I was intrigued by the Train-Safe storage systems - especially the idea that you could drive the train into the tube gaining dust-proof on-track storage as well as a cassette type staging yard. Not so intrigued with the price or trying to get shipping from Europe. https://shop.train-safe.de/en/home/ Digging around on Google I found these rectangular packaging tubes. I think you could put Unitrack inside the nominal 1" x 1.7" 4ft long tube and use to store. I don't think the material will be as tough or rigid as the acrylic from train-safe but think it could be worth a try. 1" X 1-11/16" RECTANGLE X 48" TUBE PETG-000 https://store.cleartecpackaging.com/clear_en/prct.html Has anyone tried this or something similar? Cheers.
Very interesting idea... Would work really well for display storage, and transferring to/from layout, but maybe not storage for moving, etc. I keep all my jewel boxes for that. You'd need to modify the Unitrack joints so the storage and layout "dock" tracks would slide together/apart smoothly, to avoid derailments in the tube.
I received a sample of the tube and end caps yesterday from ClearTec. The material is more rigid than I expected and I think will work quite well. The corners are fairly rounded which stops the Kato track from sitting flat on the bottom of the tube. So I will need to figure out some sort of base that will support the track sections and keep them level. Also, I am not sure they will work for high-cube / double-stack equipment at least not with Kato track. The end caps probably won't work because they are a tight-friction fit. I am not sure how you would get them on and off without derailing the stock. I think these will work quite well for keeping the dust off the trains and reducing handling especially for the fixed consist sets I have of British equipment. I'll need to spend a bit of time thinking about how to get a connection to the layout that works as I think driving the trains on and off would be best. Has anyone done something similar with cassettes and have some ideas to share? Cheers.
