Too Much Stuff -- TIme to Organize

[RobertInOntario]

My wife and I are doing some cleaning, sorting, redecorating in our house. I've been sorting through my British 00 and North American HO trains (rolling stock) in our basement, and I can't believe how much stuff I have!

I've just spent about 1.5 hours re-organizing much of my rolling stock and it hardly looks like I've touched things! Last night, I counted up the number of my locos and -- depending on how you count them (I don't really want to include a couple very basic, toy-like ones that my son bought) -- I have about 32-34 locos. I consider these locos to be reasonably good models that are suitable to run on a scale layout.

I only have two small layouts -- a 4x6' tail-chaser and a 15" wide by 6' long switching layout. Both of these are covered with locos and rolling stock.

I've just bought a model train wall cabinet that should hold 14 Pacific steam locos plus a few smaller ones, especially tank engines. This should free up a lot of space as well as give folks a chance to "admire" my more detailed models.

So I need to take a break now, do some real work, and then get back to this re-organzing later. I suspect many folks can relate to this but I'd be interested in finding out if I'm "worse" or not as bad as some!

Cheers, Rob

[Catt]

When I switched from HO to N I sold roughly $2,000 worth of HO. I kept I think 3 locos and about a half dozen cars (this was in 1997) About 15 months ago I joined a multi-scale club with a nice HO layout in progress.The layout is set up for DCC so I hauled out those locos to convert one to DCC. Well I kept digging and discovered that I still had 25 HO locos and close to 100 cars.I'm not sure how I missed them but between 4 scales and 2 gauges I own 160 locos and over 700 cars and I am running out of places to keep them.

Most of my Z stuff and all of the narrow gauge stuff will be kept at club but I already have 1 HO loco and 30 HO freight cars there.Fortunately the 1:32 scale stuff is kept at that club or I would be up to my chin in model trains.

Imagine spending 30 hours over a 6 day time period stacking and moving stuff only to have the wife walk into the room on the last day and say " I thought you were going to straighten this mess out".

[RobertInOntario]

Thanks for your comments, Catt -- I don't feel so "bad" now. Even this morning I was eyeing 1-2 locos on eBay!

I was thinking of booking a table at a model railway flea market & seeing if I could sell some of the stock that I don't use very much. Joining a club is also a good way to use & enjoy more space, especially if you don't have much room at home (which is my case).

I'm hoping to do some more sorting later today or tomorrow.

[Tyson Rayles]

I have one room just for trains. It's sometimes a mess but we can just shut the door and then visitors are none the wiser so no problem!

[Charlie B]

I have one room just for trains. It's sometimes a mess but we can just shut the door and then visitors are none the wiser so no problem!

What if the visitors are coming to see the trains?
Charlie

[Tyson Rayles]

Train people expect a mess! They have the same thing at home. That said if I do have a club meeting or other railroad types coming over I do try to tidy up a little bit but not too much, don't want to spoil em'.

[ezdays]

I have one room just for trains. It's sometimes a mess but we can just shut the door and then visitors are none the wiser so no problem!

Remember the old saying, "history repeats itself"? I just spent quite a bit of time cleaning, organizing and throwing out unneeded stuff from my train room. I could actually see the entire top of my workbench and there was no junk on the floor anymore. Yesterday started the cycle over again and my workbench is getting cluttered and soon there will be little bits and pieces all over the floor. :o

One downside of organizing is that what you want is no longer where you thought it should be. One has to wonder if cleaning and organizing is really worth the effort, especially when I go look for something that I thought I didn't need a few days ago when I threw it in the trash.

[RobertInOntario]

Train people expect a mess! They have the same thing at home. That said if I do have a club meeting or other railroad types coming over I do try to tidy up a little bit but not too much, don't want to spoil em'.

Yes, train people expect a mess and are much more used to that. My wife often thinks that my train areas in the basement are a mess when I think everything is set up in an orderly & convenient way!

[teejay]

I have a mess that needs attention , too , and will start getting at in in another week when I take 3 months off from work ( seasonal ) .........so you aren't alone !

T

[Charlie B]

I always remember George Carlin's album, "A place for my stuff" His famous quote is my stuff is stuff, your stuff is.......well, you get the drift. :mrgreen:
An example of that would be..."I would have more room for my stuff if you would get your **** out of here."
Charlie

[ngauger]

What GREAT Timing!!! I have just tidy-upped my basement/trainroom for my open house (Friends tonight - official one tomorrow). I have all 4 locos and 17 cars all oiled and ready to go. I test ran everything 2 nights ago when I cleaned all 150 feet of track!

The rugs are as clean as they ever have been and everything is nice and neat..... Until you open the shop/workroom door Organized chaos and a tornado come to mind .... but just DON'T LOOK THERE!!!!!!

[FiatFan]

"Stuff is junk we keep. Junk is stuff we throw away." - George Carlin

Tom

[Green_Elite_Cab]

My layout is perpetual chaos. There are so many little things that need to go some place. spare screws, motors/drive parts, kits, boxes, stuff being repaired, stuff being built, airbrush parts, paints, details, buildings, figures, tools, equipment, sandpaper, chalk, powders, glue...... and it goes on quite a while, and THEN you need to find places for cars and locomotives.

I really don't even know where to start sometimes.

[RobertInOntario]

My layout is perpetual chaos. There are so many little things that need to go some place. spare screws, motors/drive parts, kits, boxes, stuff being repaired, stuff being built, airbrush parts, paints, details, buildings, figures, tools, equipment, sandpaper, chalk, powders, glue...... and it goes on quite a while, and THEN you need to find places for cars and locomotives.

I really don't even know where to start sometimes.

I can relate. And the number of jobs & maintenance work is ongoing. I'm now keeping a list of things that need fixing and jobs that I need to do.

[Brakie]

I don't have as much as I use too but,I still have 42 locomotives 308 freight cars cars and of those 267 are boxcars and of those boxcars 208 are IPD short line boxcars.

I do not know how I got to (for shame! :oops: ) collecting IPD boxcars but,I did and (gulp!) I'm still buying boxcars.. :o