A question

What do you do with all the cars that have no boxes? The layout is not big enough to have all the cars on it and you need to store them where they won't be disturbed. Or worse yet, damaged.

How is the storage used?

I’m curious - is that storage dead storage, or is are cars frequently swapped on and off the layout?

Unboxed Car Storage

Early in my collecting days I purchased a stack of empty KD/Microtrain boxes and various styled nests on eBay.

I also transferred non-MT and Atlas cars into these empties (keeping the original boxes in case I later traded or sold the cars). 

I created a Microsoft Word pattern to create the car info for the new boxes (put them below the nest) that mimicked the info on the end of KD/MT boxes, namely Mfg, Car Desc, RR, Mfg#, Road#.

How is the Storage Used

Although mine are 80% empty boxes from cars that are on the layout, it also functions for ready access when I need a replacement car. My layout is designed primarily for operations and when I need a replacement car when cars inevitably drop a coupler or throw a wheel it is beyond easy to just pull another spare car out to replace the bad ordered ones.

As I said I keep them in order by car type (and railroad). My layout is around 54" high so they are belt level and only 6"-9" deep.

Rick

http://rickb773-prsl.blogspot.com/