All is calm..the world is still, my soul is so very silent.

Thank you to lisajen@devinatart.com for the image of the women.

The 1955 Chevrolet Cameo was the first pickup truck to merge luxury passenger car and pickup design. Featuring full styled sides along the load box, it was a forerunner to the 'styled side' series from GM and its competitors. The load box featured the standard box insert from the other Chev commercial series, and added the styled side in fibreglass, a low tooling cost solution, from from the supplier of the Corvette bodies (Molded Fiberglass Products Company).

The Cameo also featured six and Vee-eight cylinder engines of up to 265 cid but with lower power than the Passenger cars. The Cameo, as the premium offereing from Chevrolet Truck division, was well dressed in large chrome bumpers, grille and other trimings. The stylist was none other than Chuck Jordan who later became Vice President of Design.

The single colour scheme for 1955 was white body, with red detailing in the bed and interior. For 1956 the colour options were expanded, which nonetheless still resulted in significantly fewer sales.

As the name suggests, the Cameo only made a brief appearance on Chevrolet's sales list, ceasing at the end of 1958. They now comand a high premium among light truck collectors from this period.

This model has been created in Lego miniland scale for Flickr LUGNuts 38th build challenge "By Random Appointment" - where the build model is selected by the group administrators and assigned to builders in the manner of a commission.

This was the highlight and reason for my Southern Arizona Adventure 2024. This is stage 8 of 9.

I was lucky to secure permits for the once monthly photography tour of Kartchner Caverns. Kartchner Caverns State Park strictly forbids any cameras or cellphones in the Caverns. Except for one trip per month for 12 to 15 photographers currently $125. I planned a 4 day 3 night road trip around Southern Arizona anchored by my Kartchner Cavern permit.

I was expecting dark conditions. The State Park turned on all the lights in the Big Room. They don't like turning on all the lights since can cause an increase in algae. This is the reason they only have one photography tour a month.

I found myself adjusting my histograms to not clip the highlights. Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome. Next time I am going to bracket my shots. I almost wish I had brought a ND filter or tried a handheld GND filter.

I don't know speleothems so I won't even try to identify. If anyone can help me with the identification, I will appreciate it.

www.nps.gov/subjects/caves/speleothems.htm#:~:text=The%20...)%20when%20needed.

The features that arouse the greatest curiosity for most cave visitors are speleothems. These stone formations exhibit bizarre patterns and other-worldly forms, which give some caves a wonderland appearance. Caves vary widely in their displays of speleothems because of differences in temperature; overall wetness; and jointing, impurities, and structures in the rocks. In general, however, one thing caves do have in common is where speleothems form. Although the formation of caves typically takes place below the water table in the zone of saturation, the deposition of speleothems is not possible until caves are above the water table in the zone of aeration. As soon as the chamber is filled with air, the stage is set for the decoration phase of cave building to begin.

The term speleothem refers to the mode of occurrence of a mineral—i.e., its morphology or how it looks—in a cave, not its composition (Hill, 1997). For example, calcite, the most common cave mineral, is not a speleothem, but a calcite stalactite is a speleothem. A stalactite may be made of other minerals, such as halite or gypsum.

Classifying speleothems is tricky because no two speleothems are exactly alike. Nevertheless, speleologists have taken three basic approaches: classification by morphology, classification by origin, and classification by crystallography. All three of these approaches have their problems (Hill, 1997), so cavers often take a more practical approach that primarily uses morphology (e.g., cave pearls) but includes whatever is known about origin (e.g., geysermites) and crystallography (e.g., spar) when needed.

nocache.azcentral.com/travel/arizona/southern/articles/20...

The Kartchner Caverns, rated one of the world's 10 most beautiful caves, is an eerie wonderland of stalactites and stalagmites still growing beneath the Whetstone Mountains 40 miles southeast of Tucson.

The limestone cave has 13,000 feet of passages and hundreds of formations built over the past 200,000 years, including some that are unique and world-renowned. It's a "living cave," with intricate formations that continue to grow as water seeps, drips and flows from the walls and slowly deposits the mineral calcium carbonate.

The caverns were discovered by amateur spelunkers Randy Tufts and Gary Tenen in 1974 on land owned by the Kartchner family. They kept the cave a secret until 1988, when the Kartchners sold it to the state to become a state park.

The highlights of the Big Room tour are a stretch of strawberry flowstone, which has been colored red by iron oxide (rust) in the water, and a maternity ward for 1,800 female cave myotis bats, with black grime on the ceiling where the bats hang and piles of guano on the floor. Visitors who look closely will see a bat's body embedded in one of the cave's formations.

Though not all are available on the tours, the caverns' unique features include a 21-foot, 2-inch soda straw that's one the world's largest (Throne Room), the world's most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk (Big Room), the first reported occurrence of "turnip" shields (Big Room), the first cave occurrence of "birdsnest" needle quartz formations (Big Room) and the remains of a Shasta ground sloth from the Pleistocene Age (Big Room).

azstateparks.com/Kartchner

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kartchner_Caverns_State_Park

Kartchner Caverns State Park is a state park of Arizona, United States, featuring a show cave with 2.4 miles (3.9 km) of passages.[1] The park is located 9 miles (14 km) south of the town of Benson and west of the north-flowing San Pedro River. Long hidden from view, the caverns were discovered in 1974 by local cavers, assisted by state biologist Erick Campbell who helped in its preservation.

The park encompasses most of a down-dropped block of Palaeozoic rocks on the east flank of the Whetstone Mountains.

The caverns are carved out of limestone and filled with spectacular speleothems which have been growing for 50,000 years or longer, and are still growing. Careful and technical cave state park development and maintenance, initially established by founder Dr. Bruce Randall "Randy" Tufts, geologist, were designed to protect and preserve the cave system throughout the park's development, and for perpetuity.[3]

The two major features of the caverns accessible to the public are the Throne Room and the Big Room. The Throne Room contains one of the world's longest (21 ft 2 in (6.45 m))[5] soda straw stalactites and a 58-foot (18 m) high column called Kubla Khan, after the poem. The Big Room contains the world's most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk. Big Room cave tours are closed during the summer for several months (April 15 to October 15) each year because it is a nursery roost for cave bats, however the Throne Room tours remain open year-round.[8]

Other features publicly accessible within the caverns include Mud Flats, Rotunda Room, Strawberry Room, and Cul-de-sac Passage. Approximately 60% of the cave system is not open to the public.[9]

Many different cave formations can be found within the caves and the surrounding park. These include cave bacon, helictites, soda straws, stalactites, stalagmites and others.[12] Cave formations like the stalactites and stalagmites grow approximately a 16th of an inch every 100 years.[13]

Haiku thoughts:

Beneath earth's cool veil,

Stalactites in silence grow,

Whispers of stone deep.

Kartchner

Southern Arizona Adventure 2024

www.panos-mavromytis.com

Evening friends, enjoy the weekend.... I'm personaly going to the beach all weekend...

This shot: Well, a spot found last minute, dusk had set in........enjoyed it and shot it.....

NO image invites, comments are welcome.....

Panos

She is as smart as she is beautiful, and is a VERY talented writer.

Read about this night at sophielynne1.blogspot.com/2013/03/keystone-conference-par...

party cats....they are waiting for the visitors

Allosaurus is a genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic period. The name "Allosaurus" means "different lizard". The first fossil remains that can definitely be ascribed to this genus were described in 1877 by paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh.

Allosaurus was a large bipedal predator. Its skull was large and equipped with dozens of sharp, serrated teeth. It averaged 8.5 m (28 ft) in length, though fragmentary remains suggest it could have reached over 12 m (39 ft). Relative to the large and powerful hindlimbs, its three-fingered forelimbs were small, and the body was balanced by a long and heavily muscled tail. The genus has a complicated taxonomy, and includes an uncertain number of valid species, the best known of which is A. fragilis. The bulk of Allosaurus remains have come from North America's Morrison Formation, with material also known from Portugal and possibly Tanzania.

As the most abundant large predator in the Morrison Formation, Allosaurus was at the top of the food chain, probably preying on contemporaneous large herbivorous dinosaurs and perhaps even other predators. Potential prey included ornithopods, stegosaurids, and sauropods. Some paleontologists interpret Allosaurus as having had cooperative social behavior, and hunting in packs, while others believe individuals may have been aggressive toward each other, and that congregations of this genus are the result of lone individuals feeding on the same carcasses. It may have attacked large prey by ambush, using its upper jaw like a hatchet.

There are so many strange and natural things which could be found in the forest and the mountain... Every day is one huge surprise and new adventure.

... is happy!

This is what happens, children, if you leave your toys out at night! They will steal your marbles! Or maybe even the moon! Happy Toy-in-the-frame Thursday!

This is a courtesy wake-up call to anyone building something for the "Space Jam!" contest:

- You have 2 days left to enter.

- You DO have to post your entries into their appropriate entry discussions for them to count.

Just uploading them into the group pool is not enough. Just uploading them to your photostream and typing in the description that it was for the contest is not enough (...I have seen both).

We try to do the nice thing and post reminders on MOC's that we think are for the contest, but we certainly can't go through every build that has been posted over the last 2 months. Please be sure to double-check your entries while you still have time.

Thanks to everyone for entering - and good luck to all!

Winter is always so beautiful when snow covered grounds dominate the landscape, and when here at Duke Farms Nature Preserve as one can explore the wide range of wonderful scenes, it only makes it that much better . . .

Occasionally we would see the ice covered lakes with winter fowls, and on this particular day, we spotted the stunningly beautiful Wood Duck(s) navigating a way to walk across the surface without slipping. It was amusing to watch, for they, too, like us, did not have it that easily in the effort to traverse the icy lake-top.

The late, Doris Duke, had left a wonderful legacy in converting a good portion of her magnificent estate into a Natural Wildlife Preserve for the public’s education and enjoyment—just short of 1,000 of the almost 3,000 acres is open to visitors. The other area is restricted to staff and for a wide range of projects. The paths throughout the estate offer such splendid scenery. One is forever exploring, always seeing something beautiful. There are so many pleasant surprises, from the general landscape scenery with the many lakes, ponds, and waterfalls, plus old stone structures in bridges and buildings, to the world of birds and other wildlife, including furry critters, tiny insects, and wonderful plants, from fascinating wildflowers to such impressive trees. The bucolic nature of the preserve is so relaxing—akin to meditating while experiencing the preserve. Also, if one appreciates fine, classic sculptures, some of Doris Duke’s collection can be seen around the park, including the statue garden court within the old hay barn ruin.

There is no “best” time to visit, for throughout the year’s seasonal changes, visitors will never leave disappointed, for each trip offers something memorable.

CHECK OUT OUR ALBUMS ON DUKE FARMS, FOR IT IS SUCH A WONDERFUL PLACE FOR ALL TO ENJOY AND LEARN ABOUT NATURE’S ENDLESS GIFTS.

This is Jess, not the most co-operative of models, but a good opportunity to practice with the 85mm f1.2 I've borrowed for a few days off a good friend Graham while he is away on holiday... I may not want to give it back !? :-)

1-800 || f/2 || Iso1000 || 85mm || EV+0.67

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Paradise is STUCK in my head =P I love that song SO much ever since it played on the Grammy awards XD it also snowed that day too ^.^ Is it just me or does Taylor look STUNNING in this picture? Oh and Happy Valentine's Day =D

Beauty Will Save The World! -- Dostoevsky

Beautiful 45SURF 45EPIC Swimsuit Bikini Model Goddess! Pretty Helen from Homer's Iliad! The Birth of Venus! Pretty Swimsuit Malibu Surf Girl Lifestyle Portraiture! Canon 5D Mark II & Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens !

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All my photography celebrates the physics of light! The McGucken Principle of the fourth expanding dimension: The fourth dimension is expanding at the rate of c relative to the three spatial dimensions: dx4/dt=ic .

Lao Tzu--The Tao: Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: A Simple, Illustrated Introduction to the Unifying Physical Reality of the Fourth Expanding Dimensionsion dx4/dt=ic !: geni.us/Fa1Q

"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life." --John Muir

Epic Stoicism guides my fine art odyssey and photography: geni.us/epicstoicism

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” --John Muir

Epic Poetry inspires all my photography: geni.us/9K0Ki Epic Poetry for Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art Nature Photography with the Poetic Wisdom of John Muir, Emerson, Thoreau, Homer's Iliad, Milton's Paradise Lost & Dante's Inferno Odyssey

“The mountains are calling and I must go.” --John Muir

Epic Art & 45EPIC Gear exalting golden ratio designs for your Hero's Odyssey:

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Support epic fine art! 45surf ! Bitcoin: 1FMBZJeeHVMu35uegrYUfEkHfPj5pe9WNz

Exalt the goddess archetype in the fine art of photography! My Epic Book: Photographing Women Models!

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Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype: How to Shoot Epic ... Epic! Beautiful Surf Fine Art Portrait Swimsuit Bikini Models!

Some of my epic books, prints, & more!

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Exalt your photography with Golden Ratio Compositions!

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Golden Ratio Compositions & Secret Sacred Geometry for Photography, Fine Art, & Landscape Photographers: How to Exalt Art with Leonardo da Vinci's, Michelangelo's!

Epic Landscape Photography:

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A Simple Guide to the Principles of Fine Art Nature Photography: Master Composition, Lenses, Camera Settings, Aperture, ISO, ... Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography)

All art is but imitation of nature.-- Seneca (Letters from a Stoic - Letter LXV: On the First Cause)

The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul. --Chrysippus (Quoted by Cicero in De Natura Deorum)

©Jane Brown2016 All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without explicit written permission

after Elsie had perfected her reindeer face makeup (see previous two photos) she turned to me and said it was time to have my face painted. Oh no, I thought, and held out my hand. Please paint something beautiful on my hand. Taking a photo iwth my left hand only wasn't easy, but I sat down to supper as Grangran and not as something from Elsie's imagination!

This spot is on the Corkscrew Gulch Trail and is my favorite spot to take portraits. It is also in my opinion, the best view in the San Juans that I have seen. It is a trail most people can do if they take their time. There is some ledge roads, but you can normally plan it so you meet people where you have a pull over area.

This is my good friends Danny and Donna in the picture. This was the first time they have been 4wheeling. They did great. I really enjoy showing people the awesome San Juan Mountains. They are the best.

"Surgeons' Hall in Edinburgh, Scotland, is the headquarters of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSED). It houses the Surgeons' Hall Museum, and the library and archive of the RCSED. The present Surgeons' Hall was designed by William Henry Playfair and completed in 1832, and is a category A listed building.

Surgeons' Hall Museum is the major medical museum in Scotland, and one of Edinburgh's many tourist attractions. The museum is recognised as a collection of national significance by the Scottish Government.

The museum reopened in September 2015, after being closed for an eighteen-month period of redevelopment.

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh was incorporated in 1505, when it received its Seal of Cause or charter and became styled as 'The Incorporation of Surgeons and Barbers of Edinburgh'. The Museum at Surgeons Hall, Edinburgh dates from 1699 when the Incorporation announced that they were making a collection of ‘natural and artificial curiosities’. and advertised for these in the first edition of a local paper, the Edinburgh Gazette. Daniel Defoe, an early visitor in 1726, wrote in his Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain that the 'chamber of rarities' contained many curious things too numerous for him to describe. Much of this early collection was given to the University of Edinburgh in the 1760s.

By the early years of the 19th Century, the Incorporation had received a Royal Charter to become the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. The College saw its primary role as the teaching of anatomy and surgery, the training of surgeons, and examination of their acquired knowledge. Anatomy and pathology specimens were crucial to that function. The museum expanded dramatically with the acquisition of two large collections. John Barclay, a successful anatomy demonstrator in the extramural school of medicine donated his collection, while Sir Charles Bell, Professor of Surgery in the University of London and latterly in the University of Edinburgh sold his collection to the museum. These collections were much too large to be housed in the original 1697 Surgeons' Hall, and so the surgeons commissioned the leading Edinburgh architect William Playfair to build the present day Surgeons Hall, which opened in 1832. At first the entire upper floor of the building was devoted to the museum collections, which were open to the public and attracted large visitor numbers. Throughout the 19th and early 20th century the collection expanded as it became customary for surgeons and pathologists to donate not only specimens which they regarded as interesting or instructive, but surgical instruments and equipment. With the great scientific and technical advances of the time, the museum began to acquire anaesthetic equipment, histology slides, X-rays and photographs.

Edinburgh (/ˈɛdɪnbərə/; Scots: Edinburgh; Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Èideann [ˈt̪uːn ˈeːtʲən̪ˠ]) is the capital of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore.

Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the supreme courts of Scotland. The city's Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the monarch in Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, literature, philosophy, the sciences and engineering. It is the second largest financial centre in the United Kingdom (after London) and the city's historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdom's second most visited tourist destination attracting 4.9 million visits including 2.4 million from overseas in 2018.

Edinburgh is Scotland's second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The official population estimates are 488,050 (2016) for the Locality of Edinburgh (Edinburgh pre 1975 regionalisation plus Currie and Balerno), 518,500 (2018) for the City of Edinburgh, and 1,339,380 (2014) for the city region. Edinburgh lies at the heart of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland city region comprising East Lothian, Edinburgh, Fife, Midlothian, Scottish Borders and West Lothian.

The city is the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. It is home to national institutions such as the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, is placed 20th in the QS World University Rankings for 2020. The city is also known for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, the latter being the world's largest annual international arts festival. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the churches of St. Giles, Greyfriars and the Canongate, and the extensive Georgian New Town built in the 18th/19th centuries. Edinburgh's Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, which has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999." - info from Wikipedia.

Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.

Now on Instagram.

Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.

This is MJF, Mickey inspired mech, ground oriented, this is the least standard mech, due to it being non asymmetric and with each side having its own difficulty, left is dual arm, and right is high strength-multi joints, plus, it has a wheel mode.

Weapons:

Gatling gun

Triple nunchaku

Chest missiles

December 2017

This is my own creation of vtuber Nanashi Mumei. 😊

Check out my Ko-Fi post: ko-fi.com/s/39f1d74519

Check out my Rebrickable post: rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-86724/BrickHugger171/nanashi-mum...

And now, something completely different.

No, it is not an M38 Sherman tank scope, it is not to be mounted on a Sterling submachine gun. It is a slightly different M38A2 scope that was supposed to be mounted on a project raygun.

But it won't be.

What this does not fit on is a fictional Sci-Fi handgun, or a raygun, if you like, I have been working on (and off) for two years now. It's a completely handcrafted custom gun of my original design, it has an all-steel construction with walnut grips and electronics from Erv' of the Plecterlabs. Every bit of the gun is handmade, even some of the screws keeping it together, the only thing that isn't custom made is the sighting scope.

I wanted to use a real scope, partially as a nod to movie prop guns, but mostly to keep in touch with reality. I went for an old Weaver rifle scope because it's simple sleek tubular form (and cheap price, it cost only $14). The M38, which is all too familiar from the Stormtrooper blaster, is a gorgeous piece of vintage optics and I kept wondering if it would work despite the Star Wars connection. I kept an eye on those for about 18 months on eBay, and boy, were they expensive! Then I found this equivalent with fair price and thought, damn, I gotta try this.

I removed the Weaver and tried the M38A2 on instead. I immediately realized that it just doesn't work. Too heavy, too Star Wars, too obvious. So, it's back with the Weaver.

At the moment the raygun (visible in the background) has almost all the steel parts fitted in place, it still needs some serial and other numbers punched in before it can be polished, blued and worn to look like a hudred+ years old well oiled vintage handgun behind museum glass. Electronics will be fitted in last.

For the record: I do not own any guns or weapons of any kind, never have. This is just a raygun project, albeit a serious one in some levels. I will upload more photos with more info & detail as the project nears it's completion, but it'll be slow, I have too many projects going on. You know what it's like.

The Villa Poppaea is an ancient Roman seaside villa (villa maritima) situated between Naples and Sorrento, in southern Italy. It is also referred to as the Villa Oplontis, or more precisely as Villa A by modern archaeologists. The villa itself is a large structure situated in the ancient Roman town of Oplontis (the modern Torre Annunziata), about ten meters below the modern ground level. Evidence suggests that it was owned by the Emperor Nero, and believed to have been used by his second and rather notorious wife, Poppaea Sabina, as her main residence when she was not in Rome.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Poppaea

sites.google.com/site/ad79eruption/oplontis/villa-of-poppaea

This shape is designed for LeLUTKA Avalon Head 4.0 (EvoX) and eBODY Reborn.

Aerav Marketplace

While optimized for the listed head and body, this shape is fully modifiable and can be adjusted to work with other mesh bodies and compatible LeLUTKA heads. Minor tweaks may be required depending on your body choice, personal preferences, or added deformers.

What you receive:

• 1 Shape (Copy / Modify)

• Eyebrow Shape

• Stylecard

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Important Notes:

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This is Danny who I met while he was sitting outside the Central Bar in St. Andrews enjoying a beer and a laugh at the politicians in Private Eye.

He is from Dundee and has previously worked as a Salmon fisherman before starting work with the forestry commission.

He lost his Dundonian accent when he was at University in Aberdeen. he decided that the only way t be understood was to modify his speech, though he does confess to lipping back into the brogue when back home

This picture is #41 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page. www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers

This is a photo of the new Bull's Garage after the original site was demolished due to the opening of RAF Swinderby.

A pub was demolished to make way for this garage which in the present day is the A46 Lincoln to Newark road.

I don't know how long the garage operated under the name Bull's Garage as in later years this became more of a service station between the two locations.

In 1989 this was a Heron filling station, later selling Elf before it closed around 1994 and was decomissioned.

The buildings still stand in the present day and has been home to a plumbing & heating company for some time.

In the early 2000's this road was made dual carriageway.

The site in the present day

www.google.com/maps/place/Green+Ln,+Lincoln/@53.1465521,-...

Thanks to Geoff Lloyd for permission to reproduce this photo.

Paul Farrows photo from 1989 as well as a recent photo from me are in the comments below.

Desi Deli & Grocery

89-06 Eliot Avenue, Rego Park, Queens, New York

08548 is stabled between duties on the 19th March 1977 at Bradford Hammerton Street MPD, its home depot.

Locomotive History

Originally D3712 it was a built at Darlington works, entering traffic in August 1959 allocated to Hornsey MPD. At the end of April 1960 it transferred to Finsbury Park when that depot opened and eleven years later it transferred to Hitchin. Its next move was to Doncaster in January 1975 followed by its final transfer to Hammerton Street in September 1975 from where it would be withdrawn in December 1982. 08548 was broken up in November 1983 by Doncaster works.

Italian Foibe Massacres (multiply)

258th Day

Today is 10th February, the memory day of the "Foibe Massacres" after the second world war..

I don't forget!

If you don't know what "Foibe Massacres" is go here: Foibe Massacres Wiki

Canon EOS 7D & Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 L Macro IS USM

Post Production with Lightroom 3.3 & Photoshop CS5

©2012, Stefano Minella Photo

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I thought we were in Wales, but apparently Llanymynech is in England.

Just.

Apparently the broder runs two feet outside the front door, making lockdowns very difficult in the village as the pub on the other side of the road, in Wales, would sometimes be open when the Bradford Arms was closed, or closed when the Bradford was open.

But hopefully those days are behind us now, although I think they're not.

But on with the holiday.

After getting up, we went down for a hearty fried breakfast and lots of coffee before deciding that we would visit Oswestry first.

We had never been, and was just a 15 minute drive up the main road from the hotel, and we ended up parking behind the main shopping area.

We saw a narrow passage leading to the centre of town, and despite only just having had breakfast I needed another coffee. So we we called in at a nice place that had just opened, and spent a fine half an hour people watching as customers arrived to meet friends and swap news. Just as they have on market days for centuries.

That done, we walk back to the centre of town, I take a shot of the old building, now a hairdressers, then browse the street market before declaring that we had "done" the town.

What else to do?

The aquaduct?

Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is an engineering marvel, designed by Thomas Telford, constructed out of cast iron and built by navvies.

It is in the village of Trevor.

I kid ye not.

In the Welsh cup draw next year we want to see Barry drawn against Trevor.

For a laugh.

Ha ha ha.

It is a popular place, and we had been here before, parking up and walking along the stub of the canal which must have been wharves back in the day, but is now a fine spot of fishing. Under the low bridge to the canal basin, with the aqueduct at the far end.

We join a line of folks walking across via the narrow path, it gets really tricky when folks come the other way, but we get across, and having been here before, we go no further, instead walk back as the tea barge was calling.

A narrow boat equipped to be a café, we order two teas and a slice of cake, then go and sit to enjoy the snack and do more people watching. This really is a fine way to spend an hour.

Nearby is Llangollan, home to a fine steam failway, and a place I love to visit. It took twenty minutes to drive there, then another twenty to find a place to park, in the end finding the only space in an out of town place.

Jools has come down with a bad cold, so she stays in the car and I walk down into town along the canal, which was very pleasant as giving the impression of being a green tunnel with the overhanging trees.

A train leavs the station out of my fiew, but the noise of the steam locomotove, working hard, as it leaves the station echoes around the valley. It sounded very good. To me.

The town was full. With more people arriving all the time, it was no place to linger. So I walked to the bridge over the railway and river, took some shots and watched a gonk shunting, and was done.

It was nearly two, and we had had no lunch, but there were three pubs on the way back to the hotel, we would call in there.

We stopped at the Crossed Guns in the village of Pant.

I kid ye not.

It was a family pub, but the food good and came quick. We had steak sandwiches which came with salad and fries, and was a meal in itself and not the snack it claimed to be.

Back to the hotel at four to relax, and for Jools to take more drugs and get her head down as she didn't sleep well that night.

We go down for dinner and eat just the one course this time, toast our host and his wife before going to be at nine.

Just like being at home.

Is there anyone out there who think that he can define art?

This is my first shot I've ever taken of a humming bird. We have a few that come and go at my house and I've always wanted to photograph one but am never in the right place to do so. I got a brief glimpse of one through a holly tree today while I was taking pictures in our backyard.

Clackamas, Oregon.

There is a protected area about a mile from my new home. My sister took MIke there looking for the river otter family. The otters were not to be seen but this sleepyhead was wandering around. We've had temperatures around 20C so hungry bears are waking up.

Photo credit: Mike www.flickr.com/photos/eyesplash/

Locomotion, previously known as Locomotion the National Railway Museum at Shildon, is a railway museum in Shildon, County Durham, England. The museum was renamed in 2017 when it became part of the Science Museum Group.

The museum was opened on 22 October 2004 by Prime Minister and local MP Tony Blair. Built at a cost of £11.3 million, it is based on the former "Timothy Hackworth Victorian Railway Museum". The museum is operated in partnership with Durham County Council and was expected to bring 60,000 visitors a year to the small town. However, during its first six months, the museum attracted 94,000 visits. Locomotion was shortlisted as one of the final five contenders in the Gulbenkian Prize, which is the largest arts prize in the United Kingdom.

As part of the 2025 plans for the National Railway Museum, a second building will be built to house more of the wider collection. In addition, parts of the original museum including the coal drops will be restored having fallen out of use.

The museum is sited near Timothy Hackworth's Soho Works on the world's first public railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway (opened on 27 September 1825 with a train hauled by Locomotion No 1 which took 2 hours to complete the 12-mile (19 km) journey from Shildon to Darlington). The town was to become a major centre for British railway engineering thanks to the Shildon wagon works, which closed in 1984.

Shildon station, on the Tees Valley Line was rebuilt and modernised as part of the museum's construction and is actually situated adjacent to the trail and demonstration rail line through the museum site. It is served by all services on the line, operated by Northern.

The museum is arranged as stops along the 1-kilometre (0.6 mi) demonstration line with station direction board signs and information points on the trail between the car parks and the main collection building. The museum has a six-spur apron in front of the main shed and another short length of track for showing off resident locomotives and visiting trains.

The trail starts at the 19th-century welcome building. The original Sans Pareil was previously on display here (It has since been moved to the Collection Building). The second building is Timothy Hackworth's house. It contains several activities about the history of Shildon. Soho is a stone building that was a railway workshop, having originally been an iron merchant's store. The fourth stop is the former goods shed for the town, with most incoming and outgoing goods being delivered to the railway by horse and cart. The building is built partially from recycled stone sleeper blocks, the old fixing slots being visible in the wall.

The railway station's parcel office is the next part of the trail and at the junction, visible across the tracks are the former stables for the early horse-drawn wagonways that linked to the line. The coal drops were a refuelling point for steam locomotives. Wagons were hauled up an incline and the coal 'dropped' down wooden chutes into the tender below.

The trail passes under the roadway. There is a children's playground and a picnic area outside the Collection building. The trail ends at the largest building in the museum. It contains the exhibition hall and a conservation workshop with viewing gallery to see the work carried out by volunteers restoring some of the exhibits. Other facilities in the building include interactive games, a cafe and shop.

The museum is home to several locomotives from the National Collection, including a replica of Timothy Hackworth's Sans Pareil. The original engine, built to compete in the Rainhill Trials, is also at Shildon. The trials were to decide which engine should operate the passenger railway between Liverpool and Manchester. After a 175 years absence from the town, the locomotive was returned and is displayed in the Collection building. LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard which is usually displayed in the NRM's York museum was temporarily displayed in the museum from June 2010 to July 2011. In 2014, ahead of the 75th-anniversary celebrations for Mallard's setting the world steam speed record, 8,000 visitors turned up to welcome five sister A4 locomotives including 60008 "Dwight D Eisenhower" and 60010 "Dominion of Canada" that were repatriated from North America, the latter was given a cosmetic overhaul in Shildon's workshop.

The main exhibition building houses most of the collection and includes the sole examples of the prototype APT-E and Deltic units. The museum has a wind turbine which provides power to the National Grid and an on-site biodiesel bus for transporting visitors around the site.

The NRM recommends checking with them in advance if going to see a particular exhibit.

Although this is a cropped photo with only poor quality I wanted to show you the gorgeous sky.

I wish everyone a great Sunday!!

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Obwohl das eine Ausschnittvergrößerung mit armseliger Qualität ist, wollte ich euch den tollen Himmel trotzdem zeigen. :-)

Ich wünsche allen einen tollen Sonntag!!

Molson is a ghost town in Okanogan County, Washington, United States. The population was 19 at the 2000 census. The ghost town is also an open-air museum known as Old Molson Ghost Town that includes pioneer buildings, farm machinery, mining equipment and other historic artifacts. It is open seasonally. The Molson Schoolhouse Museum is a separate museum located in a historic schoolhouse building. Displays include hand tools, household artifacts and photographs. Museum website: molsonmuseums.org

Molson was founded in 1900 by promoter George B. Meacham, and investor John W. Molson (of the Molson beer brewing family). The mining town's population boomed to 300 that year, and the town had a newspaper, general stores, an attorney, doctor, saloon and hotel. By 1901, as the mining was failing, the population fell to 13 people.

When news of a railroad being built in Molson arrived in 1905, the population rose again. J.H. McDonald filed for a homestead including much of the town of Molson. In 1909 McDonald enforced his homestead by publishing a notice that everyone on the property was required to depart. Citizens then founded New Molson, ½ mile north of the site of Old Molson.

This is also possibly the location of Molson, Okanogan County, Washington that was incorporated on February 13, 1920. It was then disincorporated on 6 October 1921 by order of the Washington State Supreme Court, as the incorporation was declared invalid. The Molson post office was established July 14, 1900, with Walter F. Schuyler as first postmaster. The post office was discontinued August 11, 1967, with mail to Oroville.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molson,_Washington

Photo captured via Minolta MD Zoom Rokkor-X 24-50mm F/4 lens and the bracketing method of photography. In the Ghost Town of Molson. Western Okanogan Semiarid Foothills section within the Northern Rockies Region. Inland Northwest. Okanogan County, Washington. Late March 2018.

Exposure Time: 1/250 sec. * ISO Speed: ISO-160 * Aperture: F/11 * Bracketing: +1 / -1 * Color Temperature: 5600 K * Film Plug-In: Kodak Portra 160 VC

Photograph taken at 13:12pm an altitude of Six metres, on Thursday 5th May 2016 of a pair of very much in love Canada Geese (Branta canadensis), off Beach Drive close to Kitty Islet in Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

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Nikon D800 70mm 1/3200s f/2.8 iso100 RAW (14 bit) Handheld . Nikon back focus button enabled. AF-C Continuous point focus with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.Nikon AF fine tune enabled (+9).

Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF. Jessops 77mm UV filter.Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS.

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LATITUDE: N 48d 24m 38.03s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 18m 24.94s

ALTITUDE: 6.0m

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 33.11MB

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PROCESSING POWER:

Nikon D800 Firmware versions A 1.10 B 1.10 L 2.009 (Lens distortion control version 2)

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX2 Version 2.10.3 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

In the early days of World War II, Royal Navy fighter requirements had been based on cumbersome two-seat designs, such as the fighter/dive-bomber Blackburn Skua (and its turreted derivative the Blackburn Roc) and the fighter/reconnaissance Fairey Fulmar, since it was expected that they would encounter only long-range bombers or flying boats and that navigation over featureless seas required the assistance of a radio operator/navigator. The Royal Navy hurriedly adopted higher-performance single-seat aircraft such as the Hawker Sea Hurricane and the less robust Supermarine Seafire alongside, but neither aircraft had sufficient range to operate at a distance from a carrier task force. The American Vought F4U Corsair was welcomed as a more robust and versatile alternative.

Most Corsair Vs were then relegated to the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) in August 1951, where they replaced Supermarine Seafires and took over their role as classic fighter aircraft, despite the Corsair V’s strike/attack potential with bombs and unguided missiles. Most of the time the Corsairs were used for lang range navigation training. RNVR units that operated the Corsair V included Nos. 1831, 1832, 1833, 1834, 1835 and 1836 Squadrons. No. 1832, based at RAF Benson, was the last RNVR squadron to relinquish the type in August 1955 for the jet-powered Supermarine Attacker, and this ended the Corsair V’s short career.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 34 ft (10.37 m)

Wingspan: 40 ft 8 in (12.10 m)

Height: 15 ft 4 in (4.68 m)

Wing area: 314 sq ft (29.17 m²)

Empty weight: 9,205 lb (4,238 kg)

Gross weight: 14,670 lb (6,654 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 14,533 lb (6,592 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Bristol Centaurus XVIII 18-cylinder air-cooled radial engine with

2,470 hp (1,840 kW) take-off power, driving a 4-bladed

Rotol constant-speed propeller with 14 ft (4.3 m) diameter

Performance:

Maximum speed: 453 mph (730 km/h, 397 kn) at sea level

Cruise speed: 215 mph (346 km/h, 187 kn) at sea level

Stall speed: 89 mph (143 km/h, 77 kn)

Range with internal fuel, clean: 1,005 mi (1,617 km, 873 nmi)

Combat range with max. ordnance: 328 mi (528 km, 285 nmi)

Service ceiling: 41,500 ft (12,600 m)

Rate of climb: 4,360 ft/min (22.1 m/s)

Armament:

4× 20 mm (0.787 in) Hispano Mk II cannon in the outer wings, 250 RPG

A total of 11 hardpoints under the wings and the fuselage for a total ordnance of

4,000 pounds (1.800 kg), including drop tanks, up to 16× 60 lb unguided aircraft rockets on twin

launch rails and/or bombs of up to 1.000 lb (454 kg) caliber

The kit and its assembly:

My first submission to the 2023 “Re-engine” group build at whatifmodellers.com, and a British Corsair with a Centaurus instead of the original R-2800 is almost a no-brainer. But taking the idea to hardware turned out to be a bit trickier than expected. I based my fictional conversion on an Italeri F4U-4, which would have been the appropriate late-WWII basis for a real-life conversion. The kit has good ex- and internal detail with fine engraved panels and offers the late Corsairs’ all-metal wings, too.

The engine replacement is a massive resin piece from OzMods, part of a conversion twin set for a Bristol Brigand; I assume it’s intended for the Valom kit? The set includes resin four-blade props with deep blades which I rather wanted to use than the Sea Fury’s typical five-blade prop.

The Italeri Corsair was basically built OOB, but beyond the different engine, which caused some trouble in itself (see below), I incorporated several mods to change the aircraft’s appearance. The streamlined Centaurus was insofar a problem because it has s slightly smaller diameter than the original R-2800 cowling. Not much, but enough to make a simple exchange impossible or at least look awkward. While the upper cowling section and its curvature blended well into the Corsair fuselage, the difference became more obvious and complicated underneath: late Corsairs have a “flattened” bottom, and from below the Centaurus appears somewhat undersized. To smooth the intersection out I grinded much of the cooling flaps away, and to even out the profile I added a shallow air scoop from an Italeri F4U-7 under the engine, which required some PSR. A good compromise, though. The resin propeller was mounted onto a metal axis and fitted into a hole/channel that was drilled through the Centaurus’ massive resin block.

As an FAA Corsair the wing tips were clipped, which was easy to realize thanks to the massive parts in this area. The Corsair’s original oil coolers in the wing roots were retained, but the four guns in the wings (separate parts in the Italeri kit with quite large holes) were replaced with faired Hispano cannon for/from an early Hawker Tempest, aftermarket brass parts from Master Models.

To change the model’s look further I modified the tail surfaces, too; the rounded fin was replaced with a rather square and slightly bigger donor, a stabilizer from a Novo Supermarine Attacker. The original stabilizers were replaced, too, with trapezoidal alternatives from a Matchbox Meteor night fighter, which offer slightly more area. Since the tail surfaces were all graft-ons now I implanted a vertical styrene tube behind the rear cockpit bulkhead as a display holder adapter for later flight scene pictures. Together with the clipped/squared-off wingtips the new tail creates a consistent look, and with the propeller and its dominant spinner in place the Corsair V reminds a lot of a late Bristol Firebrand mark or even of an Unlimited Class Reno Racer? It looks fast and purposeful now!

Even though unguided missiles and/or bombs could have been a valid ordnance option I decided to leave the Corsair V relatively clean as a pure gun fighter; I just used the OOB drop tank on the centerline station.

Painting and markings:

Very dry and using real 1948 Royal Navy aircraft as benchmark, the Corsair V ended up with a rather simple and dull Extra Dark Sea Grey over Sky (Humbrol 123 and 90, respectively) with a low waterline, and still with wartime Type C roundels with “Identification red (dull)”, even though the RAF officially had reverted to bright identification colors in 1947 and started to use the high-viz Type D roundel as standard marking. To add a British flavor the cockpit interior was painted in very dark grey (Revell 06, Tar Black) while the interior of the landing gear wells was painted in a pale cream yellow (Humbrol 74, Linen) to mimic zinc chromate primer. The only highlight is a red spinner, a contemporary unit marking of 805 NAS.

The kit received a light black ink washing and post-shading to emphasize and/or add surface structures, and this nicely breaks up the otherwise uniform surfaces. Decals/markings came from Xtradecal Hawker Sea Fury und late WWII FAA/RN aircraft sheets, and some decals were mixed to create a fictional serial number for the Corsair V (TF 632 was never allocated, but the code fits into the model’s era). Some light oil and exhaust stains were also added, but not as severely as if the aircraft had been operated under wartime conditions. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

While a classic F4U with a British Centaurus engine sounds simple, and actually is, getting there was not as easy as it sounds – the ventral air scoop came to the rescue. With some more small mods like the new tail surfaces the aircraft got a subtly different look from its American ancestor(s). The Corsair V IMHO has now a very Blackburn-ish look, thanks to the big spinner and the square fin! And I wonder what I will do with the other Centaurus from the conversion set?

At the summit of Mount Lee.

The landscape is nice and green from the recent record rains.

The Hollywood Sign (formerly the Hollywoodland Sign) is a landmark and American cultural icon located in Los Angeles, California. It is situated on Mount Lee, in the Hollywood Hills area of the Santa Monica Mountains. The sign overlooks Hollywood, Los Angeles.

"HOLLYWOOD" is spelled out in 45-foot (13.7 m)-tall white capital letters and is 350 feet (106.7 m) long. It was originally created in 1923 as an advertisement for a local real estate development, but it garnered increasing recognition after the sign was left up. The sign was a frequent target of pranks and vandalism, but it has since undergone restoration, including the installation of a security system to deter vandalism. The sign is protected and promoted by The Trust For Public Land, a nonprofit organization, while its site and the surrounding land are part of Griffith Park.

The sign was erected in 1923 and originally read "HOLLYWOODLAND." Its purpose was to advertise the name of a new segregated housing development in the hills above the Hollywood district of Los Angeles.

The sign was officially dedicated in 1923. It was intended only to last a year and a half, but after the rise of American cinema in Los Angeles during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the sign became an internationally recognized symbol and was left there.

In 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce began a contract with the City of Los Angeles Parks Department to repair and rebuild the sign. The contract stipulated that "LAND" be removed to spell "Hollywood" and reflect the district, not the "Hollywoodland" housing development. The Parks Department dictated that all subsequent illumination would be at the Chamber's expense, so the Chamber opted not to replace the lightbulbs. The 1949 effort gave it new life, but the sign's unprotected wood and sheet metal structure continued to deteriorate. By the 1970s, the first O had splintered and broken, resembling a lowercase u, and the third O had fallen down completely, leaving the severely dilapidated sign reading "HuLLYWO D."

In 1978, in large part because of the public campaign to restore the landmark by Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy magazine, the Chamber set out to replace the severely deteriorated sign with a more permanent structure. Nine donors gave US$27,777.77 each (totaling US$249,999.93) to sponsor replacement letters, made of steel supported by steel columns on a concrete foundation.

baby jester

The store is in pretty good shape, but little was done to it when Acme took over. At first, the store was crowded (as Pathmark always was)...but as Albertsons has raised prices and cut products left and right, "sales have fallen off a cliff", as one employee told me.

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The Acme (former Pathmark) of Ferry Street in Newark, NJ is having a going-out-of-business sale. The closing was announced by the UFCW local 1262 a few weeks back. Unfortunately, the closing is not surprising. In a gentrifying neighborhood full of immigrants from Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Ecuador and lots of other places--Pathmark, with its deep expertise in ethnic merchandising--was a perfect fit; by contrast, Acme makes little effort to carry the products that the people of the neighborhood want to buy. It’s like the company has one model for supermarkets, and they plop them down no matter what neighborhood they operate in.

The sad part is that Pathmark was so successful and high-volume in this neighborhood that, in 1995, they replaced an older store next door with this 65,000 sq. ft. super center. Once A&P took over, prices went up, but at least the store still carried the wide selection of fresh and dry goods that the neighborhood wanted. Acme cut tons of these products and greatly reduced the selection. They replaced the once vibrant international flavor of Pathmark with a WASPy supermarket that your grandmother might have shopped at.

I am sure this is only the first of many former A&P/Pathmark stores that will close under Acme's leadership. The stores are mostly devoid of customers. The owners of New Albertson’s never had a long-term strategy to be in the grocery business. This is a company run by Wall-Street money men who buy up companies, leech money out of them to make themselves rich, saddle the companies with debt, and then try to sell them quickly. And believe me, they are saddling New Albertsons with billions of dollars of debt, financing all these acquisitions and store renovations. Unfortunately for them, there has been low interest in an Albertsons IPO the two times they have tried to offer the company up for sale, and now that same-store sales are tanking, it seems even more unlikely. To top it off, the company still hasn’t had a single profitable quarter since it was formed and is losing tens of millions every quarter.

Employees are being offered opportunities to relocate to other stores, but the ones I spoke to said many of the stores are too far away, and after being put through the wringer over the years, I think they are ready to move on. No one has yet signed on to takeover the supermarket, but the buzz was that ShopRite was interested in the store. The Kearny ShopRite operates 3 miles away.

This is a beautiful Melaleuca tree in our backyard.

Bronica S2a, Ilford Delta 3200, Home processed in Ilfotec HC 1+31 for 14 minutes.

Covent Garden (/ˈkɒvənt/) is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the elegant buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the London Transport Museum.

Though mainly fields until the 16th century, the area was briefly settled when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic. After the town was abandoned, part of the area was walled off by 1200 for use as arable land and orchards by Westminster Abbey, and was referred to as "the garden of the Abbey and Convent". The land, now called "the Covent Garden", was seized by Henry VIII, and granted to the Earls of Bedford in 1552. The 4th Earl commissioned Inigo Jones to build some fine houses to attract wealthy tenants. Jones designed the Italianate arcaded square along with the church of St Paul's. The design of the square was new to London, and had a significant influence on modern town planning, acting as the prototype for the laying-out of new estates as London grew. A small open-air fruit and vegetable market had developed on the south side of the fashionable square by 1654. Gradually, both the market and the surrounding area fell into disrepute, as taverns, theatres, coffee-houses and brothels opened up; the gentry moved away, and rakes, wits and playwrights moved in. By the 18th century it had become a well-known red-light district, attracting notable prostitutes. An Act of Parliament was drawn up to control the area, and Charles Fowler's neo-classical building was erected in 1830 to cover and help organise the market. The area declined as a pleasure-ground as the market grew and further buildings were added: the Floral Hall, Charter Market, and in 1904 the Jubilee Market. By the end of the 1960s traffic congestion was causing problems, and in 1974 the market relocated to the New Covent Garden Market about three miles (5 km) south-west at Nine Elms. The central building re-opened as a shopping centre in 1980, and is now a tourist location containing cafes, pubs, small shops, and a craft market called the Apple Market, along with another market held in the Jubilee Hall.

Covent Garden, with the postcode WC2, falls within the London boroughs of Westminster and Camden, and the parliamentary constituencies of Cities of London and Westminster and Holborn and St Pancras. The area has been served by the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden tube station since 1907; the journey from Leicester Square, at 300 yards, is the shortest in London.

Early history

The route of the Strand on the southern boundary of what was to become Covent Garden was used during the Roman period as part of a route to Silchester, known as "Iter VII" on the Antonine Itinerary. Excavations in 2006 at St Martin-in-the-Fields revealed a Roman grave, suggesting the site had sacred significance. The area to the north of the Strand was long thought to have remained as unsettled fields until the 16th century, but theories by Alan Vince and Martin Biddle that there had been an Anglo-Saxon settlement to the west of the old Roman town of Londinium were borne out by excavations in 1985 and 2005. These revealed Covent Garden as the centre of a trading town called Lundenwic, developed around 600 AD, which stretched from Trafalgar Square to Aldwych. Alfred the Great gradually shifted the settlement into the old Roman town of Londinium from around 886 AD onwards, leaving no mark of the old town, and the site returned to fields.

Around 1200 the first mention of an abbey garden appears in a document mentioning a walled garden owned by the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St. Peter, Westminster. A later document, dated between 1250 and 1283, refers to "the garden of the Abbot and Convent of Westminster". By the 13th century this had become a 40-acre (16 ha) quadrangle of mixed orchard, meadow, pasture and arable land, lying between modern-day St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane, and Floral Street and Maiden Lane. The use of the name "Covent"—an Anglo-French term for a religious community, equivalent to "monastery" or "convent" —appears in a document in 1515, when the Abbey, which had been letting out parcels of land along the north side of the Strand for inns and market gardens, granted a lease of the walled garden, referring to it as "a garden called Covent Garden". This is how it was recorded from then on.

The Bedford Estate (1552–1918)

After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540, Henry VIII took for himself the land belonging to Westminster Abbey, including the convent garden and seven acres to the north called Long Acre; and in 1552 his son, Edward VI, granted it to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford. The Russell family, who in 1694 were advanced in their peerage from Earl to Duke of Bedford, held the land from 1552 to 1918.

Russell had Bedford House and garden built on part of the land, with an entrance on the Strand, the large garden stretching back along the south side of the old walled-off convent garden. Apart from this, and allowing several poor-quality tenements to be erected, the Russells did little with the land until the 4th Earl of Bedford, Francis Russell, an active and ambitious businessman, commissioned Inigo Jones in 1630 to design and build a church and three terraces of fine houses around a large square or piazza. The commission had been prompted by Charles I taking offence at the condition of the road and houses along Long Acre, which were the responsibility of Russell and Henry Carey, 2nd Earl of Monmouth. Russell and Carey complained that under the 1625 Proclamation concerning Buildings, which restricted building in and around London, they could not build new houses; the King then granted Russell, for a fee of £2,000, a licence to build as many new houses on his land as he "shall thinke fitt and convenient". The church of St Paul's was the first building, begun in July 1631 on the western side of the square. The last house was completed in 1637.

The houses initially attracted the wealthy, though when a market developed on the south side of the square around 1654, the aristocracy moved out and coffee houses, taverns, and prostitutes moved in. The Bedford Estate was expanded in 1669 to include Bloomsbury, when Lord Russell married Lady Rachel Vaughan, one of the daughters of the 4th Earl of Southampton.

By the 18th century, Covent Garden had become a well-known red-light district, attracting notable prostitutes such as Betty Careless and Jane Douglas. Descriptions of the prostitutes and where to find them were provided by Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies, the "essential guide and accessory for any serious gentleman of pleasure". In 1830 a market hall was built to provide a more permanent trading centre. In 1913, Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford agreed to sell the Covent Garden Estate for £2 million to the MP and land speculator Harry Mallaby-Deeley, who sold his option in 1918 to the Beecham family for £250,000.

Modern changes

Charles Fowler's 1830 neo-classical building restored as a retail market.

The Covent Garden Estate was part of Beecham Estates and Pills Limited from 1924 to 1928, after which time it was managed by a successor company called Covent Garden Properties Company Limited, owned by the Beechams and other private investors. This new company sold some properties at Covent Garden, while becoming active in property investment in other parts of London. In 1962 the bulk of the remaining properties in the Covent Garden area, including the market, were sold to the newly established government-owned Covent Garden Authority for £3,925,000.

By the end of the 1960s, traffic congestion had reached such a level that the use of the square as a modern wholesale distribution market was becoming unsustainable, and significant redevelopment was planned. Following a public outcry, buildings around the square were protected in 1973, preventing redevelopment. The following year the market moved to a new site in south-west London. The square languished until its central building re-opened as a shopping centre in 1980. An action plan was drawn up by Westminster Council in 2004 in consultation with residents and businesses to improve the area while retaining its historic character. The market buildings, along with several other properties in Covent Garden, were bought by a property company in 2006.

Geography

Historically, the Bedford Estate defined the boundary of Covent Garden, with Drury Lane to the east, the Strand to the south, St. Martin's Lane to the west, and Long Acre to the north. However, over time the area has expanded northwards past Long Acre to High Holborn, and since 1971, with the creation of the Covent Garden Conservation Area which incorporated part of the area between St Martins Lane and Charring Cross Road, the Western boundary is sometimes considered to be Charring Cross Road. Shelton Street, running parallel to the north of Long Acre, marks the London borough boundary between Camden and Westminster. Long Acre is the main thoroughfare, running north-east from St Martin's Lane to Drury Lane.

The area to the south of Long Acre contains the Royal Opera House, the market and central square, and most of the elegant buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the London Transport Museum; while the area to the north of Long Acre is largely given over to independent retail units centred on Neal Street, Neal's Yard and Seven Dials; though this area also contains residential buildings such as Odhams Walk, built in 1981 on the site of the Odhams print works, and is home to over 6,000 residents.

Governance

The Covent Garden estate was originally under the control of Westminster Abbey and lay in the parish of St Margaret. During a reorganisation in 1542 it was transferred to St Martin in the Fields, and then in 1645 a new parish was created, splitting governance of the estate between the parishes of St Paul Covent Garden and St Martin, both still within the Liberty of Westminster. St Paul Covent Garden was completely surrounded by the parish of St Martin in the Fields. It was grouped into the Strand District in 1855 when it came within the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works.

In 1889 the parish became part of the County of London and in 1900 it became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Westminster. It was abolished as a civil parish in 1922. Since 1965 Covent Garden falls within the London boroughs of Westminster and Camden, and is in the Parliamentary constituencies of Cities of London and Westminster and Holborn and St Pancras. For local council elections it falls within the St James's ward for Westminster, and the Holborn and Covent Garden ward for Camden.

Economy

The area's historic association with the retail and entertainment economy continues. In 1979, Covent Garden Market reopened as a retail centre; in 2010, the largest Apple Store in the world opened in The Piazza. The central hall has shops, cafes and bars alongside the Apple Market stalls selling antiques, jewellery, clothing and gifts; there are additional casual stalls in the Jubilee Hall Market on the south side of the square. Long Acre has a range of clothes shops and boutiques, and Neal Street is noted for its large number of shoe shops. London Transport Museum and the side entrance to the Royal Opera House box office and other facilities are also located on the square. During the late 1970s and 1980s the Rock Garden music venue was popular with up and coming punk rock and New Wave artists.

The market halls and several other buildings in Covent Garden were bought by CapCo in partnership with GE Real Estate in August 2006 for £421 million, on a 150-year head lease. The buildings are let to the Covent Garden Area Trust, who pay an annual peppercorn rent of one red apple and a posy of flowers for each head lease, and the Trust protects the property from being redeveloped. In March 2007 CapCo also acquired the shops located under the Royal Opera House. The complete Covent Garden Estate owned by CapCo consists of 550,000 sq ft (51,000 m2), and has a market value of £650 million.

Landmarks

The Royal Opera House, often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", was constructed as the "Theatre Royal" in 1732 to a design by Edward Shepherd. During the first hundred years or so of its history, the theatre was primarily a playhouse, with the Letters Patent granted by Charles II giving Covent Garden and Theatre Royal, Drury Lane exclusive rights to present spoken drama in London. In 1734, the first ballet was presented; a year later Handel's first season of operas began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premières here. It has been the home of The Royal Opera since 1945, and the Royal Ballet since 1946.

The current building is the third theatre on the site following destructive fires in 1808 and 1857. The façade, foyer and auditorium were designed by Edward Barry, and date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive £178 million reconstruction in the 1990s. The Royal Opera House seats 2,268 people and consists of four tiers of boxes and balconies and the amphitheatre gallery. The stage performance area is roughly 15 metres square. The main auditorium is a Grade 1 listed building. The inclusion of the adjacent old Floral Hall, previously a part of the old Covent Garden Market, created a new and extensive public gathering place. In 1779 the pavement outside the playhouse was the scene of the murder of Martha Ray, mistress of the Earl of Sandwich, by her admirer the Rev. James Hackman.

Covent Garden square

Balthazar Nebot's 1737 painting of the square before the 1830 market hall was constructed.

The central square in Covent Garden is simply called "Covent Garden", often marketed as "Covent Garden Piazza" to distinguish it from the eponymous surrounding area. Laid out in 1630, it was the first modern square in London, and was originally a flat, open space or piazza with low railings. A casual market started on the south side, and by 1830 the present market hall was built. The space is popular with street performers, who audition with the site's owners for an allocated slot. The square was originally laid out when the 4th Earl of Bedford, Francis Russell, commissioned Inigo Jones to design and build a church and three terraces of fine houses around the site of a former walled garden belonging to Westminster Abbey. Jones's design was informed by his knowledge of modern town planning in Europe, particularly Piazza d'Arme, in Leghorn, Tuscany, Piazza San Marco in Venice, Piazza Santissima Annunziata in Florence, and the Place des Vosges in Paris. The centrepiece of the project was the large square, the concept of which was new to London, and this had a significant influence on modern town planning in the city,[56] acting as the prototype for the laying-out of new estates as the metropolis grew. Isaac de Caus, the French Huguenot architect, designed the individual houses under Jones's overall design.

The church of St Paul's was the first building, and was begun in July 1631 on the western side of the square. The last house was completed in 1637. Seventeen of the houses had arcaded portico walks organised in groups of four and six either side of James Street on the north side, and three and four either side of Russell Street. These arcades, rather than the square itself, took the name Piazza; the group from James Street to Russell Street became known as the "Great Piazza" and that to the south of Russell Street as the "Little Piazza". None of Inigo Jones's houses remain, though part of the north group was reconstructed in 1877–79 as Bedford Chambers by William Cubitt to a design by Henry Clutton.

Covent Garden market

The first record of a "new market in Covent Garden" is in 1654 when market traders set up stalls against the garden wall of Bedford House. The Earl of Bedford acquired a private charter from Charles II in 1670 for a fruit and vegetable market, permitting him and his heirs to hold a market every day except Sundays and Christmas Day. The original market, consisting of wooden stalls and sheds, became disorganised and disorderly, and the 6th Earl requested an Act of Parliament in 1813 to regulate it, then commissioned Charles Fowler in 1830 to design the neo-classical market building that is the heart of Covent Garden today. The contractor was William Cubitt and Company. Further buildings were added—the Floral hall, Charter Market, and in 1904 the Jubilee Market for foreign flowers was built by Cubitt and Howard.

By the end of the 1960s, traffic congestion was causing problems for the market, which required increasingly large lorries for deliveries and distribution. Redevelopment was considered, but protests from the Covent Garden Community Association in 1973 prompted the Home Secretary, Robert Carr, to give dozens of buildings around the square listed-building status, preventing redevelopment. The following year the market relocated to its new site, New Covent Garden Market, about three miles (5 km) south-west at Nine Elms. The central building re-opened as a shopping centre in 1980, with cafes, pubs, small shops and a craft market called the Apple Market. Another market, the Jubilee Market, is held in the Jubilee Hall on the south side of the square. The market halls and several other buildings in Covent Garden have been owned by the property company Capital & Counties Properties (CapCo) since 2006.

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The current Theatre Royal on Drury Lane is the most recent of four incarnations, the Second of which opened in 1663, making it the oldest continuously used theatre in London. For much of its first two centuries, it was, along with the Royal Opera House, a patent theatre granted rights in London for the production of drama, and had a claim to be one of London's leading theatres. The first theatre, known as "Theatre Royal, Bridges Street", saw performances by Nell Gwyn and Charles Hart. After it was destroyed by fire in 1672, English dramatist and theatre manager Thomas Killigrew engaged Christopher Wren to build a larger theatre on the same spot, which opened in 1674. This building lasted nearly 120 years, under leadership including Colley Cibber, David Garrick, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In 1791, under Sheridan's management, the building was demolished to make way for a larger theatre which opened in 1794; but that survived only 15 years, burning down in 1809. The building that stands today opened in 1812. It has been home to actors as diverse as Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean, child actress Clara Fisher, comedian Dan Leno, the comedy troupe Monty Python (who recorded a concert album there), and musical composer and performer Ivor Novello. Since November 2008 the theatre has been owned by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and generally stages popular musical theatre. It is a Grade I listed building.

London Transport Museum

The London Transport Museum is in a Victorian iron and glass building on the east side of the market square. It was designed as a dedicated flower market by William Rogers of William Cubitt and Company in 1871, and was first occupied by the museum in 1980. Previously the transport collection had been held at Syon Park and Clapham. The first parts of the collection were brought together at the beginning of the 20th century by the London General Omnibus Company (LGOC) when it began to preserve buses being retired from service. After the LGOC was taken over by the London Electric Railway (LER), the collection was expanded to include rail vehicles. It continued to expand after the LER became part of the London Passenger Transport Board in the 1930s and as the organisation passed through various successor bodies up to TfL, London's transport authority since 2000. The Covent Garden building has on display many examples of buses, trams, trolleybuses and rail vehicles from 19th and 20th centuries as well as artefacts and exhibits related to the operation and marketing of passenger services and the impact that the developing transport network has had on the city and its population.

St Paul's Church

St Paul's, commonly known as the Actors' Church, was designed by Inigo Jones as part of a commission by Francis Russell in 1631 to create "houses and buildings fitt for the habitacons of Gentlemen and men of ability". Work on the church began that year and was completed in 1633, at a cost of £4,000, with it becoming consecrated in 1638. In 1645 Covent Garden was made a separate parish and the church was dedicated to St Paul. It is uncertain how much of Jones's original building is left, as the church was damaged by fire in 1795 during restoration work by Thomas Hardwick; though it is believed that the columns are original—the rest is mostly Georgian or Victorian reconstruction.

Culture

The Covent Garden area has long been associated with both entertainment and shopping, and this continues. Covent Garden has 13 theatres, and over 60 pubs and bars, with most south of Long Acre, around the main shopping area of the old market. The Seven Dials area in the north of Covent Garden was home to the punk rock club The Roxy in 1977, and the area remains focused on young people with its trendy mid-market retail outlets.

Street performance

Street entertainment at Covent Garden was noted in Samuel Pepys's diary in May 1662, when he recorded the first mention of a Punch and Judy show in Britain. Impromptu performances of song and swimming were given by local celebrity William Cussans in the eighteenth century. Covent Garden is licensed for street entertainment, and performers audition for timetabled slots in a number of venues around the market, including the North Hall, West Piazza, and South Hall Courtyard. The courtyard space is dedicated to classical music only. There are street performances at Covent Garden Market every day of the year, except Christmas Day. Shows run throughout the day and are about 30 minutes in length. In March 2008, the market owner, CapCo, proposed to reduce street performances to one 30-minute show each hour.

Pubs and bars

The Covent Garden area has over 60 pubs and bars; several of them are listed buildings, with some also on CAMRA's National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors; some, such as The Harp in Chandos Place, have received consumer awards. The Harp's awards include London Pub of the Year in 2008 by the Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood, and National Pub of the Year by CAMRA in 2011. It was at one time owned by the Charrington Brewery, when it was known as The Welsh Harp; in 1995 the name was abbreviated to just The Harp, before Charrington sold it to Punch Taverns in 1997. It has been owned by the landlady since 2010.

The Lamb and Flag in Rose Street has a reputation as the oldest pub in the area, though records are not clear. The first mention of a pub on the site is 1772 (when it was called the Cooper's Arms – the name changing to Lamb & Flag in 1833); the 1958 brick exterior conceals what may be an early 18th-century frame of a house replacing the original one built in 1638.[94] The pub acquired a reputation for staging bare-knuckle prize fights during the early 19th century when it earned the nickname "Bucket of Blood". The alleyway beside the pub was the scene of an attack on John Dryden in 1679 by thugs hired by John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, with whom he had a long-standing conflict.

The Salisbury in St. Martin's Lane was built as part of a six-storey block around 1899 on the site of an earlier pub that had been known under several names, including the Coach & Horses and Ben Caunt's Head; it is both Grade II listed, and on CAMRA's National Inventory, due to the quality of the etched and polished glass and the carved woodwork, summed up as "good fin de siècle ensemble". The Freemasons Arms on Long Acre is linked with the founding of the Football Association in 1896; however, the meetings took place at The Freemasons Tavern on Great Queen Street, which was replaced in 1909 by the Connaught Rooms.

Other pubs that are Grade II listed are of minor interest, they are three 19th century rebuilds of 17th century/18th century houses, the Nell Gwynne Tavern in Bull Inn Court, the Nag's Head on James Street, and the White Swan on New Row; a Victorian pub built by lessees of the Marquis of Exeter, the Old Bell on the corner of Exeter Street and Wellington Street; and a late 18th or early 19th century pub the Angel and Crown on St. Martin's Lane.

Cultural connections

Covent Garden, and especially the market, have appeared in a number of works. Eliza Doolittle, the central character in George Bernard Shaw's play, Pygmalion, and the musical adaptation by Alan Jay Lerner, My Fair Lady, is a Covent Garden flower seller. Alfred Hitchcock's 1972 film Frenzy about a Covent Garden fruit vendor who becomes a serial sex killer, was set in the market where his father had been a wholesale greengrocer. The daily activity of the market was the topic of a 1957 Free Cinema documentary by Lindsay Anderson, Every Day Except Christmas, which won the Grand Prix at the Venice Festival of Shorts and Documentaries.

Transport

Covent Garden is served by the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden tube station on the corner of Long Acre and James Street. The station was opened by Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway on 11 April 1907, four months after services on the rest of the line began operating on 15 December 1906. Platform access is only by lift or stairs; until improvements to the exit gates in 2007, due to high passenger numbers (16 million annually), London Underground had to advise travellers to get off at Leicester Square and walk the short distance (the tube journey at less than 300 yards is London's shortest) to avoid the congestion. Stations just outside the area include the Charing Cross tube station and Charing Cross railway station, Leicester Square tube station, and Holborn tube station. While there is only one bus route in Covent Garden itself—the RV1, which uses Catherine Street as a terminus, just to the east of Covent Garden square—there are over 30 routes which pass close by, mostly on the Strand or Kingsway.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covent_Garden

This is the start bird for this weeks Feathery Friday Birds Against the Sky. So is if you have any birdies with the sky as the back drop, please join us for Feathery Friday on the 5th, 6th & 7th of March. :-)

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VOS Pace is a new platform supply vessel (PSV) built for the Dutch company, Vroon Offshore Services. The vessel, built at the Cosco Guangdong Shipyard in China, was launched in June 2014 and delivered to her owners in February 2015.

It is the first of the six PX121-type PSVs designed by Ulstein for Vroon Offshore and is outfitted to support drilling activities with longer and deeper boreholes and other offshore activities in European waters.

Storage capacities of the PX121 vessel

The PX121 is equipped with tanks for carrying oil, water and drilling fluids along with two stainless steel tanks for carrying flammable liquids or corrosive chemicals. Onboard tanks can store up to 1,035m3 of fresh water, 1,674m3 of drill water, 1,464m3 of fuel, 1,294m3 of liquid mud or brine and 255m3 of dry bulk. The vessel also features 391.7m3 heeling tanks, and can carry a 257m3 of base oil and 150m3 of methanol.

Accommodation and deck machinery aboard the platform service vessel

VOS Pace is outfitted to provide accommodation to 26 people in 14 single crew cabins and six double cabins dedicated for 12 passengers.

The vessel features two 10t tugger winches with a pulling speed of 35m/min, two capstans with a safe working load (SWL) of 10t each, and a deck crane with a SWL of 3t at a maximum outreach of 18m.

Communication and navigation equipment

Communication systems fitted to the PSV include JRC JSS-2150 MF/HF radio, JRC JHS-770S Very High Frequency Radio (VHF), three Entel HT8982 portable VHF radio for general and distress communications, McMurdo Model E5 Satellite emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB), JRC NCR-333 navigational telex (NAVTEX) receiver, JRC JUE-251 Fleet Broad Band, and JRC JAX-9B Weather Facsimile.

Other communication equipments fitted on the vessel include Inmarsat-C packet data service operated by Inmarsat for Ship Security Alert System (SSAS) and long-range identification and tracking (LRIT) of ships. The ship also incorporates two McMurdo S4 search and rescue transponders (SART) and JHS-183 Automatic Identification System (AIS).

Navigation equipment includes S-band JMCJMA -9132-SA ARPA radar and X-band JRC JMA -9122-9XA ARPA radar. Also fitted are two Mc Murdo S4 Radar Transponder Units, JRC JAN-901B-FOR Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS), JRC JFE-680 Echo sounder and YOKOGAWA PT500A-P-Analog auto pilot.

The PSV is further equipped with YOKOGAWA CMZ900d +1 x 900S gyro compass, YOKOGAWA SR-165 magnetic compass, Integrated Joystick Control, JRC Navi-Sailor 4000 electronic chart display and information system (ECDIS) with multi-functional (MFD) system, and a JRC JCY-1800 Voyage Data Recorder (VDR).

Life saving and fire-fighting systems

The PSV is fitted with two 20-man life rafts on each side and a man overboard boat (MOB) to carry six people.

"The PSV is fitted with two 20-man life rafts on each side and a man overboard boat (MOB) to carry six people."

External fire-fighting systems of the ABS FiFi Class vessel make it capable of dispersing 3,820m3 of water an hour. Manual fire-fighting equipment include two fire monitors. The high-capacity water jets are capable of releasing 1,200m3 of water every hour to a distance of more than 120m.

Engine and propulsion

VOs Pace PSV is powered by a diesel electric propulsion system comprising of two 1,630kW diesel engines and a pair of two diesel engines generating 990kW of power each.

The propulsion system includes two 1,600kW azimuthing twin propellers and two bow thrusters, each generating 880kW of power. The ship is also fitted with a 130ekW emergency generator set for shipboard electricity. The propulsion system ensures a maximum speed of 15kt.

Better on Black

Here is a complete set of orders with clearance card from LaCrosse, Wisconsin on February 1st, 1977. Reads as follows:

Clearance Card (white paper)

CMStP&P RR Co. Clearance

Station-LaCrosse, Wisconsin

Date-February 1st, 1977

Addressed to C&E Extra 155 East

Clearance No.-103

To-Portage

"4 Orders for your train, #'s 102, 838, 864 & 866.

OK time was 0118 am

Supt.-NHM

Opr-Proksch

Train Order #102 (yellow paper)

At LaCrosse

Date-February 1st, 1977

Addressed to C&E eastward trains reads:

"Men and equipment on Eastward track between MP 280 and MP 279 Between LaCrosse and Medary From 8:01 am until 401 pm.

All trains on this track proceed through these limits at reduced speed unless a different speed is verbally authorized by employee in charge or entire train has passed a green flag."

Supt-NHM

Made complete at 0115 am by operator Proksch

Train Order #838 (bottom left)

At LaCrosse

Date-January 19th, 1977

Addressed to C&E eastward trains reads:

"The trailing point crossover east of Depot Sparta and the west switch of the eastward siding at Sparta is out of service."

Supt-NHM

Made complete at 1017 pm by operator King

Train Order #864 (center bottom)

At LaCrosse

Date-January 27th, 1977

Addressed to C&E eastward extra trains reads:

"On westward track between Portage and LaCrosse frt trains do not exceed

Between MP 179 and MP 215 40 MPH

Between MP 215 and MP 223 35 MPH

Between MP 223 and MP 256 40 MPH

Between MP 256 and MP 257 35 MPH

Between MP 257 and MP 266 40 MPH

Between MP 266 and MP 273 35 MPH

Between MP 273 and MP 278 40 MPH"

Supt.-NHM

Made complete at 341 pm by operator Ristow

Train Order #866 (bottom right)

At LaCrosse

Date-January 27th, 1977

Addressed to C&E eastward extra trains reads:

"On eastward track between LaCroose and Portage frt trains do not exceed:

Between MP 278 and MP 273 40 MPH

Between MP 273 and MP 266 35 MPH

Between MP 266 and MP 257 40 MPH

Between MP 257 and MP 256 35 MPH

Between MP 256 and MP 243 40 MPH

Between MP 243 and MP 239 35 MPH

Between MP 239 and MP 223 40 MPH

Between MP 223 and MP 208 35 MPH

Between MP 208 and MP 190 40 MPH

Between MP 190 and MP 179 35 MPH"

Supt.-NHM

Made Complete at 341 pm by operator Ristow

Marche (Italy)