11-22-2010, 10:42 AM
When I realized that ones mortality is a reality, I had just moved (again) and in an effort to cut monthly expenses due to the "fixed income" so often referred to when speaking of "senior citizens" (I prefer "Seasoned Citizens") I emptied a storage locker that I had been using and paying around $200/mo for just over twenty years. My new digs has a large "great room" that is easily 60% larger than I need for a living area as I live alone and rarely have a casual visitor and never have "house guests." I turned the "unused living space" into a mini warehouse, filling the area with the contents of the former storage facility. I systematically began going through boxes of belongings, placing books on shelves, clothes in closets … all the usual unpacking routine.
Then came pitching some stuff, putting other things aside for a yard sale in the near future and re-boxing items to be shipped off to family members, etc. Finally I was down to the 57 boxes of model railroad stuff. (Yes, 57 boxes – book boxes. I used to think it was about 25 or so … I was off by double!) All this stuff had been carefully packed in tissue and Styrofoam peanuts back in 1990 when I had to abandon an under-construction 25x40 around-the-walls-with-peninsulas full-basement, lifetime-to-build dream layout. I had been gathering together equipment, materials, tools, etc. towards that goal for over twenty years. And now I am going through all this stuff. (I had once posted a photo of the overflowing temporary workbench in which this unpacking process was visible in the background; I removed the photo almost immediately after an insensitive comment comparing the mayhem of my unpacking/sorting process to some TV show about hoarding.)
The point of all this is to say that I took that opportunity to unpack absolutely everything, organize it all into physical categories, arranging things within the categories and then putting together a comprehensive inventory listing everything, to include all those little packets of detail parts, into one rather lengthy Excel file. (Being my first experience with a spread sheet since being a Lotus 1-2-3 user back in the ‘80’s-‘90’s, I had my daughter help me.) I explained to her what I was doing, why and that this would be both a tool for me to use to help find stuff I need as well as for her to use “when the time came.” Although she accused me of being morbid, I reminded her that both of her grandparents had passed away over the past two years and I had not had this particular conversation with either of them because, at the time, I though it would be a morbid conversation to initiate. She understood.
The inventory is arranged by category, beginning with Motive Power, followed by Vehicle kits, Rolling Stock-Freight, Rolling Stock-Passenger, Structures, etc. The column headings are, Manufacturer, Cat. #, Description, List Price, Purch. Price, Year Purch., Est. 2010 Value, Box #, Value Source. When the process was completed, everything was repacked (establishing the initial numbers in the “Box #” entry in the Excel spreadsheet) and room was regained in which to now begin building my last model railroad layout, much smaller than what was originally planned for my basement in Pennsylvania, but using the same theme on a smaller, more compact, almost “vignette view” of the freelanced prototype railroad that has been a part of my live for so long (33 years,) it feels like it was, at one time, a 1:1 scale railroad line.
Now I just have to remember to maintain "Box #'s" and "Current Values" as I discover the latest market valuations.
Below is a much-reduced example of the top of the first page …
![[Image: LSWExampleInventory-22NOV10-resized.png]](http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/af349/wwmarsland/Miscellaneous%20Images/LSWExampleInventory-22NOV10-resized.png)
As a result of this lengthy, exhausting, time-consuming exercise, I have a tool that I can now use to locate things (kits, trucks, couplers, detail items, scenery materials, etc.) when I need them as well as a comprehensive listing for my daughter and siblings to use “when the time comes.”
There are already two drawers in a five-drawer file cabinet with file folders of original planning documentation, history of the development of the overall concept, motive power/rolling stock numbering systems, electrical planning and proposed standards, Forms and Publications developed to replicate those of prototypes, etc. I plan on adding a folder detailing the mechanical and electrical build and (inevitable) dismantling of my just-getting-started railroad.
So … these are just a few rambling thoughts on helping whomever your railroad empire is bequethed to, for their use or subsequent disposal.
Then came pitching some stuff, putting other things aside for a yard sale in the near future and re-boxing items to be shipped off to family members, etc. Finally I was down to the 57 boxes of model railroad stuff. (Yes, 57 boxes – book boxes. I used to think it was about 25 or so … I was off by double!) All this stuff had been carefully packed in tissue and Styrofoam peanuts back in 1990 when I had to abandon an under-construction 25x40 around-the-walls-with-peninsulas full-basement, lifetime-to-build dream layout. I had been gathering together equipment, materials, tools, etc. towards that goal for over twenty years. And now I am going through all this stuff. (I had once posted a photo of the overflowing temporary workbench in which this unpacking process was visible in the background; I removed the photo almost immediately after an insensitive comment comparing the mayhem of my unpacking/sorting process to some TV show about hoarding.)
The point of all this is to say that I took that opportunity to unpack absolutely everything, organize it all into physical categories, arranging things within the categories and then putting together a comprehensive inventory listing everything, to include all those little packets of detail parts, into one rather lengthy Excel file. (Being my first experience with a spread sheet since being a Lotus 1-2-3 user back in the ‘80’s-‘90’s, I had my daughter help me.) I explained to her what I was doing, why and that this would be both a tool for me to use to help find stuff I need as well as for her to use “when the time came.” Although she accused me of being morbid, I reminded her that both of her grandparents had passed away over the past two years and I had not had this particular conversation with either of them because, at the time, I though it would be a morbid conversation to initiate. She understood.
The inventory is arranged by category, beginning with Motive Power, followed by Vehicle kits, Rolling Stock-Freight, Rolling Stock-Passenger, Structures, etc. The column headings are, Manufacturer, Cat. #, Description, List Price, Purch. Price, Year Purch., Est. 2010 Value, Box #, Value Source. When the process was completed, everything was repacked (establishing the initial numbers in the “Box #” entry in the Excel spreadsheet) and room was regained in which to now begin building my last model railroad layout, much smaller than what was originally planned for my basement in Pennsylvania, but using the same theme on a smaller, more compact, almost “vignette view” of the freelanced prototype railroad that has been a part of my live for so long (33 years,) it feels like it was, at one time, a 1:1 scale railroad line.
Now I just have to remember to maintain "Box #'s" and "Current Values" as I discover the latest market valuations.
Below is a much-reduced example of the top of the first page …
As a result of this lengthy, exhausting, time-consuming exercise, I have a tool that I can now use to locate things (kits, trucks, couplers, detail items, scenery materials, etc.) when I need them as well as a comprehensive listing for my daughter and siblings to use “when the time comes.”
There are already two drawers in a five-drawer file cabinet with file folders of original planning documentation, history of the development of the overall concept, motive power/rolling stock numbering systems, electrical planning and proposed standards, Forms and Publications developed to replicate those of prototypes, etc. I plan on adding a folder detailing the mechanical and electrical build and (inevitable) dismantling of my just-getting-started railroad.
So … these are just a few rambling thoughts on helping whomever your railroad empire is bequethed to, for their use or subsequent disposal.
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & Western
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
Lehigh Susquehanna & Western
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln