Broithe

. This reminded me of one of many similar events when I had a 'proper job'. We made high-voltage circuit breakers and had many "events" which were caused by plated bolts having the plating scraped off as they were tightened. With vibration and the effects of the fairly intense electric field, the bits would often eventually line up and cause the insulation to fail, in quite a spectacular manner. The company had the policy of always buying the cheapest rubbish available and hoping for the best, but this was getting desperate, stuff was blowing up everywhere and a solution was wanted (in reality, they just wanted to be seen to be actively seeking a solution, whilst hoping that the problem would soon be overshadowed by something bigger). A meeting was called and I suggested that we might get a lot less debris if we used stainless steel fasteners. This would have involved spending a few pence more, but I might as well have suggested using platinum. A few years later, we were taken over by a French operation who made similar stuff, but to a much higher standard - and I remember a bloke actually laughing at the state of the bolts we used. We then went to S/S everywhere... Not only were the fasteners a bit flaky, in the true sense, but they were also very rough - to the point that they usually required a spanner to spin them in loose. This led to a near double fatality, when some bolts were removed from a pressure vessel which was still (unknowingly) pressurised. The tightness as they came out, still loaded up, seemed 'normal' to the chaps undoing them, until the last few let go and fired the whole 4 tonne thing up through the roof, derailing the travelling crane that was holding it, ready to be lifted off, and filling the sunken area they were working in with a dense, asphyxiant gas....

The white runs from the lead flashing is good.

Track Safety Coordinator..?

We'll need to check that weekly...

With only a very small amount of rearrangement along the back, at the wall, you would have the space for a reasonably substantial swear jar, which would help in reducing the financial shock of future projects.

Some of the gates do manage to keep their heads down. And some get extended - twice. Three times, if you count the additional side gate. We're not going to keep everything, and sometimes people just aren't interested in some things to any great extent. There were many magnificent things in the past, typewriters, mechanical calculators, even VRCs, that aren't of much interest to 'modern people', beyond the transient curio value. As long as a representative selection survives, that is probably enough.

Was the Killarney motor museum the Lucey one? That was originally in Port Laoise whilst he was still practicing as a vet, before retiring and moving off south west. I called there once, in the hope of having a look round, but he was on holiday and the housekeeper thought I didn't look trustworthy enough to be let in. Understandable. really... It's not all black and white on the 'old stuff' front. I realised, during the lockdown, whilst I was trying to cycle every road as the radius went up, just how many roadside pumps were left. I initially expected there to be about a dozen, but I'm heading for three figures now. In the same size area in England, I know of four. There is a similar higher Irish survival rate for things like wrought-iron field gates, milk stands, lime kilns, etc. https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1IgMK3uJ3xIxafN0Y9ScYVvMhA5ZF7nvO&usp=sharing https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzK7xj

Whatever next? A microwave crematorium?

Any dusky pics need to be of maidens.

Not dazzle, per se, but this is an interesting approach. This is Tirpitz, pretending to be a block of flats. It's towards the end of the fitting out, in Wilhelmshaven, 1940.

I was under pressure to 'do something' for this Valentine's Day scam last Wednesday, so I decided to make a proper go of it. I booked us a quiet table for two. I expected to be complimented on my thoughtfulness. However, it all turned into a total disaster. Apparently, I was supposed to know that she doesn't like snooker.

Other ghost trains may be available. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150723-why-britain-has-secret-ghost-trains

How long can a thread title be..?

Go to your first post here - click the three dots in the top right corner - click 'edit' - edit the title text to suit - click 'submit'.

As you started this thread, you are able to edit the title, if you want to. Something like "A possibly fictional steam engine and its place in the socio-economic history of railways in Ireland"...?

Some US ships still carried dazzle camouflage in WW2. The ship in the picture, along with 23 others, was built in sections in the Rocky Mountains, then transported 1,000 miles to the coast for final assembly.

For the sake of completeness, this is Mountrath & Castletown/Kilbricken - https://www.google.com/maps/@52.9634348,-7.4660293,102m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu - not so easy to see from the Street View, but still fairly complete. Catching a glimpse of it fleetingly as you go past can have you thinking you've passed Ballybrophy.

Within the last year, I have had two fairly local people tell me that you could get a train from Mountrath to Kilkenny - probably the same similarity misremembrance. I have no idea, but I may investigate one day...

There's a lot more evidence of the station in Mountmellick, than there is in Attanagh. https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1200704,-7.3384635,3a,20.1y,201.38h,89.98t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sG5hIm-GsDLpksyQfOHfhsA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DG5hIm-GsDLpksyQfOHfhsA%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D213.32684%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

Was it ever possible to run a train from Mountrath & Castletown/Kilbricken to Abbeyleix without reversing in Maryborough/Port Laoise? My mother's family had connections in Waterford and would travel from Rathdowney to Attanagh via a pony and trap, to catch the train southwards.

Attanagh station was here - https://www.google.com/maps/@52.8332176,-7.3521547,3a,73.5y,151.01h,81.54t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s5vDn3ZBiKC6IaZccCQ82Lg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D5vDn3ZBiKC6IaZccCQ82Lg%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D245.84381%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu - if you look on the 'satellite' view going northwards, you can see parts of the route of the line, which eventually becomes the Bog Walk south of Abbeyleix.

Another one, for comparison.

This one is currently for sale. The railway equipment forms a separate part of the sale, but is should be easy to combine the two. https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8323624,-3.5565762,255m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu

And it would be handy in the event of a train failure. A friend of mine spent a dull time yesterday stuck on a replacement bus, when that broke down...

Nice cameo for anybody modelling the modern Welsh era. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-13437279