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.
