It wouldn't be a proper visit to the coast of Scotland without some rain. I got thoroughly drenched the last full day we were in the West Highlands standing on a few different hillsides waiting for trains. I stood on this particular slope for quite a while in an ill-fated attempt to shoot the Royal Scotsman luxury excursion train crossing the Loch nan Uamh Viaduct; I expected it to run east from a planned stop in Arisaig after the mid-day westbound Sprinter, but it never showed -- to this day I still have no clue if the train even made it west of Fort William on the 11th.
After 45 minutes of getting soaked I gave up on seeing the special, but figured it wasn't worth the effort of slip-sliding back down the hill to seek shelter until the eastbound Jacobite was due. Kept company by a lone power pole (which only occasionally sheltered my face from the rain), after an hour and a half of watching the tide creep in the steam train finally showed up, blasting out of the Loch nan Uamh Tunnels in a cacophony of glorious noise. As I later admitted to my wife -- but not until after having been a miserable wet dog for the rest of the afternoon -- all the waiting and soaking was, end the end, absolutely worth it.
