Share Your Desktop – August 2025

Middle of the month and time to join in with Clare’s Share Your Desktop. This is a month when I’d prefer to show the IRL life desktop first but to avoid any confusion I’ll stick with convention of Gaming PC desktop first. This is a screenshot from American Truck Simulator where we’re rapidly knocking out the delivery miles in Iowa to complete a community challenge after the DLC released last month. My regular’s who saw last month’s Share Your Desktop may recall an image of Mack Anthem ‘Chance’ hauling a planter through the dawn’s early light. Since then we’ve burned through a shift of over 20 thousand miles by our Freightliner FLB, ‘Autumn Gal’. She handed over to our Kenworth W900, ‘Carbon Lily’. This shot of Lily was taken as the sun was setting near Cedar Rapids IA and we were returning to the highway after being called into a weigh station…

…We specialise in Farm and Construction hauls – That tanker is full of fresh milk from a farm near Fort Dodge IA.

Computer games are assumed to be fun but the Truck Sim’s are almost a profession and those of us who do them often act very professionally – even the younger players once they’ve got past their initial reckless ‘it’s just fun’ stage – yes, they do grow past that 😅👍

The name of the truck comes from Carbonlily, an entertainment group based in San Antonio TX. I really like their videos on YouTube and it seemed like a nice tribute to name one of my trucks after them although she will usually just get called ‘Lily’. Here’s one of those vid’s…

…You can find a link to their site below the vid.

Ok – Off to the Photo PC and a straight-forward train shot…

…Only it wasn’t 🤣 One of the ‘joys’ of train photography is how the trains interact – Or at least, how they’re supposed to interact 😅 This photo shows 69011 approaching Lewisham with the 6Y48 Eastleigh East Yard to Hoo Junction Up Yard engineers train – It’s running a minute or so late. On the left is the 2D56 Dartford to London Charing Cross – That’s running around 10 minutes late! Clearly these trains should not be in the same photo together! I was on tenterhooks wondering if the late Charing Cross bound train would stop me getting my photo and it almost did! Ultimately, it’s actually a good shot 😎👍ps The passenger train has to cross the track the freight is on at the top of the climb and well done to the signaller for getting both through with minimal delay to either👍