Broithe

Large load on the road today - - on the N69.

We mostly ran all-wheel-drive diesels - mostly my Murphy's - but, we also ran a tender-drive Flying Scotsman, with four coaches, including a post-office pick-up-and-drop coach - no trouble. The only thing that gave any real trouble was a seven car Pendelino, and that seemed to struggle mostly because of the double bend before the slope started - if it was all on the slope , it seemed to just manage. It tend to derail, actually, as the traction tyres were only on one side. It's a simple enough issue to do some testing with a few planks before you commit yourself. Better safe than sorry Do beware of tight bends an or near the slope, though. They do add to the rolling resistance. We did run various old engine drive steamers, mostly six-coupled, never had any real issues with them, often pulling quite fair trains. Do have the lowest slope you can get away with and try it experimentally first - that's the best advice I can give. Some of the older engines required a small power increase to get up, and a bit of a turn-down after they had 'summitted', to avoid them 'running away' - Murphies and other more 'modern' types didn't really have much of an issue of that sort. All being run through Gaugemaster DC controllers. You can see the journey over the ramps with a 141 pulling three coaches here - longer trains weren't much of an issue. The ramps are at the back, immediately after the start - either side of the suspension bridge.

Nice. I see a Magister sneaking in - a while ago, I put some pictures up here - http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/showthread.php/1981-airfix-Irish-aircraft?p=32423&viewfull=1#post32423 - if you missed them.

Ah, I just thought that might be why I couldn't find it....

Ah, I looked for a while, but I just couldn't find it - thought it must be a B2....

Ah, right, I wasn't sure if it was a closed group or not - sorry - somebody might conscript you.....

Some discussion here - https://www.facebook.com/groups/modelrailways/search/?query=dolier - if you can see it.

Bus is just a shortening of busbar - a major conductor that other circuits run from. Bus is being used more and more these days and seems to be an American form - if you read Apollo 13, they gone on about the Main Bus frequently, Old World terminology would be Main Busbars, note the singular/plural difference. A busbar can take many physical forms - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busbar - what is, or isn't, a busbar is dependant on the circuit form that's in use, it can be a bit of a matter of opinion, sometimes... In general, the bigger it is, in cross-sectional area, the better, but the gain is very slight if you go beyond a reasonable size. It's just a matter of knowing what the maximum total current will be and having a suitable cross-sectional area to cope with that. In a static situation, it doesn't matter if it's solid, single core cable or multi-core flex. If you are running high frequency signals down a busbar, then there could be some advantage to using multi-core flex - this is because the 'skin effect' will be reduced, but I would be surprised if it has a significant detrimental effect in a model railway scenario - I would be interested to know if anybody ever finds this to actually be the case. There would, of course, be no harm* in using multi-core, and the extra cost would be marginal, so it might be worth doing anyway, to be on the safe side. * apart from the need to secure it a little bit more often, maybe?

Edit - answered the actual question - 32/0.2 would be about 17 AWG.

By 'Mainland', I am referring to the UK view of the World - the Continent is an offshore island, when seen from here.... As the famous headline once, allegedly, said "Fog in Channel, Continent cut off"..

'Mainland' stuff, but always worth a watch.. [video=youtube;-ugIoMD495E]

Interesting article here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29992974 - that suggests that a single new brick design for Lego costs around €40,000 to get into production. It's not directly comparable, of course, the moulds are intended for much longer runs, but the designs will be much simpler.

I've been to it once - a couple of years ago, I think - I found it a bit of an ordeal, to be honest. The lighting and ventilation at the NEC always seem to leave me with a dull head. But, it is an impressive show with good transport links.

Well done!!

The Butterley station building has some potential for Irishisation.... http://www.hornby.com/shop/black-friday-sale/butterley-station.html

What a fantastic first post - asking where the toilets are! And a great name, too. Somebody will be along shortly with the necessary recall, I'm sure.

We still have a lot of level crossings here on the 'mainland' and I'm fairly sure that I haven't been over more than one this century - I go out of my way to avoid them. The one that I used to have to use, I have now discovered a route to avoid it. The crossings can be on quite serious high-speed mainline sections - we had this one only recently - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-30047183 . A few miles from me is the Hixon crossing, which was, at last, replaced with a bridge a few years ago, long after the 1968 crash. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hixon_rail_crash As you can tell, I don't really like the things...

Gardaí struggling with the crowd - .

Short article - http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/william-dargan-pioneer-of-irish-rail-1.2010783 .

This was yesterday's 'amusement' over here... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-30138390 .

These days, it's necessary, in some areas, to have anti-RPG cages on, to force the detonation a bit early. They also give an opportunity for hanging some camouflage on. This is a Spartan under all that.

Working OK for me.....

For stuff along the lines of the cement bubble, I've always been in favour of the models being supplied un-numbered, but with a sheet of numbers to be applied as required by the (new) owner.

That's eminently sensible - the cement bubble might be a good place to start - popular, unique, and probably required in some numbers.

You have read my mind! Any idea where I've put the charger for my video camera...?