Inventory

What is important to you?   That is what you put in.    I assume a description, x29 for example, and number.    Then cost etc as you suggest.   As for value you need to attend shows and watch forums and kind of get a feel for it as one way.

I have done this with excel and use a separate sheet for each car type and one for steam and one for diesels etc.     Then I have a summary where I pull in totals from the individual detail sheets.     No good reason for the summay other than it is fun to look at every year or so.

Thanks PRRJIM

This is a page from the flat file data base I made in Excel.

PRRronbh -- Thanks

A big thank you to everyone commenting on my post on how to keep track of your track!!  I appreciate everyone's feedback.  Nortske

Attached screenshot is an Access database that started from an excel file.  Gives an idea of all the fields used.

Nortske:

Similar to the others; I maintain an inventory of my trains using a simple Excel spreadsheet.

I enter manufacturer, a brief product description, product number, purchase price and condition of the item at the time I bought it.  This last probably is a bit of overkill for brand new items but, desirable for used.

I do not make any attempt to track current market value for items in my collection as I personally feel it would burn time that could otherwise be spent running trains.  At one time there were commercial inventory programs available that purported to do this but, it has to be at least ten years since I can remember seeing anything like that advertised in either OGR or CTT.

Curt

I have an Access database that contains a table for each category of RR-related items (e.g. locomotives, passenger cars, freight cars, structures, etc.). Common attributes include manufacturer, item #,  description, type, classification, roadname, number, purchase date, purchase location, purchase price, notes. The advantage of Access over Excel is that is a relational database, so for example I can query each table for specific information or cross-reference easily for things like maintenance.

Can someone post a sample page that I can download and use?

NORTSKE,

One point of advice.  As you may have noticed on the page of my EXCEL sheet posted there is a "MSRP" column.  At first I did a summation on that column.  That number totally shocked me!  I eliminated that summing.  Sure wish could get that number OUT of my head.

So be careful you also may not want to know that amount.

Ron