Well, I went in on Saturday (March 10), and I'm now an apprentice member of the Pasadena Model Railroad Club!
The C&O Shall Ride On In California!
So, I need to put 80 hours of time on the layout before I get voted in, so I have a long road ahead. In the mean time, I gotta invest in my C&O train set and a DCC system, seeing as it'll take me about 20ish weeks (Tuesdays are a no-go for me, so I can only make the meetings on Saturdays. It's a school night, after all.)
I plan on modeling an early 60's Pere Marquette using the Walthers George Washington cars. The nice thing about that train is that they weren't all that long in real life (one locomotive, a baggage or two, a few coaches, maybe a diner? and a 10-6), so it's not as much of a financial burden on me like say, a 20th Century or Broadway Limited. It'll run me about 600 big ones, which may seem like a lot, but I can always cut down on things I don't need, like extra coaches and baggages.
And, it's not even like the cars are coming anytime soon. The 10-6's without skirts and HW baggages are coming this month, while everything else is coming in June. I expect the Great Train Show to yield a few cars while I'm there, but who knows?
I'm gonna snag a GreenFrog Productions "Detroit Passenger Trains of the 60's and 70's" Blu-Ray for some reference material, also.
It sounds like you got your foot into the door of a good club.
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I hope your plans work out well and you get voted in.
-Kevin
Living the dream.