How do you organize your stuff?

[Kisatchie]

Soon to be Box 4 will hold all my UK rolling stock.

Dee isn't good in geography...


Hmm... I didn't know the
University of Kentucky had
rolling stock...

[PAL_Houston]

I organize my train stuff pretty poorly, I must say: I have  a pretty nice packing crate filled with rolling stock, and a couple of cardboard cartons filled with passenger equipment, scenery materials, track, or paints.   All that stuff is in a closet adjacent to my train room.
And that's about as far as I've gotten.
So this thread is interesting from the standpoint of giving me some new ambitions.

[Denver Road Doug]

My "system" has three parts:
1. Freight cars- Any freight car that is "road worthy" is in a TrainboxesPlus box.  I have five and each holds about 150 cars give or take.  I also have all of my intermodal loads as part of that count.   My goal is to always stick to five boxes, although a sixth one is looking more likely, simply so everything isn't crammed in.
2. "Everything Else"- includes locomotives, structures, scenic materials, ballast, paint, extra track, etc.   All of these items are contained in 6 medium-sized clear plastic tubs from the container store.  They each hold 6 shoebox size plastic boxes, if applicable.  Again, the goal is sticking to 6 and I do a decent job of that.
3. Workbench - All tools and supplies are stored in a variety of toolboxes and craft boxes...probably a dozen or so of varying sizes, not including non-hobby specific power tools and so forth.  I also have a large "electronics" rolling toolbox that has pretty much everthing related to wiring and DCC.  And finally I have four project boxes that hold whatever I'm working on at the time.   I only have four true project going at once to keep some level of focus.

I admittedly suffer from "sprawl" from time to time and right now I'm in that state.   But I'm getting things back in line again after recently purchasing a "workbench", really a converted old computer desk.

[VonRyan]

Dee isn't good in geography...


Hmm... I didn't know the
University of Kentucky had
rolling stock...

England, for all the globally challenged.
My goods stock is a mix of Great Western Railway, British Railways, and one Southern Railway open wagon.
Coaching stock is all Great Western Railway.

-Cody F.

[VonRyan]

My "system" has three parts:
1. Freight cars- Any freight car that is "road worthy" is in a TrainboxesPlus box.  I have five and each holds about 150 cars give or take.  I also have all of my intermodal loads as part of that count.   My goal is to always stick to five boxes, although a sixth one is looking more likely, simply so everything isn't crammed in.

That's a lot of rolling stock. How many cars per tray?

-Cody F.

[Denver Road Doug]

That's a lot of rolling stock. How many cars per tray?

There are three trays in each box, and each tray is divided into three sections.  Each section holds foam inserts, and there are two types: one with three short/narrow rows, and one with two taller rows.   So each tray is either 3/2/3 or 2/3/2....so either 22 or 23 slots per box.  The width of each allows for 7 50ft cars. (like coalporters, for example)  Throw a few 60ft cars into the mix and you're down to 6, and so forth.   So I estimate 50 cars per tray to make it simple but it probably is a few cars less than that.   As it stands, it works out to: one for intermodal (rolling stock, containers, and trailers), one for coal (roughly 7 unit trains), one for grain (4 unit trains plus overage),  and two for manifest/other.

I want to get another box and do more of the two-slot trays.   The narrow are good for gons, flats, some intermodal, and containers, but I would prefer everything else be in the wider slots....right now I have some boxcars upright in the narrows that work ok but I want to get them in the larger slots.   My current plan calls for somewhere around 700 modern-ish cars, (1998-2003) and that's only running very HO-esque ~8ft trains. (~9ft with locos)   I'm more of a freight car guy though....I only have around 35 "active roster" locos.   I would wager that not too many model railroaders have a 20:1 ratio like that.

[VonRyan]

I'm probably close to it. The locos I have are... A kato NW2 (PRR), a Kato F3 A-B-A set (PRR), a Kato SD70MAC (CR), an Atlas MP15-DC (Reading with CR patchout). I never even though to count my rolling stock... which I ought to.

Oh, and all have DCC.

-Cody F.

[Erik W]

I'm almost embarrassed.  I hardly have anything to store.  It's you guys with a ton of stuff to store that keep everyone in business though.  So my hats off to you!  Before I bought my first piece of rolling stock, I came up with a roster of what exactly I'd have on the layout.  For the most part I stuck to that, so pretty much all locos and cars are on the layout.  I've upgraded some of the rolling stock over the years, selling off what was replaced.  I do have a few locos stored (tunnel motors I got when I worked at IM).  All my layout stuff, empty rolling stock plastic boxes, scenery supplies, etc. then fit in 5 Xerox type paper boxes, which fit nicely under the layout.

Erik

[up1950s]

I used to group and store everything by type and in those white and opaque plastic stackable drawer set cubes . Over time everything exceeded the capacity of the dedicated spots , making finding anything worse of a task as the years pass . So now I put everything anywhere , and over time things tend to get better instead of worse . It's like an excel sheet , no matter how you over design it , there will be exceptions that will not fit or you want to fit in two places or more , and that screws up column and total tally's . I rather model than try to organize a ballooning volume and type of stuff .

[DKS]

I'm almost embarrassed.  I hardly have anything to store.  It's you guys with a ton of stuff to store that keep everyone in business though.  So my hats off to you!  Before I bought my first piece of rolling stock, I came up with a roster of what exactly I'd have on the layout.  For the most part I stuck to that, so pretty much all locos and cars are on the layout.  I've upgraded some of the rolling stock over the years, selling off what was replaced.  I do have a few locos stored (tunnel motors I got when I worked at IM).  All my layout stuff, empty rolling stock plastic boxes, scenery supplies, etc. then fit in 5 Xerox type paper boxes, which fit nicely under the layout.

I envy you, sir. Genuinely.

[Lemosteam]

Map/blueprint drawer cabinet.  Sorry, old pics.

+1.  I want to put mine on wheels eventiually. Found mine in the garbage, luckily.

[GaryHinshaw]

Along the lines of blueprint drawers, the IKEA 'Alex' drawers are perfectly sized for storing jewel boxes (and their contents) and they're readily available:



The top 3 drawers store boxes 2 deep and the bottom 3 hold boxes 3 deep.  And they come with casters.

[wcfn100]

To clean off my work bench I picked up one of these on sale at Office Depot.



I filled it up and still can't get to my work surface. 

The rest stays in their boxes in large clear totes.


Jason

[Philip H]

Along the lines of blueprint drawers, the IKEA 'Alex' drawers are perfectly sized for storing jewel boxes (and their contents) and they're readily available:



The top 3 drawers store boxes 2 deep and the bottom 3 hold boxes 3 deep.  And they come with casters.

How have I missed  this beauty ever time I have gone up the road to Ikea?  Oh wait, you moved before we could organize a trip.  got it.   

[davefoxx]

This is what I use.  I bought it at Lowe's several years ago for $99.00.  Someone had given me a gift card for $100.00.  In other words, it was free.   



The top drawer holds jewel cases on their sides perfectly, which makes it easy to view the contents.  It holds three jewel cases wide by, perhaps, ten front-to-back.  The second drawer holds jewel cases several deep.  The bottom drawers are deep enough that I keep a tool box for my hobby tools in one of them.  Love it.

The cabinet has allowed me to move my trains safely in two residential moves so far.

DFF