Broithe

You're meant to pretend that you thought it was an excellently executed slip-coach manoeuvre.

As requested by @DJ Dangerous and @PJR in the Advice On Clearances thread. This was built over a few years for an old boy who was housebound - initially, it was just the double circuit in the garage, then it expanded to link with another, larger, layout under the car port. The outer track could be either two loops or, via a crossover in the doorway, a figure-of-eight around the whole thing. The inner loop in the garage was connected via points to the outer one, but the inner loop in the car port was not - this was because that was originally kept separate for live steamers, with their special power supply. This inner loop was modified later to allow access for the loader at the mine and the unloader at the power station. Unfortunately, upon his eventual death, it was necessary to dismantle it, though I do have most of the "bits" still. One day... These videos give the gist of it and I'll find some more relevant pictures.

I'll stick some up elsewhere, to avoid derailing this (hah!). There's a few videos, too. The ramp was based on some hardboard we had left - hence the 8 foot length dimension. The lift might have been 3½ inches, but it was 'steep' in the generally accepted view of model layouts. If anybody has a Hornby suspension bridge to hand, that defined the lift - mine is 200 miles away and it probably wouldn't accepted as an essential journey. It was clearly close to the limit, but we rarely had issues. Restarting on the slope was not always possible without the Hand of God. We never had any motor stalling issues, all the propulsion failures were slippages. The number of axles in the train was as important as the weight of the carriages & wagons. Most trains were drawn, we didn't do a lot of propelling, but I don't recall any special difficulties there, though. We had the obvious advantage that it was fairly accessible - if it had been more awkward, I might have been inclined (hah, again) to drop the bridge a bit, as there was nothing underneath it that mattered.

We had a large layout with a straight incline, as an excuse to use a suspension bridge. It rose four inches in eight feet, but had bends not far from the bottom ends. The bends, as @murphaphsays above, do add to the resistance. It would be noticeable, with longer trains, that the ascent would accelerate slightly (it was a DC layout) once the whole train was on the straight. We didn't have huge issues with the gradient and there was a great variety of motive units on there - new and old, traction tyres and all metal wheels, etc. A few points did emerge:- Heavier locos were, as would be expected, less prone to slip. Murphy products (only 141/181 on there whilst it existed) were amongst the best performers. Before you commit to a final design, it might be worth building a test set-up with the intended track profile?

Indeed. And they have to consider what happens if they bleed us all dry and we starve to death.

Phew, thank God it's not for 'us'... My wallet had palpitations when I saw the thread title.

When you're building a DART layout and prefer doing water features to ballasting.

Was there also a 'disc' on the smokebox door, albeit a bit more liable to getting dirty?

Spike was always a source of such things...

I'm sure that someone did put a "Scalescenes"-type image up on here years ago, from which a reasonable replica could be made, but I've been unable to find it again...

A bit over 00 scale, but maybe suitable for a G scale arrangement? https://www.irelandbeforeyoudie.com/father-ted-fan-designs-incredible-replica-parochial-dolls-house/

Plenty of opportunities at the moment...

"Item Location" may not always be trustworthy on eBay, either. I recently bought a couple of Dremel chucks that they wouldn't send to anywhere outside GB and, being under house arrest 4.9km from Ballybrophy*, I got the seller to send them to a friend on the Big Island, as I'm in no real rush. I'll admit that I was suspicious that the stated location being Manchester just might have been untrue, but at that time, the £15 allowance still applied, so, even if my suspicions were correct, my agent would not be hit for an extra payment. When they arrived, they most certainly hadn't been posted in Manchester - I haven't actually seen the packaging, but, from the description it seems almost certain to be Hong Kong or mainland China. This 'risk' probably applies more to tools and materials than actual models, but it's worth bearing in mind. * I will do an inspection at some point.

Obviously, the live-steam turf-burner will have been bumped up the list by the news that Bord na Mona are not going to be holding stocks of the necessary material for the required microsods for much longer.

This could be handy as 'evidence', for when you run out of blue while painting the back scene...

A little-known fact is that the meatballs served in IKEA cafés are actually made from customers who failed to find their way to the exit.

We are not alone...

I remember a game show where people were invited to update old proverbs. "As mad as a... ...phone-in caller."