Business: Lima Fare

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More than almost any other, the business of making locomotives is either a feast or a famine. Lima Locomotive Co., third largest in the U. S., feasted in 1937 when it made 101 locomotives at a profit of $1,019,983, first since 1930. Last year Lima got along on beans—it made ten locomotives and lost $687,035. This year Lima is dining a little less frugally—it got an order for twelve locomotives in February. And last week Lima had a new face at the head of its table. Vice President John E. Dixon became president in place of Samuel G. Allen, who remained as chairman.

Ever since he graduated from the University of Wisconsin 39 years ago, President Dixon has been making locomotives —first with American Locomotive Co., since 1916 with Lima. At 61 he is portly, neat, given to anecdote (Sally Rand's bubble once burst and landed in his lap; he swears "it wasn't my cigar that broke it"). An engineer who tinkers in his own machine shop in the cellar of his East Orange, N. J. home, he is also a good salesman, a rabid Republican. His chief irritation is that the view from his Manhattan window includes a large picture of Franklin Roosevelt on a desk across the way.