west highland Mallaig and the Road To The Isles

[StuartMc]

On 10/12/2023 at 21:16, DavidBird said:

 

No, still the best fish and chips!

 

This reminds me of a story, of fish and of the amazing the things you do when you are young.

 

In 1988 or so BR had these cheap go anywhere tickets offer and about 5 of us from the Rail and Transport Society at Aberystwyth Universitity looked to see how far we could go and back in a weekend - so Aberystwyth to Mallaig and (immediately ) back it was - just becaues we could for £15 or something.

 

The memorably point is that for the whole journey one of the guys was telling us how good the fish is at Mallaig, and was really looking forward to it - but after hours and hours of travelling we arrived - only to find the fish shop did a half day Saturday and didn't reopen until Monday.
 

[DavidBird]

On 03/01/2024 at 10:59, StuartMc said:

 

This reminds me of a story, of fish and of the amazing the things you do when you are young.

 

In 1988 or so BR had these cheap go anywhere tickets offer and about 5 of us from the Rail and Transport Society at Aberystwyth Universitity looked to see how far we could go and back in a weekend - so Aberystwyth to Mallaig and (immediately ) back it was - just becaues we could for £15 or something.

 

The memorably point is that for the whole journey one of the guys was telling us how good the fish is at Mallaig, and was really looking forward to it - but after hours and hours of travelling we arrived - only to find the fish shop did a half day Saturday and didn't reopen until Monday.
 

 

It's not like that now.  They close in November and don't open again until March.  Still, the Pub does F&C carry-outs - and does them very well, too!

[mallaig1983]

Gosh, 3 months since my last update! 
Not a great deal to report on layout progress but I did decide it was about time that the tide came in. I had always planned to use resin to make the sea but I was not confident that I could dam it properly and prevent it leaking out at the edge of the board so I thought I would trial the toilet paper method. I went about 5 layers thick with it and once I had worked and manipulated it I was fairly happy with it on a test piece so I went ahead with it on the layout. Again I was happy. Yesterday I bought some cheap acrylic paints I’m the local B&M and attempted to get a colour match comparing it with a photo of the exact same area. I was happy with all the change in shades achieved but the end result was way to tropical. So I have since painted over it with a base coat of a much paler blue. It was a fun experiment but hopefully the next version will be more realistic.

 

The toilet paper glued and sculpted to shape.

 

The first version 

 

And how it looks now after a base layer of sky blue.

 

I need to get some green and grey involved but first I need to pay a visit to The Range I’m Bangor and get a tube of light blue as I’m now out.

[Dunalastair]

The sea on the West Coast and between the islands famously can look tropical in the right light - something to do with the white sand, perhaps. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 30 by Dunalastair

[mallaig1983]

14 minutes ago, Dunalastair said:

The sea on the West Coast and between the islands famously can look tropical in the right light - something to do with the white sand, perhaps. 

 

 

 

 

 

yes absolutely and it’s very clear but I really needed to tone mine down as it doesn’t look like that every day. Lovely photo, Morar?

[Kylestrome]

3 hours ago, mallaig1983 said:

I need to get some green and grey involved but first I need to pay a visit to The Range I’m Bangor and get a tube of light blue as I’m now out.

 

I agree that you definitely need to go more in the direction of green to represent deeper sea water. The shoreline is rocky so there's not much white sand around Mallaig itself.

Edited March 30 by Kylestrome

[mallaig1983]

My 20148 has had a little holiday in Leeds. Sounds much better for it. Really excited for her return and lots of running on Mallaig. I think Fort William are going to have a class 37 shortage for a few weeks.

 

Thanks to Richard at Roads and Rails.
 

 

 

[mallaig1983]

20148 arrived home this morning and is seen ex works at Mallaig this afternoon.

[young37215]

Looks a nice job, I am interested in class 20 speaker options because I am not happy with the current ones in mine. The Road & Rails video sounds pretty good, I would appreciate your feedback on the sound quality after a week or two of running. 

[mallaig1983]

4 hours ago, young37215 said:

Looks a nice job, I am interested in class 20 speaker options because I am not happy with the current ones in mine. The Road & Rails video sounds pretty good, I would appreciate your feedback on the sound quality after a week or two of running. 

To be honest the video doesn’t do justice to the sound. Even after a minute or so running I said to myself “that’s insane “. It really is something very special and leaps and bounds above the original factory set up from 15+ years ago. I need to turn the sound down though! I double headed it with an Accurascale 37 and it drowned the 37 out. On the basis of one running session I would highly recommend the tablet speaker. I will give an update after a few more sessions.

Major grin factor.