Broithe

I used Holyhead - Dun Laoghaire/Dublin as a train-delivered foot passenger regularly, up to ten years ago. It got steadily more difficult to access the train part here on the Big Island. In the 90s, I could get a train from Stafford at 00:02 to catch the 02:40 boat - with no changes. The last time I looked, I would have had to be at the station for 20:30 to catch the same boat - the timetable changed continuously and there could be two, even three, changes. Coming back here, the train would sit for hours at Holyhead - engine running, lights on and all the doors locked, so you couldn't even get on and settle down. The Waiting Room would also be locked - you just had to hang around a station that looked like a set from a war film, until they deigned to let you on the train. I came to the conclusion that it was deliberate sabotage. The attitude that foot passengers met at Holyhead was little short of open contempt. My rail journey on the Irish side of the water got steadily better, but, on this side, it just got too difficult. Even buying the ticket here was a difficult process, trying to convince people that it really was possible. There's little point in synchronising transport on one side of the sea, if people are going to meet the UK's randomised attitude to everything when they get here.

That was the first use of Hornby's original prototype laser scanner - made from a bicycle lamp and a milk bottle.

Imagine looking at this from the other end of the telescope - imagine being an established manufacturer seeing "four yokels from the back of beyond" produce market-leading quality products almost instantly. It must be quite alarming! It will drive others in the industry in the right direction, in the way that Toyota and Honda did in the 1970s, when they decided to make quality cars.

Port Laoise.

Kilkenny?

The local architecture is still interesting. I did wonder if the turkey in my roll had been machined by a baseboard manufacturer?

Plenty of other stuff to see, too.

Well, as reported elsewhere - Bantry was there, in the end. Definitely worth the trip to see the progress.

This is a week tomorrow - hopefully I won't be taken by surprise at the date on the morning this time, as I was last year...

If you are in anything at all like the vicinity, then you really should go and see this.

It seems to be working as I expect it is intended to for me, at least - as a public-spirited experiment, and in honour of my birthday today, I have just ordered a pair of IÉ plough vans. (Order 1875) All seemed to work as I would have expected it to. The confirmation email has just arrived, too.

I definitely took a vertical picture of the new (concrete) track from the footbridge, but I just can't seem to find it at the moment. Sorry. Could do with a run of the track-rubber along the top...

This should be reasonably accurately scaleable for the sleeper length. This is what came up when the main lines through the station were replaced with concrete sleepers a few years back.

The new wooden sleepers on the loop at Ballybrophy.

I was worried that it was John's elbow.

It's definitely an exhibition worth going to, there are a lot of aspects that are better than many others - spacing is one of them, I hardly ever had anybody 'in the way'. And I will polish my shoes before including them in any more pictures...

The creaking/squeaking of the turntable mechanism was most atmospheric - it must have taken ages to perfect!

I seem to have managed to miss out this picture... ...showing the very informative notes along the layout frontage and the neat trick of hiding the backscene joints by means of the church spire and a tree. (The post at the end is not hiding a joint in David's head.)

Where I'm relying on a rail gap for isolation, I've had a practice of putting a spot of tape or paint on a rail-end to stop them creeping together and making unwanted contact. We had quite a bit of seasonal gap variation when we had a forty foot straight run under a polycarbonate car-port roof. I've always suspected that shrinkage of wooden base materials from humidity reductions has a bigger effect than expansion of the metal rails through increased temperatures, and vice versa, although both move the gap dimensions in the same direction. It would be interesting to see what happens with layouts with foam-board substrates. My razor saw cuts about 0.25mm wide. My cutting discs are 0.6mm

There was one for those suffering from yellow fever.

There were lots of other excellent layouts to peruse, too.

The main point was to view Arigna. I was not disappointed. There was constant activity, most efficiently performed. The hand-of-God coupling/uncoupling was amongst the deftest that I have seen - often it takes as long as it would to crochet a hearthrug, it seems. Placing the layout in the draught of the entrance doors was an act of genius - the wafting of the washing was truly inspiring.