I just inventoried all my rolling stock

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hi everyone!

I just inventoried all of my rolling stock using Yard Office. I still have to fine tune the entries a bit but the bulk of the work is done.

http://musicmixradio.com/yardoffice/

The program is a little quirky but it works well IF you pay attention to what is entered in all of the fields before you save a file. (What program doesn’t require that?)

The results were very informative.

Here is what I have accumulated:

  • 259 revenue producing cars of all types (I won’t bore you with the individual category counts)

  • 28 MOW cars

  • 18 cabeese

  • 28 diesels or gas powered locomotives

  • 5 steamers

Total: 338

Here are some of the things I learned:

  • I thought I had brought most of my freight cars up to NMRA Recommended Practices. Now I’m not so sure. I am in the habit of putting a small dot of red paint on the bottoms of the cars that I bring up to the RPs, or so I thought. Unfortunately a lot of cars that appear to meet the RPs don’t have the dot. My bad. Now I have a lot of re-testing to do.[D)]

  • I need a whole bunch of Kadee #148s. I have a significant number of Athearn coal hoppers with the dreaded plastic couplers, and I found lots of other stuff with crappy couplers too. I’m not going to run a 40 car coal train with plastic couplers.

  • I have a ton of painting to do. Actually, I already knew that but I think I was in a state of denial.

  • I don’t have a lot of stuff that I would consider to be ‘surplus’. Certainly there are some things that I wonder what I was thinking when I spent the money, but most of my rolling stock seems pretty legit. There is some junk like a President’s Choice 2-8-2 made in Slovenia which has about as much detail as a cue ball, and some Walthers Trainline flat cars that are a bit crude, but most of the rest I will keep. I have two identical Atlas yellow box Canadian Pa

2

Hi, Dave

I’ll bet if I inventoried all my revenue cars it would probably surprize me to find out just how many duplicate road numbers I have! This would especially be true of my NYC Pacemaker box cars which I have an unexplained obsession for. I imagine I have at least 50 of the crimson and gray XMs and I’m certain there are some dupes in there.

I do have my locomotives inventoried using a Microsoft Works database. It is very handy to look up which decoder I have installed and if or when I did any re-work, relube or axle gear work on.

I’ll bet if I schmooze Mrs. Pullman into helping me we could probably inventory my rolling stock during one of the forthcoming inclement weather days (or weekends). Might cost me a mink coat or Gucci purse but I’m sure it would be loads of fun!

I have a hard time when it comes to “weeding out” some of the—shall we say, less than desirable—rolling stock. Like the Jack Daniel’s box car, I know it’s a foobie but I just can’t seem to get the necessary fortitude to “retire” the car. It has become a pet. I have certainly weeded out a goodly portion of my rolling stock but I still have a roster of maybe 300 freight cars and another 150 passenger cars (more are arriving Tuesday). Is there a twelve-step program for the likes of me?

Thanks for that link, I’ll check it out!

Regards, Ed

3

Hi Ed:

I certainly have a few duplicates, although not as many as I expected. The worst offender is the Athearn BB Canadian Pacific 40’ steel box car with the ‘Spans The World’ logo. Car #241039 seems to have made out like rabbits at the Athearn factory. I have seven of them. Renumbering those will be a bit of a learning experience because the original Athearn lettering is pretty faint.

My fleet of 32 Canadian Pacific 34’ coal hoppers only has two or three duplicates. Fortunately the hoppers are black so renumbering a few of them will be easy.

Dave

4

I use Excel for my inventory needs. I made a spreadsheet for my locomotives to keep track of my kitbashing and the makeup of each locomotive. I have 78 locomotives that are for the most of it purchased as clunkers and restored. I only have 6 that were purchased new RTR, 9 were kits and the rest were clunkers.

I’m not into rolling stock, I have a variety of 33 freight and 19 SP Daylight passenger cars. My thing is restoring, kitbashing and scratch building. My workbench normally has a dozen or so in some state of needing something done. Not having a good local source for parts most are awaiting parts.

Mel

Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951

My Model Railroad&nb

5

Hi Mel:

I haven’t quite figured out how I want to keep track of all of the details regarding each piece of rolling stock in the Yard Office program, particularly with regard to locomotives. So far I have only entered basic information which is fine for the revenue cars, but some of the locomotives need more information. I need to get a little more familiar with the program. According to the manual it is very flexible.

Anyhow, it is a start. Heaven forbid I should drop dead tomorrow, but if I do I want my family to have at least some information about my collection.

I think that perhaps the hardest part may be yet to come. That is valuing all of the stuff. I’d like to come up with some sort of idea of what each piece is worth today, but that information may have a relatively short life span. Values change over time, and the last thing I want to do is give my successors out of date information. I’m not sure how to handle that. Any suggestions anyone?

Dave

6

Dave, I’ve made up my own roster using Microsoft Word which includes the manufacturer, what type of coupler, wheel sets, new or 2nd hand, and what modifications, if any, I’ve made.

However while it’s a good idea, especially as I intend to have operations, I’ve been rather slack and it’s no where up to date, and I’m not sure what I’ve actually got. I guess that I’d have about the same number of revenue cars as you.

I do know I’m light in cabooses, and could do with more 40’ box cars in different, era appropriate, road names. Double ups don

7

I have always been a spreadsheet user since the advent of Lotus 1-2-3. So it was natural to me to put my roster inventory using Excel and now Numbers (iOS).

One of the benefits is that it’s keeps me from buying duplicates. I have only one of a CNR boxcar kit that I bough when the newly printed list (a reduced size paper list that I kept in my wallet) was sitting at home beside the printer. Now my list is stored in my iPhone, always at hand.

I prefer to use generic spreadsheets so I can manage the informations as I need them. So I was able to adjust the form differently for freight cars, locomotives and vehicles. I can even modify the listing to follow some special operation like replacing wheels and couplers.

8

I feel your pain…I recently quit the Bucyrus HO club due to health reasons and just realize recently none of those cars I used at the club had their wheel face painted so,now when the winds a’ howling and the snow’s a’flying I have 360 wheel faces to paint-that’s 90 cars.

My collection is 253 IPD short line boxes,76 various railroad boxcars,6 flats,32 coveredhoppers,23 mill gons,7 coil cars,5 centerbeams,8 bulkheads and 14 (57’) reefers and 8 cabooses.

Total 432 cars.

There’s actually rhyme and reason behind those types of freight cars.Every one can be used on a ISL since those are commonly seen at industrial parks.[tup]

One thing I liked to do during a open house at the club was running a colorful solid 18 car IPD short line boxcar train. While that wasn’t prototypical it was a sure enough crowd pleaser.

9

I use a program called RRTrains2000 developed by Gregory Braun. Not only does it allow me to track my inventory, it allows a picture to be linked of the item.

RRTrains 2000

10

As far as renumbering freight cars and locomotives, its usually not that hard to change a 3 to an 8, a 6 to an 8, visa versa and etc., with a little paint on the tip of a needle, toothpick, or very fine brush. Better than scraping off everything and redecaling, IMO.

I have bought some items because I thought that I might “need” them in the future. Usually I never do.

11

Hi Dave-

I am rebuilding my fleet after changing interests.

There are two Texas & Pacific brass steamers of which one is unpainted. There are two hybrids, a GN 4-8-4 and a T&P 2-10-4. There is one Proto GP7 and 16 freight cars.

Other equipment is my son’s.

For myself I will never need that much more equipment. All rolling stock is pretty new and detailed. There are two or three more T&P brass steamers I would like to have someday but that would be all I would ever need.

John

12

Dave,

Interesting topic, lots of useful info in an inventory if it’s kept up. I started mine when I first went back to college and took a basic computer skills class. One of the big projects was creating a useful Excel spreadsheet – and my inventory was much needed. Mine’s not perfect, but I usually keep it current…unless I forget[:$]

I have about 90 pieces of motive power, about 2 dozen of which are narrowgauge. Just for the heck of it, I track total HP, which is about 123,000 right now. There are about 250 pieces of NG rolling stock. I’m closing in on 800 pieces of SG rolling stock.

A thought or two on values. I typically list the retail price as the value. Not really accurate for most used things, it does represent what you have invested (except when you managed t o get it cheaper). It’s also a start on current value. You’re never going to keep that up to date – too many variables and not enough info for most things. I tell the wife ebay will be her friend after I’m gone.)

13

Downloaded the software, we shall see if it helps. Started with over 1000 rolling stock but now down to close to 300. Got rid of anything not super detailed except for a batch of Accurail Southern Pacific boxcars (all the same number but I have dry transfers to change that). Motive power is less than 20 now and I am sure it will go down further as I move to dead rail.

14

A visit from the local gas company to re route the piping in my workbench/train storage room caused me to do a slightly informal inventory of my freight cars as well as unbuilt kits. It was an eye opener (where the heck did all those stock cars come from?), but at least the solid core of car boxes were marked KD/W meaning I had at some point verified that the couplers were metal Kadees and the weight came to NMRA standards. Which is NOT the same as knowing if the car is actually “road tested” for being derailment prone by the way.

A few years back a friend of mine with regular access to the archives of the C&NW Historical Society gave me a treasure: a list of all the cars, loads and empties, that were on the property of the biggest industry on my layout, Bucyrus Erie, in a given month within my modeling period.

I quickly realized I probably needed way more flatcars and mill gons than I had, and more of them needed to be EJ&E cars, presumably interchanged at Waukegan IL. So I started a “manual” inventory of what flats and gons I had and realized that in a sense I had “enough” flatcars but way too many were Athearn Blue Box 40 footers which by the late 1960s were likely only used as idler cars (but Bucyrus Erie shipped plenty of loads that needed idler cars). And yes I had duplicate numbers some of which surprised me: Athearn changed the lettering on some cars considerably but, alas, kept the same number over time.

I also had way too many 40 foot gons and far too few of a length and capacity that actually would have served the factory in the 1967-69 time frame. Those should probably just be retired. Problem is I really like some of them.

Anyway it resulted in a little notebook I take to train shows so I avoid duplicate purchases and duplicate numbers. I am less troubled than some of our Forum colleagues are by the detail discrepencies and failings of Blue Box, MDC, and even some AHM cars, and fra

15

Guess i know what I’m doing on Labor Day. Organizing and listing my equipment. since I do all custom decal work pn my rolling stock, it is kinda needed so I don’t end up doing duplicates.

16

I use an Exel spread sheet to keep track of my rolling stock inventory, especially car numbers, wheels, couplers, weight, truck tuning etc.

My main category headings are: stock number, manufacturer, car type, description [eg CB&Q 50’ 8pnl OB dbl door wood], road number, kit /rtr (or my build date), notes (eg 3.9oz, KD, mw [metal wheels] roll ability [percent grade] ), a code (for wheel gaged, coupler height, tuned trucks), new date, repack date, and another code (for location: on layout, at club or stored). My 320 home road cars are grouped by car type, the 462 foreign cars are grouped by owning RR/company.I found that I needed this level of detail to keep track of car tuning, renumbering and inventory levels.

I have a seperate spread sheet that tracks the number (and type of cars for the home road) vs the appropriate era Official Railway Equipment Register. So it calculates that the prototype home road has 92 cars for every one of mine and I have 2.1 times as many stock cars, 2.8 times as many reefers and .72 flats as the prototype. Similarly it tells me that I have 4 Erie cars and I should in theory only have one. I have 12 SP&S cars when the national average would be one, however it is not a problem because SP&S is a direct interchange with my home road. It is also very usefull in pruning the “odd ball” cars like Green Bay and Western which only had 438 box cars out of 948,000 in North America in 1953. My collection of “odd balls” is now mostly at the club.

Grinnell

17

My inventory list is also on Excel, and currently shows…

280 (freelance) home road freight cars, with136 in service and the others sold - no duplicate numbers.

230 foreign (mostly prototype roads) freight cars currently in use. I’ve sold probably double that amount, but don’t bother to keep track of them.

57 pieces of various home road MoW equipment, with 40 of them still on the layout and the others sold. Again, no duplicate road numbers.

80 home road locomotives, and four lettered for prototype roads. The latter four, plus 30 of the home road ones are still in use on the layout, with the rest sold.

99 passenger and express cars, with 43, mostly lettered for my homeroads, in service on the layout. The others, all home road cars, were sold.

The list shows road names, car numbers/names, lengths, original manufacturer, and whether or not the car has been modified (usually with extra details, which includes most cars and all locomotives). Equipment sold or given to close friends is noted in a “Comments” section, as is info on cars in assigned service, etc.

It also shows a value, but it’s simply one which I’ve assigned based on what I think a piece would garner were I to sell it nowadays. For high end r-t-r or kit-type cars, this is based mostly on the cars’ original cost. However, most of my stuff was bought used, and I based current values on what the sold stuff, listed above, went for. I used those numbers for prices assigned to what’s left.

I have always made money selling my used equipment, since most of that value was the work which I put into it - lousy money when figured as hourly wages, but pretty decent when an Athearn Blue Box car, bought from Hobbies For Men for $1.50 can be sold for $10.00 or $20.00. [swg]
I don’t know how useful those numbers may be in an estate sale, though.

I don’t keep track of couplers

18

Hi Marlon:

The Yard Office program also allows pictures to be attached to the files. As I understand it, if you are using the free version you can attach one picture per item, but if you buy the $27 upgrade you can attach as many pictures as you want. I think I have that right.

Dave

19

Ed:

I like the NYC Pacemaker cars a lot but so far I don’t have any in HO. The only one I’ve got is a Marx O scale.

Jack Daniel’s! - Its your RR!

Twelve step program - I think the only cure is to keep enjoying your trains, all of them!

Larry:

I haven’t even begun to think about painting wheels and weathering! I already have tons of stuff that needs just the basic colour coat to start.

Doughless:

Thanks for the suggestion of only changing a digit or two. I had heard that before but had forgotten about it.

Mike:

I agree, valuing them is a challenge. And for what? I doubt that whoever the unlucky soul is who has to deal with my collection will want to make a career out of it.

Dave Nelson:

Taking a list of what you have to train shows is a good idea.

Jimmy:

It’s actually kind of fun to see everything that you do have. I found a couple of locomotives that I had totally forgotten about.

Grinnell:

I have decided to not keep track of finer details like which Kadees are installed on a particular car unless they are unusual like underset or overset etc. If I label a car as being “NMRA compliant” then I know it has either Kadee #5s or #148s, recommended weight, proper coupler height, metal wheels in gauge, and it rolls freely. Not all of my specs are NMRA RPs but I simply use the designation to indicate that a car is ‘tuned’ to my standards.

Thanks everyone for your responses!

Dave

20

As others have described, I use a spreadsheet to track my roster of locos, freight, passenger, MOW and cabooses. The other half of the equitation is to calculate my layout’s need for the number and type of freight (etc.) cars needed. This includes the capacity of the various industry sidings, yards, staging and trains-in-transit – times a saturation factor (50% to 70% full?).

This allows me to know what I have, need or have too many of… [^o)]

Or separate the “wants” vs. “needs… [*-)]

Or to alert me when I need to engage my well-practiced talent of hyper-rationalization. [:$][:$]

Jim