Wayne, that is also my plan. I will either build some drawers or buy some, they will be placed under the layout at each end, and the cars will cysle on and off the layout, into and out of the drawers.
On the CN boxcar note, you mentioned the CN size... here are some pics. In the bag of junk, there were some 50 footer boxcar floors, and some junk hoppers, so I cut down the floors to 40 foot and used the hopper underframes, and rigged it up. The body was missing doors and door tracks, so dug through my junk and put some on (pro'lly not prototypically correct doors). I weathered the car already, still need to add steps, and paint the trucks/wheels. So is this the wrong size lettering?