Burlington County (NJ) Model Railroad Club Open House

[Green_Elite_Cab]

"... Reasonable set of skills" ... My ... aren't you modest!

Have they seen the locomotive for which you built the mold and cast your own shell? Good grief! Not just any Hobby Harry with a layout at home can do that, or would even attempt it!

Actually they have, but i know they don't really know what i'm about, though i can see why they look at me the way they do. They're under the impression that i'm a "Passenger guy" and that i like to run the trains. They haven't really seen my layout (haven't really shown any pictures though), and have only seen a few of my buildings.

Just looking at my layout thread, every other post is either a Transit Vehicle or a book about one. My last few models have ALL been a commuter of some type. My last couple models look something like this- Silverliner IV in the summer, two Silverliner IIIs over the fall, an NJ transit GP40FH-2 for a contest piece. Now i've got 15 Arrow IIIs, PATCOs, possibly a free Light Rail Vehicle and i'm ordering a third Silverliner III that i found, and have another Silverliner IV on hold when they arrive. my most reliable trains are my NJ transit and SEPTA push-pull commuter trains (visible in the above pictures and in my Avatar here). Its what they see me do there. Even here, my fellow conrail modelers bust my chops because i've got all these Passenger projects lined up.

The truth is, building industries is one of my favorite things. I get to learn about how it all works, and get a feel for something i don't encounter in everyday life. I love building other structures and infrastructure. Its all very interesting to me. I love running operations, and i love just running a few Geeps around and switching out the cars. The passenger stuff is only big news to me, because as anyone who models such things can tell you, Electric MUs are far and few between, so i'm generally excited when i come across such kits. I can't say i don't enjoy running my push pulls and MUs, but thats only part of the picture.

We don't have those types of problems ... of course, I'm the newest guy and i have a couple of projects lined up in succession. But they were going begging, no one seemed interested and I wanted to do what I could to contribute, so I jumped in as the new guy and volunteered. We only have about 35 members, at least half of which are "Snowbirds" and treat the club sort of as a social club for like-minded individuals. In a effort to attract new blood that will actually do something, the initial membership fee was lowered ... I jumped on the opportunity! A dollar saved is a dollar saved, especially being retired in this sad economy!

Actually, they ended up creating a billion committees at the last business meeting. We now have (on top of standards) a Layout committee, and Train/Rolling Stock Committee, and Advertising committee. Its All in the interest of preventing stupid stuff from happening (not trying to insult people, but sometimes their quality of work isn't on par with the rest of the layout and it doesn't fit in or look good). Now i have to wait a little longer to get my building projects on a roll, and i now before show seasons i have to try and explain to a rolling stock committee why my commuter trains aren't at NMRA specifications (in terms of weight. Wheels and such are good to go).

Don't get me wrong ... there is a core group of fellows who are there at The Depot (what we call the club's building) at least once a week, if not on all three days that we're open. Each of those guys has some task or tasks that they're involved in, from the small group that is developing a schedule for freight operations, based on the prototype, that can hopefully be folded into the passenger schedule, again, based on the prototype, to a couple guys who are doing track maintenance at any spots marked with a small square of blue painte's tape, to the resident Electrical Engineer wiring up a systems of "Traffic Status Boards," showing train locations within that Tower's area of responsibility, to be mounted on the Fascia for when T.O.'s speak on the radios with the Dispatchers (2 - one for each "Division.")

No one seems upset that I have taken on the projects that I have ... in fact, I have been thanked for volunteering.

They're just a good bunch of real gentlemen who all love model railroading!

Well, in the past it was all volunteering, but a few people just started "working on things", and the results were, honestly, not good. someone tried to make a moutain with a big rectangular pile of insulation foam board, and covered it with plaster gauze, then painted it black and put pipe cleaner trees on it. It was eventually my job to tear it down and remove it. I felt bad, people spent time on it, but it not only looked like a pile of brown gauze, but it actually hung over the mainline tracks and hit trains. It sat like that for months, with clearly no attempt to make it "mesh in".

This and a bunch of other problems revolving around scenery and train quality (in terms of function, not appearance) have really driven my club to try and get things to a particular level. We're getting to many "NEW" new members, who don't even have much of any experience with model trains. I have no problem helping people learn, but as the older guys put it, "if you going to do it, do it right the first time!".

Thats actually whats holding me up, since they want me to now to ALL OUT on this city, not just make it presentable. Not really in my comfort level, but i'll go for it.