How relevant is it to keep your rolling stock boxes

Here is my advice (that I do not follow, I have a big attic) .......

I am assuming you are talking about modern era trains that we run every day. I am also going to assume that none of these trains are instantly collectible or limited edition.

Your scenario is you are running out of valuable storage space to store empty boxes.

If you do not have plans to sell the rolling stock anytime soon, throw away the box and packaging. When you decide it is time to liquidate, the included box will not make or break the sale since the buyer will most likely use the rolling stock on his or her layout.

I would keep the boxes and packaging for all locomotives.

That is my advice.

Donald

I have sent all of to recycling. Why? Cardboard attracts silverfish, termites, book lice, and cockroaches, among others. These are all critters I don't need in my house.

I tend to keep the boxes for engines, but tend to toss out the rolling stock boxes.

I keep all of my factory boxes. I wish that several of my purchases had them, especially the MTH six-axle crane.

Edit to correct a typo.

Anyone divesting themselves of their boxes, please shoot me an email, indicating what you have. Thanks.

@modeltrainsparts posted:

Cardboard attracts silverfish, termites, book lice, and cockroaches, among others. These are all critters I don't need in my house.

Unfortunately most layouts have things on them that have been built with paper-based materials, like homasote, or cardboard, or paper mache, or any of a dozen other building and/or artist supplies that are made out of paper.

Perhaps, for the same reason, we should throw our layouts out too while we're at it?

Mike

I’ve moved all of my rolling stock from their factory boxes to water tight plastic totes with silica packs. I don’t see any value in keeping rolling stock boxes, especially for stock I want to keep and use. Fewer boxes means less wasted storage space, lower risk of bugs or humidity issues.

Unless it's for something rare, rolling stock boxes get dumped.

Really old stuff with a decent original box, that's worth hanging onto. Modern era stuff, I chuck the boxes (although I admit it can sometimes help with storage, i.e. stacking, keeping the dust down, etc.). The important thing to remember is you're not funding your retirement with this stuff.

I only have a few dozen cars so I hang onto their boxes.

Engines, passenger cars, cabooses and anything that lights up.

Charlie

I keep all boxes. It makes things easier when selling stuff at shows that I don’t want anymore. Works for me.

I bought several sets of Doug Kearney’s “O Gauge Haulers” to store everything. Then took every empty box to the recycle bin. This is not going to be helpful to you because these Haulers are out of stock.

Only relevant if you plan on selling them in the future.  That includes your heirs.  I believe it is quite obvious that not having original packaging takes away value from an item.

I've noticed that when I try to purchase a modern train without the original box or packaging, I'm told that the box is not important.

But when I attempt to sell off some train items, even modern day, without said box, I'm told that it drastically lowers the price .

I'm not worried about resale or collected value. I keep many boxes simply for storage.

I keep everything.  I put several together in a big trash bag, label it, and put it in the attic.  I probably have 15 trash bags full of boxes up there.  Like Frank alluded to, it makes a difference at resale time both in value and ease of shipping.  I tend to sell things when I get tired of them.

Unless it’s a locomotive or something really special I dump them.

@Chris Lonero posted:

Unless it’s a locomotive or something really special I dump them.

I agree, I keep almost no rolling stock boxes.

Steve

Since I have way more trains than will ever fit on my layout, I need to store the “excess” rolling stock somewhere. I keep everything in the original box, and store the boxes in larger Rubbermaid tubs.

I’m old school, therefore I have 95 percent of all my boxes for everything, rolling stock,  diesels, steamers, accessories, and almost all the shippers to. I do have a dry place for all my boxes, no bugs, no odors, easy access. Under my train table, and on high shelves in my finished garage. I believe there’s a story behind each purchase, a new friend, a price, a memory. It can add value if it’s a rare piece. I will be selling my collection over the next 3 years, age is slowly catching up with me. My advice to those with the hi tech electronics items, keep them in climate controlled rooms. Keeping the original boxes also masks it easy to identify the item, keeping a Greenberg book around is also helpful. Great thread, Happy Railroading Everyone

This reminds me of when my Dad bought his Lionel 840 power station from TCA national president Al Levin back in the 70s. He asked my Dad if he wanted the original box as well,  to which my Dad replied, "Of course I want it. Besides, what will you do with an empty box?" Al said, "I'll take it to a meet and sell it. How many 840 power station boxes have you ever seen?"

When the cars are not running on the tracks, the original box is a safe place to store the cars.

Andrew

My rolling stock is kept in boxes in a cool basement. There has never been an insect eating the cardboard or in the boxes.

For a few months there were some mice, but an electronic mouse trap and a pair of cats caught all of the mice.

Andrew

You can sell the boxes in bulk at a train show or on e-bay if you do not need them.

Andrew

With my O-gauge, very relevant. I keep all of the boxes for everything for protection. I have too many things to keep them all on my layout, which hasn't been started and won't be large enough for all of the stuff I have. So all of them need to be stored when not on the layout. The boxes they came in are perfect for that. Shelves for trains are out of the question because I have lots of other non-train collections that need to be displayed on shelves.

With my N scale stuff, all boxes for rolling stock gets thrown away and they all get put in containers to minimize packaging. The exception being some of my Kato passenger car sets that came in nice boxes. I keep the loco in factory boxes for better protection.

Once you get rid of your boxes you have to stay healthy and live forever to keep operating the model railroad.

It will be difficult to resell the freight cars and locomotives without boxes.

Stay alive and run the trains forever.

Andrew

Hey, if any prospective rolling stock box-tossers has a RailKing caboose box for an offset-cupola steel caboose like the 30-7779, I can give one a home and a purpose

My email is in-profile.

---PCJ

If the boxes are removed and sold off.

Put up a legally binding sign that states the model railroad and all of the items for it will forever remain part of the house.

Andrew

I keep the boxes for all of my trains. I also keep the shippers for engines. Fortunately, I have plenty of climate-controlled storage space for them. As others have pointed out, selling trains without boxes inevitably leads to receiving a lower price for them. In most cases, all of our trains will be sold at some point, whether by us or our estates.

Pat

Gentlemen, I really really appreciate all of the great advice, comments, tips, suggestions and everything else you all have handed down.  I have been given a huge amount of food for thought to process and think about.  I guess I should have given a little background about the reason for my questions.  If I was still living in El Paso, I wouldn't have had to worry about all of my boxes and such as I had the room for them and had plenty of space in the attic, however, in El Paso our house was right under 4,000 SQ FT and we had two storage sheds in the back yard also.  We moved up here to Lewisville, TX and ended up with a 2,350 SQ FT house (talk about shock!!) with a way smaller attic and no space for anything.  My layout at the new home is 12.3 miles from my house and resides in a 72' heavyweight baggage car, I belong to the Lone Star High railers train club.  Unfortunately, I can't store the empty boxes down there under the layout as we need the space to be able to access the underside of the layout for maintenance.  I don't have a huge collection, roughly about 90 to 100+ cars and about 40 locomotives.  I was already considering keeping my locomotive boxes as they will be needed when I pass away, it will make it easier on my wife or my kids when they dispose of them, hopefully not in the trash.  I plan on leaving explicit instructions on what to do with what I have and have even created an inventory list of everything I have which includes what I paid for a lot of it.  I have one post war train set that I bought from a lady that got her husbands trains in their divorce, she caught him cheating on her in her own home so she socked it to him.  She got everything and I bought it from her for next to nothing as she didn't want it and as it turned out, there were only a couple of pieces that he had that actually had some value to them.  The trains were all from the late 40's to mid 50's.  He didn't take very good care of his boxes but that's ok, I still have them and they help protect what's inside.
Enough babbling, THANK YOU ALL so much for everything from your comments to the great advice and tips and suggestions.  I'm going to think about each piece of rolling stock as to what I will do with the box as I put it on the wall for display (if I have enough space for all of it in my room).  I had already planned on keeping the locomotive boxes and I'm really going to keep other ideas in mind also.  I do have about 6 of the O Gauge Hauler boxes that I bought from Doug, they work great and I've also started to pick up some large plastic containers for storage and transport.  There's only one draw-back to the containers and the Hauler boxes, when you fill them up, they tend to get VERY HEAVY!!!!
That's why this Forum is so great, you ask and you receive from its terrific members.  Have a wonderful week ahead and thanks again.

I have been keeping all my boxes in recent years.    If I or my successor decide to sell something and have to ship it, the packing is the easiest, quickest, best and safest way.    I have seen photos of so many badly damaged items because the seller didn't bother or couldn't pack it properly.     Just yesterday a fellow on another forum was trying to sell a diesel loco he had bought and had shipped - the seller had put it in a shoe box with some tissue paper.    There was not enough paper and I guess the loco bounced around for a 1000 miles or so.   Both pilots and some of the handrails were damaged, and who knows inside, he said he didn't test it. 

The other side of that is I have second thoughts because the boxes take up a lot of space.

The only rolling stock that doesn’t have a box in my collection are those those that didn’t come with one.  

I keep all the boxes.  Most everything that has a box stays in the box.  Pieces without boxes are stored on display shelve or in larger cardboard boxes with foam sheets or bubble wrap.  When I run out of room then I have to stop buying.

Luckily I live near a small computer manufacturer.   The boxes they discard are usually double wall and very strong.  Two or three types come with plastic carrying handles.  One type of motherboard box comes with a plastic handle and nicely holds 5 tank car size boxes or 4 reefer/stock car size boxes.  Another type will nicely hold two or three engines.  I used to use boxes like these to go to and from train shows.  With care they last a long time..  I have been accumulating different size boxes for the past 8 months in preparation for a move.  After the move the cars will likely stay in these larger boxes for some time.  Using multiples of the same size box makes stacking and storing easier.

And no, I don't have insects carrying away my trains because of the cardboard.

i agree, if it came with a box, it's stored in the box. also for those boxless cars and loco's you can use 660 count baseball card storage boxes or larger.

I need to find something to put my 25 pieces of freight rolling stock in to when I take them to the shows to run on the club layout.  My next show will be the first time I'll have run a freight consist since I've always ran passenger trains since I joined the club.  It always seems like I get stuck with the last hour of track time and always feel rushed during take down.  By the time it's all said and done it might take me a half an hour give or take to put them back into their boxes.  Some of them are Atlas cars have delicate railings and undercarriage detailing that require extra time to remove and put them back into their boxes.

Does anyone have any ideas?  It would be much appreciated! 

try the baseball card storage boxes, heavy stock and some room for padding

I'm keeping boxes for locomotives and passenger car sets, but single piece rolling stock boxes are getting the boot.  I simply don't have room to store them, so it's pointless to try to keep them all.

@J. Motts posted:

I'm sure this has been posted and the same questions asked before, ...

Almost weekly, in fact.

Depends - if you're a collector thinking that this matters on that planet, then keep them if only for your personal mental comfort.

If you're not a collector, very few boxes probably matter other than those for larger items such as engines, etc.   Just about everything else can go into better quality boxes of some uniform dimensions that will actually enhance your storage capacity.

For example, 90% of my rolling stock are in 4x4x12 boxes from ULine.  I'm 101% sure that others will relate their preferred alternate choices for boxes.

Fair warning, I'm old school and a bit OCD in this area.  I've recently gotten back to my Lionel stuff after around a 40 year hiatus.  I'm adding stuff to it way more often than my wife would like (luckily she doesn't know all my purchases).  Almost all my stuff has the original boxes, and those that didn't and repro boxes were available on eBay, I bought them.  In any case, I generally do not buy rolling stock if there is no box, it depends on the rarity.  On a recent Stout auction I bought a lot of 10 cars.  It attracted my attention because all came with boxes.  I bought another lot where there were multiple cars but only one box, but that lot had a 681 engine that I really wanted, so I bought it.