Broithe

With nothing I was trying to do today 'going for me', I decided to give up and have a look at the station. Sundays are the easiest days, anyway, if, as I correctly suspected, the enhanced car parking is not fully accessible yet. Things have progressed nicely, and the end is in sight. The approach road has been resurfaced now, too. There is still no sign of a ticket machine, but there is potential ducting in a plausible location for one - we shall see. The station itself has had some attention. The white platform edges, yellow lines and platform warnings have all been newly reapplied. They are (currently) so clean and bright that they might draw criticism on a model layout. The previous markings have been removed first, so the upside-down letters and alien script of the past are gone now. The removal seem to have been done by something along the lines of a rotary wire brush. There are occasional circular gouge marks and some paint remains on the chamfered edges of some paviors. Also, during my tour of inspection, I finally noticed this expansion joint, about a third of the way along the loop past Platform 4. I've never noticed it before.

Even in G Scale, you'll struggle to fit a sound chip and a smoke unit.

Further into the wilderness, I noticed today, that this signal, between bridges 14 and 15 in Roscrea, is just visible from Lidl car park, off the Birr Road.

The Hunt class ships had their last Deltic replaced in 2018, apparently - so, Brocklesby might still have had one when I intercepted it on Ulysses in 2013. I couldn't hear the exhaust clearly.

I had a change at Retford in 1974 - one came through on the slight curve through the high-level station, giving the impression that it could produce its own tunnel through anything. I failed to count the coaches.

In furtherance of my 'cycle every road in the vicinity' quest, I had to do a nest of roads beyond Lisduff today. This meant, of course, that I would stray over the county and provincial boundary and, not having any red cloth or beads to placate the natives, I couldn't afford hang about. The first railway contact was at bridge 199. From there, you can see No 200, which is a farm access bridge. 199 itself is also a concrete beam bridge and its parapets are not in the usual style. It's hard to get a clear picture without trespassing, but it does look possible that this is a replacement structure, using the original abutments of an arched bridge of the usual type. Whatever the truth, it's clearly been in this current form for some time. No 201 was more original, although with a nicely done repair to some parapet damage. The green slogans sprayed on the parapets there are, hopefully, not legible by those of a delicate nature. There were some impressive masts there, too. Other structures of note were this shed, with its rather risqué slogan. And this rustic access control facility. Whilst I was there, a 22000 came past, not slowing for a stop at Lisduff these days, of course.

That would be matzo ballast..?

Interesting car, too.

It really should have directional lights.

My test rail with a bit of genuine Lisduff sand brushed on. Even then, some of the bits are too big...

When the through tracks were reballasted at Ballybrophy, it was fairly chunky stuff, in real world terms, but still probably smaller than N Gauge ballast against 00 track, I think. However, ballast that is actually to scale may well appear to be too fine - looking right matters more than being technically accurate in this situation.

I would say that N Gauge if preferable in any circumstances to the supposedly 00 Gauge stuff that I have seen, in an 00 scenario. The alleged 00 stuff is generally well over-sized for its intended use.

It certainly looks interesting and I wonder if there are many layouts out there? I'm just off to Google "Scandinavian models". I may be some time.

I use these - again, not cheap, but I expect all four tubes to outlast me. Hob-E-Lube, via Woodland Scenics. Four grades -> = paraffin, 3 in one, motor oil, treacle, in layman's terms...

I am 'at risk' from many things, but I may be able to discount that one...

Failed! I had no idea it was even a Saturday today - until the pictures above appeared...

Emanations from stables - not quite the general review they were hoping for, I suspect...

I think they're actually planning to have a power transfer capability of 700MW. 700mWh would be about the energy capacity of a AAA rechargeable cell. Reminds me of the time someone ordered 1000m of brass bar, instead of 1000mm - the lorry drivers were surprised when he asked them to leave it under his desk...

Depending upon the sizes of things, these 'Mole-style' clamps can be very handy - as can the technique of placing longer parts against the column, to restrain them, rather than relying just on hand pressure.

I know someone whose wife has never seen his attic layout, and it's been going for over twenty years now. She's seen photos and videos, but that's it. I've told her he got those off the internet and he really has a distillery up there.

https://www.facebook.com/westcorkrailwaycolorized/posts/pfbid02svsUNBSZSNtJVTqmrqwE1RQ7K4hdYAXyEc8KtxmZZFR8Mq6zz5XciHZZeFR2J9dQl

Will there be a sound chip?