Broithe

Is his mouth big enough?

Other types of crock are available - choose wisely.

Motorway planning in these islands is often 'entertaining' for the motorist. I live next to the M6, which is currently being turned into a "Smart Motorway"* - going from three lanes to four, by having people drive on the hard shoulder. Cars do break down a lot less these days, but it's a most unpleasant and dangerous experience when they do in those circumstances. If there is a big incident, the entire motorway is blocked, with no 'free lane' for emergency use. And there was the spur for the M54, which was only used by bin lorries going to the tip for the first ten years. And anybody who used the M5 in the '70s and '80s, when they spent a decade turning it from two lanes into three, may, like me, still have the habit of using the 'old road' as a preference. And the continuous widening of the M25. And using the M2 as a lorry park. Etc... * The official terminology, not what I would call it.

There are underground stations in London where it is possible to get off the train, run up the stairs, along the street to the next station, down the stairs and get back into the same train.

I dislike the unnatural distance between the rails, otherwise it seems OK.

I've always felt that the once ubiquitous Hino would find a place on a few layouts.

Probably DCC - they definitely have sound chips..

Dangerous tactics - managers in Lidl stores are going to be issued with their own diggers, so they can fight back.

This is the I-35 crash in Iowa a few weeks ago - it's being widely circulated as the M62 crash yesterday, but it's clearly not that.

Dangerously political! Most people favour just 'station', as I do, this may be down to never living anywhere big enough to have any other sort of station - it does seem to be the urban types who use 'train station', as they usually have a bus station, and even a coach station, to contend with. Where I live now is around 70,000 and is held in widespread contempt for not having a bus station.

Interestingly (perhaps), my localised survey on the subject is currently running at 4/3 in favour of 'train station'. http://www.staffordforum.com/xf/index.php?threads/railway-station-or-train-station.19120/#post-366147

Some thoughts on the subject - https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/oct/18/railway-station-or-train-station On the Big Island, there are often sharply bordered areas where one of the two forms is preferred, in speech, that is - it is still RS in most 'official' terminology. RS is still by far the general term, but TS is definitely gaining traction. My general usage would just be 'station', if I was talking about some other sort of station, then I would add 'bus' etc., as a prefix. That may be partly due to hardly ever having any other sort of station available locally, wherever I've lived. In this area, you will hear TS used mostly in the older Victorian urban areas, possibly because they did once have a variety of local station types?

A 'weather event' is something weather-related that we think we can get away with calling "news", even though it's the sort of thing that often happens around this time of the year. This was the 22nd of March last year,

Some nice flurries on the Big Island, but it's hard to tell when the next one is coming now..

Doing things outside most days, I signed up to the UK Met Office email alerts. It's a rare day that I don't get a warning - I must be close to three figures for this year already, I've had four today alone. Currently, they are mostly snow/ice and some wind-related. Generally, it turns out to be just marginally unpleasant weather. On the odd occasion, when it is actually worth knowing about, it does take some further searching to convince myself. If I was to believe them all, I would possibly have not left the house this year, maybe not even gone downstairs a lot of the time... The problem of all this is, that even when it is true, people may feel inclined to disregard the advice. These days, we have access to regularly updated rain radar, cloud cover, temperature and wind mapping - a quick glance at those, and a look out of the window, is always worth doing.

Today's Featured Article in Wikipedia shows USS West Bridge in her dazzle camouflage form. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_West_Bridge

It could have been Ardercall..?

I can't believe that I've just noticed the sneaky Hiberno-Salopian name...

It's truly remarkable for what is, essentially, an external market product.

I can hear the rain.....

He actually has a supply of special unboxing gloves.

Well, I did remember to call at the shop, but it's Wednesday here and he seems to be one of the few remaining adherents to the old "half-day Wednesday" rule. Corrugated metal sheeting is now almost always to a 3"/76mm pitch - some plastic and reinforced cement sheets are to different pitches at times. In the past, pitches from 1 to 5 inches were used - the shorter pitches were used more often on vertical (wall) panels, and the larger pitches on flat/sloping (roof) panels. The 7mm scale sheet could be used for 5" sheeting? On the Big Island, one will still come across the odd surviving Nissen hut, with its curved sheets..