Broithe

Take it easy. Have a can. Then start annoying them. The Guards are even joining in, they have this now, seized as a "proceeds of crime".

You have to start somewhere.

A discussion elsewhere has reminded me of this. We still made and maintained air-blast switchgear in my time and that had its own issues, as the pressures could be quite high and failures could be fairly spectacular. One thing which became an issue was that the compressors that maintained the air supply did, occasionally, blow up dramatically, sending big lumps at speed around substations. There were obvious safety issues about this, although it usually happened with nobody there, but statistics would catch up in the end. It was decided to produce a 'cage' for the compressors, to catch the bits and contain the damage area safely. It was not easy, or economical, to blow up actual compressors, so estimates were made of the size and velocity of the bits. Me and my lad were tasked with testing and modifying the mesh enclosures, as necessary. We ended up, through a few stages, building a large air-powered gun. It fired brass slugs, about 2" diameter and 4" long, by means of a 'snap' valve that dumped 3,000psi from a reservoir onto the back of the shell, driving it out of a three foot barrel. To avoid the firing device being damaged by the ricocheting shells, as the ones that got through rattled round the sleeper-lined walls, we fired it into the blast cell, through a cracked open door - waiting for things to go quiet before we opened the door to see what had happened. We altered the cages until we got an arrangement that contained the shell most times and that was deemed 'OK'. It wasn't until later that we started to consider the legalities. The UK would let you have an air rifle up to 12 foot-pounds without a licence being required. Our gun was many, many times beyond that - basically a small cannon. It seemed best not to raise the issue...

I found this t-shirt available from Waterford Whispers. https://waterfordwhispers.shop/collections/t-shirts/products/dart-vader-premium-wwn-t-shirt

https://www.offalyindependent.ie/2023/06/02/exciting-velo-rail-project-revealed-for-lough-boora-park/ https://www.offalyexpress.ie/news/tullamore-tribune/1531581/bord-na-mona-going-ahead-with-pedal-powered-rail-cars-for-offaly-bog.html I reckon there won't be on-board catering, at least to start with.

I did notice some very pale tarmac last night and forgot to get a picture going past this morning, but Street View does it well enough. That is the actual tarmac surface, not a layer of debris, and not much darker than the concrete, https://www.google.com/maps/@52.8555049,-7.5848455,3a,56y,186.43h,50.68t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s8a5CdK72i8-DsGJ5bKnp9w!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D8a5CdK72i8-DsGJ5bKnp9w%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.share%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26yaw%3D186.42561092700657%26pitch%3D39.31964564632779%26thumbfov%3D90!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu

The pothole situation has basically reversed. I spend time in Laois and Staffordshire, within a few hundred yards of the same latitude and a mere 220 miles apart. I hear people in Laois moan about the roads and try to explain the state of things to the east - and I realise that I sound like I'm making it up. My house there is on a secondary main road into a town of 70,000 people. Every time it rains, the road floods like this. It's been doing this, at an increasing rate, since 1980. It probably blocks the road about 25 to 30 times a year now. The flood in that picture was there for six days. The potholes are legendary, all over the road network. Driving on roads that you don't have experience of, in the dark or in wet weather, is fraught with danger - you can easily end up hitting a big one. The half-finished ring-road round the town (started in 1935) has had unnecessary 'temporary' traffic lights on it, that will stop you every time, since July 2017 - 24hours a day, permanently. Driving in the Republic gives one a great sense of relief, not foreboding...

Interestingly, (well, if you have little else going on at some point), it can be informative to spend some time looking at various random samples of tarmac as you go about your daily rituals. The variations in colour can be surprising, at times it can even be almost a light grey, and no two pieces, laid at different times, will ever be the same colour, or even remotely similar. The wear of the tyre runs and the scuffing of the surface at bends and junctions, particularly from three-axle trailers, can also be worthy of note.

It's just a matter of compromise and getting the wheel/track spacings to be compatible.

There were other nicknames - Contra-rotating Nissen hut was always a favourite.

I have an 'Eastern Express' 1/72 kit here - one day.... The Shackleton was odd, in that it got steadily better-looking as time and the modification moved on.

Ah, the Shackleton. They made a lovely noise. There were many incidents with them over the long years of service, but few other aircraft have ever had the ignominy of being written off because of a rat infestation. https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/157361

The factory where I worked had been built in WW1 and was rather 'rustic' in construction. With many roller-shutter doors, it was really not feasible to restrict access for the many lodgers we had. We had a blackbird in the Development Workshop. He didn't really cause much difficulty for people and was surreptitiously fed by a few. He could recognise everybody and judge their opinion of him. Barry, mentioned elsewhere, was one of the the few who wasn't in favour of him and this caused the bird to respond in kind, deliberately irritating him by gliding down from the crane rails, just behind his line of sight, then swerving to flash by, just in front of his face, causing Barry to display great agitation. I can remember people spotting the bird positioning himself for this, and adjusting their positions, so that the correct flightpath was available. On another occasion, I saw "one of the bird's friends", with his feet up on the bench, reading a newspaper at dinner-time. His foot was itching and he occasionally moved it to scratch the itch - but, it wasn't itching, it was the blackbird removing his shoelaces for nesting material, merely stepping back as each 'scratching session' occurred. The bird rarely bothered to go outside, although occasionally strolling through the door onto a grassy area, in hope of a few slugs or worms. This was a reasonable tactic, as we also had a kestrel nesting in a hole through the corrugated wall of the next building...

Well, I finally got around to looking through the stuff on the link in the first post here. I strongly suggest that others do the same - there is tremendous stuff in there.

You can get fake birds of prey to scare the pigeons away. The effect wears off fairly quickly, though. This 'owl' had been there for about three weeks.

Passenger Information System - possibly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

The horse was called Pat and actually held a current Safe Pass. Although, obviously, the blanket should have been orange.

Agreed, they need to rein it in.

Only one end of the building is in the way and the roads are generally fairly minor, a few level crossings would do - it wouldn't be a hugely frequent service schedule.

And a lot of Birr station is still there.

It's a National Monument.

No space for a passing loop on your layout? Just modify the rolling stock slightly...

https://trwilliamson.co.uk/

It's best not to know what's going on in there - anyway, I reckon he got the idea off the web.