Originally Posted by SantaFeJim:
Here are mine. Your milage may vary.
It might, indeed. In the 90s, I was a founding member of a HO module group in Florida. Worst experience ever, so much so it drove me from the hobby for several years.
So , based on my experiences, I pose ten reason not to join a module group:
10. You have to deal with people who want everything their way and will go out of their way to make sure that happens, regardless what everyone else wants (and they probably own the corner modules).
9. You get to listen to other members tell you that your carpentry, electrical and scenery making skills suck royally.
8. You learn how a team can often never come to a consensus on anything, and that a small 'chosen few' can enforce their will on the rest of the group.
7. You get to run on a large layout... in a loop. No realistic operations, just run a train in a loop for an hour, then someone says, "Hey, let's run my consist in a loop now!" It soon gets as interesting as watching paint dry.
6. You get to run really long trains, until someone whines like a schoolgirl that they never get to run their trains, so your stuff gets yanked after 5 minutes.
5. You learn nothing about how real railroads operate because other than amusement parks, no railroad ever runs in an eternal loop (and never stops for anything other than swapping out rolling stock because everyone else is bored).
4. You have to watch only the equipment owned by the biggest whiners (or the guys in the 'inside circle") run and never yours. They also tell you how much more awesome their stuff is than anything you own.
3. You get to hear the most bone-headed questions ever from the public.
2. You can have to endure breakfast, lunch and/or dinner with the local mouth-breather, slack-jawed, a-hole foamer types who have zero social graces or awareness of personal hygiene.
And the top reason for never joining a modular train club is:
1. You devote all you time, effort and money into a module that isn't quite what you wanted, running equipment you don't like very much, dealing with the worst of humanity and egos the size of small planets, all while enduring condescending attitudes from people you'd really love to hit over the head with an anvil. Then, the day comes where it dawns on you that you could build you own small layout at home, have it just like you wanted and have a blast running your own trains instead.
Yes, it's a PITA to fix the modules all the time, they do get beat up traveling around.
