I am in a construction phase. I think I powered a frog and wanted to put my Plymouth switcher over it to see if would run. I couldn't find it. I started searching and found a large plastic storage bin chocked full of various boxcars, passenger cars and tank cars under part of my work bench in the work room. The box was about 3'x2'x2'. No Plymouth switcher, but a load of other stuff. Who know what plastic bins I might find in a secluded corner somewhere else in the basement. I completely forgot I had the bin.
12 cubic feet of boxcars and other. Nice! I'd offer to send you one of my Plymouths but I'd first have to: Clean my study Identify the train boxes vs the other stuff Organize my train boxes Remain focused long enough to look for the Plymouths Not go running off to try a 90 car train around my 11" curves Find the one with "Asst, misc II" Realize it must be in the "Asst, misc III or mabye IV" box Find that one And you know, with this lobster paw hand of mine and these tiny little eyes it could be the Vernal Equinox before I locate them. Good luck with your friggy, froggy, toady testing.
Similar story: A while ago I was able to pick up a box car on Ebay that I’ve been looking for what seemed like forever. When it arrived I realized I didn’t have room for it in any of my display cases. So, when I went to put it in the non-display box (it’s actually a 3 drawer dresser) guess what I found? Yep, the same boxcar I had already bought a few months earlier. Sheesh…….. Second mistake (and probably worse that the first) was to tell my wife what I’d just done. She said in addition to getting my inventory program up and running just to figure out what I exactly I own, I need to add a line to tell me where the heck I put it!! Compulsion: ü Brian
Lobster Boy- Is a Vernal Equinox a Chevy SUV that runs only between March 21 and June 20 of each year?
No, it's the hope of a winning season by the Pittsburgh Pirates! I had that same issue with a certain colorful ATSF MT boxcar. Really liked it. Searched for it on the 'Bay, didn't like the price. Still really liked it. Almost paid way too much for it, changed my mind. Don't need one that bad. I'll pass. Pulled a train out of hidden storage that hadn't been out in a while. Huh. There it is.... same car. When did I do that?
Let me count the ways I have done this. I have boxes and boxes of cars and locomotives that I have had for many years and many moves. I did get an inventory program up and running and entered in all that I had. But over time, that discipline waned and I also started finding lost boxes of trains that I forgot I had. I now have about 50 duplicate locomotives. Thank goodness they can be easily renumbered. The whole part of what I did recently was to place a moratorium on all purchases until I get my book keeping up to date with the inventory program. To aid that, I have sorted all my locomotives into boxes. So all of my ATSF locomotives are in 4 banker boxes, Amtrak stuff in another box along with the super liner cars etc. As part of the deal, each item was inventoried before being placed in the box. And just when I thought it was done, my brother came up for the holidays and brought 3 more boxes of trains that I forgot in the guest room closet in my house in Phoenix. So I now have to inventory again these three boxes and see how they change my existing sorting method. It is going to be a bit busy on the computer over the holiday weekend.
I run a rescue service for lost and forgotten N scale storage bins. It will have a nice home with all my bins and I am sure I can manage to come up with something for all those lonely cars and locos to do.
I can relate. I have a humble collection of rolling stock, and decided I wanted to scoop up some 50' Railboxes since the local NS pulls a ton of them through Catawissa, Pa on a nightly basis. So I ordered three from Atlas. While digging through my locos, I found 3 I had completely forgotten about. Yikes.
What inventory program do you guys use? I'm sure many of us suffer from this sickness from time to time.
Recently tore down 4x12 and am doing a 2x8. SO, plenty of stuff is put away. But where-o-where is my handy rerailer tool? Examined 6 boxes of stuff more than once. If I had a good inventory list I would still forget where I put things like that. Hate buying spare stuff, no matter the cost. Did do an excell list once, but it became too time consuming to be kept up. More like wish I had that data. Where's my personal assistant when I need one? BTW, definitely over-indulging!
Randgust- Thanks for the reminder. I completely forgot that there was another professional sports team out there besides the Steelers and the Penguins. Mr. Moore- I will forward the bin to its new home, but first I have to figure out how to vaccinate each car for rabies, dystemper, wobbly trucks and slinky MT coupler disease, without damaging the exterior finish on every model. I will try to trim the wheels on each car to make them low profile. We don't want the wheels to damage their new home. Deworming might also be an issue for the stock cars but I will work on it. As I age, none too gracefully, I may start a spreadsheet. BTW- another lesson learned last night- DO NOT FORGET to not glue under the points when laying track. I am thankful I awoke at 5 AM for a bathroom call, couldn't get back to sleep and went down to the basement to check on the glue rather than watch the Weather Channel or an obscure film from the early 30's on TBS. Sure enough, points were frozen. Out came the spray bottle of water, a spritz or two, glue loosened up, ran off and now all looks good.
