Bill Wade said . . . . . . by dropping your NMRA membership the percentage of S representation in the NMRA is thereby lowered . . . . . . . Now if we could get all the known S modelers to join, I think that is about 5,000, S would have a larger voice and the attitudes might change. > > > > > > > > --------Response--------- Absolutely right.
Think globally, act locally, they say. Probably most of us will form an opinion of the NMRA by how comfortable we feel with the local division of the NMRA. I found time this past fall to attend some of my NMRA division's meetings, and the reception of the guys (mostly HO, a few N) was pretty much "Hey, we need an S gauger to round us out." The NMRA regional fall convention was in Lansing, so I couldn't miss it. One of the tours was to a warehouse and plant where they daily receive scores covered steel coil cars. We were walked around the facility, saw the big cranes removing the covers from the cars and unloading the coils and placing them somewhere in this big building. Outside, we watched a train pull in to the siding to pick up and set out coil cars, and the condutor asked the plant manager "who are these guys (the tour group)?" The manager explained we were model railroaders from a local convention. "Well, OK," the conductor said, "I guess they can watch, except that S gauger there," pointing at me. The conductor turned out to be a man I had known from my days in the local HO club, and of course he was joking. There was an extra-cost clinic on how to solder a structure. We all made, or at least made a good start on, a PRR signal bridge. We had only two choices, HO or N. I did the HO model, and I now have an HO signal bridge about 85% complete somewhere in my house. I might grumble "No S because the hate us." But my overall evaluation of the experience was, this is great, I can do it, I may yet get my John Beveridge GP-35 loco brass kit out and build it. One of the convention's activities was a talk by Tony Koester on the state of model railroading. I sat between two HO guys I've know for a long time, one of them Milt Moore (the Thumbs cartoonist). One could go on and on about how HO people (the NMRA) hate us, but I would suggest it's all a matter of attitude, and I think it's fun to get to know modellers in other scales. Tom Hawley -- Lansing Mich Change your membership, change your message settings, use our CALENDAR, view shared files or photos, view the list archives, GO TO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
