How Do You Keep Track of you engines and roling stock?????

[Anonymous]

Looking For a form to help me keep track of all my Engines and rolling stock so when i go to shows i know what i have.

[Anonymous]

I keep a very tall and slender notebook. Sorta like a very long index card. On each page is a "Box" which happens to be a storage box numbered from one on up. Each of these storage boxes holds about 10 cars more or less.

I list per page all the cars in that box by road name, color, and unit number. I try to group cars in blocks. For example, my three Covered Hoppers lettered for a fictional "Cold Harbor Coop" are together in Box 3, wrapped in paper, road numbers 3, 7 and 12. I leave about 3 lines under this entry to allow for additional cars if I build them in future.

Under my work bench I keep a regular spiral notebook which I write down what I did that day and the problems I may have had. In the back of the notebook working forward I write in what I would like to have... for example, I needed a bolt of a certian size and kept forgetting it every LHS visit. I finally got the habit of carrying both books with me to train shows etc.

My best benefit is avoiding buying ready to run products with duplicate road numbers. I check the possible purchase's road number against what I have in the book.

My two cents.

Lee

[mls1621]

When I found that I was buying the same thing twice after I got home from a train show, I sat down at the computer and put together a spread sheet in Excel to keep track of everything.

I set up the first page for locomotives, the second for passenger equipment and the remaining pages for the freight inventory.

Using a spread sheet is great because you can sort by type of car, RR and number.

I even keep track of the cost of everything for insurance purposes.

When I buy something new, it's simply a matter of inserting a blank row, entering the new item and then printing out the changed pages.

A small binder is kept in my car so I always have my rolling stock inventory with me.

I hope this is helpful

[Anonymous]

Bought something at a train show I already own? LOL! Been there, done that, got the extra boxcar with the same road number!

I use a spread sheet as well, and I also keep a 3x5 card file in a couple of long drawers rescued from an old library.

That's probably a good idea to keep track of the prices for insurance purposes - although if your collection gets very large, you probably need to add a rider to your homeowner's policy.

But I'd be afraid to know how much I've spent on just rolling stock alone! Although as somebody else said around here, compared to how much money someone can sink into an RV or a boat or a cabin in the woods, model railroading is comparitively cheap recreation!

[CP5415]

I'm using an Access database to keep track of all my stuff, including buildings, vehicles as well as locomotives & rolling stock.

Gordon

[ClinchValleySD40]

Like Gordon, I use an Access database program for car cards/waybills (free program) that also allows me to print a list of both cars and engines in about any order I need. I always carry one with me when I go to flea markets and hobby shops.

[Anonymous]

I only have four locomotives, so I don't need a system, but my friend has about 600 locomotives, about half of which are in storage. He uses excel to track what he has.

[Anonymous]

I use Access to keep track of some of my more "collectable" stock, but as my HO collection is still relatively small I tend to remember what I have. I do tend to use my PDA as a shopping list when visiting hobby stores - just write a memo of the items you're after and you'll have no problems with remembering serial numbers/codes.

A useful storage solution I've found for N-scale models (a little off-topic but might be helpful to someone): I have a small collection of Fleischmann German N-scale and was recently looking around for a suitable storage box to keep all the original boxes together and to protect the boxes (and the stock in them) from damage. The solution? Army-surplus .50 cal ammo boxes (empty!). One of these can hold 18 long boxes (passenger cars and long freight cars), a couple of large loco boxes, about 12 small boxes (4-wheel passenger and freight cars), and 2 or 3 smaller locos. The boxes are made of very solid welded steel plate with a folding carrying handle on the lid which offers plenty of protection for locos/cars, they are fairly compact (easy to hide from prying eyes while exhibiting), and at about £8 (I bought mine from an online army-surplus store over here in the UK) they are very reasonably priced. The only snag is they are a little on the heavy side, but that doesn't really bother me. I should be able to fit all the stock for my planned German-outline exhibition layout in 3 of these boxes as opposed to the multiple crates we had to haul around with the last layout!

[Pennsy58]

I bought a program off ebay I think its called collection master. It has default entries but also allows customized fields. You can also add pics of your stuff to the catalog items. It works very well for my needs of keeping track of things.

[n2mopac]

Shanendoah software makes a shareware program called MiTrains that does a great job of this. Look up thier web site and give it a try. It couples with a program called Waybills. I don't have to tell you what it does. Together these are a handy couple of programs.
Ron

[Anonymous]

As others have stated, I use Excel. occasionally if i need to see things in a different light I'll port it to Acess and look at it that way. One of these days I'll just hunker down and finally write my own tracking program, just to lazy right now [:-^]

Jay

[sparkingbolt]

I have a list simular to others in this thread in my "wordpad" for freight cars only. it is catagorized by car type, and features road name, road numbers and manufacturer of the model.
When I get new models I add them into the list, with an @ by the road number to signify that it is not on the rails yet. (kits) Dan

I guess I ought to get on with one for the locomotives too.

[Anonymous]

Well, I have 6 locos (and I only use3), and about 10 pieces of rolling stock, so it's easy for me.

[fiatfan]

I keep the door to my tain room locked! [:D]

Tom

[Anonymous]

While Access is a good relational database, Approach (Lotus software owned by IBM) is much easier to set up and use. A relational database works better than a spreadsheet (Excel, for example) because it permits automoatic sorts and better searching techniques. If you want to spend the time, you can even embed a jpeg into the data so you can see the item as you search your data. Finally, the reports from Approach can be customized so you could print out only your hoppers, SP cars, etc.