General Correspondence: P.O. Box 1615, Queanbeyan NSW 2620 Street Address: Queanbeyan Railway Station, Henderson Rd, Queanbeyan Office Hours: Mon-Fri: 10am-3pm Bookings Phone: (02) 6284 2790   Facsimile: (02) 6284 2791 Email: trains@trains.org.au

Membership of the ARHS (ACT)

The ARHS welcomes new members! Membership of the ACT division of the Australian Railway Historical Society:

• offers inside knowledge of our railway operations, shared with like-minded members;
• includes a subscription to our popular magazine, Federal City Express;
• offers the opportunity for travel discounts;
• provides a chance to become part of our rail operations team;
• the chance to use our archives of regional railway history.

Your membership also helps the Society continue its work to maintain its fleet of heritage railway rolling stock.

Family membership is available - this includes additional members of the same household.

Family members have most of the rights of membership, except that only one copy of Federal City Express is provided.

With our membership fees, concessional rates apply to full pensioners and independent full-time students. So please do consider joining!

Our membership year runs from April 1 to March 31 - greatly reduced membership fees apply if you join between September and December. From January, your annual membership will include the months leading up to April 1 as well as the full membership year.

If you choose, the Society can also add two railway magazines to your subscription:

• Australian Railway History, the Australian Railway Historical Society (NSW) national monthly magazine (formerly known as the Bulletin) - $73 per annum; and
• Motive Power, a colour magazine providing news of Australian rail developments - $45 per annum.

The following rates are for the 2008 membership year (April 2008 to March 2009):

Renewals and new applications	Single-  with FCE	Family-  with FCE	Single-  FCE & ARH	Family-  FCE & ARH	Single- FCE, ARH, Mot Power	Family- FCE, ARH, Mot Power
General renewals and new applications between Jan and Aug	$80	$90	$153	$163	$178	$188
Concessional renewals, and new applications between Sep and Dec	$50	$60	$123	$133	$168	$178

FCE = Federal City Express; ARH = Australian Railway History, published by the ARHS (NSW Division); Mot Power = Motive Power, colour magazine of current Australian railway operations.

Overseas postage for FCE magazine is an additional $20, while overseas postage for both FCE and ARH magazines is $60.

Membership form

Existing members receive their membership renewal form with the January/February copy of Federal City Express.

New members have the following options when joining:

• complete our website membership application form,* and then send it to us (with cheque, money order or credit card details) - click here for form;
  
  * The membership form is a PDF file, which requires the Adobe Reader program on your computer. (This program is available free from the Adobe website).
  
  
• if you wish, we will mail you a printed membership application form by post, so you can fill it in and return it to us, together with your payment - click here to ask for a printed form.

Becoming involved

The Society encourages all members to be active members - there is a range of activities which keeps our trains running, and which require a wide range of skills and support.

These activities include train crewing (including car conductors and safe-working staff), locomotive and passenger car maintenance and preparation, museum guide, and ticket office volunteer. Where appropriate, training is provided.

Alternately, you may wish to make a donation to the Society to continue its work with historic rolling stock. For more details, see Supporting the Restoration of Heritage Trains

ARHS workers' benefit scheme

The Society operates a scheme to reward its members who have volunteered more than 80 hours during each membership year ended March 31.

This can cover volunteer work in any and all of the Society’s authorised activities.

(Scheme participation is not compulsory. If you simply enjoy helping and do not want recognition this way, that's fine. The challenge for the Society will be to recognise your community-mindedness in another way!)

The scheme involves rewards of discounted travel on the Society's trains. Here are the discount details:

• a discount on fares for non-regular trips only as and when possible, up to 10% of the tour's passenger capacity, on a first-come, first-served basis. Limited to the member and one other person, available once a year. The size of discount will depend on circumstances of the trip (that is, the economics and the likely extent of spare capacity);



• a discount of 25% on short-distance (local) regular trip fares for the worker and immediate family (spouse and children), once a year;



• discounts will not be available on members’ special trains, for which there are already attractive fares;



• eligibility for the benefits depends on the worker substantiating 80 hours of work for the Society in any aspect of its activities for each financial year, ending March 31.

Members who reach the 80-hour threshold will have their names recorded in our journal, Federal City Express, with the Society's sincere thanks. To participate, you need to be a financial member.

Click on the Volunteer Timesheet and print a copy. From time to time or when complete, the sheet should be sent to our office at Queabeyan Railway Station (see address details at top of page).

For more information on how to join our team of volunteers, please read Our Team of Volunteers.