Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
I have been a member since 1972.
The standards are very important - just look at the command and control systems that predated DCC - everyone proprietary and not widely used. The standards are why you can buy DCC equipped locomotives and DCC ready for a plugin decoder. The other standards are just as important. It's why your DC locomotive from Bachmann works with your MRC power pack.
In my early days the Bulletin under Whit Towers was a great publication. It's still pretty good these days as Scale Rails. Some of the books have been pretty good too.
I also bought the Heritage Car series until they stopped doing them in S.
I enjoy the division meets I get to.
While it's a little pricey, I think it's worthwhile.
Enjoy
Paul
No, I am not a member, nor have I ever supported it. However, I do acknowledge that I must be the beneficiary, even if in a small way, of the collective work they have done on behalf of the hobby. I understand that their work in standards for the various scales has probably forced considerable conformity among the manufacturers over time with its accompanying interchangeability of like-labelled parts...say a #6 turnout. While there is sure to be variance, I believe it is far less than it would have been.
-Crandell
Yup, been a member since 1986 or so. I haven't been able to get to a division meet for a while, but I've enjoyed the ones I've been to. Did get to go the national convention when it was in St.Paul in 1999.
Without the NMRA the hobby would be far behind where it is now. They/we set the standards for everything from wheels to DCC that allowed interchangeability. Think what a mess it would be if everyone who bought a Digitrax DCC system could only used Digitrax decoders, NCE users only NCE decoders etc.
I use to belong to it some year ago but it got too expensive. I have a big pile of the NMRA bulletins with loads of good information. I also used their library search service a few times and obtained a lot of good data, plus a lot of photos of projects in magazines that are no longer avaialble.
Generally the people who do not like it, just do not like organizations or think they can run it better and use any excuse they can find to justify their dislike.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
Tim Fahey
Musconetcong Branch of the Lehigh Valley RR
No. Mostly I think because I really don't know anything about the organization, beyond its existence, and it has certainly never reached out to me.
Secondly, I belonged to a local club for one year. They were supposedly the big spin off from the NMRA division. If that club is what the NMRA is like....well, I am not much interested. However, I can be persuaded.
This is an easy one. I am just wonering how many of us support the NMRA and maybe a SHORT why or why not.
Inquiring minds want to know?
Mike
“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” -- John Lennon