NASG membership

Tom, I'm a member of the NASG; and I have submitted photos, articles, and videos for the magazine over the years.

Terry O'Kelly

Carlisle, MA

Terry, I am also.  But by the response, it would seem we are the only ones.  I know that's not true... maybe we are the only ones willing to admit it???

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

My goodness,

There must be a few more NASG members on the forum, this is summer season and many people let train stuff go for the warm weather days.

I also am a NASG member, Flyer/highrail guy. I run with Legacy and now have two Bluetooth locomotives that can run with my Legacy equipment.

Ray

I have been a member of the NASG for nearly 30 years and am planning on attending the 2024 convention in Harrisburg. As a personal observation, the NASG has been historically rather neglectful of the Gilbert/Lionel Flyer side of the S hobby. As a consequence, many Flyer folks I know have little interest in the NASG so one may not get many responses here. The organization and the Dispatch have been recently making some effort in a change in direction but there is a lot of ground to be made up as a result of neglecting the majority in the S hobby for so long, regrettably.

For what it is worth.

Bob

I was going to stay quiet, but since Bob Bubeck commented, I will also. I have been an American Flyer and S gauge operator, and collector, literally my entire life. There were times that I also had HO and N gauge but I still had the American Flyer. When I started collecting seriously in the early 1980's I traveled a lot for business. I was able to attend at least one, sometimes two train shows a month in different parts of the country. It provided the opportunity to talk with and learn from many of the "old" experts. When I asked about NASG, the feedback was "they are just scale", "there is no benefit for you to join", "they really do not want American Flyer people", and "you would just be wasting your money." I heard this for 25 years, so I never joined.

Starting in 2008 I began adding Lionel TMCC and Legacy items, plus engines and rolling stock from American Models and SHS. NASG does now have a good historical library of high rail items but not really anything for building a layout, operating with Legacy or conversion of AM engines to TMCC/Railsounds.

In 2015 when I was having my layout designed and built NASG had nothing, but fortunately there were a lot of ads in the S Gaugian and in CTT relevant to high rail sources. There was only one source for numbered high rail turnouts, but unfortunately for us he shut down the business before we could place the order. That was our very own Tom Stoltz. However, Tom had excellent videos of his turnouts posted. I had the layout builder watch them, then approved a change order for the layout builder to hand lay turnouts similar to Tom's. Fortunately Tom proved turnouts could be built that allowed both scale and high rail equipment to be used. NASG had nothing useful.

For someone who operates high rail with AC/Legacy/LCS, I see nothing about the organization that would benefit me. I have no plans to use DCC and no plans to use dead rail on the layout.

Im my collection I have plenty of AM, SHS, AF, LAF, etc., but mostly I design my own 1:64 motive power, which are the rare heavy vintage diesel locomotives. Once there was published an article in the NASG online magazine (S RESOURCE Oct./Nov. 2020) about one of my S scale modeling projects. I need to find some sparetime to write another article for the NASG magazine about my ongoing S scale projects. I miss the S Gaugian.

Unfortunately the S gauge community is divided in so many groups, fine-scalers vs. hi-railers, AC vs. DC, analog vs. digital, Legacy vs. DCC, etc., which is alltogether a rather small market, any way.

Johannis

I joined the NASG 2 or 3 decades ago and recently renewed my membership. I'm primarily a hi-railer but dabble in "scale" equipment as well. What I enjoy about membership includes their monthly print publication "The Dispatch" which contains a lot of info on Gilbert and Lionel AF as well as the other "S" manufacturers: AM, SHS, etc. The "how to" articles are well done by contributing members. I have attended several NASG conventions over the years and found them well-stocked with almost any product from any manufacturer that one could wish for. Last year in Harrisburg, I bought a few things as my budget would allow and had some great conversations with vendors that all of you probably know, at least by name. The problem with the NASG, as I see it, is their inability to get the word out to both members and non-members. Here is a perfect example: I was toying with returning to Harrisburg next month and knew that the convention hotel had an NASG room rate. Yesterday I went to book the room and discovered I had missed the reservation window by a couple of days. This got me to thinking: has there been anything on this forum at all about the convention? I haven't seen anything. I checked the NASG Facebook page and there is nothing I could find there either except someone asked a question about it that went unanswered. I know it is a volunteer organization but if no one knows about your main annual event, you'll have a tough time getting people to show up. Members know about it from the Dispatch but how hard would it be to post updates somewhere other than nasg.org about preferred room rates expiring or the annual convention car offering this year? Just doing that could generate some new memberships by making people aware that the NASG exists. And that is the end of my rant,

ps. "S" Scale Resource Magazine is not an NASG publication

Folks, if you want to attract members, you have to think more broadly than just this forum. So far in this thread, on one has explained exactly what “NASG” stands for, and no one has posted a link to the NASG web site.

NASG = NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF S GAUGERS

WEB SITE LINK

There ya go.

@Rich Melvin posted:

So far in this thread, on one has explained exactly what “NASG” stands for, and no one has posted a link to the NASG web site.

NASG = NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF S GAUGERS

WEB SITE LINK

There ya go.

Rich, I did in the original post.  I didn't link the website because I'm not recruiting.  I am having a separate discussion with another NASG member about why a lot of S people feel the NASG is more about scale than the other aspects of S, Hi-rail and Flyer.

The posts here have been interesting, illuminating, and helpful.  I hope more people join in.

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

@Tom Stoltz posted:

The posts here have been interesting, illuminating, and helpful.  I hope more people join in.

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

There are 7 Board of Trustees, just out of interest, how many of them fall into being predominantly classed as a hirailer/tinplate person for their S interest?

The same question goes for the 14 other support roles.

Out of the 21 above where do they fall within being an S person for standard or narrow gauge?

@Ukaflyer posted:

There are 7 Board of Trustees, just out of interest, how many of them fall into being predominantly classed as a hirailer/tinplate person for their S interest?

The same question goes for the 14 other support roles.

Out of the 21 above where do they fall within being an S person for standard or narrow gauge?

I know the Executive VP has a Hi-rail layout with some Flyer accessories using SHS flex and Tom's Turnouts.  I don't know if he runs any scale, but I do know he could if he chose.  I can't tell the difference between Hi-rail  and scale from the pictures but overall the layout looks like scale. to.  https://www.nasg.org/Layouts/S/indexTempletonLouY.php

The rest, I don't know.  I tried to figure out the BOT from the NASG website but only found two current BOT members.  So this is an interesting question.

In searching NASG member's layouts, there is no Hi-rail category.  Only AF and S (standard-gauge) are mentioned – aside from the narrow gauges.  However there are a lot of layouts to look at and you don’t have to be a member to look.

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

I have been to Lou’s home, it is in the southwest suburbs of Pittsburgh. The layout is all highrail, I am sure it could run scale wheeled equipment. The AF accessories at the time I was there were the log loader, several bridges and a crossing gate.

Here is a picture I took of two Tom’s Turnouts on Lou’s layout. The track is SHS flex.

@Tom Stoltz posted:

I know the Executive VP has a Hi-rail layout with some Flyer accessories using SHS flex and Tom's Turnouts.  I don't know if he runs any scale, but I do know he could if he chose.  I can't tell the difference between Hi-rail  and scale from the pictures but overall the layout looks like scale. to.  https://www.nasg.org/Layouts/S/indexTempletonLouY.php

The rest, I don't know.  I tried to figure out the BOT from the NASG website but only found two current BOT members.  So this is an interesting question.

In searching NASG member's layouts, there is no Hi-rail category.  Only AF and S (standard-gauge) are mentioned – aside from the narrow gauges.  However there are a lot of layouts to look at and you don’t have to be a member to look.

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

Visited the link and it is a really nice looking detailed layout, one that a lot of people would be proud to own.