The Brazilian Railroad Story

The Brazilian Railroad Story.

A true story told to me by Knut Barth

Written 11/16/2015* 567 Words*

By Howard Yasgar

During WW2 my friend Knut Barth (Who was born in Norway) told me that he spent some time with the OSS, and right after the war he immigrated to the United States.

Because he had an engineering degree, he was able to apply for a job with one of the largest manufactures of electric Locomotives in the U.S., I won’t mention their name here.

The company was not only a manufacturer of electric locomotives, but they made all kinds of other railroad equipment, and they also bid on building railroads all around the world.

After working as an engineer for a year, Knut, who was a bachelor at the time, realized that to gain advancement in the company he needed to be in sales, not in engineering.

So, as soon as there was an opening in sales, he applied for the position, and he received it.

Knut was very surprised that his first assignment was to attend a bid opening in Brasilia.

It appears that before his retirement, Knut’s predecessor had submitted a bid to the government of Brazil to

build a railroad along the Sao Francisco River.

So, to ensure that his first assignment would go smoothly, Knut flew to Brazil a few days early.

For the first few days, Knut spent them like a tourist driving all around the city of Brasilia.

After seeing the sights, Knut was looking for something else to do.

His competitors, who were also there in Brasilia invited him to join them for drinks, but he didn’t like the idea.

So, while debating as to what to do, he saw in his hotel lobby there was a brochure for a one-day river boat cruise up the Sao Francisco River. Several good-looking women were also looking to go on the cruise, so he signed up for it.

Knut said the cruise up the river was uneventful, and the women were in with a church group.

Knut said, the leisurely cruise took about 3 hours going down a river and then another boring 4 hours returning.

The next morning Knute and the other bidders were taken to the office of the Brazilian Minister of the Interior where there was to be social meeting and then after lunch, there was the official bid opening.

While Knut was socializing and making small talk with the Minister of the Interior, he ran out of things to talk about, so he mentioned how much he liked the river cruise he had just been on.

That afternoon, Knute sat in the Minister of the Interior’s office along with his competitors.

There were salesmen from Germany, England and France.

The bids were opened, and Knut’s bid was several million dollars higher than all the competitors.

Knut had that sinking feeling that his first sales trip had been wasted.

The Interior Minister then said, that although the American bid was much higher, he was awarding the project to Knut’s company.

All the foreign competitors stood up to protest.

The Minister of the Interior held up his hand, and he said, “While Knut’s Company bid was not the lowest bid, he was the only person that cared enough about the project to travel up and down the Sao Francisco River inspecting the railroad site.

Knut returned to the United States, a sales hero.

It wasn’t until many months later that Knute discovered that his company had insured him success by giving the Brazilian Minister of the Interior a $400,000.00 commission, to award them the project.