Broithe

Used to go on quite a lot years ago. Very nasty.

Phew! You had me worried there - it just doesn't really work. For physical reasons, you just can't "scale down" the flow. Surface tension, gravity, Reynold's Number, etc, all conspire against you. In the same way that a load swinging on a crane will always be too fast at 1/76 scale, because it's swinging in 'real world' gravity. I have seen canal boats magnetically drawn whilst floating in real water on Gauge 1 layouts, and that did look OK.

I see from the Facebook page that they had a visit from an Inside Track tour yesterday - http://www.railwayholidays.com/ . See page 22 of this brochure - https://flipflashpages.uniflip.com/3/12240/341318/pub/ .

Do you mean one with genuinely flowing water? I saw a N gauge layout a couple of years ago with an actual flowing river in it and, to be honest, it looked less real than a good static 'river' would.

It's hard to beat the Disabled Parking sign at Asda in Cardiff - parking is only available to disabled Scotsmen, apparently...

..does look rather rakish..

Out for a spin again yesterday - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32309734 .

Great idea! You can get smoke oil... ..based on the smell of coal smoke... ..would we be enough of a market for a specific turf-smoke oil? Possibly a turf-burner model in RTR with sound and smoke...?

Crimping will cause far more work-hardening than soldering - there will be some hardening from the temperature effects, but you would have to press rather hard on the soldering iron to produce any appreciable work-hardening. Any decent crimp will grip the insulation for the mechanical connection, for this reason. The Ross Courtney had the wire passed through the small hole before soldering, to provide a mechanical support and the wire would be supported a short distance away. The problem, particularly in a domestic situation, with any crimp is having a tool appropriate for both the crimp and the wire that is in use. I have a nice collection of crimpers here because they fell out of calibration at work, sometimes just due to a change in wire supplier, but they're still near enough for my purposes. The Scotchlok will survive the hardening of the copper because the wire is supported by the 'tunnel' effect of the body. A soldered and taped connection, as might be used under a baseboard, would be essentially the same situation.

And a whisp of the residual cotton for the smoke.....

In my previous life, cable terminations were one of the many banes of my existence, all the way back to Ross Courtney solder tags - http://www.mecint.co.uk/Catalogue/70 - the best of both worlds, but just too time consuming. We also used to use numbered rubber sleeves in the old days to identify the wires - they were fitted by stretching them over the termination by means of a sleeve fitting tool. These were colloquially known as honeymoon pliers, a term which our rather prim and proper typist refused to type, leaving us to hand-write it in to any tool lists that were issued....

The Rathdowney Review is published annually, with both current and historical features in it. An edition from a few years back claimed that there had once been plans for a tramway the four miles to Ballybrophy, though I've never found any corroboration for this. It is plausible, as Rathdowney had a substantial mart in the old days, and Perry's Brewery could have provided a bit of traffic, too - apart from any passenger movements.

Soldering will always be better, Scotchloks are designed for a very tight range of wire sizes, blue being the most common one seen, intended for the size of wiring that is common in automotive situations, but there are red and yellow ones about for larger and smaller wires. There are three basic problems. If used on the wrong size wire, the connection can either 'grip' the wire too gently, if at all, or it can 'bite' into the wire and reduce the area of the through-wire, creating a hot joint and a bit of volt-drop. You can also, subsequently, develop a bad joint as a result of corrosion of the exposed metal contact point. The weight of the connector can also cause internal failures in the wires, due to fatigue from flapping about, should it be used in a mobile situation. ..and it is difficult, though not impossible, to undo a joint..

Let's hope not....

Parallel pliers are handy, if you're going to use a lot of them. ..and, if you do use them on a car, then make sure the clip is properly latched and give it all a tiny squirt of oily stuff when it's assembled. And consider the weight, if it's going to get bounced around.

Scotchloks - http://solutions.3m.co.uk/wps/portal/3M/en_GB/ElectricalMkts/ElectricalSupplies/products/scotchlok-wire-connectors/ - but still worth searching for "scotchblock", as that's what many people call them.

I'm almost sorry I posted it now...

Mmm, looks like it's due to leave at 2200 UTC which is now-ish. It going to Chateauroux - so probably fairly directly East - shame it's gone all cloudy...

Back at Shannon again - http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0412/693592-worlds-largest-aircraft-shannon/ - due to leave around 10pm.

Somebody could just move the apostrophes....

Sir Peter Blake's Mersey ferry, Snowdrop, is in service now - http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/razzle-dazzle-ferry-crashes-liverpool-9009228 - but seems to have had a small accident, causing some minor injuries.

BBC Radio 4 programme about the Vorticism movement in early 20th century art, with John Cooper Clarke - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05pl64f - with a discussion of dazzle camouflage at around 20 to 25 minutes in..

Be fair! They've used "whomsoever" twice - isn't that enough? And a "thereon".

If this works - - it gives the general gist of the arrangements.