Good ways of storing rolling stock in a small apartment

[tjtrain8]

I recently purchased several Kato starter sets and have been enjoying them. However, the boxes are quite large, and I'm looking to declutter by not storing them anymore. These sets contain numerous pieces and moving parts that require organization. I plan to keep the trains in their boxes for protection, but I'm seeking suggestions for storage solutions that are convenient for both retrieval and re-storing. Does anyone have any recommendations? Thank you!

[cteno4]

Unitrak is very robust and for myself and out club we have just stored Unitrak in plastic tubs of various sizes (what every size was convenient for items, good lid closure, stacking, availability, price, etc). For many years of the club we did setup on the fly layouts at shows and transported tubs of track all over with a lot of jostling about. When we have wanted to track sorted by pieces we just put them in labeled ziplock bags in the plastic shoeboxes. Points have lived fine in ziplock bags as well we are just a bit more careful handling them and putting them in their own box, but they don’t require a super protective storage. the zip lock bags we would separate track bits in the  also acted as a bit of padding as well so all the track wasn’t just sloshing around, but even then when we did that at time with no bags it wasn’t an issue. For a while we actually stored the track for each baseboard module (layout base board was made of like 15 2’x4’ bolt together lightweight modules on sawhorses with track plopped down on top) loose in chunks of track that would fit in  12”x24”x1.5” cardboard game boxes. This way we could reassemble the layout in larger chunks at a time as opposed to completely taking all the track pieces apart and sorting. Took up more space but saved a lot of time and effort. We had no issue with tracks and points just laying piled up hodge podge in the game boxes and getting a lot of jostling and shaking up in transport. Electrical wires and point controllers and throttle just got tossed in a plastic box, sometimes neatened up into ziplocks and carefully wound, but at other times in hurry just stuffed in, not neat but was no more danger for anything being broken.
 

If you want things super neat and stacked up I guess you could cut out some cardboard spacers to hold stuff neatly stacked and sorted in what ever convenient size and shaped box you choose, but probably won’t save much space and take some effort to do that I think will only really go towards satisfying organizational needs, not usefulness or protection. 

not sure what else you say are moving parts in the startup track sets. How organized do you like to be?

 

jeff