HELP! Best ways to store excess locomotives and rolling stock???

The O Scale Hauler 

http://oscalehauler.com

Hi NCNG. If you have access to a workshop and have the ability you could do this the skies the limit. Roo.

Check out the link below, in my signature, or my ad in the latest OGR Magazine  

Thin the herd.

Roo posted:

Hi NCNG. If you have access to a workshop and have the ability you could do this the skies the limit. Roo.

Roo,

This is awesome and exactly the kind of solution I am searching for!
Thank you, more questions to come when get ready to build early next year.

With Regards,

ncng

What, no "You can store them at my house" responses yet???  Must be too early in the am

Tom Tee posted:

Thin the herd.

Best response - once you admit you have too much and have trouble storing it all, then it's time to sell some of it off, recover a bit of the investment (some fraction....) and then enjoy/focus on what you have left.  It's actually quite liberating.

Bob Delbridge posted:

What, no "You can store them at my house" responses yet???  Must be too early in the am

I was just about to get to that. Just reading the previous posts. River City 3 Railers will gladly accept your donation. We have lots of room on our club trailer. When we display, pictures are frequently posted here. So, you get to see your locomotives and rolling stock too.

I bought these at Harbor Freight, wait for the discount coupons or specials 

Tom and Marty.

He was asking the question on ways of storing his excess he was not asking of ways or wanting to sell it read the question.

I use 135 cars per session should I sell my cars to or work out a way of storing them till needed look at my photos I found a way it's not rocket science and I will make it really easy for him I will supply the gent the plans with all the sizes when he is ready to build.

Roo.

Roo posted:

He was asking the question on ways of storing his excess he was not asking of ways or wanting to sell it read the question.

 

I did - I maintain that the solution is not to store them at all.  If they are excess, why store them?

I learned this several years ago when I found out that I had far more cars than I could even account for and even remember the origins of and after sitting down and taking careful inventory found many that (1) I did not need (2) did not want and (3) had not space for - when you get to any of these 3 criteria and worse a combination of them, it's time to sell those items.

In March in Chicago we will see the results of storing excess items long-term - they are called estate sales or in the parlance, DGT's.

We have a few of those Harbor Freight carts under the layout as well. Your layout just has to be high enough to roll them under it.

What is this excess of which you speak??

clem k posted:

I bought these at Harbor Freight, wait for the discount coupons or specials 

That's darn clever!  I've seen those at Harbor Freight and it never occurred to me.

I responded to this on the 3 rail thread but I figured I'd include my response here too because this appears to be the one that people have replied too... 

I might be able to help! I have had the same issue in my train room. Too many trains and not enough wall space! I am in the process of developing a modular tiered shelving system which will better utilize wall space for train storage. I am not quite to the point of having them ready to sell. However, as I get closer I will be looking for people to give me their feedback on preproduction samples. Attached is my first announcement flyer better describing the shelving system and where I intend to go with it. If you are interested send me an email (in my profile).

clem k posted:

I bought these at Harbor Freight, wait for the discount coupons or specials 

Wow! Those are great, how many cars do you get on each? Thanks, ncng

ncng posted:

Wow! Those are great, how many cars do you get on each? Thanks, ncng

Doing a rough count of the picture, it looks like roughly the width of approximately 10 cars per level, more if you had cars short enough to put 2 across (ore cars or cabooses), less if you have longer passenger cars that would need to go at an angle to fit (per the last pic with the angled cars and what looks like a caboose in the corner).  For a level with shorter cars, maybe a few on the edge perpendicular to the other cars.

-Dave

Another suggestion if you need an excess quantity. such as with the
Roo manifest / roster, to run the various RR duties........find innovative ways to build on staging tracks.

I too was/am guilty of having far more cars than absolutely needed. So, after selling off a lot of my engines & rolling stock I created 11 extra  staging tracks from 15' to 17' in length off scene in three different areas of my basement.  Seven of the tracks are pull through. 

Five of the total are under the existing benchwork near the end of a branchline.  Six of the tracks come off two different levels from the end of two different branch lines on two 16' long bunk like shelves each three tracks wide.  That way the staging is spread around the layout.

I found that by cutting a bunch of holes in a few walls and getting the benchwork, staging TTs &  staging track down when the land grant supervisor was out of town was the way to go.  

Forgiveness is much easier to gain than permission.

This way I do not have to pick up or in anyway handle the cars.

I have ran an "operations" layout for at least 25 years have tried just about every system, in the early days I used floats as the layout was based on New York Harbor and when I started I lifted the floats off the layout not easy to do then I went to an elevator then a sliding traverse table all this involved much woodworking lucky I have a good Workshop out the back but the handling stayed with me the cars got knocked about so I went to plain old Weaver they still suffered but not as much as the Intermountain and Red caboose cars. So....about four years ago I started to think how can I have a layout that handles the minimum cars but still has plenty of switching then about three years ago I came across an article in MR Nov 1950 about Steel mill railroads I read the article right through a dozen times and then I knew what to do here was a huge industry that does not require the cars to be removed from the layout if you plan it carefully I won't bore you with the details of how I went about it (I'll be typing all night!) but it is a success and I did it, of course I still have a common carrier railroad that requires lifting cars on and off but that only accounts for a third of the previous cars all the rest stay on the layout. Tom, I don't have the room for any large staging yards and I won't hide them under the layout on tracks the drawers are OK as my back is not the best so I am limited to the room that I have and I am grateful for that. Roo.

To complement what Tom Tee said, enlarge the layout.

Box it up and bring it to my house

I am glad I am not at that point with my O scale stuff, and hope to never be.  I do have that issue with my G scale, shelves in the train room on the walls dealt with most of the pieces.   I am looking for a few freight cars for my layout I am building if anybody needs to thin down at really good prices !!!    Great storage ideas posted though!    Mike the Aspie

I put the trains back in their boxes and they are stacked/grouped according to the box size and put on shelves under the layout.  The shelves are planks that are placed between the layout legs.  Helps provide additional some load sharing support to the legs (especially when I am walking on the layout).  Loose or unboxed engines and rolling stock are stacked like cord wood in appropriate size boxes with the structural shipping foam sheets interwoven between the cars and layers.  One box for the shorter tank cars, one for box cars, then flat cars, stock cars, F3's etc.   On frequently run MPC/LTI cars with boxes, I can more efficiently use the space if I flatten the boxes and store the cars as loose pieces.  With the plastic shell inserts in the newer boxes that becomes problematic.

Try the  www.Oscalehauler.com

Doug has made so pretty decent boxes to storu items. Little pricey but worth it. I have three (3) larger containers and store over 100 cars in them for eacy access. The master containers I stick in containers I purchased at Lowe's for $15.00. They are the 27 gallon, black base - yellow top. Heavy duty.