Every move to and from a show has the potential for damaging modules, and this move was no exception.  During the pack-up process, after the show, one of the wooden pads that go between modules, managed to fall down onto Ken’s corner module and broke the edge of the roof on Ken’s carefully made, scratch built, farm house.  This was a very irritating incident because of the newness of the module, and because of the workmanship that Ken had put into the assembly of the house. However, Ken managed to come out ahead by placing a broken tree onto that part of the house, then adding a repair truck and two or three workers in the yard.  An excellent recovery from an otherwise, disgusting accident.

The last two shows of 1997 saw us fall back to the simple “L” shaped layout. Bryan Weidner was limited for space at his Summer Show, so our “L” shaped layout fit his needs perfectly.  However, several of the SANTRAK members seemed to be out of town or otherwise occupied at the time of the AMRE Show in October.  Consequently, our layout at that show was somewhat smaller than it had been at previous shows.  This apparent lack of interest may also have been brought about by the comments and discussions that had been taking place between four or five of our members over the past several months.

As I said before, the year 1996 was our club’s year for big layouts and our biggest layout was at the AMRE Show in October of that year.  There is a lot of work involved in the disassembly, movement and re-assembly of a modular layout.  Consider a layout that is normally on display in a semi-permanent location, and the work factor doubles for any given show.  Finally, add the additional modules for a large layout and one soon realizes why some of our members were getting tired and beginning to loose interest.  Yes, there is a lot of work involved, but there is also a lot of satisfaction and pleasure to be gained when the crowds gather around the club layout, compliment the overall layout and ask questions about certain modules.  The highest level of pleasure though, comes when an individual begins to ask questions about joining the club. After all, isn’t that what NTRAK is all about?

We did tend to overload ourselves that year, but that was not the only thing that was being discussed during the latter part of 1997. The problem with those discussions was the fact that they were not being voiced during club meetings. Instead, they were being voiced outside of the club environment and within very small groups.  Up until that time, our club had been a loosely knit, disorganized, but very compatible group.  Club membership had ranged from about eight to eighteen members, with a core group of about eight members that had been in the club from the early years. It was this core group that usually showed up at designated meeting times, brought up subjects for discussion, and tried to provide some form of leadership for the club. Their pleas for suggestions and/or ideas often resulted in silence, or the age old comment, “What ever the Club decides, it is OK with me”. This worked as long as we had about fifteen members. However, we suddenly realized we had over thirty paid up members !!! This was the result of our displays at the shows along with our display at the Mall. We had impressed people with the idea of N-Scale model railroading, but we were now faced with the problems of a club membership that had practically doubled.

The increase in membership over the last two years, was a good selling point for the discussions that began to be voiced as we went into 1998. The Club needed a set of By-Laws!!! By-Laws would cure all of our problems!!!