I keep my loco’s in the house and whilst the diesels are an easy thing to get on the tracks I find the steamers, especially the Bachmann Connie, are a little bit awkward. The loco is a very heavy unit and there’s the connecting cables for the tender which don’t like being disconnected/connected/disconnected etc. I intend nailing track to a strong board with side bars and storing the loco’s on them and when I go outside I will take the whole unit with me and connect it to a spur I’m building into my shed and run the loco onto the main. It all sounds a bit cumbersome but needs must, any great ideas out there or is it something everyone with big loco’s struggles with.
Cheers,
Kim
[tup]
Everytime I pick up my double deck tram to take outside I say a quiet prayer so as not to fall over and drop it.I am working on a similar approach for my Dad.I’m going to use one of those ‘railing devices’ and build handles on it.Slide it in,carry outside,slide it on!.
Troy
I use a divice very similar to what you are thinking about. Simply put, it is a 3 sided box, the length of the loco, with a section of track nailed into the bottom. Install a handle or two to make it easy to carry. All you have to do then is take the box off the shelf, walk out to the garden, line up the track in the box with a spur (using slide connectors), and power the train onto the RR, reverse for putting away. Very simple, it saves time and the back. It is not nearly as cumbersome as trying to line up the drivers on your knees while bent over carrying a 20lb loco.
kim
I made a 4 wheel cart to take mine in and out of the house, and it works out , I can take 12 cars and 2 engines out at a time ,in the house i have 3 walls of shelves to hold my trains and cars , on the shelvels i have old bachmann track , to set every thing on. that way its not on the bare wood. ben
There was an advert in one of the new product columns 2 or 3 months ago in the magazine. It’s a carry cradle that had track on the base and the loco held down with double sided Velcro strips to stop it falling off. Like one of the HO Peco loco lifts with a handle on top.
I struggled with the same problem until recently. I built a carrier out of 1x8 pine lumber for the top and bottom pieces, 1x2 pine uprights, and a 3-foot piece of track. There are 4 uprights evenly spaced along each side, leaving open spaces so I can reach the on-off toggle switch at the front of the tender (I’m running battery power) and the coupler at the back of the box that prevents the locomotive from falling out. My layout has a spur line with Aristo Craft track, and I used Aristo track for the box so the rail joiners could be slipped together to steady the track as the locomotive is ran into or out of the box. A heavy-duty door handle is bolted to the top of the box to make it easy to carry around. The biggest challenge to designing the box was determining the center of gravity for placement of the handle.
I’ve seen advertisements for a carrier that is selling for around $75 U.S. My carrier cost less than $10 to build, including paint and the piece of track.