They say that necessity is the mother of invention and so it was with my stock boxes. As I mentioned earlier, a friend who has a large layout in his garage reintroduced me to model railways and it wasn't long before I was buying stock of my own to take with me. As that collection got bigger it became more of a pain taking them out of their boxes and packing them away again so something more efficient was in order.

My first stock box is based around a plastic organiser box that I bought from Wickes for about £8.00. This box comes with fixed lateral dividers but moveable vertical ones, which I promptly threw away. The resulting compartments are just right for stock with a bit of allowance for some padding to keep everything safe.

I lined the bottom of each compartment with a layer of 5mm foamboard and then some cork tiles, as this is what the wheels will stand on. The sides were lined with some 10mm thick dense foam, a couple of sheets of which I found in the garage, bought for some long forgotten project.

Finally, more slabs of foam were cut to lay on top of each compartment to protect the roofs. With the lid shut, the stock is held firmly by the foam and can't move around.

I've created two of these boxes, which provide enough capacity for around eight locos' or a variety of other stock with a similar total length.

When I started collecting coaching stock, I found my original boxes weren't big enough so I looked around for another solution. I came across an aluminium case, which looked like a good starting point as it was already foam lined. It's deep enough for two layers, which lent itself to fixed dividers in the base and a lift out tray above, so I set to with the foam board.

The dividers in the base are glued straight to the sides of the case with PVA glue, although to add strength I also supported the ends with another piece of foam board cut in such a way that the pieces interlock. As I'd just purchased at the time an HST set complete with a selection of Joeuf Mk III coaches, I arranged the dividers to accept this particularly long stock.

Another piece of the dense foam mentioned earlier was cut to fit on top of the dividers in the base, with a corner cut off to enable it to be easily removed by fingers.

The top layer was built from scratch, completely from foam board. All of the pieces are stuck together with PVA glue and are cut so that they interlock for added strength.

A single sheet of foam board over the top means the that complete assembly is a snug fit inside the closed case and nothing moves around when it's being carried.

All of the stock is held between the dividers by felt wrappers that have been cut to size for each of the compartments. These serve two purposes in that they both provide a little extra padding and mean that each item can be lifted in and out without scratching the sides. The felt was bought as a square metre piece from eBay.

Incidentally, before buying the felt I did try using some thin foam underlay as used with laminate flooring. However, I was alarmed to find that after a week or so in storage the foam had reacted with the paint on one of the coaches, effectively melting it slightly!

By the time I'd completed all of this I was becoming a dab hand with the foam board and was wondering what else I could use it for. I decided to make an alternative upper layer tray that would serve as a mobile loco serving area. It has a foam lined channel to hold a loco firmly whilst fiddly screws are undone or wheels are cleaned, a cork lined base to protect wheels or other parts when removed and a raised edge all around to stop small parts falling off.

There's also a cover for the rear part so that small tools or supplies are contained when it's all packed in the case.

I'm really pleased with this set-up and I recently took the case on holiday with a selection of stock that needed some work on them to while away some time.

I'm now firmly of the opinion that foam board is a marvellous material and I wonder how I ever managed without it