Model Railway Miser Tips

My company is in the process of moving out of offices we've occupied for more than 40 years.

It means decades of paperwork is being slung out, and with it a lot of storage devices which are increasingly a thing of the past - the humble box file.

There are many uses which can be found for these for the railway modeller who has an urge to recycle.

For example, slice up a redundant shoe box and you can transform you old box file into a cheap & cheerful stock box perfect for storing up to half a dozen OO carriages.

Another one is performing a useful function to keep my stock of styrene sheet neat and tidy.

And not a penny spent!

Dinas In A Box

An update for you on progress with the newest stock box, which is now finished and home to most of our Welsh Highland rolling stock.

As I explained in the previous post, this box is a little wider, so each row can fit four saloon carriages.

So the top four rows are filled with the two main corridor service sets.

I'm sure there will be any number of people ready to write in and explain that they're not in the correct order, and I'm also very aware that the original set of Winson carriages have undergone radical changes from how we depict them here in the condition they first ran.

Long ago now we reached the conclusion that the best way to retain sanity while attempting to model the contemporary FR / WHR is to finish a model in the condition it first appeared, or the condition it is at the point you complete the model - and just live with it.

That's why our NGG16 87 will remain in grey. (And also because I like it like that.)

The new box is so commodious we've also got our WHHR set in there as well as my original pair of ballast wagons, scratch built long before the idea of making a resin kit for them ever occurred to me.

The Pullman car Bodysgallen is a bit of an outlier given that it's now stored out of service, but it's too nice a model not to run on the layout so we'll have to think about the best way of sneaking it into a set.

Stocktaking

You know those things you spend years saying you must get round to, but never do?

For us, one of those things is more stock boxes - and Himself has decided now is the time to put that right.

Over the last few years, as our collection swells, we've resorted to carrying the newly constructed models around in an assortment of extra boxes and tubs balance precariously on top of our existing tower of sturdy wooden boxes.

Previous ones have been custom built for us by skilled carpenters, but this time Himself is doing it DIY.

The good news / bad news - depending on how you view this things - is that he's needed to acquire a new toy: a router.

This is to make the slots at either end to locate the five dividers which run lengthways to form the six rows. 

At the moment these are rather flimsier than he would like because he was unable to get the 3mm MDF he would usually use and has had to settle for thin plywood.

This latest box will be longer than the previous ones to more comfortably accommodate a row of four WHR saloons, which will rest on a protective layer of bubble wrap.

Then there will be a cascading process as we rearrange all the other boxes.

I wonder what items of rolling stock will be left standing after this game of musical chairs?