Broithe

The wood that was exposed when the sign on the southern side came down was well gone - there's a good chance the north side was worse, with less drying, but also less likely to be knocked 'away' from the supports. The new wood on both sides will be there and adequate for a good few years now. The bearers don't look at all 'sunken' under the pressure zones, at least to a cursory inspection from road level. 193 is barely visible from the road, but my dog duties may leave me in a position to examine it more closely at some point in the not-too-distant future. https://www.google.com/maps/@52.8611456,-7.6966891,3a,35.9y,349.74h,93.12t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sc8PB7nyouH14ge8cZJBNBg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-3.118862397839294%26panoid%3Dc8PB7nyouH14ge8cZJBNBg%26yaw%3D349.7373689968323!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDkwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D There would be very little traffic on that road now, as the turf is over - just a few amenity walkers. September to March would disrupt the 'real users' much less than the summer period would.

The event at UBC194 has been resolved - with new panels and a full replacement of the support materials, on both sides. It should be OK for a few more decades again. The sleepers still seem to be up to the task - replacing them would not be a five-minute-job.

Talk elsewhere of ignoring signs in mountains reminded me of the day that I read this sign - - and, conditioned by decades of ignoring the endless warning signs on UK roads, I just thought "OK." It is on what I think of as the 'new road' over the Slieve Blooms, the southwestern of the three. It's a tight, twisty, single-track road that gets up to about 500m/1,600 feet. You do need to take care on it and, having next-door's then 8 and 12-year-old in the car, for a drive out, I wasn't intending to do much rally driving. We had had a nice drive around the hills, on a day that was well frozen, so I had a scheme to take them to the top of Arderin from the ridge, as the bog would be frozen and it can be a lot easier then. We set off and I managed to get the car over a few icy stretches by managing the kinetic/potential energy balance and it looked, to me, that we might be able to make it all the way up to the ridge carpark. The kids became steadily quieter as the patches of ice steadily became longer and, as I thought to myself "Nobody has come the other way since we started..?" , we reached a very clearly unsurmountable glacier. Two inches of clear ice with water flowing over it and on a fair slope, with at least 50m before the tyres would/might be on tarmac again, with nowhere near enough 'run-up' to carry the car up it. Nobody was going up that and the car slipped gracefully into the verge. Going back down was not viable immediately, as there was, by then, a 4x4 stuck much more effectively below us, in a place that I would have to slide the car back down through. I got the kids out of the car and we managed to extricate the 4x4, giving me space to slide through after the whole group shoved mine from the verge. Both vehicles got back down to the sign safely then, with an explanation about why nobody had been coming the other way. We had been ascending the southern slope, who knows what the northern side was like..? Where that sign is, if you turn around, there is this sign- - it might be a long way from a port or airport, but, after many miles of driving on a twisty, single-track road, I would be easy to forget where you are when you finally get back to wider tarmac. Every time we go past it, I assure a German friend that, even though it is obviously an old sign, we had it brought back out of storage when we heard she was coming... Driving that road is like one of those tests that they give astronauts, to see how they cope with disorientating manoeuvres - like following the route through an IKEA store...

The origin of the cuckoo clock is generally held to have occurred in Bavaria, in modern-day Germany.

I know that it was reported about a fortnight before I did - by someone who noticed the fallen sign and doesn't have the means to have struck it. Whether it was actually struck, or the sign just fell off from the state of the wooden supports, is a moot point. The stonework looks 'in the style' of the original bridges, but without the usual arch span. There is a much more modern concrete bridge a bit up from there, where the Coolowley level crossing was replaced - in the 80s (?).

I don't think there was a bridge strike in the real sense. Somebody may have caught the sign - or it may have just fallen off. The mounting arrangements are a bit degraded with time and exposure. If it is going to be fixed, it might be as well to do the other side, too, or at least look at it, although that is less likely to be hit in a manner that would pull the sign off, as loaded vehicles depart the bog. The other sign has been hit, but would be knocked towards the real structure, rather than pulled off it. IÉ have been aware of it for a while now, but there will be very little traffic now It is 194. Would we know how old the current trough is? It doesn't look like a modern technique.

Well, it wasn't when we next went there, or even the twice after, but I finally managed to remember the laser today. The signs suggest that 3.39m or 11'1" should be regarded as the maximum height and I didn't find anywhere under 12' or 3.65m, even on the uncrushed stone in the centre, there would be a good 2" or 50mm where the wheels of any large vehicles would have to be running. There is about 4" or 100mm of a drop on the sign, below the actual structure of the bridge itself, but still plenty of leeway above the stated allowance. All seems well. I do wonder what the other side of this rivetted structure looks like, though.

I mentioned this event to a friend that lives in Stafford and he was unaware of it. I told him that it used to be in Telford and had moved, but it seems to have been held in Stafford since at least 2024. I've never been around at the right time, and won't be this year, but I would be interested to know when it was first held in Stafford, just out of interest, as I hadn't noticed the move until I read the post above properly. I see, after a search, that it has been mentioned on here in the past, but I just didn't spot the change at the time.

It's there for me now. This might be easier for people.

I had a holiday in the '90s, around the Loire valley, visiting loads of chateaux, etc. They all sold kits of themselves in this form and I got a good few. I made a couple up in the initial fit of enthusiasm, but the rest are waiting for 'when I have time'... Anyway, the point is that they were very good sellers, particularly for attractive buildings that are open to the public...

Weeds are no problem with the right equipment.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0820/1588683-galway-train-trolley/

Having been very nearly badly caught out in the same way, my rule now is to not close the door, if there is not a card in the slot. This has saved me a few times.

Easier, once he'd got into the habit...

I'm sure that I've heard about this independently - some of them were novices, but one was definitely felt to be superior...

The German who bought the last-minute eye protection devices above did take the precaution of first asking me if I happened to have any eclipse glasses already. I told her that I didn't, but I did have a few Eclipse saws, if they were any use to her. She still let me use the second pair of glasses, when the dog didn't need them...

We had about 5% of the Sun left and it still seemed fairly adequate - they could turn it down a bit - in fact, it was a bit too strong this afternoon. Extra ventilation ports - essential when the temperatures are fluctuating so rapidly.

A bit cloudy here, but the 'projector' system worked well. Etc. Glasses were ordered last night and arrived this afternoon, which surprised me...

Our orders were very carefully scrutinised, but this was done by people who would have struggled to change a light bulb by themselves, so it wasn't impossible that the odd item for a 'Home Office' job may have slipped in by accident - or, so I'm told.

RS have never been cheap. I would never use them for myself, if it was me that was paying, but the old catalogues were a great way of working out what you really wanted and what would do the job. There was also Farnell, but they didn't have quite the range of products that RS had. I do miss Maplin, not cheap, either, but not so exorbitant, really, if they had what you needed now.

Right, so I have it now. If it is not up the standard claimed above, my accountant will be formulating a fully comprehensive compensation claim about the advice that I was given. As predicted, most of the other 50+ books are specific to the Big Island, either generic or about specific things. There was a general North American 'coffee table' book. There were three editions of Light Rail Review, which aren't the sort of thing you will often come across. I didn't notice anything else likely to be of interest here. I considered asking if they had anything on continental models, but that always sounds a bit 'top shelf'.

I still keep a full set of RadioSpares catalogues from the old days - virtually a reference work. People offer them at remarkable prices on eBay these days...

Mmm, thinking about this, it occurs to me that, after the exceptionally wet winter and the state the road was in after it, a 'good load' of stone was added, to improve the surface, which could, perhaps, be a good bit higher that it has been - or was, whenever the clearance was last assessed. I'll see if I can remember to take the means to measure it, whenever we next go there. The reason for being so concerned about not provoking an emergency goes back to a time on the Big Island, when I found a chap in need of an ambulance, collapsed under a bridge on a disused railway, through the middle of an urban cemetery. As is common there now, I ended up talking to a controller who had no real local knowledge and just wanted a Postcode for the location, which didn't have one, of course, even if I would have known it. I knew where I was, but he just didn't understand. I gave him the number of the A-road that ran over the bridge and described the location again, making it clear that we were under the bridge on a disused railway, in the main cemetery, within the town itself. He typed things into his system and came to the alarming conclusion that we were under a different railway bridge, about two and a half miles away. Despite my protests, he convinced himself that I was actually under a bridge on a four-track section of the electrified West Coast Main Line, with the casualty, and we were both about to be electrocuted and run over. It was as much as I could do to stop him turning the power off. I remember saying to him "The last train was in 1976 and there aren't even any rails here now!" I nearly needed treatment when the yellow van turned up...

I've just been given some AAA, AA & 9V "beer crates". The possibilities are endless.