How organized are you with your trains?

 

I haven't done an inventory, but I did a table in Word of all the stuff I had for sale, intending to post it on the OGR board and hand out copies at train shows. It was organized by manufacturer - item number, description, condition, price. I had it on my desktop for convenience in adding to it. When it was almost finished, my hard drive crashed. Got almost all my data back - everything except the desktop! Now I'm redoing the table. Fortunately, I got all my picture and document files back, just not the desktop. 

I have a Filemaker database of all my train stuff, where I got it and how much it cost. Other data I have for each item, road name, manufacturer, product number, car/engine number, new or used, condition, set/no set (if it's part of a set, set product number), box/no box, box condition, box storage location, up to 4 pictures of the item, and a link to the manufacturer's web page if one is available. If it's part of a set, it's linked to another database/table that lists all of the items in that set.

 

I also have an Excel spreadsheet of all the items I have on order, when ordered, where ordered, expected ship date, product number (linked to mfgr's web page if available). I have another tab in this for wanted items, but I don't do well at keeping that up to date, which is probably good!

 

I try not to look at the totals!

1st, I'm a very organized person, I'm even told by my son's that I go overboard sometimes. But for a unknown reason with thousands of dollars in trains I'm a total cluster ****....well you know what I mean. I sure need to work on it big time.

Larry

I track what I have, and some visual details about it (Item/road/road #/color/has a box/road worthiness/manufacture/catalog number/note if part of set or other unique feature of item), but nothing about costs.  I exclude the costs of what I have because I really don't care.  I never plan on selling anything, so I don't need to know what it cost me so as to keep from having a loss.  I know I should get some kind of estimate for value for insurance reasons, but I've been worried about more important things in life right now.

Excel... just power listed right now, with columns to sort by company, diesel/steam, manufacturer, model, and road name.

 

And numbers, to remind me that I'm tipping over my absolutely-unbreakable-will not cross threshold of no more than 50 locomotives.

 

I have an idea what I have.  My problem is memory of specific Engines

& Rolling Stock.  Many times I come across items that jolt my mind into

where the blank did I get this.  

 

To me it is great fun to place on the track something I had no idea was

in my inventory.

 

Many thanks,

 

Billy C 

Last week I took multiple hours to make a list of all my engines, rolling stock and accessories in Excel spreadsheet. I put down manufacture, description, item number, year manufactured, and estimated value.    The reason for making the list is different for me because I will be having major surgery in May.  I would not have even thought of making a list if were not for my upcoming surgery.  Although, as far as I know I have nothing life threatening and I am probably one of the younger guys on this forum, but if something were to happen to me I would not want my family be stuck with a burden of trying to figure out what I have or what to do with it.  Since they have very little knowledge about my train collection, I even included some options of how to sell it.  

 

My dad died a couple of years ago and left us to figure out what to do with his collectables.  It was very time consuming going through his collections of stuff and if he had a list it would have been much easier.  I realized giving my family some written information about my trains would help them some day.   

 

In putting together the list, it was interesting to see how much I have spent over the years and how much my train collection has grown.  I enjoy this hobby a lot, but life is very short and one day someone in my family will have to decide what to do with my collection…so now I have a list to help them!    Ken

Excel here too. I have all of my rolling stock inventoried by storage case. I have not, however been able to bring myself to inventory the engines. I know what I've got and about what each one cost. The total $$ is just something I don't want to see. For now, "I don't know" is still a reasonably honest answer.....

 

As for the family, I have already been contemplating when and how to divest the "stuff". Lord willing there will be a sell-off before I'm gone. For now, I'm still laying tracks!!! 

 

Gilly

I'm real organized…

#1 trains in the basement

#2 tools in the shop

 

Clem

Blissfield Railroad Days' Events - Blissfield Main Street

 

I have built a spread sheet of my track, which layout it is in, what I have extra (not currently in a layout) and what I need for my next layout. 

I use MS Access for my train collection.
I like to group my parts orders to make the shipping costs more affordable. I use MS Excel to keep track of the parts I want to buy.

Thanks for getting me motivated, guys.  Years ago I put my music collection (cd's, tapes, and lp's) into a database so that I can find anything that I may want to listen to.  I need to do the same for my trains.

 

I know that I am REALLY, REALLY dating myself, but does anybody still use Borland Paradox???

 

Mark

Oh crap! I have a hard enough time trying store trains not on the layout in an orderly fashion! Never even thought about taking inventory.

 

 

Andy,

I love your comment!!  You probably speak for most of us.

My trains and their locations are in an Excel worksheet, so I know what is on the layout, what is in numbered storage bins and what I paid for each. However, my work bench is a disaster area, and irks me a whole lot. I am also an 80 percenter when it comes to hooking up accessories on my layout.

Excel for me as well.

The main sheet has separate tabs for steam, diesel, pax sets, freight sets, rolling stock, track, buildings, accessories, etc, and a master summary sheet that totals everything on one page by category.

The big trick is to religiously update it whenever you add something.

 

Rod

I use Excel for my inventory, I also use Banana  Boxes to store the empty boxes with a printed list on what is in the box taped to the outside and numbered.

Excel program below

 

<colgroup><col style="mso-width-source: userset; mso-width-alt: 2596; width: 53pt;" width="71" /><col span="3" style="width: 48pt;" width="64" /><col style="mso-width-source: userset; mso-width-alt: 3328; width: 68pt;" width="91" /><col style="mso-width-source: userset; mso-width-alt: 2084; width: 43pt;" width="57" /><col style="mso-width-source: userset; mso-width-alt: 2633; width: 54pt;" width="72" /><col style="mso-width-source: userset; mso-width-alt: 1170; width: 24pt;" width="32" /><col style="mso-width-source: userset; mso-width-alt: 2084; width: 43pt;" width="57" /><col style="mso-width-source: userset; mso-width-alt: 1170; width: 24pt;" width="32" /></colgroup>

10/05/2013		LIONEL		1986 to PRESENT				IN
ID #		NAME			COND.	VALUE		STOCK	O/B
780	RAILROAD CLUB CAR BOX CAR 1982				NEW	$         25		YES	Y
781	RAILROAD CLUB CAR W/ TRAILERS 1983				NEW	$         55		YES	Y
782	RAILROAD CLUB  TANK CAR 1985				NEW	$         25		YES	Y
784	RAILROAD CLUB  COVERED HOPPER				NEW	$         40		YES	Y
1999	COOPERSTOWN BREWING				NEW	$         45		YES	Y
5730	STRASBRUG REEFER				NEW	$         20		YES	Y
5732	C R NJ WOODSIDE REEFER				NEW	$         35		YES	Y
6417	PENN CABOOSE				NEW	$         40		YES	Y

quote:

I use Excel for my inventory, I also use Banana  Boxes to store the empty boxes with a printed list on what is in the box taped to the outside and numbered.

Excel program below

 

I've read recommendations against labeling boxes with their contents.

My storage boxes are assigned a number. The contents of the box is written in a notebook, one page per box. The notebook is updated as trains are removed or added.

 

Some of my boxes have a contents list inside the box.  

I keep a pretty good inventory using Microsoft Access, but sometimes I forget where I put them inside the Garage or storage room. The problem is that most of my rolling stock is stored in the shipping boxes. Even though they're marked, sometimes it's still a search when I want to run a particular freight consist. One of these weekends I'm going to go through everything like I do about once a year and get them better organized. Some of it's going to end up on eBay.

All my trains are in the union.

I have a mountain of trains and no organization

 

I have everything in an Excel spreadsheet.  The only thing I don't like is the total spent.

 

Art