Ways of storing and toting your locos and rolling stock

[DougF]

I don’t have any way of posting pics on the forum. If anyone would like to send me their e-mail address in a PM I would be happy to send the picture that I have to them. Perhaps they could then post on the forum.

Each tray is built on a base that measures just under 11 X 17 inches. I would urge you to measure the box that you are going to use as I have seen different sizes of them. Mine all come from a single source so they are all the same.

Each side is 2 and 3/8 deep. This is deep enough for Vista Dome cars. I cut the sides to the full length of the tray and the ends to fit between them. I make the dividers between the cars a little shorter than the sides. There are two dividers that run the length of the box for the 50’ cars and 2 cars will fit in the length. I separate the cars with small blocks of foam that has a cutout for the couplers. I use small pieces of foam to fill the length so that the cars don’t rattle and move when being transported.

I hope this is understandable.

Doug

[blownout_cylinder]

I have 2 old hardshell roadcases that used to house keyboards–namely Fender Rhodes electric pianos—anyway these cases were converted into my road cases/storage cases for all my N scale pieces—which I’m still collecting—all I done was collect all kinds of gray foam used to house computers and such and modified them together with some plastic separation pieces—so far this has worked quite well for me—

[TomDiehl]

A good source is the box that computer keyboards are shipped in. The depth is about right for HO rolling stock…Some computer cables, such as IEEE’s come in a similar box that can work just as well. Any shallow, flip top box is a good candidate. Remember, free material is always good. Just add a little effort.

It’s funny you should mention that, Tom. I was standing in my office cubicle just this past afternoon. On top of one of my cubicle bookshelves is a DELL computer keyboard box that contains the keyboard, mouse, and cabling for my new computer. I looked at it and thought to myself, “Ya know? That’s about the same shape and size as the Axian boxes that I just bought. I bet that would work pretty well as a storage unit, too.” (And, the actual keyboard boxes themselves should be just the right size for N-scale rolling stock and locos.)

Now, after reading of your solution - and the fact that we have 8 new computers sitting around waiting to get set up here at work, I may have to abscond with a few of the extra keyboard boxes. (Minus the keyboards, that is.)

Thanks for the idea, Tom.

Tom

Grab as many of them as you can and stockpile them. I’ve found that things like this are available only sporadically. Besides, the empty boxes are usually headed for the dumpster anyway, so you’re recycling.

[Omaha53]

I make my own boxes with left over foam rubber from the carpet store. This is not the recycled rubber that you usually see under carpets, but a solid white to off white piece. I order empty boxes like you show from a box company for about $3.00 each and then I glue the foam rubber to the inside. One advantage of making my own is that I can arrange the interior of the boxes according to the length of the cars that I will be storing in that box.

One of the important details is to use a piece of plastic to wrap around each car so that details on the cars do not snag on the foam rubber. I get a plastic drop cloth from the paint store and cut it into squares that are the correct size for each car.

I use six boxes to take my equipment to our club’s modular setups.