Broithe

8 minutes ago, enniscorthyman said:

Reminds me of when the original 141/181s came our in 2007/8.They were a game changer and certainly changed the Irish model railway scene.I was on the old Microsoft MSN irish model railway site.The excitement was enormous.

I knew nothing at the time, but I had built a layout for an old boy that I knew and I went to a toy/model fair to get some bits for him. I saw one and bought it on a whim, for myself to have something to run on his layout.

When we first ran it, it was immediately obvious that it was considerably better than anything we had become used to, in every respect.

A fortuitous glance in the right direction, at the right moment, was all that it took.

Up to that point, plausible carriages and wagons weren't too hard a prospect, but a decent loco required rather too much effort for me.

It was an absolute transition in the market.

23 minutes ago, DJ Dangerous said:

So would a drop of standard Super Glue in the centre, combined with silver glue on the contacts, work?

I would be inclined to use the 'silver glue' first, then attempt to mechanically reinforce that with the super glue.

There are risks in all this...

Mmm, the glue will be an insulator, but you might get a result, if there is metal-to-metal contact when things are 'set'.

Another 'solution', depending on the circumstances, might be to hold the wire in place with a bit of tape, allowing contact, and 'loading' the tape up via something resilient, pressing it in place when the cover is reinstated. There is a small piece of folded paper in my Seiko solar watch that stops the cell disconnecting itself - it's worked well for several years now, since I realised what was happening.

Using electricity to heat the water...

A technology revived by Hornby for their live steamers.

To be fair to the Swiss, if you have a 'real' steam loco available, you can just shove a big immersion heater in the boiler and a pantograph on the roof, so that you can run them (on electric lines) using indigenous hydro-electricity, whilst foreign coal was in short supply.

Galway Races.

You're not safe anywhere...

She may have stopped him because he only had one light working at the front..?

On 9/7/2023 at 12:22 PM, Broithe said:

This morning's thunderstorm reduced the options for the Sunday morning excursion, but we made it to the summit of Arderin - 527m/1,729ft. This is only a short walk from the 'new road', despite being the highest point of the Slieve Blooms.

Anyway, the point is that I found a solitary sleeper, half-buried and there for no clear reason, a hundred metres from the summit cairn.

Possibly the sole remains of an abortive plan to rival the railway up Snowdon?

On 9/7/2023 at 2:37 PM, Gabhal Luimnigh said:

And what a dose it might have been to carry it up there too!

 

Mmm, maybe I should have started a specific thread?

This one is near the TV mast at the top of Mount Leinster.

It seems that it might be a 'rising chock' which acts to brake the stock and the loco pulls away, breaking the coupling.

5 minutes ago, Tullygrainey said:

STOP! I’m developing an allergic reaction to puns

Agreed!

The next person posting one should be poked in the eye with a skua.

17 minutes ago, Patrick Davey said:

They are going to be delivered shortly by a chap called Albert Ross

I know him - he'll always do you a good tern.

It's no good hiding in there, she'll still find you.

2 hours ago, John-r said:

 any of the lads are in the same mould, well done all.

I believe that there are actually several similar moulds, but only to accommodate issues of bodywork size and some detail equipment fittings.

20 minutes ago, Jonathan_RK said:

Update - as I write this I have A55 idling beside me, ready for action. The 1123 decoder is working with the Digitrax DCS52, function keys working as per IRM list. Seems like a took the scenic route to get here, but I made it finally. Thanks again to all for your help and suggestions. And to IRM - well done.

Excellent!

Do make sure the window is open, we don't want any monoxide issues after all this.

The Tanat Valley Railway, near Oswestry in Shropshire seems an interesting place.

Shades of Lartigue there...

A set of these four will cover pretty much anything that model railways will need, I find.

This information is presented as a public service, to avoid your search history being full of 'lube' searches.

I had a chinchilla called Sandy, he escaped, and I often wondered what happened to him.

Devastated.

I saw an official announcement including the phrase "making tracks" and immediately assumed it would be the full range of track, points, crossovers, etc, all in 21mm...

I'm going for a lie down now.

It does work - and it's not always helpful.

Talk elsewhere of a time when I did a bit for a plant hire firm has had me thinking about the mad stuff that went on. The owner did not look the part at all - when I first met him, I would have guessed he was a geography teacher, but he was hugely competent at his work, if a little unconventional.

He had plant involved in a project which was running a new bridge across a dual carriageway. The bridge spans arrived and were hanging on the crane when it was noticed that an existing streetlight was in the way of one of the spans being placed. As with all such projects, huge numbers of organisations were involved and a dispute arose about what to do. The lighting had to remain operational, but the post couldn't stay there. It was not really any of his business, but whilst dozens of blokes were arguing in a Portakabin, he spoke to the crane crew, to ascertain what height was acceptable and got an electrician to disable the wiring up the pole, but leaving the connection in the base, as a 'junction box', so the rest of the lights would still work. Then he got a saw and was lifted up in a bucket to cut the top of the lamppost off, leaving a few inches clearance from the bottom of the bridge, so there was no chance of rain ingress.

The stump was there for many years after, under the bridge and unnoticed by thousands who drove past it every day, although it is gone now. I always used to acknowledge "Martin's lamppost" whenever I went past it.

I was about to suggest that "they need some mud!" - then I remembered a time when I used to do a bit for a plant hire firm and a brand new bucket for a Caterpillar arrived. It had the best finish that I've ever seen on an 'industrial' product. Thick, hard, perfectly even, high-quality paintwork.

Pushing it into the ground the first time would actually have been painful.

I have a general tendency to not go out on a Saturday, and I've not had a TV since 1983.

The encounter below has me considering running through my Prisoner DVDs again now. 

28 minutes ago, Broithe said:

If you'd used the cue ball, it could be a scene from The Prisoner.

25 minutes ago, Gabhal Luimnigh said:

One of my favourite series ever!

 

Other things that I'm happy to re-watch are:-

The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.

Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads.

The Beiderbecke Trilogy.

The Sweeney.

Citizen Smith.

The Avengers.

Whoops, apocalypse!

UFO.

Etc.

Sometimes, I will watch episodes a week apart, like real telly, so you have time to mull it over, like it used to be.

Also, sometimes watching things repeatedly over the years gives you a better view of the whole thing. I've listened to Round the Horne many, many times over the years since it finished and still spot the odd 'new' hidden joke. One was only a few years ago, when I realised that a punchline had two meanings, dependent upon whether you 'heard' a word with a capital letter of a lower case one - this was only given away by one of the laughs you could hear as a result was 'in a different' tone to the others.

Of particular note in The Prisoner is the episode where he thinks he's managed to escape and the first 25 minutes are just him on a raft on the sea, alone. Then he gets 'rescued' and the first words spoken since the start are in German. I doubt you would get away with it now...

1 hour ago, derek said:

That grass is really too pristine. Going to have to "dirty" it up a bit. Hmmmm, reminds me of something. Oh yes.......

If you'd used the cue ball, it could be a scene from The Prisoner.

Amusingly, and demonstrating how the web really is an actual web, the famed Andy York, who is, by geographical coincidence, a member of my other forum, tipped me off about a dodgy new member, who seemed to be very similar to someone who had caused issues over on RMweb.

His suspicions turned out to be correct and a death warrant was executed, before any harm could be done.

In a way, it's a bit reassuring, it was our first visitor of a risqué nature, all the others have been just inept 'marketing' for streaming sites and IT equipment purveyors in far-off lands. I had wondered if we just weren't attractive enough?.