age 40, you felt just a bit conspicuous out of uniform after things got really cranked up. Marshall was a handsome man, the best-looking by far in the Motive Power Section in my opinion. He was about my height