I think I would be cooler with the idea of a higher fixed dues then occasionally raising cash. Its all about the budget. I can probably convince my wife another $10 a month is a good idea… but suddenly having $120 come up would be tough if not impossible.
Thats very unfortunate. The “country club effect” is kind a funny double standard. On the one hand, a lot of folks are fine with the idea that you need to pay a certain amount to prove your interest. The same people would scream if you said they had to put in a certain amount of time or adhere to a certain level of craftsmanship.
Curiously… it seems like the standard of participation in these posts is money not time although I guess that was the subject of the thread.
While I don’t disagree that those charges don’t seem excessive, I do think one has to be careful in how one views folks. For many of us, fitting a leisure cost, especially one that may not be shared by the whole family, is difficult to do and it has little to do with whats reasonable. I thought the cost of the Boston and Maine RS2 walthers is coming out with in N scale was reasonable, but its still too expensive for me.
I know you were somewhat joking around in your post, but I guess I am sensitive to
Money does tend to divide people, it even happens here from time to time. For people that have money there is no reason why they shouldn’t want the finer things in life like Kato loco’s. We had a club member who regularly brought pieces of junk to run on our club layout at shows. These pieces of junk would regularly derail every 10 minutes, looked like crap and caused other members to not want to run their trains when that member was also runni
Thats very interesting, kinda funny in an ironic way, because some of the best modelers I have met, are not - what you would say “flushed with cash”?
In fact its their very poorness that made them such dam good modelers, most of us here have read about people that have alot of money also tend to have layouts built by professional layout builders. Kinda sad that some clubs would consider you undesirable based on what car brand you drove into the lot wit
vsmith,
Just remember that Brakie’s club is for the lowest common demoninator. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but from his descriptions in the past, that’s what they do. Their standards are set so that anyone can operate & maintain their layout…which means they are set to the lowest skill setting. I want to point out again that there’s nothing wrong with that, but it is what it is, and that’s where Brakie’s viewpoint comes from.
Most other clubs that I’ve been to or heard of strive to be the best they can be to the limits of their skills and finances. They want the best equipment running on the best layout possible. They have standards that prevent “pizza cutter” flanges and X2F horn-hook couplers. Some are even more restrictive in that cars and locos have to meet certain operational standards, or belong to a certain era or have a certain level of detail. These kinds of clubs are places that I’d want to be a part of. Not because I’m a snobby rivet-counter, but because I want to be part of a club that strives for better things rather than one that doesn’t.
We just started a module club in Port Huron MI (blue water model railroad club) an we curently use an open upstairs space thanks to the local hobby store plus, we get a 10% disscount on trains at the store [:)] (smiley is a major understatement of that privlage) hopefuly we will never have to have a club fee of over $50 a year, most of our members do not have the buget for high club costs.
Where is the club located at? I am in th west burbs of Chicago and would like to join a club, only one I really found was Elmhurst. Do they have a website?
To cut directly to the core of the original topic -
IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD THE DUES, DON’T JOIN THE CLUB.
Simple, isn’t it!
I can think of a number of reasons for not joining a club [insisting on a specific prototype, imposing restrictions on length of motive power (I have DMU trains with distributed power) and requiring such things as glass in all windows and a locomotive crew in every cab…] Dues too high for my budget is an immediate negative.
Chuck (lone wolf modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
One of the problems that I’ve seen stated in several of the posts is how to handle interested younger people that may become our future model railroaders, and balance that against becoming a glorified baby sitting service. I’ve been a member of three different clubs over the years/moves, and the one I’m currently a member has what I feel is the best solution to that dilema. Our class Junior/Student Member is anyone under 18 years old. They pay no dues, but must be sponsored by a Senior Member. Normally, this is a father or other relative, which makes the next stipulation easier: the Junior member can only be at the club location when the sponsoring Senior member is there. This establishes a “responsible adult” for the Junior member, and if behavior becomes a problem, it can be addressed to the sponsor.
Well guys thank’s for all the tips, advise, etc. As with most of us I am on a somewhat limited budget with a single income a wife, 2 kids, a dog, and 3 cats. But I feel that I need to join a club to further my model railroad knowledge. Right or wrong I cannot see how going “lone wolf” is going to help me in the long run. Besides, I think it would be very cool to spend the time with my son at a club. Think of all the other places I could be!
So maybe what I thought was the right price was a bit lower than it should have been. Maybe it’s just right. It doesn’t really matter, I guess.
I started this post without intending to get into right or wrongs. Just a question about what you pay and do the benefits outweigh any negatives. 'Nuff said. Thank you all for your answers and comments. I’m off to get my application completed and start my next journey down the rails.
That’s sort of the way my old club worked, except the student members had to pay dues too… $15 a month. My dad was the “sponsor member” for me, and he had to be there anyway as it was a half-hour drive by car anyway.
Why is it that wives are generally sticking points? I thought mine would be when I brought up the whole issue of going back to model railroading but after we talked about it for a while and we agreed on what limitations would be reslistic we agreed and I was allowed to go back to it with her blessings.
Our club (outlying Missouri, where rents aren’t as high as in more urban/suburban areas) has $25/month membership dues and an initial membership fee (forgot what that was - that was 2-3 years ago), so maybe higher than some. But then again, one of our club members (semi-retired) has a LHS he runs out of his daughter’s floral shop, and he gives club members a discount on top of his usual discount off retail in the store, so it isn’t as high as the dues alone would seem.
When I joined, the layout benchwork was done, as well as the trackwork and a chunk of the scenery and structures. Then a few months ago, someone wanted our space and was willing to pay us a fairly good sum to entice us to move a couple of doors down the block (same landlord both places). (They have since decided to move somewhere else, but we’re not moving back…) We were able to save most of the benchwork (thank Heaven for reciprocating saws and a team of the new tenants’ younger guys to help move to the other area), and now have most of the benchwork and 95 percent of the masonite backdrops in place (but not painted). About 2/3 to 3/4 of the enticement fund is still in our club’s bank account, and we have the back staging yard (about 8-10 tracks deep) laid and in place, with a swing-away wye track that connects it to the main layout. We have club workdays on some Saturday mornings, and work on the layout/club room during our Monday night meetings. We still have most of the DCC power supplies, boosters and LocoNet jacks from the old layout setup, so most of that will be reusable. We’re shooting for being able to run trains (before scenry is done) in the next couple or three months, I’d guess, and should make it on that.
Every few months, we’ll have an evening when we eat out as a club. I think we have 9 or 10, maybe 11 members now, and at least a half dozen show up on most club nights, sometimes more.
That’s us. Don’t know if that makes us in the middle, ahead of some (or behind oth
A story was told some time ago about some modern train models laboring along slowly behind a john bull train set type train… or was it a shay? Who knows?
One poster indicated that some folks run POS trains in a club. I suppose that would happen anywhere. However the one Im familiar with, have standards such as weights for boxcars, metal wheels and kaydee type couplers. We are slowly stripping tire places of weights to bring those rolling stock into compliance. Standards are held and enforced.
The method I am taught to use to differentate ownership of rolling stock is to paint a color underneath the rolling stock. That color would be considered “YOUR” color and different than everyone else’s
At the end of the day, I dont consider club dues steep. I do have a fixed income more or less a few dollars and that is part of the train money I am permitted to spend. Wife and I know about this in the budget. However, the distance I travel to it makes a difference in gasoline. So I only go when I know the place is open and manned.
My club has one Junior Member and he has been a member at the club longer then I have. He isn’t related to anybody in the club and I believe he will be turning sixteen soon. He is a good kid and is an asset to our club. We did change one of our rules to where any future Junior Members must be sponsored by someone but he was exempt from it.
Money does tend to divide people, it even happens here from time to time. For people that have money there is no reason why they shouldn’t want the finer things in life like Kato loco’s. We had a club member who regularly brought pieces of junk to run on our club layout at shows. These pieces of junk would regularly derail every 10 minutes, looked like crap and caused other members to not want to run their trains when that member was also running because it would effect their over all enjoyment. Lets face it, who wants to have their Intermountain CP grain train getting regularly sideswiped every ten minutes by a derailing POS? Over my 6 years in the hobby now I’ve found that there are 4 different groups of Model Railroaders. One group has money and buys almost everything ready to run. The second group has money, use to buy RTR stuff and now just buys expensive kits to build. They are now trying to become great model railroaders. The third group is the majority, they can afford to buy most things but it may take them a month or two to save up for it. They have a few Kato and Atlas loco’s but aren’t afraid to buy an old Athearn Blue Box loco and detail the heck out of it. They take just as much pride in running a Intermountain car next to a Blue Box kit that they have detailed and weathered. These guys are great modelers and it shows in the quality of their rolling stock and their layouts. Then there is the fourth group. These are the guys that buy the cheap stuff and are very vocal about how the hobby is dieing off because the average Joe, being them can’t afford it anymore. This group always seems to be a very negative group. They always talk about how they can convert a old Tyco for example into a better running and detailed loco then a Kato or Atlas. LOL, sure you can. They are always saying that a Blue Box kit car, out of the box is good enough fo
You are lucky, as we have been with the majority of our Junior Members over the years. Recently, a Junior Member was brought in but some members voted to “bend the rules” a bit and have him sponsored by “the club at large.” Unfortunately, with some personal schedule changes, I wasn’t at this meeting, and was not avialable to object. During one of our open houses, I constantly had to admonish him for placing objects on the tracks in front of running trains (not always his train), while visitors of the same aproximate age were there to see this bad example, and he insisted on running one locomotive (again, not his) that was incomplete (missing tender and hence rear coupler) and not a reliable runner, which he pushed a