You’re looking at apples and oranges here. From what I have seen, there is usually not much overlap between an inventory program that can do operations-oriented stuff, and an operations program that has all the inventory abilities of say, a full-blown relational database. Which in itself is an unfortunate situation.
Steve
One nice product that bridges this gap is Shenware’s MiTrains program … inexpensive, but not free
http://members.aol.com/Shenware/mitrains.html
This can be coupled to the company’s Waybills program to print out car cards and such:
http://members.aol.com/Shenware/waybills.html
Free trial downloads are available.
I own and use Shenware’s Waybills, but for myself, I keep my inventory in an excel spreadsheet (easy to sort, print in any format, find entries, etc.)
But the combination of MiTrains and Waybills may work well for some folks who want more bells and whistles.
regards,
Byron
Back in the dark ages, I designed an inventory system on my then-new WordPerfect softwear, and I’ve been using it ever since. Among other things, I list both original purchase price and (if possible) current replacement cost. I can also input data on superdetailing and mechanical upgrades, with costs. While I sincerely hope I’ll never have to use that info, it will be very handy if I ever have to argue about compensation with an insurance adjustor.
Every time I post changes I back up the file to disk, then swap it with the one I keep in my safety deposit box.
One thing that’s a real shocker is the vast increase in cost between mid-60’s purchase and today. One rather small loco, purchased as a kit in 1964 for under $30, was advertised in MR in 1971 for $69.00. A few months ago that same kit by the same maker was advertised in Tetsudo Mokei Shumi for just over $600.00. (Original and present prices converted from Japanese Yen at the then-current rate of exchange.)
Chuck
I inventory every single thing that I have ever bought for my layout. I use Microsoft Xcel. I can design it to fit my need for all the info that I want to list such as, Item, Road number, Manufacturer, Price paid, Date bought, Where bought ( what LHS, or online, or show etc. ) Very easy to do with Xcel.
Hi folks,
I’m the guy who wrote the software mentioned a few times above: Yard Office (glad you like it! [:)] ). It lets you associate photos with your models, display RR icons, get a quick analysis of stuff like road name distribution, car types, manufacturers, averages, total costs, etc… Obviously I think a piece of inventory software is better than a spreadsheet since it quickly allows you to have these kinds of features… Every time you assign a car to DRGW, the DRGW logo pops up and any DRGW notes you’ve entered associate with that car. You can view all the detail for a single car or loco, or switch to a “rows and columns” view of the whole inventory with one click. I’ve just completed upgrades allowing multiple photos for each car so that you can scroll through different views of your model, or prototype shots, etc. as you look at each item. (I’ve got a couple weeks testing, then I’ll have the new version on the website). You can print a roster or labels or car cards with a click. Large text boxes let you scroll through free-form notes for each car. Single click to re-sort items. Quick searches. Scroll look-up tables to find all the cars of a certain road, type or manufacturer. If you’re really a whizz with a spreadsheet I guess you could do all that, but maybe not as straightforward, and for many folks, learning your way around Excel ain’t so fun.
For some, a spiral notebook works (or none of the above) too. I guess I’m a “list” kind of guy, so I find it great fun to keep track of what I’ve got, and be able to look at it every which way.
Well, I’m going on and on. Obviously it’s a topic that I’m passionate about. By the way, Yard Office is shareware, so you can download it and use it free (link is below). There are no limits on data access, no time limits, you can do photos, rosters, etc. etc. with the shareware version… then if you like it, you can register (as Terry mentioned $20) and it adds more features.
I use Quatro Pro spreadsheets and find it suits me well. I started developing the spreadsheet about ten years ago, because I had 12 pages of information regarding our freight car fleet. I set my pages up so that I have only specific information about engines and cars on each one. For example, one page is devoted to simply retaining information about how much I paid for a car, who manufactured the car, and when it was purchased. Another is similar for engines, but there is more detail about custom details, painting, etc.
Besides keeping track of “value”, I use the spreadsheets to classify cars into trains. Of course this is done electronically, but I enjoy putting the trains together. My brother and I model 8 eastern railroads and two industries which have their own switchers. I want to see trains that “look correct” for each railroad, so my spreadsheet generates a random number between 0 and 1000 for each car on the ready track in staging. I then look up the results in a table which I created that will show which railroad will have this car in its train, and whether it will be forewarded to an industry on the layout, interchanged or simply bridged back into another staging yard. Each car has a predetermined number of sessions that it stays in staging before reaching the ready track for its next run (they can be as little as 1 for cars that I very frequently saw on trains back in the 1960s or as many as 30 for cars that were more infrequent). The number I assign also depends on how many cars I have which are similar types. For instance, I have far too many hi-cube auto parts box cars, so each car has a relatively high number of sessions in staging, whereas a 40 foot Erie Lackawanna box car may have only a few stays in the staging yard before making another appearance.
Sorry I got so “winded”. It’s easier to demonstrate than to explain…but go with spreadsheets. They are easy and functional.
Mike
I use a simple Access database. It synchronizes with Smartlist on my Palm. I use Smartlist/Access for almost all my database needs.
I use Microsoft Word, since it’s relitively easy to use and create inventories with. I know of a few people who use Microsoft Accell, but I found it harder to use than Word for my application. [8D]
-Brandon