Large Scale Central

NMRA Panel Discussion

General Discussion
#43

Responding to Bob’s original question.

This has taken some time for me, since I don’t know what NMRA offers, or doesn’t, for us. I wanted to see how NMRA might benefit me, by looking up their activities. So here goes.

  1. Discounts. Raw materials are often offered in sizes useful to LS folks, and the NMRA discount might well apply to such purchases. IMO, NMRA should really go for any “scalable” raw material discounts, e.g., Plastruct, Mt Alberts, Testors, Evergreen, Reynolds, etc.

  2. Gauges. NMRA has standards gauges offered for sale in N, HO, O & S, both standard and narrow gauges. Why would they not have the same for all the “G” “gauges” / “scales”? Seems like a no brainer to do, and a deliberate “not welcome” sign if not.

  3. Contests. Should apply to LS, I don’t see why it wouldn’t. Ditto for their educational programs.

  4. Groups. Chapters & SIG’s, while technically open to LS, will always be primarily populated by small scalers. But if Devon showed up with his donkey, maybe they’d all be his new best friends, who knows? Just sayin.

  5. Resources. Their prototype archives and experts might be very useful, depending on the RR you cared about.

  6. Controls. Seems like NMRA is a great place to learn about DCC, and understand where it and LCC are heading. That’s applicable to me, but at this point in my life I don’t have the bandwidth to pay much attention.

  7. Conventions. If you’re retired (I’m not, but want to be) and want something new to do, heck, why not.

Well Bob, that’s all I got.
Cliff

#44

Cliff; if they are going to offer support for DCC, and LCC, why not R/C Battery maybe that should be #8 on your list. Heck there are some people even going in that direction in HO, and O. NWSL was at one time offering RC in smaller scales. As batteries get smaller, it is the way to go, for realistic operations.
Fred Mills

#45

Bob,

Thank you for this thread. It prompted me to go and look at the NMRA website and to at least review some of its standards. With the caveat that my location on the remote borders of the empire shapes my view, I’ll take your questions in order:

  1. How do you view the NMRA? It is a remote organization. The one club that was out here folded sometime in the last couple years. The division that includes Hawaii has an active newsletter and has active club events, but its landing page is out of date. I already belong to the closest “large scale” (LS) club, the Rose City Garden Railway Society, and for the dues I get an newsletter with immediately useful articles, access to the track locker, and, of course, e-mail contact with fellow enthusiasts at least near my timezone.
  2. How do you view the NMRAs standards? I am sure they are fine. I was shocked to find standards for Zn2 but only a handful of the grab bag of scales running on 45 mm track. To be fair, this was a random sampling.
  3. How do you think the NMRA views Large Scale? No opinion.
  4. Are any of you NMRA members? No. As stated in my answer to Question #1, the NMRA has no immediate relevance. I did write the local club when it was still around, but they never wrote back. Had they written me, I would be both a member of the club and the NMRA. Now, the point is moot.
  5. Why do you think that the NMRA treats Large Scale as the red-headed step child? No opinion.
  6. Have you experienced any kind of feedback from the NMRA directly, or is it “I heard that…?” I never had reason to ask for NMRA feedback, and, until this evening, hand no reason to ask anyone about their experiences.
  7. Have any of you ever submitted an article about LS to Model Railroader, or any other non-LS magazine and had it rejected? No. I did get an article in Tropical Fish Hobbyist, though, extolling the virtues of running a railroad around an outdoor pond! In all seriousness, I have not tried to write for the broader model railroading community. Instead, I have written for the LS community via the RCGRS newsletter, and one of those articles subsequently made it into GRNews. Did I err? Should I have written for the hobby writ large first, then sent the article to our niche community only after a rejection?
  8. Is it because there is no LS content in magazines in general? I subscribe to MR, as, at least for me, it has things to teach that scale up. In my case, between the RCGRS newsletter and GRNews, I guess I am just not missing the LS content in MR.

In short, I am unable to meaningfully comment on the NMRA’s technical standards. I would love to adhere to its scale standards, but not at the cost of being able to run our railroad in the space and budget we have. I would consider membership, though, if the NMRA served a valuable social function, like this website and the RCGRS.

Sorry if this is not all that helpful.

Eric

#46

Fred, I’m not knowledgeable about why they do or don’t choose to support certain things, but it seems like interoperability between manufacturers is a key thing.

DCC (and I think LCC) involves codes, CV’s, frequencies, etc., so that one controller can talk to a different manufacturer’s decoder. So NMRA has had a big hand in nailing down standards for that, it seems to have been effective.

For R/C, are there similar areas? Perhaps standardizing things like control frequencies & channels & etc. would have made products more interoperable. But it might be too late? Don’t know. I suppose it would be nice if all ESC’s talked to all railroad-purposed transmitters, at least in the main functions. Is that what you mean?

#47

(Quote)
" I would again like to open the discussion. How do you view the NMRA? How do you view the NMRAs standards? How do you think the NMRA views Large Scale? How do you think the NMRA could provide benefit to Large Scale as a whole? Are any of you NMRA members?"

I don’t think MNRA standards apply to the majority of us that model Narrow Gauge. Two foot, three foot and meter gauge. Most of these railroads out shopped their own equipment for their particular needs.
As for my view, I think the NMRA views large scale as a scale that can’t work together nice because of the various “modern standard gauge” running on the same gauge track. 1:24, 1:32, 1:29 and whatever LGB scale used for their American series.
So I, speaking for myself, says the NMRA should quit concerning themselves about us as a group and just work with HO, which is why they formed the association in the first place.

#48

I do respect those who this topic is important to them, we all have our personal thoughts on things, I do for sure, but this topic for G Scale will just run in circles with all the different scales/gauges, or how ever you see it. You will need 5-6 different set of rules for each one, good luck on that.

trainman

#49

While I agree that you need to produce standards for couplers, wheels, track, etc., for each scale, I don’t see why that isn’t possible. Maybe if NMRA stopped worrying about “G scale” and concentrated on F scale and A scale we might get somewhere.

#50

Pete - Haven’t they already done that? I don’t know if it was ever “approved” but I recall years ago seeing proposed standards for several of the “G” scales.

Interoperability between all the scales that run on Gauge 1 track would be an exercise in futility and result in compromises that would not please scale purists.

#51

At the end of the seminar, the NMRA ‘rep’ or whatever he was that was listening in to the panel asked about people sending in articles about large scale. Stan (I think it was him) turned it around and said that if the NMRA wants interest in the NMRA from large scale, they could reach out, here, for example. The RR publishing community (online and print) isn’t run by the NMRA, so they can freely reject articles that they dont think have any value, but I believe that if the NMRA starts showing they are interested, that would show a lot of good will.

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#52

The publishing community isn’t as smart as they might think they are. They REALLY need to tell folks the type of article that they ARE looking for - NOT just reject articles and say “that’s NOT what we’re looking for!” (Here, I’m just remembering my experience with Garden Railways magazine - NOT the NMRA :innocent: )

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#53

Yea, that was sort of my point. “Have they sent in articles?” Yes, those that have had their articles rejected.

Model trains is a shrinking hobby, and I don’t really know if its possible to turn that around. Personally, I’m not sure what value the NMRA provides, so this discussion might be pointless anyway.

2 Likes
#54

Bob Your last 2 statements is just what I have been thinking

#55

Well, they proposed it but I don’t know if it is any official document. Maybe I should read one or two.

My thoughts exactly. However, Bob’s intro says “Large Scale”, so I guess it is up the the Panel to set them straight?

#56

Thanks for participating Bob, and for the report. All great points.

I’ve often referred to this Wikipedia chart, for one reason or another. If the chart included an “NMRA-supported” column, I wonder how many would have a check next to them?