I'm on Wikipedia!

Any search on Google or elsewhere using my name will throw up numerous hits - my Blog and my Flickr photos of course, but also some other references and credits. I suppose that will be true for anyone who has been active on the Internet for a while - and I started the Blog, and joined Flickr, way back in February 2009, sixteen years ago. So it's scarcely any surprise that a search for me will produce so much, even though I'm certainly not famous, and have never been in the news. 

But one thing eluded me, something I rather wanted. That's a mention in Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia. I'd never expect a full article devoted to - say - my miraculous birth and extraordinary upbringing, my exciting career, and my adventurous retirement. No; something much more modest would do, so long as I was cited as a serious source on some serious topic.

Now I have been! In fact since 2021. 

Somebody has listed me as an impeccable source of information on the Wester Pipe Railway in Caithness.

Look at this:

OK, it's only a technical article on an oil pipeline assembling facility, but it references one of my Blog posts. A post called The Long Pipe, published on 4 July 2019. You can if interested look it up.

I might add that I went back in September 2022 for another look at this pipeline railway, which runs into the sea south of Keiss. It wasn't active at that time, and seemed to be mostly mothballed, although some kind of work was going on to renew the supports for the double-track underneath the road bridge on the A99. A few pictures will reveal the state of play in autumn 2022.

The plaque on the road bridge had been refreshed.

And (taken from official articles and pamphlets) these pictures show what happens at the sea end of the railway, when the line is active. 

No doubt that huge towhead, when not drawing a length of pipeline into the sea here, is put to work elsewhere in the world.

Well, there you are. Fame at last. (Though as we all know, fame costs...) I'm up in the area in late May. I will definitely return to see what's happening then. Did you know that I possess a yellow hard hat? I'll take it on holiday, just in case the guys invite me to look at the fabrication yards at either end. Now that would be a memorable experience!