My current N-scale layout under construction will have about 10 staging tracks 12’ in length or longer, so I should have ample room to store the fleet on rails. As another poster mentioned, most of my locos will be in consists with complete staged trains, so it is desirable to leave them on the rails. Jamie
Electrolysis requires a conducting paste, gel, or liquid to complete the circuit to the 2 dissimilar metals. In Arizona, unless you are watering your track daily (and then I would have to ask why?), you do not really have a climate that promotes galvanic action or electrolysis. Which is why easily corroded aluminum and steel aircraft are successfully stored in the desert Southwest for decades.
Much more destructive will be ultraviolet decomposition of plastic and fading of paint. Even the hot temperatures are more likely to cause problems than electrolysis for you.
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
The majority of my fleet stays on the rails. However, I do have more rolling stock then the layout can handle, so equipement does get rotated on and off.
Nick
I have had ONE instance of zinc alloy wheels and brass track having an electrolytic reaction - after having been stored (God knows where, at Air Force expense) for close to two years before being loaded on a ship that crossed the Pacific during typhoon season. The car was in a box, and I had slipped a piece of old Atlas fiber-tie flex track under it to take up the last of the slack. I suspect that the materials in the fiber ties might have contributed to the galvanic action.
Other cars with similar wheels did not have problems - but there was no brass rail under them.
Unless you expect to leave your cars standing for a month at a time (or your area receives a heavy amount of hyper-acid rain) electrolysis is very unlikely to cause problems.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I looked at your layout and in one picture you mention that it withstood 20 - 30 mph winds. That’s probably OK for the layout as it seems from your coment that the layout was fine - however, I’m doubtful that I would want to subject my locomotives and freight cars to the elemnents even if they were as benign as those experienced in Nevada - that’s where you live, eh?
So for reasons of climate and the surprises that nature can visit on the un-wary, I would bring my models inside and sleep well knowing that an overnight change in the weather will not effect them.[zzz]
Electrolysis - isn’t that about hair removal[;)]
Cheers
Bruce
I don’t keep anything on the layout, it is all stored in a roll-out cart that sets by the layout. The reason is that I don’t have but one small length of storage track on layout, and an engine house with the capacity to hold 1 locomotive. It’s an issue I plan to address on the next layout…
Since I’m currently building my layout, I leave all my good stuff off when I’m done. But once I put plexi glass around the edges of my layout I’ll probably leave the stuff on the layout. Currently I’m affraid too even run my good stuff in fear it may fall of the edge and hit the cement floor 
So until I get a barrier around the layout I keep stuff safely in there boxes.
In a tempatured controlled basement with little moisture problem would it be a problem too keep the stuff on the rails other then a chance of dust? Even then my stuff in my basement doesnt get all that dusty, but the spiders have there way with other things in the basement that have stood still for long periods of time.
Generally, all my rolling stock is on the layout,except for servicing, weathering, what-have-you, and now, while I’m getting the layout put back together in a new location. I don’t currently have room for all the motive power on the layout. In the past location, I had a shelf above the layout (with rails) to store unused locomotives. In the new room, I hope to build a layout expansion that will include area(s) to store unused equipment (at least, until my roster grows).
Remember what they told Tootles: “Stay on the rails no matter what!”. I certainly try to keep my fleet on the rails but I do have an occasional derailment!
Actually, to get serious, having to continuously be taking motive power and rolling stock on and off the layout can be tedious as well as being detrimental to the condition of your equipment. A former member of my N-Scale club carried a pair of cotton dress gloves in his equipment case and put them on anytime he had to handle his equipment. When you think about it such an action makes sense; during any operating session your hands are likely to get grimy and that grime can rub off onto your equipment. At the least I think I would try to wash my hands thoroughly before either putting equipment onto or removing equipment from my layout.
I’m in western Arizona Bruce…it’s a bit dryer and the weather is more predictable than Nevada [:D] There are days at a stretch that I could leave the roster out on the rails, but I don’t. I have left them out on the big layout from time to time, but that was only because it was in a garage and I knew I’d be getting back to them the next day or shortly thereafter.
Since my layout can handle only five locomotives and about 40 freight cars most of the 200 locomotives are either in bookcase units on Tru-Scale “Ready Track” or on shelves and 700 freight cars are in boxes of 40 cars each.
Unless I’m changing out something it stays on the railroad or the shelves. The main problem is dust. Even though the basement is finished and heated there is dust from the air that has to be taken care of.
When handleing locomotives with the new rubber handrails extreme caution is required. The rubber handrails break even while looking at them. Wire handrails for me. I replace the rubber handrails with Athearn or Smoley Valley wire/metal handrails just like replacing X2f couplers with Kadee’s.
Since my layout is only about 47 square feet, and I have 45+ locos, not to mention freight and passenger cars, the vast majority of my equipment lives in my “train closet”. I do try to rotate them around a bit, so they all get run every couple of months or so…
Unfortunately, I don’t have enough room on my layout for all of my equipment. Under my Cleveland and Columbus staging yards, I have stands that I pull out to place the trays on for my A-Line/PPW HobbyTotes to transfer equipment on and off the layout, which is the only places where most of my equipment will be taken off and other equipment put on the layout so that my cars are cycled on and off the layout so that they are out of sight “someplace else”. The only equipment that I plan on putting on the layout or taking off elsewhere would be my Triple Crown trains since the Crestline and Pittsburgh end points aren’t on the “loop”. The same would be for when I run the Broadway Limited and Pennsylvanian. For my 3C Corridor Amtrak trains, they’ll be getting put on the layout in the Columbus staging yard, head north to the Cleveland staging yard, and layover there, where their train cards are turned over for the next southbound train. Once they then head back south to the Columbus staging yard, they’ll be taken off the layout.
Kevin
[oops] - sorry to have relocated you like that, Bob.[%-)][
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Your post was timely for me as leaving my layout fully rostered was something I had been pondering for a wee while - mainly because I just like the look of a populated layout - I hadn’t considered any technical reasons and I’m glad now that there are none. Humidity, spiders and the family felines are more of a problem for me.
Cheers.
Bruce
Like Mr. SP, though I don’t have quite his number of locos, I most certainly have enough (50-odd brass steamers) to often need to transfer my ‘fleet’ between running sessions. My major yard holds about 40 cars, and I haven’t put in my staging area yet, which I hope will hold at least a goodly portion of my over 400 freight cars. So between sessions, I have to do a lot of transferring, depending on what types of trains I plan on running in any given session. Luckily, my engine facilities will usually hold a good enough of my large fleet of articulateds (read my quote below my signature at the bottom of the post) to warrant re-using them on my Yuba River Sub during a long operating session, but again, space kind of prohibited my building a massive turntable and roundhouse so that I invariably switch locos from my layout to my display case depending on what I am going to be running at any given time.
But hey–if everything ran perfectly for me, I’d probably get BORED. I’m like that, BTW. [:P]
Tom [:D]
All I have at home is a single track, arounf the cieling shelf that I use ot test equipment and things, I do most of my running down at the depot where our club layout is. I haul everything… I have taken those crawer units and glued old snap track in the bottom, and put in dividers and on the drawers where stacking is possible I used some masonite and then attached track and dividers in it. It keeps things from hanging up on eachother, keeps things organized, and I find it doesnt get damemaged as easily. And I sort them by Car type, Coal Hoppers, Cvd hoppers, Boxcars, and so on. then when I want to take on type down with me I can just pull the appropreate drawers. Most locomotives get kept in the boxes un less they are on my RIP track on the bench.