I would love to know if any of you guys in clubs such as myself have gone to the length of adopting standards for the way things are done. Specifically things that pertain to scenery,track work…etc etc… My club does not have anything set in stone which leads to many arguements over what or how something gets done…I know heads will butt from time to time but I am pushing for something that makes everyones life easier with less bickering…Thanks…Tim
Beats our method. I;ts the tried and dreaded “Guy with scenery experience and likes doing scenery will do the scenery and what you do is always wrong” The words “Club” “life” and “easier” used in the same sentence is usually grounds for an oxymoron. Rarely you may get a group of guys who’s passions are so closely together it streamlines. Mostly though, it;s not.
At the Delmarva Club, which I’m a member of but only attend sporadically, it depends on which layout you’re working on. We have major HO, O and N scale layouts. Each one is run by its own committee, with the HO being the largest layout, and the largest group of modelers.
For the most part, we have standards on the HO because that’s the only one that gets fully operated with car cards, waybills, monthly sessions etc. As such, we try to follow RP’s on car weight, coupler height and all that good stuff. As for scenery, we’ve adopted a segment of the B&O as it operated in the late 50’s to mid 60’s, so we just let that provide the guidelines. Basically there are no 100’ tall timber trestles, or the Devils Tower made from mashed potatoes, or bobsledders racing down the mountain… It’s been worked on for about 20 years, by legions of different members, yet it still looks pretty coherent.
On the other hand, the N scale layout started out with a theme, but it’s been distorted and shredded, so now instead of having a nice functional railroad, we have a big roundy roundy with chopped up scenery and very little continuity. It was the victim of the “anything goes” approach.
On the other hand, our O gauge guys are pretty free wheeling, and have a ball running whatever suits their mood… So I guess it’s whatever floats your boat with big boy toys…
It really comes down to what your club hopes to accomplish with its layout. Ive seen some really well-rendered club layouts, and I’ve seen some that you just roll your eyes at. But then, when you join the club, you also have to feel your way around the personalities, and figure out who’s ox is going to get gored if you decide to change something.
How I approach it now is I scratch my N scale itch for operations and modeling my favorite road at home, and I go to the club to participate in the massive operating sessions we ho
Most clubs, at a minimum, adopt the NMRA standards for their scale. Critical things such as wheel gauge, coupler and trip pin height, track gauge and flangeways, etc. They’re available on line at:
http://www.nmra.org/standards/sandrp/consist.html
Then some clubs will expand to specify a certain type of coupler, minimum radius and turnout number for different sections of the layout, track centers and clearances (found under the Recommended Practices heading on the link above). There may be some mention of quality of trackwork, electrical feeds, trucks, etc. Much more than that may exceed your “make life easier with less bickering” provision.
We have club standards set for trackwork, rolling stock and locomotives.
40" minimum radius mainline curves
#8 mainline switches
Kadee or compatible couplers required on both ends of all equipment, with the exception of some MoW equipment and some steam locos due to pilot design (Operations Committee has final say).
Couplers with plastic knuckle springs are forbidden.
Couplers have to work over Kadee magnet.
Metal wheels on all equipment is required.
Correct Coupler height
Correct Wheel gauge
Must fit through NMRA Clearance Gauge
All locos must be powered unless drawbarred to a powered loco.
All locos must be tested for drawbar pulling force.
Wheels must be clean before being placed on layout.
Paul A. Cutler III
Weather Or No Go New Haven
I have a bunch of athearn boxcars at the club. All are under weight. Club requires 4 ounces for a 40 foot boxcar I believe. All have metal wheels and Kadee couplers which is very good to have. Trip pins are bent up because there are many road crossings and switches. Three point suspension is provided to each freight car.
One of these days Im going to get down there with a fistful of weights and glue and get em in. Once in a while a wheel will get off the rail somewhere in the train and you have to really eyeball the train constantly. Once the weights are installed, there will be less stress at the trestles and bridges.
The one I run with run 36" radius curves and is a extremely large railroad. A place where you can actually get up to track speed and stay there between towns. that alone is worth the price of the dues.
Oh by the way, if those athearns vanish, no big loss. I can always replace em with more out of boxes under my home railroad. The truly expensive and irreplaceable stuff comes back home with me when club day is over.
I belong to an N-Trak ckub so that pretty much dictates the standards we follow. However each person who builds a module can put anything on it he of she wishes just so long as the tracks are at the right places to match up with other modules at the ends.
Irv
The Sandhouse Crew has standards, for trackwork, ballast (CNW Pink Lady), benchwork, sky boards and wiring. We have guidelines for scenery, no mountain scenes, but large hills are acceptable. Mainlines must return to a set distance over the course of your modules unless arrangements have been made with the neighbors, if it’s in the midwest you can model it, outside the midwest bring it up a meeting, it will probably go through unless there are mountains, did I mention no mountains? Beyond that you can run whatever you want so long as it’s HO and will match your couplers. Kadee #5’s are the prefered but there are a couple of tranistion cars to hand horn hooks and hook and loop.
Now thats what I’m getting at. Not so much the wheels weights and couplers. But the scenery and trackage issues. I can’t stand the guy who will put up pink trees and red water and think it looks great in and amongst the rest of the layout but will be the first guy over your shoulder telling you to use this or do that because thats the way the club has done it. I am in the process of trying to draw up some basic standards that the guys can approve and adopt so that the layouts don’t look like they came from the Richard Dreyfuss school of scenery…(although that is pretty sweet). Basic guidelines that everyone will follow but still give that room for creative thinking and design. I appreciate the responses so far!![:)]
One of the first things that you should define is whether the club layout is going to be a scale model that should reproduce nature as much as possible, -or- be a toy train layout where anything goes. You might get a more favorable response by pushing the ‘scale model nature’ part first. Then you might want to set up a scenery committee to over see what members are doing and correcting problems.
Might I encourage Prot=-lancing, so that you ddopn;t have "BUT I DON"T WANNA MODEL “insert railroad here” IN “insert actual place here”!! WWWAAHHH!!!
www.syracusemodelrr.org As you can see we have two layouts… One that is very permanant that is at least over 20 years old…and a modular layout that is now a permanant fixture and does not travel…
Our small club only has standards for the mainline. Code 100 with minimum #6 turnouts. Also KD #5’s on all rolling stock and locos that are to run on the mainline. We keep it simple and it works.
i belong to a model railroad club (which will remain nameless for now) . we have 3 layouts an ho, an n scale and a modular ho layout 20’ x 20’ to take to shows. none of the layouts conform to the nmra standards. we have a set of bylaws and a set of standard operating procedures that we try to follow. it can not always be done that way though. disputes are normal but are usually settled calmly. recently a fairly new member tried to get the entire club membership to join the nmra. i think he got one to do so. he also wanted the club to adopt the nmra standards and make a very costly conversion to our nice modular layout to bring it into compliance. this came to a head a few weeks ago when he and the club president quit and walked out on a business meeting. he then began a nasty email tirade to the other members about me. our president was a scenery and structure wiz and we miss him. you should have at least a consensus with the other members with the standards for track, ballast, roadbed, wiring, scenery type and structures. you may have someone who is better at one or two things and you sbould encourage him to help the others.
My club follows the standards listed in our rules and regulations for building scenery, track work etc. Rules and standards are there to insure the enjoyment of working on our layout for everybody.
Hey, I’m the new president of our club this year and the only things that I have (so far) set in stone are:
- People who lay down track must really know what they’re doing.
I made this rule. In the past we’ve got some track where a guy prided himself on using every scrap he could find and now we have sections with many breaks… which turns into sections to be replaced. We’ve also had disfunctional spurs put in and a yard with a staging yard underneath that was not done right; many kinks in the track and the whole thing was done in a way that you can’t reach across to trains that derail -especially bad in the staging yard.
- We operate on 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month 2nd and 4th we work.
This rule has been there forever, but needs constant reinforcement.
- All new projects must be entered into the project book and voted over by all members present that business meeting nite.
This rule has also been there for a while, but it is constantly disregarded, leaving me to bash anything that ‘pops up’ and doesn’t work out well under pressure from other members (and myself).
As far as who does what I’m just glad when a new member walks in and says yeah, I really like doing scenery insead of I just like running trains in a circle!
edit: beyond that we have officers and there are also senior members who won’t allow too much nonsense, although sometimes I have to ‘converse’ with the seniors as well.
Club and Clique are on the same page in my dictionary; there may be a rationale for the standards used by a club but these are enforcable by a select group of members who band together on all votes. A Good Old Boy Network creeps into some clubs just like it does into a political structure.
To Wit: after careful analysis of switching the industries in the town of Doodleville you make a suggestion at a club meeting that there is something wrong with the switchwork serving the mill and lumberyard behind the depot and the switches should be reversed and those two industries serviced from left to right instead of right to left as is the current practice. Vote: no one wants anything to do with your suggestion. Why Bill Smith designed that switchwork way back when Custer was a cadet and you are an upstart for even suggesting such a thing; this club owes its survival to Bill Smith’s modeling expertise.
Roll forward six months: Bill Smith states that he has made a careful analysis of switching the industries in the town of Doodleville and he makes a suggestion at the club meeting that there is something wrong with the switchwork serving the mill and lumberyard behind the depot and the switches should be reversed and those two industries serviced from left to right instead of right to left as is the current practice. Vote: take a guess.
Unfortunately in some clubs change is only allowed to take place when the Bill Smiths expire . . . . . . . . . . or, of course, if the Bill Smiths think
let one person be responsible for a certain section of the layout for scenery, and someone else for another section, there are just too many variations to do scenery that there isnt any one perfect method.
work together on ideas, share or vary techniques, maybe you will discover another way to do things that will be better for the club.
Poteet, wiring is to be removed and replaced. Not traced and duplicated for weeks LOL.
You make a fine example of what is a event in some Clubs.
Now look at the other side, a new member signs up and is confronted by a group of master modelers all of which have a combined thousand years of experience and nothing is availible anywhere on the railroad that the newbie can do without the classic 20 managers supervising Joe the Shovel Man.
Sometimes we wonder why the Hobby is much more enjoyable as a solitary activity.
In my club I griped about a bad coupler on one of the cars. I was handed a set of small tools, a fresh kadee and gauge and told have at it. Love it.
It will be most challenging to introduce new Members to a technology older than they are if they so choose to join.
I know the feeling. One of my notes though is that I have a layout at home to work on, and while I want to be supportive, I need a place to run a train over actual ground.