I’m about to move to a new city and will be creating an entirely new layout. Like many newbies, I started with a rather boring 4x8 loop layout. On my next layout, I plan to go more in the way of operations and prototype designs.
I ran across the LDSIG (www.ldsig.org) website and am considering joining the group. Is anyone here a member (or former member) and is the membership worth it? The publications that come with the membership appear to be fairly inexpensive (4 issues for $15). Are they any good?
Finally, are there other on-line ways of getting this same (or similar) information without joining a group like this?
You can belong to the yahoo list for free, and you can post layout ideas for critique to the LDSIG wiki for free.
And $3.50 an issue for a content-packed magazine with no ads expensive? C’mon. Most hobby magazines are over $5 and packed full of ads.
Plus the content of the Layout Design Journal is always provacative and very insightful. I joined the LD SIG in 1987 (and it was $15 a year then – what other groups still have the same dues today they did 20 years ago?) and what I learned from the Layout Design Journal made a huge difference in how I approached designing layouts. I credit the LDSIG’s publications for much of the great satisfaction I have in my HO Siskiyou Line layout design. The layout’s 15 years old now, and I’m still very satisfied with the layout design and if I had more space I would just build a larger version of essentially the same design.
Even if all they had was the free online stuff and no magazine, they’d still get my $15 every year. It’s the least I can do for an organization that for me has made a huge difference in my enjoyment of the hobby.
Many modelers would drop $200 for a nice DCC sound equipped steamer in a heartbeat. You telling me $15 a year is too steep a price to pay to help you get the most satisfying layout design possible? [swg]
Go back and read WickhamMan’s post again. He says “The publications that come with the membership apear to be fairly INEXPENSIVE”. And, with the information on the LDSIG yahoo group and in the Wiki, is the information in the publications worth it, or are they just more of the same?
Bob, we usually see what we expect to see. Maybe, because of some of the strange comments made on this forum in the past, we’ve become a little paranoid. Or maybe some of us, like myself, wear bifocals and after 10 years have not totally adjusted to them.
Oh, sorry WikhamMan … yes these 50+ year old eyeballs just aren’t what they used to be.
The publication is worth it, yes, and it’s not more of the same. Sometimes, they will repeat content from an especially good yahoo list discussion – but they edit it down and make it into an article.
It’s surprising how helpful getting all that yahoo discussion “that was back and forth and ran for a week” condensed down into print can be (often with a few really nice line diagrams illustrating the ideas, I might add).
Once they take out all the me too comments and jokes, all the “that reminds me of the time I ran into a snake when I was railfanning …” off-topic posts, and boil it all down into a concise article – it’s amazing how helpful having all that discussion right at your fingertips becomes! So I see a lot of value-add when they do condense yahoo list discussions like that. They don’t do it a lot, but I wish they would do it more, it’s so helpful.
And probably half the membership is not online, so the material’s totally new for them. And like I said, the publication has lots of new content and layout design examples, complete with diagrams and photos.
Thanks for all of the feedback. Joe, the publication, from your description, DOES seem to be worth the money. My concern was that it was so cheap that it couldn’t be very good. If it only boiled down the content of the discussion it WOULD be worth it. A while back I tried wading through those threads and pulling the meat out was a real effort.