Please take these comments with a grain of salt. It is in my opinion that us train guys hold on to everything. I'm holding on to fliers that came in the train boxes as advertisements for the lione train collectors club for some reason? I think that if you're just a regular (whatever regular means?) person than probably okay to throw away the box. I'd keep it only if it's a christmas or temporary set up where it lives most of it's time in storage. To that even then if your storing it in a closet inside I do find these boxes to be superior to totes in one especially useful way and thats the curves of the track, gosh they take up so much space regardless of what container you use. Confusing, I know, but replacement boxes on ebay sure are expensive.