The genesee and ontario model n-gineers.
I have known this club most of my life but haven't been in the hobby for a decade and a half.
Recently though, I reached out and joined.
I ran into the guys in the club years back at the Rochester Makerspace, I was hosting a meetup of synthesizer enthusiasts at the time. I asked them what the state of the hobby was at the time. They informed me about ttrak and everything and I neatly tucked that into my memory for someday.
I finally though, a month ago now, joined. I also attended my first show as well, the RIT Tiger Tracks train show. Which was absolutely fantastic. I, honestly, forgot I could have so much fun, and have confirmed my complex PTSD is alive and well because these fellas in this club were so open, and kind, and generous. They really were so awesome.
I was drawn to their older format, N-Trak. It was a much larger layout with operating potential, and also the height of the format makes for great model railfanning.
The head (at least currently to my knowledge) of the the ntrak division of the club, Bob, came right up to me and helped me hook up my dcc to a line on the layout so I could run some trains, which I promptly did! I had a 50-car train headed by a 3-locomotive consist at the head end. It was so fun.
When I had questions everyone approached me with trust, maturity, and understanding. Something, in the music world, I am not used to experiencing. This is going to take some time to get used to!
That afternoon when things wound down on day 1, they invited me along to dinner at a Chinese buffet up the road, but I had already had plans to visit some synthesizer pals down in ithaca.
Mother nature had other plans.
As soon as we left the building. The wind started.
I drove back to the apartment and immediately got a call from my mom, her power went out. My weekend was now over because she is not well equipped to be without power in her condition. I was absolutely heartbroken. I had planned for weeks for this weekend, and now I was sleeping on my moms uncomfortable couch in a dark, cold, silent house. Holding my dog trying to keep him warm.
During the convention, I had met a very kind guy at a booth selling stuff who had kindly lent me some metal wheels to try out on some cars, I had to go back to rit and give him money for them. The guy trusted me, a complete stranger with $60 of wheels, and I was going to stop at nothing to make sure that trust wasn't betrayed.
So I drove back, groggy, sore, sad. Walked by the club to tell them the sad news. No running trains today, no ithaca last night, no nothing. Just going to sit in a cold, dark silent house for the remainder of my vacation days basically.
They were all so understanding about it, Rick said to me "family comes first" which was a breath of fresh air given that in my work life, everything I've ever had happen in my life, comes second to hocking junk in a retail store.
So that was a total bust of a weekend, save for the 4-5 hours on day 1 that were wonderful, too bad my weekend turned on me immediately after.
I hope the club continues with their openness to me, they have been around 30 years, and i'm 29.
I have so many ambitious ideas for the club, maybe see if they want a website, or if I could help modernise and fix up the older ntrak modules. Maybe even host some club fun-run days.
We'll see!
-Rob B
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