HO Scale Membership
			Updated: January 12, 2021

Membership

Membership in HO Scale usually hovers around 35. The degree of member participation varies depending on an individual's time availability, but about half the membership takes part in work sessions. Some members, because of travel or other commitments, participate less frequently. Many participate more.

Associate membership status is available for those who belong to another club but would like to participate in our club on a limited basis.

Besides working on the layout, HO members enjoy railfanning and participating in the local NMRA meets and auctions.

No particular skills are required for membership. Our members have diverse interests and talents.

For more information, e-mail our Trainmaster Jeff Robinson (ho_scale_info@gsmrm.org).

Member Participation Responsibilities

The club (EBMES) meets once a month - on the first Saturday of each month - for a general meeting - with the Annual Meeting and elections for the Board in December. Golden State Museum Annual Meeting is held in May.

HO scale meetings are held on the second Saturday of even months. These are especially important to attend.

Full Members are asked to crew on Sundays as often as possible - Associates about once per quarter. It takes a minimum of 5 crew members to run the layout for the Sunday public shows. But we can handle a max. of about 15 with all areas running ! There is also a Museum requirement that each member does door and docent duty twice a year (you automatically become a Museum Member when you join the scale).

Equipment Requirements

HO scale only provides specialized cars used for track cleaning purposes. Members provides all motive power and freight cars. We have a check-in procedure to ensure that equipment meets scale standards. The main ones are:

• All equipment must be DCC equipped
• Motive power is expected to run reliably during public run sessions. We have facilities to clean wheels but not for major repairs or tuning.
• Freight cars must be free rolling on a 3 degree slope, have metal wheels and weighted to NMRA standards (1 oz + 1/2 oz for each inch of length). One ~ 27K ohm "detection" axle is required on every car (2 on cars over 70 ft in length) for our track occupancy detection system. We have a supply of surface resistors and "wire glue" for members to make up their own detector axles.
• All cars left on the layout must be labelled with the owner's unique number which is assigned once you become a member (Full or Associate).
• Since we have limited storage space, Full Members are limited to leaving no more than 2 yard-track consists on the layout - about 50 cars. We continue to add storage lockers for those wishing to leave additional equipment at the club. Associates generally bring their own equipment and take it home because they tend to run less frequently. Accomodations can be made for those Associates who consistently run more frequently.

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