How do you organize rolling stock for storage?

It seems that with storage by car type it might be easier to locate the type of car you want. By road name you may not necessarily know what car types you have for each name and wouldn't know where to look for a type of car.

 

Hmmm...while writing the above I was thinking the same thing about road name. If you wanted to have a train of all one road name, sorting by car type may not be so good?

 

So that leads to the question, how about sorting them by the way you most often make up your trains. If it's 50/50, I think we have a problem... 

 

Mine are a mess and I really have no particular method of making up trains.

I shelve them as trains when I have to store them.  I have a few odds-and-ends pieces that simply fit in wherever they fit.

I use plastic tubs

 

 

Right now I just put them in the box and on a shelf, but  I would enjoy doing like I had for N scale.  I would put the n scale items in the clear tackle box cases, I would line them with foam and for the long cars you could remove a tab, so it made it easy to safely stow and organize.  I have been looking for similar  item for O scale, The stack able container is about the closest thing I can find just add foam and custom length inserts if needed.

I have a shelf in my closet so all my cabooses and Winter snow clearing equipment go their,Engines and cars go in tubs some are packed with foam and Puppy pads and most of my engines have tool boxs or personal boxes because I have multiple. When I run out of space, I guess I am gonna have to take half of it to the garage or to My Grandma's house because my garage is filled with machine shop equipment,1 1/2 scale trains and other junk my dad brings home.

I don't have very many (Yet!), and I have yet to build the shelves for the wall (In the next month of two I hope.), but when I go to put my rolling stock on, it'll probably be in several different ways.  My passenger trains will go up as a train.  And since I buy a matching caboose for every locomotive I own (Never know when they'll be pressed to freight service.) the caboose will be at the end of the passenger train.  Other things I buy with the intent to run as a train (Like my VL Big Boy and reefers.) will all go on a shelf as a train.  Everything else will be locomotive paired with the matching caboose and then freight cars filling up the rest.  Since it'll just be a single wall, floor to ceiling, I don't worry about any other sorting of the freight cars.  Only thing is since I have little kids running around I'll be making sure the items that they can play with are down towards the bottom, like Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends.

I organize all my cars and engines by railroad as all cars seem to go with a particular train - I'm overly logical with this. Every piece I buy has a particular train in mind. That being said, I don't have many pieces that aren't railroad specific that are interchangeable between several trains. If I did, I think I would still organize by railroad and have a group of miscellaneous rolling stock that I would keep together and easily accessible for use with several trains.

I try and would like to ultimately display consists.

Most all of my G scale trains are on shelves by train.  Some O scale cars and engines are on my platform ready to be run around my loop.  The rest of my O scale stuff is still in their box and stored under the platform.

 

When and if I ever get a layout up I would like to have all rolling stock and engines on the layout in their respective yards, either freight, passenger or engine facility.  And I will probably keep everything together by train so I can couple up the engine and run.

 

Rick

since I don't have a basement here in the sunshine state,  I keep them in the original boxes organized the train set I typically run them with.   One group for early steam,  another group of Atlas O beer type reefers.  On the modern era freight,  one group for the stack train and one mixed freight group.

 

Mark

The most delicate freight cars, like Atlas reefers I keep in a glass window display cabinet. The rest are in see through plastic tubs stored in a closet. I seem to find what I want fairly quickly and maybe that is because I store items that I would likely use at the same time together. I also mark the outside of the clear tub sides with what is inside. My N scale items are in two boxes and not organized at all, so it takes more time to find what I want. I am currently trying to do an inventory list and there seems to be a location indicator in the program which might help with organization. The matter what you do it takes time and patience to get organized and no one way will work for all.

Since I am into different time eras, all steam era in one storage area, all modern in another. 

Then broke down by car type, then open cars by loaded or empty. I run all road names.

As a club runner I organize my cars in storage containers some by theme and some by Road name.  I have a few crates of steam era billboard reefers, a military train a weathered freight, a logging train and my coal drag. I also have a few crates that are road name specific PRR, NYC, Rio Grande and Santa Fe. Then the are six passenger sets with each consist in its own individual container. All in about 400 pieces of rolling stock

I don't know that I would use the term "organize" but, I have all my freight cars in fairly large Rubber Maid tubs. There are tubs of PFE reefers, fill-in reefers, eastern RR boxcars, midwest RR boxcars, western RR boxcars, C&O hopper cars, Western Maryland hopper cars, a "special CB&Q mixed freight train, and then tubs of various passenger train sets. All of these tubs fit nicely under the layout (I threw all the boxes in the trash, many years ago).

I first organize by size, to select the right size storage box or have a uniform shelf layout. Next by brand, then by era and type of car, and finally by road. If certain cars go together in a logical fashion to form a set, they get stored together. 

What? You guys actually have so much rolling stock you can't keep it all on the layout? Looks like I have some catching up to do! Wife: "you bought how many more train cars?" Me: "But I have to catch up to the other guys!" LOL

You sure as heck do!!!! I'm just about to the point that I don't even have anymore room UNDER the layout.

Sadley that is now happening to me..Decisions, Decisions.

I keep everything by road name simply because it's just easier to find the road I am looking for. With over 1300 pieces of rolling stock I had to put them in some type of order. Currently I have most roads organized by car types to make it easier to find the cabooses or hoppers and for the roads I havent done that with yet I find it much harder to find a car I know I have or am looking for to sell. It works for me but I am sure there may be a better method. Luckily I have deep shelves under the layout 2 levels but when I rearrange I always find something I completely forgot having.

My Grandfathers PW collection was an assortment of groupings.

Whole trains, car types, engines, road names, ages, variations, condition, possibility of being run, and missing or extra pieces, all had a role in the way it was displayed on shelves, in showcases, or on the rails, or in a yard. But wood shelves much like yours and showcases held the majority.

  I only have about 20 locos and under 200 pieces of rolling stock so though. I can keep up to 10 on track, and about a third of the stock. Bookshelves, tops of various things, a small showcase, and one layout has double sided shelves and end cap, that support it as two "legs". The cap is fwd, allowing engine display (no tenders), the extra cars deeper under the layout, but I can reach all from a kneel, and I have very small florescent showcase lights on the underside of the layout, so seeing isn't an issue.

 I organize by what I run together most often. Its visual for me. I don't do much in the way of operations besides "Go" so that makes it easy too.

 Here it is in its first "small el" rendition no foam yet, with the paint hardly dry & wires hanging(& that way again right now ). I hadn't even got to running the PW steam on it yet. 

 

This will fit here, that will fit over there

I keep everything in the original boxes and organize by freight car type and the manufacturer most of the time. There are some sections that are organized by railroad name.

 

 

Andrew 

I don't have a ton of rolling stock just yet, and mostly buy for what I plan to be able to fit on my future planned layout.  That said, at the moment I sort by type of car, then by brand or sub type, keeping similar cars together.  I plan on repainting everything to a fictional railroad, or railroads, so it makes no difference to me what they are marked as.  

I keep things that I run together, as a train, in a common area.  I try to keep everything in a drawer or drawers close together, ready to be used when needed.  This works for me, because I don't run super long trains nor do I have a hobby shop's worth of inventory.

Grouped by RR and type of car.  Caboose rack.

I'm not criticizing others methods... But I could never buy a train car and store it in the box.  For me, it either needs to be on the layout or in the display case otherwise I don't need it.

 

Ron

 

My entire collection is inventoried, photographed, carefully boxed in original packaging wherever possible and enclosed in a well labelled exterior box.  If an item is not being operated on the layout it is placed in the original packing to avoid dust collection and to protect against damage due to handling.  The boxes are color coded by brand. Roadnames are also coded for ease of identification.

When the trains were set up I tried to keep as many as possible on the layout.  I had a small set of shelves (about 3'x4') my father built.  I would keep the extra engines on the shelf, or displaying the ends of a set.  For example, if I wanted to display a passenger set pulled by F3s, I'd display the A and B units with the observation car because that's all that fit on one shelf.  The extra cars would rest on the tops of Rubbermaid bins I was using to store the boxes underneath the layout.

 

For the past 7 years (wow, it's been too long) the trains have been in storage.  I have a large metal industrial cabinet I keep the trains in.  Everything in it's original box and I group them by manufacturer.  MTH boxes are about the same size, k-line boxes were about the same size, so those were easier to stack.  lionel postwar boxes are a complete hodgepodge of sizes, so I had to play tetris with those, lol.

This is one reason I keep the original boxes. Right now everything is organized by manufacturer first, then car type. Eventually all the cars will end up on the layout, but the empty boxes will still be stored this way.

Organize. LOL. I wish

but how do you organize your rolling stock when not on the layout?  Do you keep all the reefers together, for example, and the hopper cars in another area, and the tank cars in another?  Or do you organize them by railroad: all the Santa Fe reefers, flatcars, gondolas, etc., here, and all the UP stuff there and all the NYC stuff over there?

 

While my modular layout is a slow WIP bin, my freight cars are organized in Sterilte tubs and Christmas tree boxes[for the big long ones]. I organize as to pre or post Amtrak[1970s]and car types -tub of ACF centerflow hoppers, tub of PRR 3 bay coal cars, tub of Conrail hoppers, tub of 100T Canadian Grain cars, tub of Airslide hoppers, etc.

My goal is to operate by era so I want to store modern era when I'm running 1960's equipment and vice versa.  Then I like to store by train.  That is a no-brainer in passenger trains, but I also like to do it for freight.  I run a lot of unit trains so that makes sense, but I also store mixed manifest trains that way too.

 

Unfortunately right now I have eras mixed with modern freights and 1960's passenger trains together.  But I want to run trains by the correct eras when I get my scenery under control.

 

Art

I also try to display like this. My only issue is protecting them from flying objects my 3 and 6 year olds toss around the house during their monkey mayhem!

Since I have a rather small layout and an overabundance of freight cars (actually selling quite a few now...), everything that is stored is in 4 x 4 x 12" boxes from ULine (buy them in flat packs of 100) so everything stacks uniformly, labeled on the box ends (into Excel inventory), and on shelves so that I can locate those that I want to use vs. those that are being sold off.

 

I've noticed that I have some empty space so now I have to go build some more freight cars....

I use the 'Jenga' approach....

 

 

 

Careful stacking of the train boxes gives useful, sturdy support for sags in the train table, sags in the joists of the floor above the train table, sags in the.......oh well, you get the idea.

 

Makes for a colorful montage, too.....pillars of purple, obelisks of orange, buttresses of blue, .....

 

Extracting/replacing specific cars/engines for a night of operation is kinda fun, too!!

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

 

KD

 

 

I store them by type (and the types are loosely defined so as to be flexible) - hoppers, cabeese, box cars, flats & gondolas, passenger car sets, tankers, etc.  Within type I only worry about road name for those items that are parts of sets.