User talk:Thewellman/WikiProjects

Hello. Please forgive me for using this forum to contact you, but I couldn't find any other way. I feel compelled to do so after finding a photo on one of your railroad pages, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Terminal_Company#mediaviewer/File:PTM1004.jpg where I believe I recognize a picture of my father as the engineer. I miss my dad very much and was hoping you might be able to tell me something about the photo: who the photographer is/was, were they friends with my Dad, maybe a story behind the photo, etc. This may very well be one of the engines my dad let me "drive" when I was 7. I'm 52 now and have fond memories of Dad showing me around Rigby yard. If contacting you like this is inappropriate, please forgive me, but I had to try. Thanks anyway for reading. User7998 (talk) 00:54, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to get these messages in line (thread?), but I'd like to thank you for responding so quickly, actually responding at all, and for your service to our country; so many sacrifices were made that will never come to light. No book written, movie filmed, statue cast, nor wall erected can ever repay those who gave so much in the name of duty.

My family now has a "new" picture of the man who had two ships sunk from under him by the Japanese fleet in the Merchant Marines, then came home to give his eighteen year old wife 6 children from 1944 to '65. To quote my sister's song about him, "He made those engines sail over forty years of rail". He went on his next journey in 1990. Thank you for rekindling such fond memories. User7998 (talk) 04:29, 18 August 2014 (UTC)