Model railroading - a solo or social activity?

[Green_Elite_Cab]

And yet, model railroad clubs and groups are everywhere. It's a paradox.

Yes, but those clubs and groups (like this forum) are the only social modeling outlet. And you have to know they exist.

Every show season since i've been part of our train club, we get several model railroaders who didn't even know there was a large club "down the street" from them. This indicates to me that other than maybe bumping into people on occaisional hobby shop visits, they're not socializing that much with the hobby.

I STRONGLY suspect there are far more "solo" model railroaders out there than we realize, with large model railroad clubs just seeming more vocal because, not suprisingly, they attract the social type.

Once again, At my club, half of all the big projects are done at the person's home and then brought to the club. WHOLE layout sections have been trucked in from the basements of club members. Many show up on off days to do their work alone. They do socialize on the meetings, but far less work appears to be done, and much of the time its troubleshooting eachothers equipment. Some members come expressly for the purpose of running trains because they have no layout.

To some of these people, i think socializing is secondary. They just want a larger layout to work from than what they themselves have or are capable of.