Model train inventory spreadsheet: every column that matters, and a free template

Ask a model railroad forum how to catalogue a collection and the answer is always the same: “I use a spreadsheet.” It is good advice. A spreadsheet is free, it is yours forever, it exports anywhere, and nobody can delete your data out from under you. Most of us already know our way around one. The failure is not the spreadsheet — it is the part where four hundred items of typing meets a hobby that was supposed to be fun, and the file is abandoned somewhere around row forty with the good intentions.

This page gives you the columns worth having, a free template you can download and keep, and a method for filling it that does not depend on a month of evenings at the keyboard.

Download the template

The template is a plain CSV — it opens in Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, LibreOffice, anything. Three example rows are filled in to show how the columns are used; delete them and start with your own shelf.

Download the CSV template

The columns, and what each one is for

Fifteen columns is enough. More than that and every entry takes so long you stop making them; fewer and the file cannot answer the questions you will actually ask it. Here is each column in the template and why it earns its place:

• type — Diesel locomotive, boxcar, turnout, caboose, structure — your own word for it, not a fixed list. You will search on this more than anything else.
• maker / brand — Athearn, Accurail, Peco, Kato, Bowser. Matters for resale value and for knowing whether two "identical" cars are actually the same model.
• scale — HO, N, O, S, G. If you model in one scale only, fill it once and stop thinking about it — but keep the column, because it catches the one gift someone bought you in the wrong scale.
• road name / road number — Santa Fe 3415. This is the pair that answers "do I already own this?" at a swap meet, so keep it exact and separate from the notes.
• era — Rough decade or operating era. Enough to sort a roster into "fits my layout" and "display case".
• quantity — Always fill it, even when it is 1. The day you own four of the same turnout, the blank column lies to you.
• purchase price / date — What you paid and when. Two minutes of typing now is the only way to have this later — memory will not keep prices.
• estimated value — Your honest guess, checked now and then against sold listings. A spreadsheet that tracks value is the one feature collectors of records and stamps have had for decades and railroaders somehow not.
• condition — A short scale you will actually use: new, excellent, good, runner, project. Do not invent twenty grades; you will never maintain them.
• location — Layout, storage, in shop, display case. This is the column that finds the box you spent a Saturday looking for.
• service history — One line per event: cleaned wheels 2025-01, replaced couplers 2024-11. Free text, dated, newest last.
• notes — Everything else — where you bought it, what is missing from the box, which decoder is installed.

A wishlist flag is folded into the template as its own yes/no column rather than a separate sheet, because the whole point of a wishlist is that it is in front of you at the show, on the same screen as what you own.

How to fill three hundred rows without quitting

The mistake is treating data entry as a project you must finish before the file is useful. Treat it as a side effect instead:

• Start with whatever shelf is in front of you, not with your rarest piece. Ten minutes, ten rows, done for today.
• Fill only the columns you know. A row that says “boxcar, maker unknown, in the garage” is a real inventory row; leave the blanks and finish it later. A blank cell is never a reason to refuse an entry.
• Photograph the boxes and the shelf as you go. The photos are the evidence for the insurance list, and they also carry the road numbers your memory is inventing.
• Put the file somewhere you can open it on your phone — a shared sheet works. Half of all inventory happens in an aisle at a train show, not at a desk.
• Sort by what you will actually ask: before a show, filter location = storage; before ordering track, filter type = turnout and count.

Where a spreadsheet stops working

To be straight with you: we sell an inventory app, so weigh this section accordingly. But the limits are real and forum threads say the same things. A spreadsheet is a desk tool, and the collection lives in the basement and at the show. Typing maker, scale, road name and road number three hundred times is the job everyone abandons. And when you are standing in a swap meet aisle with bad signal holding a box of Athearn cars, the question “do I already own this?” needs a ten-second answer, not a filter and a scroll.

That is the specific gap Railyard is built for: photograph the shelf and it drafts each entry — type, maker, scale, road name and number, era — you confirm with a tap, half-known items save anyway, and the CSV and printable PDF export are free forever so your data is never locked in. If you would rather keep the spreadsheet, keep it; the template above is genuinely all you need, and the export-only habit below is the part worth stealing either way.

One habit worth keeping from day one

Export a copy of your inventory to CSV every time you add more than a handful of rows, and put the copy somewhere other than where you edit the master. A collection that took years to build should never exist in exactly one file on exactly one device. When the insurance conversation or the estate conversation comes, a dated CSV with prices and values — plus the photos — is the document that settles it.

Questions people actually ask

Should I use Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers?

Whichever one you can open on your phone. The desktop war does not matter; the file you edit in an aisle at a train show is the file that stays current. Google Sheets and the free mobile Excel app both work — pick the one already on your device and stop comparing.

What if I do not know the maker or the road number?

Leave it blank and save the row. A partial entry you can finish in March beats a complete entry you never started. Photograph the model now — the photo holds the road number for the day you get to it, and for the insurance list it is evidence regardless.

Do I really need to photograph everything?

No — photograph what would be hard to replace or hard to describe: the high-value locomotives, anything rare, and a wide shot of each full shelf. A photo per cheap freight car is a nice-to-have; a photo of the shelf is what an insurer accepts.

Should the wishlist live in the same file?

Yes, as its own yes/no column on the same rows — not a second sheet. The point of a wishlist is that it is in front of you at the show, next to the search that answers whether the thing in your hand is already at home.

Railyard is built and run end to end by AI agents on NanoCorp, which is how a two-person-sized company keeps guides like this one current.