Large Scale Central

transporting trains

When I go to the various shows that my clubs put on, I have been transporting my cars and locomotives in cardboard boxes. Its not the best way to transport my stuff. Even with the stuff wrapped in paper towels, it can become damaged. And to transport the locomotives in their original boxes takes up a lot of room. And them boxes are all different sizes, so they don’t even stack well. So I started looking into a better way. Eventually I settled on some stack-able, shallow plastic bins, from Lowe’s. I bought some white foam, also at Lowe’s, and tonight I started on my quest to build a better way to transport my locomotives.

First I lined the bottom of the bin with white foam, and then I put dividers in the in bin 2 1/4 inch apart. I glued the dividers in with Loctite Power Grab for foam.

Well, that worked for the first layer. And yea, I know, wires are hanging out of the Mehano Mountain. I am in the midst of rewiring it for DCC. But I Devoned it for a little while.

For the second layer, I wanted to make a smaller tray, so it could handle the stresses of being lifted out with locomotives in it. As a bonus, I can carry my pride and joy, a Victorian Railways class B Clyde, it its original box, making sure its well protected.

Oh, and the Bachmann PC Geep too. Since I chose shallow bins, that is all I can put into them and still latch the lid on. I didn’t get the deeper bins, because if I filled one of them with HO locomotives, it would weigh an awful lot.

I have some tissue paper that I will be layering in the trays, so that the foam doesn’t damage the finish on the locomotives. But tonight was just a test fit to see if my idea would work.

It looks like I will need to get another bin for the rest of the locomotives. I had purchased 4 bins, and I think that my rolling stock will just about fill the other 3. Or, maybe the other 3 bins I bought won’t hold all of the rolling stock. But that is a project for another day.

I used to do it that way but mom said I wasn’t allowed to use shallow bins like that.

You would need an AWFUL amount of bins and foam for your G gauge trains! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-undecided.gif)

Joe, I have different cases for transporting them.

Wow David, those are terrific cases!

Thanks Joe. I started building them for the train sets I have. Where a certain locomotive always pulls a certain set of cars. They work out pretty well for carrying the trains to the railroad in the backyard. But I find that they do take up a lot of room. I mean, they aren’t as space efficient as they could be.

I was wondering how big those bins were to hold that many G scale/Guage/size locomotives, then remembered what topic I was looking at.

Pete yes I am multiscale here. And its Dave’s fault. He drug me kicking and screaming to a model railroad club meeting (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)and got me back into HO.

I have been continuing the construction of my carry cases. I have found that if I use Coroplast as the base for my lift out trays, I can get 3 layers of trains in these bins. And since I got a nice bunch of off cut Coroplast from my home office, I can use a little of it for my HO stuff.

The top layer of my rolling stock bin.

Top tray, with my Tyco F unit, with DCC decoder installed, and the odd cars that didn’t find a place in the other slots.

Second layer, with my Tyco cars, complete with metal wheels and the NMRA X2F horn hook couplers. Just to torque off the NMRA guys. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)Also some of my more scale equipment. The second layer comes out in 2 trays, since I thought that one large tray might not be able to support itself.

Small tray lifted out.

Large tray lifted out, exposing the bottom layer, with my more scale stock. The bottom layer is on foam to cushion the cars. And that layer isn’t supposed to be lifted out of the bin.

I have nearly finished the bin for my passenger cars, and then I will eventually have to put one together for my old time (shorty) boxcars and passenger cars.