Cellar Dwellar or Club

I never considered joining a club. I know there is one in Cincinnati. Does anyone here belong?

 

Long long ago, our local Lionel club set up a very nice Christmas layout in an empty shopping mall store and the guy running it was great. My daughter and her friend had brought their Little Pet toys along and the guy let the girls put their toys aboard and take them for rides. I later got my Dad's old tinplate trains to run and borrowed the idea.

 

I do want to add that the closest I ever came to joining a club was in the early 2000's when a couple of other guys and I set up a large table of trains, three years in a row, at the local historical society celebration of the county Rochester, MN is in.

We had one loop of Lionel standard gauge, one loop of Lionel O gauge, and one loop of American Flyer S gauge and had buttons located around the table for kids to operate various accessories. They absolutely loved it and these were most enjoyable experiences.

Doug

 

The reason most clubs are not kid friendly is that while the kid is interested in trains the parent(s) may not be. So the dad may come for a while but then the parents just drop the kid(s) off and the club essentially has to babysit them. Sort of like the Cub Scouts or Brownies. That gets old real fast. No one joins a club to babysit someone else's problem child. I volunteer at a DARE club and usually spend my time policing kids who have no respect for any of the property of the club or anyone else's for that matter. Most, if not all, of these kids are of elementary school age. The older ones, mostly teenage, are not a problem.

 

Lone wolf / cellar dweller here. While there are clubs here, most are on the other side of town and that makes those trips in traffic just not worth it.

 

Lone wolf with Trainboard and my tiny 2' x 4' bases in climate control, usually 5 feet from me daily. I feel lucky I can work on it year round when and if I want too. Amazing too how something so close to you can be ignored for month's on end But it happens!

 

Both. When I'm sick and tired or bored of one side of the fence, I go to the other side.

 

Lone Wolf as well. - Attic dweller. I do have a couple of extremely close friends that come over just about every Tuesday. We may run trains. But generally solve the problems of the world -- LOL. In general - shoot the BS.
I had been a member of the Belmont Shores MRR club, about 10 or so years ago. I had the honor of being their president for a couple of years. However, things changed and the club was no longer for me. No ill feelings toward any of the members, they are a great bunch of folks.

Thanks,
Wolf

 

Both. Work on various layouts alone, when I feel up to it.
NSIG sub group meetings once a month, as well as regular
club meetings once a month.

Prefer alone, but don’t mind meetings, as long as I’m able to make it!

 

Being 200+ miles from my LHS in a small town in eastern MT, well, Lone wolf it is. Had a friend here into HO, but he went up to Alaska to work on the White Pass & Yukon. (Envy is allowed!)

I did work with a club in Livingston for a few years until I relocated. Met some great folk there. Montanan on here is from that club. I do prefer to run my layout solo, for the most part, though!

 

I think TrainBoard provides a welcome link, especially for us lone wolves. We don't meet face-to-face, but can enjoy aspects community such as help with questions, trading of photos to keep us current with what each of us are up to and often with a little humor often thrown in. Although I've never met anyone from TrainBoard, there are valued friendships here that bring me much happiness.

 

Earlier I said I was a lone wolf. THE WIFE was rather quick to remind me that is NOT entirely true !!! So to clarify my earlier statement... WE are lone wolves !! Not in the 'Cellar' but out in THERR RV !



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So what you're saying is you guys are a Wolf Pack.

 

That is a great way to say it Hardcoaler! I definitely have made some great friendships here as well.

 

That maybe so and there certainly are lots of loners out there. We often learn about them after they pass on and someone from their family reaches out to us and wants to donate 'Dad's' trains to the club. Most of it is stuff from the 1950's - 69's but not all. We've gotten Athearn HO F units with the old rubber band drive and just touching the rubber band caused it to disintegrate into a powder. Most of the stuff would not pass muster in today's world but there is a market for vintage products. I started out as a lone wolf but even a 4 X 8 with 18" radii curves just did not satisfy me. Went to a train show and saw a NTRAK layout with curves twice the size of the ones on my layout. I joined immediately and have never regretted it. The N Scale Weekend events in Ohio and Pennsylvania bring together N scalers from a wide area and the camaraderie present there can never be matched by any online forum. Where else can guys from Cleveland and Pittsburgh sit down together for an enjoyable meal, talk all about trains and not argue about football? I visit train shows from Baltimore, MD west to Dayton, OH. I see people from different clubs that know me and we stop and chat and in the process, reinforce the bond that binds us as N Scalers. The way I see it, by being a member of a club and having my own layout too, I am not missing out on anything. But not being part of a club leaves a huge void that cannot be filled. That's my take on the subject.

 

I agree about the wide curves, it's one of the visual pleasures that binds me to NTRAK. We occasionally get enough folks out to set up a 32 x 34 layout, almost a scale mile per side. It's great to be able to get out my version of the Autotrain and not have it chasing its tail.

 

Thanks to the pandemic I've been a lone wolf.

Before that I belonged to a Group of guys, Big Bear Model Railroaders. We would get together at CJ's and eat over cooked hamburgers. We'd talk about and plan to visit clubs, train shows and the local swap meets. We had a lot of fun but everyone moved on to other places leaving Big Bear Country. Some moved on to train shows in the sky, locked communities and where the grass that grows between the sleepers in the track, is greener.

It looked like a good time for me to move to Nampa, ID to be close to my daughter. Not a the best move. You could say not a good move in all due respect.

There are two clubs nearby but it's like having to prove myself...yet one more time. I'm getting to old for that at 72 years old.

Anyway, I'm working on my layout. It is slowly moving along. I could point fingers at my moving helpers for mishandling the train layout. I won't. Most the damage came from taking it down and then to my amazement hanging it from the wall in the U-haul truck.

It don't matter. It's coming back together. Taking longer then I had hoped.

Since this isn't about just me. I still like to get together with the local lone wolves, hibernating bears and sleeping coyote's.

My cat community is doing well and keeping me company. Have you seen the price of cat food lately? What the hell? Never mind I can't find. Yep I said, can't find... my favorite things to eat at either Walmart or Winco. Two of the largest retailers. Not a good omen. We are looking more like a third world country... all the time. You are no doubt seeing empty shelves at any type of your local outlet. I thought so.

I don't think it matters whether you shelter at home or belong to a club and/or group. We need the interaction and networking with others. That's an important part of our psychic and who we are.

Appreciate rubbing shoulders with all of you here. That's one way to get'r done, sorry Cable Guy.

When things finally improve and it's safer to get out and about. I will !!

It is what it is.

 

I suppose I am a bit of both. I have belonged to an Ntrak club for 30 years and that has been a great experience and have made many great friends. I am also part of another modular layout that is Asia themed. It's just me and another guy who is also part of the Ntrak group with modules plus a few more that help out with the layout. As there have been no shows locally since the pandemic started all of my efforts the past two years have been on the 21 x 10 home layout started after I retired in 2013, that's the lone wolf part. I am really looking forward to getting out with the modules again !

I do enjoy interacting with other modelers but have noticed that at clubs with installed layouts and regular meetings people tend to get entrenched and feelings can get hurt. I have found this to be not so much with modular groups as they only "meet" a few times a year and there is not so much of what I will call the housekeeping aspect that is attached to a club facility. Maybe a modular club has a trailer or a few club modules that need attention but it's nothing like a building that has to be maintained.

Trainboard has also been a great outlet for me. A few of you I also know from outside Trainboard and hope to meet more of you in the future.

Happy birthdays to Rich and Robert.

 

Rick, have you tried Chewy.com ? It's the only place we have been able to find Fancy Feast lately.