How to find the right railway

There are many factors which determine if a railway club is right for you and sometimes it is hard to check them all beforehand…

Usually you do not want to spend too much time commuting to the railway, so something close to your home is nice. Check the Overview Map of railways for something close to you… But you can also check if they provide some opportunity to work for a specific time and provide accomodation. At the Dampfbahn Fränkische Schweiz, for example, there is a very active group of people from Berlin, who come to Ebermannstadt for a week or so in summer, work the whole week and get accomodated by the DFS either in the train station or in a specific wagon (Bauwagen).

Most railway clubs are not the type of people you meet at Chaos events (but some are quite close…). There will be people you won't like, but this is life. To check out if you get along with the people at a club, take a ride on their train and talk to their people. Go to their workshop and ask, if you can join for a day or two to figure out if you like it. Most clubs are open to “trial time”

Check if they have a special contact for interested people, and mail them. Most clubs will be happy to show you around and talk to you for some time to answer your questions and for both sides to check out if it would be a good fit.

Railway clubs tend to be more on the old white men side of thinking. There are usually few to no women and even less openly non-binary people in railway clubs. However, appearences might mislead, some people are quite different to how they look like…

You will in generally encounter a more conservative and white male middle class environment than you would at Chaos events. But railway people tend to be more focussed on a social society than an individual society, so even the conservative people have some overlap with social democrats or even further to the left. This might vary from club to club. But: you might also encounter occasional people voting for far-right parties, so if this is an issue for you, check the local club before. Mostly it is unpolitical, but if you go to a pub after work, you might have one or other policital discussion with other people in the club…