You know that I have invested a great deal in making this Club function, and in ensuring that when we meet to run trains together, the layout works well. In view of our small membership, it would seem that all of us should work in concert to keep our meetings productive, collegial, and our time running trains maximized and pleasurable.
At our last Annual Meeting, we agreed, as a group, that the layout needed a concerted effort directed toward cleaning the tracks and getting our collective rolling stock and engines cleaned and worthy of running on our layout. I agreed to lead this initiative. You will understand, therefore, how dismayed I am to find that my efforts and leadership have not been valued by the membership, and this was no more clearly laid bare than when _____ stated at our last meeting that the did not support the idea of a directed effort to clean our tracks. Not one of you spoke in defense of what had been our agreed requirement to restore our layout to a reasonable semblance of running order.
I hope you will understand that I feel excluded from the membership as a result of this development, doubly so because I cannot enjoy running trains on a poorly maintained layout, even more-so when my fellow railroaders seem to have no personal stake in doing so themselves. It leaves me anxious about further participation, about how well I am regarded by you, and wondering why a group of railroaders would have no interest in running a well-maintained layout.
At our next meeting, I am going to raise this issue on last time. Since it is important to me, as this letter should suggest strongly to you, and since my prime interest in being a member is in enjoying what the club should offer, not to mention full regard from its membership and a concurrent interest in maintaining a layout that it would be proud to have featured in a periodical or displayed to the public, I will have to withdraw fro
The tone is good. The problem is we had our annual meeting.
I emailed the club president explaining that I was dismayed at the precedent he set. We’ll see what happens next week. The tone was similar to your letter.
I was a business major in college and part owner of 2 businesses myself. It sounds like what you have here is a classic example of social loafing. The members hope somebody else will do all the work. Since you and the two kids are the ones doing all the cars naturally it’s gonna take slower than if all the members were doing it. I believe a proper way to end this problem would be to have everybody take a car home each week to work on it until all the cars are up to standard.
I’d say also take this president aside and politely ask what’s going on. He may have several reasons. Maybe he has problems at home or work or he simply stepped in way over his head. As for the give it a little time approach I’m sorry but it seems there has been too much of a give it a little time culture there and that’s why things are as they are. Entropy thrives on procrastination. The only way to get this problem done is to take action NOW!
ONE business meeting per year? I’m trying to think of a club (of any sort) that doesn’t do at least one a MONTH. That alone raises huge red flags as to the drive and committment of the so-called leaders of this organization.
I had the rolling stock committee for over 10 years. By club by-laws all cars must be rechecked to be within specs every two years (or as poor operation dictates). It gets really old after a while, but we found constant continual maintenance is much better than the work-night do it all at once concept. Perhaps that is a thing you could propose is to make it a standing committee hence a standing job at the club. Members are required to rotate through the committee’s so they learn all aspects of the hobby, this being one of them.
We have tried two different brands of postal scales. Neither could hold calibration. I finally just took one of my triple beam balances down, until the club could afford to get a double pan.
The club doesn’t have those things in inventory? We have a rolling stock repair station that keeps all those things available, however only for club owned cars. The owners are required to maintain their own equipment. We also keep a collection of Kadee couplers handy. Our “standards” track has two Kadee on track gauges to eliminate having to turn the car around to check the couplers on both ends. The track is also marked with the length, so we don’t have to keep a ruler around.
Did I hear you say this President just got RE-elected? If so, you need to ask yourself what does he represent that the rest of the members want or respect. I hate to say it, but it may well be that the vast majority just want to socialize and BS about trains. If that is the case, they are surely not going to change one bit. It sounds like you wanted a rule, they let you get it, so now they figure you can work with it.
I think you wrote the rule wrong. Unless the rule is written so the guilty suffer, they have absolutely no incentive to change their behavior.
All cars shall be within blah… blah… blah, weight, couplers, etc.
Each menber shall be responsible for insuring that his cars conform.
Non- conforming cars shall be removed from the layout, and not allowed back on without an inspection.
Spacemouse shall be responsible for all car inspections.
Multiple cases of members not complying with this standard shall be dealt with via suspension up to 3 months.
If they do not want to fix their cars, they do not have to, they just can’t have them on the layout.
All I can add is good luck. You need to find some allies within the club. Alone you haven’t got a prayer.
Also, make it absolutely clear that rollng stock not in standards will affect everyone’s overall enjoyment. If stuff keeps derailing, getting pulled off the track (light weight), or stalls, then they are spending their time fixing those problems versus running trains! The old adage still rings true pay me now (with some maintenance/inspections) or pay me later (multiple derails, stalling, etc mentioned above).
What is it that induces these folks to gather routinely? Operating trains on a model railroad? Hardly! They like fellowship, swapping stories and techniques, being in the milieu, and probably getting out of the house. They clean their own stuff at home and tinker with it, why the aitch would they spend good time (fun, as they describe it) doing more of the same at the club? The club is a familiar respite from the drudgery of their home lives. What Chip wants is a place to run trains because he don’t got none! He’s in the middle of building one, but he hasn’t been able to run trains anywhere except at this club…, at least, that has been the idea all along.
So, he is trying to push a warm wet string. The resistance is so high it’s like trying to feed 10 amps through a 22 gauge feeder…things will heat up really fast.
Close. The members like to trot out their sound locos and blast their horns. They are mostly kids and older gentlemen, so the volume is cranked. They don’t seem to mind the derails, they just park their trains until it’s clear and move on.
Some of us find this boring and unacceptable. Two years ago, we renamed all the towns, bought walkie-talkies, created a cool magnetic dispatching board–then never used it. The new incoming president, the current one, had created standardized switch sheets before he was elected, about six of them, and that is how we are supposed to operate. Each time it takes a couple of hours to set-up, and it never gets done. I tested all the runs, and they work–but you are done in 30 minutes and there is not room for variation. We have both car cards and color tabs, but every time I bring them up, I get “We have the switch lists.”
I can run trains. But my favorite activity is the large, dispatched op session. That is what I want to see happen as do several others. We want to exchange o
At your next meeting just tell him how you feel. My club is going through the same type of thing, some guys want to build new things and some guys just want to hang out and do nothing. I’ve lost interest myself and only hang around for about an hour on club meeting days, that is if I even go. Our elections are in February so if things don’t change I’m out.