11-07-2010, 07:15 PM
Well ... I took the plunge yesterday!
I got tired of always doing everything alone and never having another model railroader to actually speak with (no offense ... I do truely love your company, but c'mon ... it IS virtual company!
So I drove into Ft. Myers and across the Caloosahatchie River to North Ft. Myers and paid the "Scale Rails of Southwest Florida" a second visit. I took the bare chassis of the OMI GP39-2 with me to possibly do some "group troubleshooting" if things went well. Well, things went better than well, they went great!
Every one was very friendly, there were a couple fellas taking advantage of the well-lit workbenches fixing a a coupler on a box car and scratch-building a small "company house," a couple sitting around a table "chewing the fat," a few having an "impromptu operating session" to identify trackwork problem areas to be sorted out prior to an up-coming Open House and the guys around that table jumped right in to help me with the GP39-2 (turns out it has a continuity problem.)
I had a great time, filled out an application, clipped an "Andy Jackson" to it and gave it to the Treasurer (an NMRA MMR) who shook my hand and said, "Welcome aboard." The club secretary then filled out a work card for me and asked if I'd be available to be an engineer and run a train around the layour for a couple hours during the Open House. (Oh, Geez! Do I have to? I mean, run trains on a very large double deck layout with a wireless throttle for a couple of hours after not having turned a throttle knob for over twenty years! Now that's got to be some kind of punishment!) I did pitch in and grab a "Bright Boy" and cleaned about 30 feet of track, especially frogs (which is where they seemed to be having the most problems with stalling.)
I have a good feeling about this! And I'm sure that being around other people, especially other people with like interests, will be a lot healthier for me than always being alone in my house, left to my own solitary model building! God knows it was good to get out and have a good time with other guys! (And unlike guys I am acquainted with here in this little "burg," they didn't try to see how many times they could use the "F" word in a sentence! That in itself was refreshing!
I look forward to going back over there ... soon!
I got tired of always doing everything alone and never having another model railroader to actually speak with (no offense ... I do truely love your company, but c'mon ... it IS virtual company!
So I drove into Ft. Myers and across the Caloosahatchie River to North Ft. Myers and paid the "Scale Rails of Southwest Florida" a second visit. I took the bare chassis of the OMI GP39-2 with me to possibly do some "group troubleshooting" if things went well. Well, things went better than well, they went great!
Every one was very friendly, there were a couple fellas taking advantage of the well-lit workbenches fixing a a coupler on a box car and scratch-building a small "company house," a couple sitting around a table "chewing the fat," a few having an "impromptu operating session" to identify trackwork problem areas to be sorted out prior to an up-coming Open House and the guys around that table jumped right in to help me with the GP39-2 (turns out it has a continuity problem.)
I had a great time, filled out an application, clipped an "Andy Jackson" to it and gave it to the Treasurer (an NMRA MMR) who shook my hand and said, "Welcome aboard." The club secretary then filled out a work card for me and asked if I'd be available to be an engineer and run a train around the layour for a couple hours during the Open House. (Oh, Geez! Do I have to? I mean, run trains on a very large double deck layout with a wireless throttle for a couple of hours after not having turned a throttle knob for over twenty years! Now that's got to be some kind of punishment!) I did pitch in and grab a "Bright Boy" and cleaned about 30 feet of track, especially frogs (which is where they seemed to be having the most problems with stalling.)
I have a good feeling about this! And I'm sure that being around other people, especially other people with like interests, will be a lot healthier for me than always being alone in my house, left to my own solitary model building! God knows it was good to get out and have a good time with other guys! (And unlike guys I am acquainted with here in this little "burg," they didn't try to see how many times they could use the "F" word in a sentence! That in itself was refreshing!
I look forward to going back over there ... soon!
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln