Train Storage & Display

[WesternOutlaw]

All this train tech has finally forced me to join up

Excellent! I think you'll enjoy our Lego train community. Please share your interests in the Train Tech Registry.

One cheap and easy idea for train storage is to put track across the top of your pelmet boxes

What exactly is a Pelmet Box?

[peterab]

What exactly is a Pelmet Box?

Pelmet boxes are the boxes built around the top of curtain rods, along the top of windows. The idea behind them is they stop warm air from flowing from the top of a room down behind the curtains and out the bottom after being cooled by the window. I imagine they might be less common in Europe where double glazing of windows is more common. They're just the right size for a lego train.

Thanks for the welcome Brickster, I'm sure I'll enjoy the forums here. I've been reading for some months already and thinking about joining, but the Train Tech gave me the final nudge.

[aawsum]

Unfortunately everything is stored in their original box right know, because I moved to a new home. The new lego room is not finished yet (not even started). Normally i put every train that I have in my layout

[j3tang]

I'd like to bring this back up from the dead.

Show me more displays!

Here's mine:

I can't find space to display the Metroliner (built) and the Hobby Train (still sealed).

What you see is the top shelf of 2 Ikea Skogen display cases. The trains sit on straight 9V track on top of stepped acrylic risers. The two display cases are side-by-side, giving the illusion of continuity.

As these display cases have been discontinued by Ikea, I've not been able to purchase any more of them (not even second hand as nobody locally seem to have any for sale). I need a better solution to display (more of) my trains!

Edited February 3, 2010 by j3tang

[WesternOutlaw]

J3: I love those glass enclosed cases. What a great way to keep the dust off your locomotives/trains keeping them looking pristine. I was looking at my Train Town as well as the train shelves in front of me noticing the thick layer of dust. What to do?

[Captain Zuloo]

What to do?

Go Duster

[j3tang]

J3: I love those glass enclosed cases. What a great way to keep the dust off your locomotives/trains keeping them looking pristine. I was looking at my Train Town as well as the train shelves in front of me noticing the thick layer of dust. What to do?

I have a small feather duster that I use to dust stuff off if they're not in a display case.

Actually there is a small gap on either side of the display case, so dust does get in. I periodically do have to take everything out of the display case to wipe because if you dust it off with a feather duster or compressed air, all the dust would come off the Lego, but still end up inside the case

I think that compressed air and then feather duster does a good job for Lego, but the feather duster works wonders on Technic stuff because of the cracks and crevices!

The Go Duster looks like cotton candy ... it might make me want to eat it

[WesternOutlaw]

Thanks for the dusting tips guys. I have a duster that's part of our vacuum, similar to the Go Duster (without the spin while using). After using, you insert it into the vacuum chamber and push a button, and it spins as the dust gets sucked up. I was just wondering for those of you who have used something similar to this for dusting, does it scratch LEGO? Mine is pretty soft.

[legotrainfan]

My trains are all on the floor of a room.

[Jonas]

Hi,

my trains are always ready to run and carry passengers or goods. That is why they stand on the rails in the railway station.

Edited February 7, 2010 by Jonas

[WesternOutlaw]

Jonas: that's an awesome display, but please try not to post images larger than 800x600 which is our site guideline. Thanks for sharing though.

[Sir E Fullner]

I put my stationary rail cars on a shelf next to my brothers' dumb tractors.

[patje]

All the trains that do not drive,

on the layout are placed in 2 closets

with tracks in the wood

very easy

Now I must make in addition 3rd closet

the other 2 stand full.

unfortunately not dust free

patje

Edited February 24, 2010 by patje

[Brickstarrunner]

For me, I'd do what

would do. He would display his trains up on the walls, but he would occasionally run them because he once said ,"If you just leave them there, they are just collecting dust!

PS: This is VERY unrelated to the topic, but I just want to shed a little backstory on this amazing guy.

Ward Kimball was a Disney animator, working alongside with Walt Disney. He worked on such classics like 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' 'Dumbo,' 'Fantasia,' 'Pinocchio' and 'The Three Caballeros'. He also shared a personal love intrest for trains with Walt (Got that information from a DVD. Forgot the name, don't have it anymore). The two used to go to train cons and railways when they had the time.

They were both "insane" (in a good way) train enthusiasts. Why? Walt Disney kept a ride-on miniature train in his backyard, but Ward Kimball took it even further; He not only had vintage, antique American and European model trains, but (heres the good part he also had a real live railroad complete with depot full of antique railroad items, watertower, switches, barn to house the train, a handcart, a trolley, a vintage firetruck, and two American 4-4-0 steamers with boxcar, a gondola, passenger car, caboose, and a shed to house it all! All of this in HIS backyard! (sorry about the boldness, but it was just too god to leave normal font

Even MORE backstory on his RR:

"On his first date with Betty, he had taken her to a rail yard to measure a box car. He and his new wife purchased 2 1/2 acres of a San Gabriel orange grove and were preparing to build a home in 1937 when he decided to buy a surplus train car to house his growing model train layout. For $50 he bought an abandoned narrow-gauge passenger coach (used on 3-foot-wide track instead of the standard 4-feet, 8 1/2 -inches) that Southern Pacific had operated in the Owens Valley. A year later, he bought a similar-sized 1881 steam engine that was being scrapped by the Nevada Central Railroad. Later, he would also acquire a 1906 box car and caboose, a 1917 gondola and a 1915 stock car, along with a small 1907 switch engine used at a Hawaiian sugar plantation.

There are more videos, pictures, articles, etc about his Railway, but I am giving TOO much

Sadly, Ward Kimball passed away in 2002, but worse than that, his railway was demolished along with the track, depot, watertower, house, etc. The live steam trains and some of the railroad cars (I hope ) got sent to a museum to "collect dust" (as Ward Kimbal would say). His antique toys and model trains were auctioned off to bidders. His railroad had the same fate as Walt Disney's (His railway was demolished for more room for other houses, but his trains were saves). Tis' was a sad tale indeed.

Well, sorry for getting "Off-Track" , but I just wanted to share "a little" backstory on what inspired me to make this reply. And BOY, was it LONG