I don't think I've ever done a product review on here before, but here goes....

A fortnight ago I went to Railex. Most of my purchase list was 4mm stuff, even though I don't seem to have done any 4mm for about a year because of the N gauge project (which is why my annual review and resolutions post for 2023 hasn't happened). But the previous weekenmd I went to a local show - only my second show this year - and picked up the body of a Kirk Gresley 61' full brake for a quid. Everything below the solebars had gone , but I bought a set of MJT Gresley bogie sideframes I didn't need at Warley, and with a few other bits sourced I reckon I can rebuild it and get a decent vehicle for the kettle-period on Blacklade for under £20.

I digress. While wandering round the show I came upon a trader new to me , WWscenics. I was browsing their stand wuith a vague "this looks useful stuff for the hobby" benevolence, when I noticed some brown cardboard boxes labelled as N Gauge Loco Storage boxes. I've started to build one or two N gauge wagon kits, bought a few more , and the issue of how to store them was starting to raise its head. The storage drawer under the bed which contains the Boxfile and its stock also houses the N gauge stock, all of it in the original boxes. I'd pretty well run out of room in there, and I'd more or less decided that my purchases of N gauge rolling stock had reached a limit.

Here was an N gauge storage box, at the price of one modestly-priced N gauge wagon. I don't have 10 N gauge locos, but 10 locos might perhaps equate to 20 wagons. 

At that point my interest moved rapidly from the vague "He seems to have a range of decent stuff" to the immediate "This could be useful". I asked if they had a made-up example: they did, and it was remarkably compact. I promptly bought a kit at the exhibition special price. (It now retails at £29.99)

And the next afternoon, in an unwonted burst of energy and enthusiasm, I actually got on and built it. 

The product is here: WWScenics N gauge loco box and it took me a couple of hours to build.

Here we have the key things:

The material is laser-cut 3mm MDF , with chocolate burnt edge colouring and a pungent mildly acrid smell. The instructions are plain and well drawn, although to be honest what goes where is mostly obvious. Nevertheless what you think you know may not be quite the way it should go together so the instructions are useful. The fit of the parts was excellent. No fettling was required.

I assembled the unit with aliphatic resin, not so much because this is the ideal glue for the job but because I have twice bought a bottle of the stuff from Rocket under the impression it would be useful . Having found no obvious need for aliphatic resin over a good many years I am now trying to use up the bottles on any job where they  might be vaguely suitable, in order to preserve my stocks of PVA, a much more generally useful glue. Aliphatic resin leaves something of a stain despite intermittent attempts to be careful. But then PVA leaves a mark, too  .

The finished unit is small- about a hand span in length and width. This means it fits nicely into the limited space left in the storage drawer after the Box file, 4mm stock storage files, and controller are packed away in it. The cardboard boxes and plastic jewel boxes in which N gauge RTR is supplied are a lot smaller than the boxes we are used to in 4mm , but they still aren't a particularly effective use of space. This unit improves the packing density of the stock by 2x-3x. What that means in practice is that I now have a home for pretty well all the kits I've bought once I've built them - and the drawer is less crowded than it was. Since in a small flat the limit on your fleet is the point at which you run out of space to store it, this is very helpful.

It has multiple internal partitions so it builds up into a pretty sturdy unit . Clearly it wouldn't take being stood on or sat on , but otherwise it's pretty solid and I can't see it coming apart easily. The tabs visible on the top surface are designed to interlock with a second box on top. I may or may not buy a second unit: on the whole I think I prefer to keep locos in their original padded boxes, and without the locos I doubt if I would do more than half fill a second box. So the saving in space probably isn't there.

A bonus is that it will make taking models out to run the layout a lot quicker and easier. It also means less scattered debris in the living room. I have been trying to use the boxes to give an impression/mock-up of the backscene buildings but that's only a short term measure.

The holes on the ends of the trays are just about big enough for the end of your little finger and there is a recess on one end which is presumably there to take a label. A loose intermediate divider is provided with a series of slots to allow it to be placed so as to stop the models moving about. It is just about possible to arrange the drawers to take two 4 wheel wagons , if one is shorter than the other: the divider always has to be a little more than half way down

I find it a useful product at a moderate price