I had a question over on the Play Trains! Facebook page as to how we store our trains. I had taken a few photos of our system a while back, intending to eventually post them, but this gave me the nudge I needed to take a couple more pictures get this up.
By far, my favorite way to store our trains and track is with drawer organizers. We use two different types from Ikea, one for track and one for trains. When we want them out of sight and out of the way, these slide right under our couch, armchair, and the Little Engineer’s dresser.
For track, we have the Skubb box with compartments. The different compartments are very conveniently sized for the standard track pieces. Small curved and straight tracks fit in the small compartments; large curved and straight tracks (and sets of two four-inch straight tracks connected together) fit snugly in the larger compartments. Aside from unusually long straight tracks, the only thing that doesn’t fit particularly well are the ascending tracks, but we make it work.
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Even when we’re just going to put the tracks back together again in a new configuration, I like to organize them anyway. It makes life so much easier when you can find a certain track, or see how many male-male adapter pieces you have left. In one of the organizers, I devote one small compartment each to two-inch (or smaller) straight tracks, m-m or f-f adapters, buffers/ramps/things that end tracks, and Suretrack clips, and that helps so much.
The other reason to organize the tracks between layouts is that it’s a good habit to get the Little Engineer into. He likes it, and proudly announces that he’s organizing trains or track when he joins in. We sing railroad songs while we work, like “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” and a made-up one that goes something like, “We’re certain we’re sortin’, we’re certain we’re sortin’, we’re certain we’re sorting our track! We’re certain we’re sortin’, we’re certain we’re sortin’, we’re certain we’re sorting our track!”
For the engines and cars, we use the Kusiner box with compartments, found in the children’s department at Ikea. It has a lower profile than the other organizer, just a bit taller than the trains themselves, and the compartments are just the right size.
No pictures of these, but we also have a few Glis boxes for organizing accessories — signs, trees, people, animals, and freight — and black Dröna boxes hidden in our unused fire place for larger pieces like stations, mountains, and bridges.
One other option we sometimes employ are these plastic craft project boxes. We picked up a set of five at Costco last year. They have them again this year, only from a different company with what looks like better latches to keep them shut, something we’ve had a problem with.
The lid is nice when we’re taking a bunch of track and trains with us when we visit one set or the other of the Little Engineer’s grandparents. The boxes are just the right height for the trains, so with the lid down it keeps them from being jostled too much.
We don’t use this for trains at home, though, because the lid gets in the way of the Little Engineer getting at the trains.
Another option that we don’t have is a wooden train shelf. We don’t have one yet, but they would certainly look great in the Little Engineer’s room. I wonder, however, how often the trains would actually be on the shelves.
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More Posts in the Ultimate Wooden Train Guide:
The Best Wooden Train Sets
The Best Wooden Train Sets: UK Edition
The Best Wooden Train Tables for Toddlers and Preschoolers
Do You Need a Train Table?
Alternatives to Gluing Wooden Train Tracks to Train Tables
Wooden Train Tracks
Bridges and Elevated Tracks
Roundhouses and Engine Sheds
Organizing Wooden Trains and Track
Wooden Train Freight Cars
…and more to come!
Hi, I'm Jessica! While playing trains for the last several years, my Little Engineer and I have had a lot of fun and learned so much together. I'm excited to share our discoveries with other people who have kids who love trains in their lives.
Great idea to store trains in Scrapbook paper boxes! Need. Some.!!
Thanks! They fit perfectly. For traveling with them, I’ve also added another thin layer on top before closing the lid, like a baby blanket. That makes them really secure.
This is a fantastic idea, our trains are usually set up in the middle of the floor (which we walk over) or in a number of bins. I like the little compartments and the container would slide well under a bed. Thanks for the tip!
Truth be told, our trains are usually all over the floor, too. But we have so much train stuff we can’t play with it all at once, so more and more there is actually stuff in the organizers at any given time.
Wow, that is an IMPRESSIVE collection! And I love how they are organized 🙂
Thanks!
This is great!!! Ours are just thrown in the train table drawers and it is quite the frustration when trying to find the exact piece needed to build a new track. 🙁 I need to get organizing!!..story of my life 😉
lol
Thanks for sharing at Sharing Saturday!
Well, our trains and track are about the only things that are organized around our house a lot of the time! Working on that, though…just got the LIttle Engineer’s room organized so he can actually find his toys to play with them. Now for the rest of the house.
I organized my son’s train table today, before I found this blog. I too used IKEA SKUBB, the “set of 6” boxes. Such a good idea!
Here is a photo link (I hope it can be viewed)
http://bit.ly/13Cur4F
Hi there! My little engineer has grown out of most his train obsession but I want to keep his wooden tracks. I just wanted to let you know that most of your links to IKEA are broken. I was able to find most by searching but not all. Love your site!!!
Oh, thanks for letting me know! It’s an old post…I was actually planning to take new photos of our latest organizational system this week and update it. Will take care of the links at the same time, too. 🙂
P.S. I would recommend the plastic scrapbooking containers for that purpose, maybe with some sort of duct tape or packing tape sealing up the lid if they’re going to be in storage for years. 😉
And where do you store all the storage boxes? And any other ideas on how to store the buildings and bridges, etc? We have quite a few of them. Thank you so much for this blog.
(Sorry for the late reply; apparently my site hasn’t sent me comment notifications in a very long time!) That’s a really good question, and one I’m still trying to answer. This post was written about our storage system from years ago…the most recent way we had the trains stored was a combination of plastic storage drawers that fit the trains exactly, a bookshelf for destinations, and a few deep drawers that had bins of track in them–far less “organized” than how I used to keep the tracks! And I also used a bunch of stacked scrapbook paper tubs for holding all the different brands of track I have for writing for this site separately, and that works pretty well, but I wouldn’t have been able to stack them very high around a small child.
Thank you so much for these ideas! Super helpful for this mama trying to come up with a solution to keep these wonderful toys in play for my 7yo son (and curious 3yo daughter).