THE LG OSPREY GABFEST FOR AUGUST, 2014

To delete a double post: of course we have to go to "rich formatting".  

For text: simply highlight and delete in the usual way.

For pictures: a click on them should give you tiny squares at each corner of the picture. This gives you some control over size of the picture.  With these corner controls in place, click on the picture or hit the delete button and the picture should be gone.

If you have deleted everything in your box, you will still have an empty box with your name and the date, which you cannot eliminate and which will still be in place on the thread.

Just fill it in with another message and no one will ever know there was a double post.

Now that I think of it My first ever job was at a railroad terminal. It was far from glamorous, smoky, dirty, walk across RR tracks to get to our offices. For two months I worked for the Rousch Fuel Forwarding Agency.  I never did figure out what the man did. The "Fuel" was coal, but He didn't buy coal, he didn't sell it. He didn't own or rent any train cars or trucks to transport coal, but somehow the company had to do with train cars of various kinds of coal moving from one destination to another.

Outside our windows was a structure they called "the hump".  The most excitement the whole two months I was there was when the sheet of paper with all the necessary info on it failed to list the type of coal.  So we all stood at the windows watching cars go over the hump, watching the ID numbers on the cars till the car in question came by and by sight we identified the type of coal it carried.

After two months, business slowed down and they let me go.  I think they would have been glad to get rid of me anyway. However, Mr. Rousch knew the lady who operated the County Child Welfare Agency and he recommended me to her.  She came to interview me, & hired me as the office secretary.  With room and board as part of my salary, I moved into the Children's Home and worked there very happily for many years.

Oh, yes - two or three years later, my new boss married my old boss and so far as I know they lived happily ever after.  End of story.  :)

58WILLOW - It is a very fair exchange to see one of these and so personal from your own box guiding them through.

I believe a Pacific Class - maybe Battle of Britain - we used to call them Spam Cans and carrying the Golden Arrow regalia.

You should put the signal to red and stop the train - get a good snap and then put the signal back green :).

I like yourself have five official years to go but if they gave me early retirement I would jump and do similar - so many rail journeys I want to go on. The good thing is my wife loves going on the steam rail journeys also as she was always interested - her uncle working with North British Railways building these engines in Glasgow.

Last year went on the Jacobite Fort William to Mallaig which was used for Harry Potter (This was the Viaduct with Hogwarts Express) - however it was a different engine than the ones I posted yesterday (Another Class 5). Also in 2013 went from Whitby to Pickering accross the North Yorkshire Moors on Sir Nigel Gresley.

During part of my continuous training as an Engineer I was seconded (my choice) to a steam preservation society in its infancy - My part was to produce drawings - arrange forging and machining of the Coupling and Piston Rods - some great Engineering Training on some masterpieces our fathers and grandfathers built.

JUNE - thanks for your story - remember when you strted this thread we always used to tell each other stories on the long winter nights after the ospreys left. Nothing really important just stories that amused each other about anything.

Sunshine told a great tale - then the hillarious stories from B & B.

Where have they all gone.  

Oh yes KEITH I remember it well, to quote a certain song. We even spent Christmas Eves and New Years Eves together and I learned about Hogmany (spelled right?).

How much I miss those days and those people and our evening gabfests.  Sometimes I just select an old Gabfest and go back and read and remember the good times when we could laugh together and even on occasion cry together.  Such good friends we all were.

JUNE - still debating Seasca on What do you really think thread. Not allowed to debate it here.

I also remember on this thread when you started it we could discuss anything about ospreys.

OH?? I was just thinking about Seasca and Deshar. Both lost at sea. I would like to think that technology has failed and that Seasca is really all right and well on her way to Africa.  However I am the type of personality that tends to be pessimistic - to see the dark side first.  Maybe a gloomy outlook, but think how happy I am when I am wrong and all is well.  But I don't decide this, it is just the way it happens for me.

So in this case I fear that Seasca is gone forever and I have already cried my tears for her.

As for Deshar, in 2008 he was the first Osprey I had ever followed along with his big sister Nethy.  As best as I can remember (without keeping any records and without looking back to do any research)  we didn't receive any signals after Deshar made contact with the water.  Signals had been coming  in from flight altitude, then gradually became lower and lower until they were barely above sea level.  I don't remember that they ever were just zero.

He was one of the great birds of all time, in my opinion.

Out for the evening.  Will pick this up later.

I have been Streetwalking a wee bit with Seasca while she was still in Scotland.  Here she is on A9 near/between Aldelune and Killiecrankie. First the map, then streetview.