Irv, if it's that important, contact some other N scalers and work with them to set up a meet that includes a component you can attend - either on a weeknight or on a Sunday.

I understand what you are saying Dan. I've never been into narrow gauge and the chnaces of me ever getting into it are about as likely as snow falling on NYC in July. But that doesn't mean I disappove of narrow gauge because I don't. If that is what you like so be it.

As for the prevalence of HO Scale I belive it dominates solely because most model railroad trainsets sold in Toys 'r Us and other places come come In HO Scale and thus that s what virtually everybody is introduced to these days. and peole tend to buy what they know and are comfortable with. They generally don't realize ther are other scales until they've been in the hobby for a while and come to realize that HO has certain minimum space requirements and they either realize they don't have the space and give up the hobby altogether or try to acquire the space at some future point in time. If they live in place like NYC and live in an apartment they may nevre get the space and thus may look for another hobby to the place of model railroading. Some will most likely never evn consider the smaller scales like N and Z primarily because they have never seen them or even heard about them.

I rasn into a space problem with HO because i lived in two-bedroom apartment when I first got started in 1977. I couldn't set up a 4 by 8 Plywood Pacific because it took up to much space in the living room and my wife thought it would be better to have friends visit with us than have layout taking up much of the space. So I tried a temporary set up where the layout would be set up when I wante run trains (I hadn't even heard of operations back then). So tried that but it quickly Prove unworkable because it took to lng to set up and break down and store when not in use. That's when I discovered N-Scale> I found I could finnally do something in a space measuring 2' x 4' and doing the same things in N I could do in 4 x 8 in HO and it was heck of a lot easier to set up and break down.

I finally got the space to devote to a permanent layout in 1982 when I was ble to buy a basement with a house attached. Even then I didn' get the whole basement because my wife dictate dthat it would be nice to have a laundry room, an area where the kids could play or we could entertain friends without using the living room and I coul dhave the rest. So that's how I got my 12' 3" x 15' train room. Even then the train room wasn't all capable of being used for trains since I needed to leave a path so that one could get to the laundry room and boiler room without ging through the other part of the basement. so only 12' 3" x 11' of that room could be used for a layout. after considering all of the space limitations, and what I had already invested in N-Scale I decided not go back to HO and sat with N because to do about 4 times as much in tha space. I began building an N-Scale empire and worked on it until 1987 when life gpt in the wayand started woking lots of extra hours to support my wife, myself and our three sons. I no longer had time do anything hobby related except read about it. That lasted until April 2007 when the company I worked for shut down.

That combined with the facts that my health wasn't as god as it could have been and that NYc was already in economic distres due the availble jobs being exported due to government mismanagement and the fact that NYS and NYC try to even tax the air you breathe I was forced to retire.

I didn't like sitting around listening to my arteries harden and wear my pants at chest level. So I looked for soeting to keep me busy. So I looked in one of the drawers of what had been bedroom vanity and iscovered my N-Scale stuff and my unfinished layout. The layput itself was a shambles as it had become storage place for all sorts of stuff no one had any use for and had thus crushed most of the buildings and the turntable I had installed and the tracks leading ro a major yard. Some of the track was salvageable and so was the station. But everything else had to go. At that point I realized that I wouldn't be able run trains unril I built a new layout a cleaned out the train room. That was going to take time so I looked for a N-Scale club to joim that had a layout and that's how I got involved with Brooklyn N-Trak. I had also determined that my equipment which hadn' turned a wheel since 1987 was likely to need to be serviced before I could use it and that I would need t fid somebody who would do it for me and I found that person at the club.

Irv

I haven't gotten a chnace to lay any track on my own layout and one of the reasons for that is that I'ld like to get a chance to operate but I can't seem to come up wit workable track plan.

Nor as it would seem a workable spell check program.

Sorry, but it's a pet peeve of mine, and one that I am sure many of us out there reading these posts would agree with, weather they will admit it or not. It would make reading and thus understanding your posts a heck of a lot easier, and just might get people to be a little more apt to want to help you, but maybe I'm wrong. And this is not about someone's ability, (or lack thereof) to spell correctly (it happens to everybody now and again, even to me), but rather it's about taking the time and more importantly, the care to read over what you type before hitting "save" and/or using a spell check program when trying to get ones point across. I just happen to be the guy who has no problem coming out and saying it, however. And I'll gladly say no more.

RAH

 I debated joining the NMRA for years. I found it challenging to find a compelling reason to do so. However, last year I found it. Our local group of modelers was given the opportunity to establish a trolley museum. It was decided that it would be an all NMRA club for insurance purposes. Also, that same group of modelers decided to place a bid for the 2014 NMRA convention. So, I felt compelled to join. I then found a boatload of videos available for rent from the Kalmbach Library. So far my value for the money is coming out even. I hope to get more value by the end of the year.

Jaime

p/s our bid for the 2014 convention was not successful.

The N Scaler's already have a national convention - I actually went to their train show for a day when it was in Portland a year or so ago. 

http://www.nationalnscaleconvention.com/  - this is still advertising the 2010 convention, which was in June in Houston, TX

When I heard of the NMRA changing the brand to the acronym, is why didn't they change the name to reflect the current situation?  75 years ago when that first group of model railroaders got together to form an organization to create standards of interoperability for model railroad equipment, National Model Railroad Association may have seemed to be a huge reach, since at the time it was more of a local Milwaukee group.  Today the NMRA membership stretches throughout the world.  Maybe changing the name to "International Model Railroad Association" seems like too big of a change, or it may be that IMRA.org is already owned by someone else.  I'm kind of curious if there was any discussion of changing the name to reflect the scope of the current NMRA?

"International" was discussed, and one NMRA official from the UK put it best:

"We belong to the NMRA because we like North American railroading. To change the name of the organization to the 'International' Model Railroaders Association would be an arrogant move on the part of you Yanks and is not something we modelers outside North America would support."

So that settled it - the NMRA it remains.

I was curious.  I don't talk religion on secular boards, but a Christian friend from Australia once told me that the Australians and Europeans preferred the New International Version (NIV) translation of the Bible rather than the New American Standard because they felt the NASB was too American.  I had thought just the opposite, that NMRA for a world wide organization was sounding arrogant. 

In any event I like the direction and thinking of the "new" NMRA.  I also think that making the NMRA archives available to all, but giving members a discount on purchases should also help the NMRA recruit members among those who would search the archives for plans or pictures to model from.