Ok, my response:

1.  Yes
2.  I had been in the NMRA as a teenager back in the 1960s. I even submitted a winning design for their 1969 golden spike centennial letterhead. After re-engaging in model railroading in 2007, I thought about rejoining but at the time did not. There's a club in New Orleans that I thought about joining that requires 100% NMRA membership so they can get NMRA sponsored insurance.  I never did join because I was traveling so much at the time and was never there when they had meetings. I finally did join the NMRA last year, mostly out of curiosity in to see what I could gain from being a member. I mostly hoped to make contact with other model railroaders that might be in the area that I didn't know about.

3.  Actually, nothing up to now.

4. I was able to post a very detailed description of my layout on their website in a directory that they have, thinking that someone would respond and want to come visit. The only other listings in the area were the club that I had already seen and didn't join, and a contemporary diesel era layout I wasn't interested in seeing. In 6 months I've heard from no one. At first I thought some of the members of the club might call, but none have. I know they are all modern era mainline types who would have no interest in my branch line steam operation.

5.  The upcoming national convention this year will be in the Dallas area. It's a little far to travel for me, but not as far as St. Louis was last year. I did find out that the entrance fee to the convention only covers you getting to the front door and standing in the hall. Every event in there it appears has some kind of additional fee to attend. So it could really add up to a lot more than the retired on a pension me could afford. i'm still thinking about Dallas this summer, but unlikely that I will go. The layout tours are all gigantic layouts like I could never have, plus no one appears to be interested in the kind of railroad that I'm trying to create.

So, all in all, in my case, NMRA membership does not appear to be worth the $70 or so annual fee. I might re-join a second time just to go to Dallas, if I decide to, but it's a pretty long way to go for me,  and the total expense will be unknown until I get there and decide which individual activity I would wish to attend.

The NMRA does have a few full-time employees, but most of the operation appears to be a hierarchy of volunteer officials from national level, branching down to multiple regions with all kinds of officers.  I don't know what kind of power brokering goes on, but after re-joining, I fail to gain a warm and fuzzy feeling about this organization.

Log in and report.

1.  Are you in the NMRA?
2.  Why or why not?
3.  What benefits have you experienced from membership?
4.  Are you in regular contact with any other local members?
5.  Have you attended any conventions?

I'll respond with my comments shortly.

On the other hand, brass cabooses are a wonderful way to make a train a lot more prototypical. They all need new trucks a new couplers to run well, but that's a lot easier than remotoring, and regearing a brass steam locomotive. Plus having to do various electrical isolations to allow installation of DCC.

I have two brass cabooses from each of the following roads – Missouri Pacific, Frisco, and Cotton Belt. They are beautiful and really top off my locals. I'm about to retire at least a dozen plastic cabooses that have been sidelined by these brass beauties. The MP and Frisco ones came factory painted and lettered.  The Cotton Belt cars are both fairly crudely painted aftermarket, but done tolerably enough to leave alone for now.

You bought them already?  Be prepared.  Mechanically, brass locomotives are from the Model Railroad Jurassic. No matter how beautiful they are, many of them run like coffee grinders. Yours may not, but the brass locomotive experience often includes installation of new can motors and gear boxes, if operation of them is desired rather than shelf display.

I have a very beautiful brass Southern Pacific 4–4–0, but between the impossibility of installing a front coupler and the huge prehistoric open frame DC motor sticking up in the cab, I'll never do anything with it. I'm just holding it in the collection for the young modeler who will inherit my collection eventually.

2 sets of four wheels each is any four axle diesel electric.

Without information about what the engine actually is, no one can help

Quentin, the nickel plate Berkshire you just bought is going to have wires between the engine and the tender also.

I stand corrected.  A project engine that runs well.

They do come up on eBay now and then.  Might wait for one that isn't from overseas.  Could possibly be be hidden customs charges unknown when ordering.

Don't forget the Bachmann MP light mountain either. I've seen them a few times on eBay as well. None of these engines come with DCC and sound though, be ready to shell out for those items and the install.

There has to be plenty of those Berks around either on eBay, or at some discount house somewhere. I would not touch one called a project. They're telling you right upfront that there's problems with it, that's why it's not a running locomotive. If you need parts for one you already have, that would be the way to get them since there's probably very few available anymore from Bachmann.

I'd like to convert one of those engines to a Missouri Pacific/I-GN 1900, but the domes and the number boards and stuff on top of the smokebox front need just too much radical surgery to make it practical. Plus, the drivers are a good bit taller than on the MP engines. The nickel plate engines were known for running manifest freights at passenger train speed across a bridge route, unlike the slower-speed more typical freights that the MP engines with lower drivers handled.  Between the tall drivers and the extremely involved boiler alterations, it's a job for a much younger modeler with better eyes.  Besides, I am running a branch line. What would a 2–8–4 be doing running down my little branch?

Quentin, every HO steam locomotive on earth has wires between the locomotive and the tender. You cannot escape that. Back in the 1960s, when DC ruled the model railroad rail, and only one wire was required from the tender to the motor and the locomotive, wireless drawbars that conducted power between the locomotive and the tender began to become popular. But with today's engines, there's just too many functions in play to have only one wire between the two units.

There are ways to redirect these wires around to not cause problems. Sometimes, they can be quite squirrelly in refusing to be positioned properly. But with work and patience, it can be done. Sometimes you have to far–connect the engine and tender to allow stiff wires some room to flex. It's true, that wrongly directed wires can cause the tender to chronically derail. But I wouldn't let that keep me from buying an engine I want.

I'd have to count again, but I believe I have at least 50 HO steam locomotives, all with DCC and sound, every one of them with wires between the engine and the tender. I'd have to say that 3/4 of them needed some kind of doctoring to keep the wires from derailing the tender on some curve or switch or something. Fixing that problem is just one more skill  to add to your Model Railroad toolbox.

Quentin, saw this on eBay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/155405470177?hash=item242ee349e1:g:gHEAAOSwjZFj6R~6&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAsHOnZL6Pj4rb9PnkJFSiWbIuvW1CMdpjAZpaEXtex6rlhNfAgeFLlW7LUAAkfBk3TdLlAphulFCrAV6eDDrg75tfi%2FqDxOL1MRQRW%2B0IRlTrfFLNHjeBJzKHUHksJQDTys7PstcKKloPfgLinA7ls5Fn5h%2Fv98hN3i6q%2FEtVdQ3orebKSccfUZSz%2FQ3MylBelfY4cyYlH93IUdZx%2BMdLesX0C2CrSF9sgB1KmfuUUFsU%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR6jnoKjKYQ

On steam engines, CV 116 is the chuff rate.

Cv 116 is the chuff rate in sound value.  If there is automatic silencing, I'd like to know.  Lack of it is my biggest problem with sound value.

I have tsunami2-2 in about 3/4 of my engines now.  The rest are a mixture of older tsunami's, the old Bachman Soundtraxx on-board sound, and a couple of Econamis.  I've worked with Soundtraxx products for so long I've become one with them.  I have a couple of BLI engines with paragon sound and dislike it for many reasons.

Why would anyone want automatic sounds?  Except maybe on a continuously running display layout.

Sound value, to me, has a lot of missteps in the choices of sounds and options made available. Probably the biggest erroneous omission, to me, is CV 113, the automatic silencing and keeping an engine silent until activated.  And the coupler crash.  Why the automatic sounds are taking up bytes in this basic level system is beyond me. Along with headlight dimming, which is a diesel era affectation and useless on steam locomotives.

I'd still rather any Soundtraxx products over TCS, though.  TCS is keeping me from buying a new decapod.