Cupboard for Trains
From year to year more locomotives and cars come together. Some of it can stay in the hidden station, but not all. My locos are in the roundhouse and the rest of it stands on a cupboard. It is a problem to store the many cars, specially is they are connected together with electrical couplers from Fleischmann or Maerklin. It is difficult to uncouple these trains and so I was searching for a solution to derail the hole train.
First I add a turnaout to my layout (yellow arrow) to lead a track to the front border (see the layout). After that I bought an aluminium bar (5 x 5 cm) (green arrow) and glued the flexible track 2205 on it. The aluminium bar lays on little blocks of wood. So it is possible to drive a train without derailing.
To fix the train I use clothespins at both ends (red arrows). While transporting the bar, it is helpful to tilt it a little to the back. The train leans against the back"wall" and can not tilt over. To avoid scratches, I taped the bar with adhesive tape. So ist is easy to transport a hole train.
A special piece of furniture was planned and built for the trains. The space between the levels is 10 cm. The hole size is 180 x 80 cm. The JPG-File of the construction plan is 155 kB big.
On had to lay the bar with one end to the piece of furniture to roll the train to the siding track. I use the cheap tracks 42201 from Roco without point contacts, because there is no loco driving. At the end of each track is a nail to fix the coupler of the trains.
Each level can have 14 siding tracks, so it is possible to store 84 trains. At this time only one level is ready to use.