Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

Comments

1. 1

   EvergreenRailfan spews:

   Friday, 7/4/25 at 4:10 pm

   Great story of American troops celebrating Independence Day in Paris in 1917.
   https://youtu.be/qGqxt_7087Q?si=2H6oqJF-OkHUKoEB

2. 2

   Vicious Troll spews:

   Friday, 7/4/25 at 6:30 pm

   Great story of the only Senate Democrat to celebrate Independence Day in 2025:

   U.S. Senator John Fetterman
   @SenFettermanPA

   Last week, Gallup polled only 36% of Democrats are “extremely or very proud” to be American.

   In the greatest country in the world, that’s just wrong.

   I’m unapologetically grateful for our nation and the American Way of Life—today, and always.

   Happy Birthday, America. 🇺🇸

   6:30 AM · Jul 4, 2025

3. 3

   Vicious Troll spews:

   Friday, 7/4/25 at 6:37 pm

   And lots of liberal tears.

   Trump signs his agenda bill, with a flyover and fireworks to mark the occasion

   He’s turned the traditional July 4 picnic into a celebration of the country’s independence and of his win in Congress, seizing upon the day’s fanfare to salute the most decisive legislative victory of his second term. The festivities included a bomber jet flyover – a nod to the military’s recent strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities – and will feature a fireworks show on the National Mall later.

   “We made promises, and it’s really promises made, promises kept, and we’ve kept them. There’s a triumph of democracy on the birthday of democracy, and I have to say that the people are happy,” Trump said on the balcony of the South Lawn alongside first lady Melania Trump.

   So. much. fucking. winning.

4. 4

   Roger Rabbit spews:

   Friday, 7/4/25 at 6:49 pm

   “The greatest country in the world” fought a civil war to keep slavery, waged genocide against Native Americans, tolerated a century of terrorism against black people, and elected Trump twice.

   Yes, despite all that, America is great in some ways. But the GOP isn’t one of them, and you’re not either.

5. 5

   EvergreenRailfan spews:

   Friday, 7/4/25 at 8:20 pm

   4)The country that used to build to last. I was in Portland Saturday, partly to catch Portland’s First MAX trains in action one last time, as retirement is imminent (potentially by the end of next week) after 40 years, what a waste.(San Francisco has historic streetcars 3 decades older in regular service), but it was the train cars filling in on Amtrak Cascades 503 that were a sign of when things were built to last.

   After the Horizon coaches that replaced the TALGOS were in turn pulled from service due to defects. Amtrak surged a couple 3-4 car sets of AMFLEET Coaches from the shop in Delaware. The Amfleets were adapted from the High Speed Metroliner EMU originally a project between the Feds and the Pennsylvania Railroad, making the basic design nearly 60 years old. The unpowered Amfleets Coaches were built between the mid 70s to early 80s. Rose pretty good for such an old coach, my main concern was Control Point 188.5 near DuPont.

   One of my obligatory stops in Portland is the Oregon Railroad Heritage Center. Haven’t been down there since 2019, and they only had the outline for the Turntable, but looks like it’s installed now. Don’t really need it for the logging steam engines that replaced Southern Pacific 4449 (locomotive that participated in the Bicentennial)on Holiday excursions, but they hope to have 4449 and SPS 700 running again someday. It’s lack of places to run that are the problem, BNSF is on again/off again, UP doesn’t host from foreign roads, even ones they now own, and Oregon Pacific’s right of way is in need of serious repair to lift weight restrictions.(Museum is acquiring it, plans to use the revenue from the one remaining customer and any others they attract, to fix it up).

   Saw a few of the remaining Type1 MAX care, but odds of catching one, pretty small 3-5 out of 81 LRVs in action on the Saturday schedule, but rode the replacements. Good design.