Broithe

So, I went out again today to check another walk I spotted that takes you round on the west side of the old main road.

This affords you a view of the remaining (and additional?) station buildings.

A few yards of a detour from the posted route gives you a good view of the Station house.

The path takes you from the gate of the Protestant Church, down onto the track-bed under the skew bridge on the R435 road to Rathdowney & Templemore.

From here on, the trees stop you getting any better view of the back of the building than this.

From there, my route back to the hotel involved traversing a bit of new boardwalk at the south end of the bog, having crossed back to the east of the old main road again. This took me fairly close to the double-arch bridge from Sunday's walk and, as things were a good bit drier, I diverted to there and got a picture of the east side, largely submerged in ivy, and details of the impressive condition of the stonework, having stood, largely unaffected, in the middle of a bog for 160 years.

Also, whilst doing reconnaissance on Street View to assess various entry/exit points that I would be using today, I realised that my picture of the 'gated bridge' alongside the main road in the first post does not make it obvious that there are a few yards of track still protruding from it.

And, by standing in the 'right place', you can effect a reasonable lining-up of the picture with the remaining buildings.

This works better than it might, I think, considering that the picture is presumably taken from the top of the bridge.

Finally, the tea/coffee/cakes arrangement does pay some homage to the reason why it's there.

2 minutes ago, murrayec said:

@Broithe yes I had a similar situation once, the hinges had a removable pivot pins, on one of the hinges the pin could be pulled out by ones fingers.

A lot of old style aluminium windows are easy to get through- the section that holds the glass in was on the outside, after pulling out the rubber seal there was enough play to pop this alu section off and then the glass could be removed......

Eoin

That situation also exists on some early uPVC frames.

You can get bolt-pins which will stop the door coming out with the hinge pin removed - and interlocking hinges that have the same function.

Talk of security matters reminds me of an almost accidental feature which has turned out to be very useful.

When we drew up the plans for the house here, there was a bathroom and an adjacent shower room, both had toilets in and, with my father being an obsessive gardener, I suggested that the shower room could have a door to the outside as well. This would avoid him dragging mud all through the every all day. This proved to be a good idea, but he developed a wish to keep the door locked, as the garden was quite large and the door wouldn't always be under surveillance, especially after the shed was built. This meant that he started carrying a key, which, if dropped, would disappear for ever.

I picked up a push-button combination lock and fitted that, so a physical key was no longer necessary.

It has actually become apparent that it is an even better idea than I thought.

If I'm leaving the premises without the car or an intention to lock the bike somewhere, than I have no need to take any keys at all, and have no likelihood of losing them...

The code can even be entered in the dark, as long as you can remember it and the button layout.

It also means that, should I be away, I have a simple means of giving someone the means to get in on my behalf.

I did fit a few key-boxes for people over the years. They would almost always want their birthday as the code. I would point out that, if they wanted other people to get in, neighbours, etc., then expecting people to remember that had an element of risk. Most of these boxes are ten-figure panels and I would suggest they actually used a 'shape' - 1560 (the corners), 1267(the top four), etc. this makes it much easier for different people to enter the code, and it can be done in the pitch dark, if you can find the box.

31 minutes ago, murrayec said:

The locking and hinge system was also upgraded for better security.

I was once asked to get into a shed, after the owner had clicked the padlock with the keys still inside.

I suggested that he go and put the kettle on, whilst I pondered the matter - when he came out with the tea, I handed him the keys - he searched for the 'damage that I might have done', in order to get in, but could find none.

I had just unscrewed the hinges, opened the door, using the lock side as the hinge, retrieved the keys and put the hinge screws back in. He was a bit 'security conscious' and was horrified by the ease of this method. I went back later and put a bolt through the hinges, with lock-nuts on the inside, after I persuaded him to get a second key. This made him happy again, so I didn't point out all the other ways I could have got in - the windows, for example, were fitted from the outside and just held in with a few panel pins, etc...

I had a clockwork Super-8 cine camera.

Is that what the youths use to make these "Tik-Tok videos"..?

Sunday walking excursions have been curtailed by atmospheric conditions lately, but a quick walk was squeezed in today. Going a bit further south along the old railway.

Things get a bit moister as you proceed along the track, but it's still passable, even after a wet year...

At one point, at the southern end, where the track is on a ten foot embankment, I spotted a glimpse of stonework through the vegetation.

Further investigation revealed it to be an immaculate twin-arched bridge - in the middle of nowhere, but as good as the day it was built.

It seems a rather elaborate thing to place in the middle of a bog. I presume that it was there for the purposes of the De Vesci estate.

Nostalgia used to be a lot better years ago. 

I don't think there's much point in it now.

1 hour ago, WRENNEIRE said:

Made the best toast ever, just plank the slice on the top mmmm.......

Toast done with a toasting fork + butter and local honey.

This is from the time of using the shed to isolate during the early days of the Great Plague.

I also did cheese on toast, but the cheese bit was done under the grill on the gas cooker.

34 minutes ago, Gabhal Luimnigh said:

Hey lad, what breed of stove is that in your cosy shed?

Stanley Waterford 104 Mk II.

1 hour ago, David Holman said:

Brilliant idea for a shed and have occasionally wondered if anyone has ever repurposed an actual goods wagon as a model railway room. 

I have a vague idea that there was a layout in a carriage at Crewe 10/15 years ago.

This could be 'real life or is it just fantasy'?

I will ask the person who was there with me, he's (fairly) reliable...

23 minutes ago, murrayec said:

I have 3 cats that hang in the garden, their not mine, but all the neighbours think they are!

I don't allow them in the sheds, they do try, last time one got in the squirt smell lasted for weeks!!

Eoin

Until late last year, the shed was not considered to be part of her responsibilities, but, with the door open all day in the warmer weather, it was decided to check the internal area as well. Before that point, she would just sit on the doorstep, protecting the open entrance from unauthorised incursions.

So far, she has proved to be well-behaved - probably better than me.

Occasionally, other cats do venture into the garden, but they are not treated as colleagues, or even welcomed as visitors.

As for the smell issue, she seems able to put up with me...

Well, I got the rest of it yesterday and was able to remove a bogie and transfer it to the tender.

My assumption that the carriage bogies would be identical was wrong - although they would fit, the connector arms are longer there. It would work, but be a little unsightly. The redundant arm could always be cut off on the final bogie on the train, of course, so we can use either to refit the caboose.

The loco action was binding in a few places, but it's reasonably free now - it would have been an issue with the light weight and the tender-driven layout.

The pony truck was not retained, so it fee off whenever the loco was lifted - it has a wire clip holding the pivot-end in place now.

It's all rather fragile, partly because of the age, I suspect - and I have little faith in it surviving long in service.

We shall see...

This is all largely about indoctrinating his four-year-old lad and infecting him with the bug.

Seeing @Gabhal Luimnigh's shed progressing so nicely elsewhere, it occurred to me that security can be an issue in some locations.

I'm lucky enough to the services of a self-appointed Security Officer, who has controlled rodent activities very successfully.

Indeed, so successful has she been at her chosen profession that she has felt able, this winter, to take on additional duties as Fire Warden.

It is only recently, after three years, that I have found out her postal address, when I called to a household where she was dining, and discovered that they believe that they 'own' her. With everybody out in the daytime most days, they've had no idea of what extracurricular activities she has taken on.

However, I am no longer allowed on the furniture.

 .

15 minutes ago, Mike 84C said:

I posted that Baldwin drawing quite a few years ago. I rather suspect that all of the American imports were not successful/ liked in  the UK is the totally different engineering philosiphy of the American builders and the "not invented here" attitude of GB engineers. That ones still about!

 Interesting article about the Port Talbot 0-8-2t's in Railway Archive No 4 July 2003 it also has a very good drawing. They were built by Cooke of Paterson NJ.

 

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.

25 minutes ago, Northroader said:

TSC is something stitched on since I retired.

Track Safety Coordinator..?

1 hour ago, Gabhal Luimnigh said:

That's a proper workbench, very interesting whiteboard too

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

5 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

 coffin turntable! 

 

Whatever next?

A microwave crematorium?

53 minutes ago, Gabhal Luimnigh said:

 excuse the dusky pics.

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.