At many of the model railroads I have visited over the years I have noticed a phenomenon that they have in common with me. The modeller keeps almost all of the empty boxes from cars, kits, etc. I have attempted to justify this to the person sharing my living space without much success. After all most kit structures will not fit back into their boxes after construction. Rolling stock usually will fit, but unless boxes are used for storage, or frequent transportation, when would that occur? And would it need to be for everything at the same time?
I have sometimes considered breaking down the boxes into flat pieces, so that they could be stored compactly but taped back together for some future use(?). But that is as close as I have been able to get to thinking I don’t really need them.
I am just curious about this observation and the habits and/or advice of other modellers concerning what seems to be a strange way to use limited hobby storage space.
some things are just too good to throw away immediately. i have long observed this human behavior in myself as well as others, and i don’t fully understand it yet.
for instance, back when i ran a business my helper would ask what to do with a particular thing and i would almost always tell him to put it under the bench or on a shelf. after a few months of this i would tell him to throw all that crap in the scrap. seems like it is easier to throw it away after you have kept it for a while.
as long as it is a bunch of kit boxes you are probably ok. just as long as you don’t get to be like the lady on tv recently who had 56 cats in her house. 20 live and 36 dead. now there is a hoarder!!
Apparently, locomoives and rolling stock in the original boxes are more valuable if you ever want to resell them. As far as building kits, I agree you could not fit the finished product back in the box so I can’t see the value in keeping it.
I had saved all my rolling stock boxes just because I felt someday I might need them. As it turned out that day came sooner than I expected and I was glad I had them. All my rolling stock is packed away in their original boxes then sorted and placed into larger containers by type of train they would be used for. I will not be able to start my layout until next year and sorting them will be a lot easier and I know that they will not be damaged. I had kept them all intact as and stored them under the layout.
I keep all of my original boxes to my locos and rolling stock. However, if the box is to a flat car of some kind (regular, bulkhead, centerbeam, etc.) that has a permanently attached load that I added to it, then no.
I won’t be able to put the car back into the box unless I end up breaking the load and/or the car while trying.
I keep the locomotive bpxes in case I want to sell them again. Kits and other rolliing stock I toss unless it is a high dollar item that might need storage later or again for resale. I have at least 60-70 unbuilt kits/rolliing stock in my storage areas and don;t really see a need to keep empty ones. My wife likes to toss anything in the fridge that has an expired date on it, even one day past. She would have my train room spotless if I gave her the chance. I think many of my kits have expired dates on them!! Save what you want but remember how much space you are giving up to empy boxes.
Well, I keep loco and rolling stock boxes, not for resale or “collector value”, I’m never selling anything. But they are the best way to transport or store models in the event of a move or other life changing event.
Structure boxes - no, becaue they won’t go back in.
I’m on the same page with Paul. I did recently move and they were handy, but I had stored them neatly stacked on a shelf as if to document the achievement of having built the kits and bought the brass. I stored them with no intention of using them.
Somehow, I can’t bear to throw them away. Yes, it’s a quirk shared by many of us in the hobby.
I keep the boxes for freight cars if they’re the type with a separate lid, and pick-up extra empty ones when they’re available. For most cars, they go in the boxes in which they fit best, which is not necessarily their original ones. Because I don’t have boxes for all of the cars (I buy a lot of used stuff that comes without boxes), I make-do with what I have: an Athearn Blue Box will hold two open hoppers, while the longer version used for Athearn passenger cars is good for four cars of the same type. I re-label each box with the reporting marks and car number, and keep them reasonably organised on shelves beneath my staging yards. Not only are the boxes useful for carrying the cars, they also serve as off-layout interchange destinations and origins.
Passenger cars, locomotives, and MoW equipment goes into boxes like these:
Inside are compartmentalised trays, built to suit the equipment:
With the exception of five (count 'em) boxes for U.S. prototype locos, all of my empty boxes have long since joined the trash stream. Any kit boxes I have still have unassembled kits in them.
When I moved, several years ago, my rolling stock was packed in plastic file boxes between decks of fan-fold underlayment (thin extruded foam), separated by strips of the same material. I suffered exactly NO damage, even though the boxes were transported 2000 miles in the bed of a pickup truck (under a topper).
My ‘not on the layout’ rolling stock is stored in cassettes, not boxes.
As for possible sale action, I’ll let my estate executor worry about it. It won’t be an issue before then.
I keep all locomotive boxes with instructions. Rolling stock… hmmm… I’ve kept about 40 percent maybe. If you’re likely to move in the future then having the boxes is a good thing. I have a friend that has well over 1, 500 rolling stock and just about 90 percent of the original boxes. If you’re going to sell the collection then having the original box, or even a duplicate box, is a definite plus.
I think this ritual started many years ago, 50s-60s, with the brass locomotives as they were high quality boxes meant to stay with the engine, caboose, or passenger car and greatly “devalued” the item if the box wasn’t present.
Since then this thinking has expanded to include most every item we have now which I personally think is a good thing, but that’s just “my” opinion.
Over the years I have acquired quite a bit of rolling stock with no boxes and tried several different alternatives but without that much success then I stumbled on the solution one day while at a friend’s pizza joint.
I bought some unused pizza boxes from him, not those flimsy, cheap things but some heavy duty corrogated boxes. They came in 3 different sizes so I bought a couple of each and tried them to find out which ones worked best for me. I now have all my excess rolling stock that didn’t have original boxes in them neatly stacked on shelves. The includes freight cars, passenger cars, and some engines which I acquired for various projects.
I place a label on the end of the box and can tell instantly what is in them and they are all neatly keep from dust and such at the same time. I also “date” the label.
All of my other “rolling stock” that still have their original boxes I put in those heavy plastic “milk crates” for storage and/or transport. They’re very tough and will take some abuse without harming the contents plus they’re “stackable” and because they have semi-open sides they also get good air flow around them.
As the old saying goes and I’m always telling my wife to no avail it seems, “organization is the key to productivity”. It’s also the key to knowing what you ha
We tend to keep a lot of things I suppose we don’t “need”.
AMong them are all the boxes for my rolling stock. I don’t know why I keep them. I don’t take the arduous time to repack them in the boxes tehy came in when they are not in use, rather I pack them with extruded foam and cotton bating into plastic shoeboxes. I have two dressers in the train room fullof other stuff I am trying to get rid of, JUSt so I can store the empty RR boxes in them. Actually what I shoud do is get a bunch of cardboard boxes and store the empty RR boxes in them, then put those boxes in the shed! Then I could put my rolling stock in the shoe boxes into the dressers for easier access.
I DO throw away the empty boxes for building kits, but for some reason I cut the picture off the front of the box to “save”. I don’t know why.
WE live in a trailer,and have WAY to much stuff crammed into it anyway. we need to thin down. If my back holds out, I would like to have a yard sale and sell stuff CHEAP if someone can use it rather than just add to the landfill problems by throwing away.
You are NOT ALONE in keeping boxes, the MRR force is with you!.
Another reason I have not seen mentioned is that if a part breaks off later, becomes worn etc…If you keep the orginial box with instructions it usually has the part number/name on it. This makes ordering and contacting the correct manufacture much easier. You can also use it to determine which Hobby shop store price sticker on box. This has been very useful to me on several occasions.
Actually , come to think of it, my Dad kept all of the boxes for our old Lionel stuff which was good because when we went to sell the stuff after we had converted to HO it made quite a difference in the price if we hadn’t had the original boxes. Of course those boys carry things a bit too far when they start grading condition of the boxes as well, but that’s their game.
When I was in HO, a lot of Athearn and MDC boxes got retasked for parts/tools/materials storage. Some boxes were destroyed. And others were used to store the rolling stock that came in them. Structure kit boxes were either discarded or retasked. I suppose a case can be made for keeping the picture on the cover for future reference.
Now that I’m in N scale, most of the rolling stock comes in clear plastic jewel cases, and I’ve even bought new jewel cases to store items that didn’t come with them. It seems to be the best way to store the cars and locos. And the jewel cases can be retasked.
I didn’t get a chance to build most of my N scale structure kits before I had to move. A sump pump failure resulted in a basement flood, and most of the boxes had to be discarded. The kits went into ziplock bags.
In general, I am more willing to save “permanent” boxes like plastic jewel boxes, or the old plastic boxes Train Miniature used for their kits. Cardboard boxes I am less likely to save, although an Athearn blue box or the equivelent MDC boxes stand a better chance than a structure kit box.
