WHAT ARE THE 'RULES' FOR AN INGLENOOK SHUNTING PUZZLE?

[TEAMYAKIMA]

Please forgive my ignorance.

 

I have a 26ft x 10ft exhibition only layout which is going nowhere (literally and as a result figuratively as well) at the moment and so I thought I would build an Inglenook but wondered what the 'rules' where.

 

I mean as regards the length of tracks, clearance points etc

 

I  have 6 standard length freight bogie freight cars and one short brake van

 

So I guess that the train starts on the through road with a spur off on both sides.

 

I will be using Kadee magnetic couplers and uncouplers and so my questions are...

 

Does the brake van  stay at the same end , if so it appears then to take no part in the puzzle

 

Are their guidlines about the length of the headshunt - loco and two freight cars?

 

Sidings - two freight cars?

 

All comments appreciated

 

Thanks

[Keith Addenbrooke]

There are really three authoritative sources for this kind of information:

 

1.  There’s a “Shunting Puzzles website:” (Wymann.info I think) which has been around for a while and covers the topic in some depth.

 

2.  The late, great Carl Arendt explored the subject in one of his books.  His Micro-Layout website is still around but hasn’t been updated much in recent years.

 

3.  Trial and error with some spare track and rolling stock.

 

The ‘classic‘ version of the puzzle works something like this:

 

Sidings for 5 cars (wagons), 3 cars and 3 cars, with a headshunt (mainline) for 3 cars plus the loco.
 

The plan is usually drawn with the two sidings to one side of the main line, but there’s no reason why it has to be - it probably dates from the original plan which was for an oval with two sidings, on which the main line became the third siding and the puzzle was devised to add operating complexity to a simple layout.

 

8 cars are in play - distributed around the 11 siding spaces.  No guards van.

Randomly draw 5 cars to make into a train (in that order).

The game is about putting together a departing train (on a transfer run with no brake van I guess).

 

Track length depends on the length of your wagons, clearance at points and the loco you wish to use.  I’ve played it with a guards van, which always goes at the rear (if picked).
 

There are as many variations on the theme as you like, both scenically and operationally - including several excellent scenic examples on the pages of this Forum.  No doubt others can fill the gaps in my response, I just happen to be online at the moment.

 

Hope this helps, and have fun! Keith.

Edited October 4, 2022 by Keith Addenbrooke
Edit for text only as photo no longer available

[SonOfMike]

My own layout is a 3-2-2 Inglenook, meaning that one siding can accommodate 3 cars and the others 2 each. The headshunt can fit a locomotive plus 2 cars. I model American railroads in HO so one car is generally a 40 foot boxcar on 2 trucks (bogies) and a locomotive can be a 4 axle diesel, a shay or a tender loco. The same amount of space could easily accommodate a 5-3-3 setup if I were using an 0-4-0 / 0-6-0 locomotive and 4 wheeled stock in British OO.

 

I tend to operate mine in one of 2 ways. In both cases I first place 5 cars on the sidings in a random fashion. Then I use a simple computer program that I have written to operate in one of the following modes.

 

• "Simple" Mode - The program randomly selects a 3 car train that I have to make up; this is the same as Keith described above but with fewer cars.
• "Complex" Mode - The program knows the capacity of each siding and randomly assigns 5 cars to spots on the sidings. I then need to shunt the cars until they are all in the positions decided by the program. Sometimes this is very simple. Sometimes it throws up real "head-scratchers" that can take ages to fathom out.

 

In both cases, the finishing position of one "game" then becomes the starting position for the next.

 

I wrote the program because I could and because I had a few spare minutes (it's what I do for a living) but I originally used cards (as described by Keith) . In my case I also had an extra set of cards to define the number of cars on each siding for the complex mode.

 

On the other hand, sometimes I just use my imagination and shunt as I feel inclined.

 

[rodshaw]

Here's the Wymann website:

http://www.wymann.info/ShuntingPuzzles/sw-inglenook.html

There's a link to some rules at the bottom.

[Gilbert]

Dock Street uses a card sytem - its a 5 3 3  Inglenook but has a 4th siding off the shunting track for additional interest. We use cards made up with photos of the wagons. 5 cards are drawn and the trains is made up in the front track. One of the operators insists on drawing all the cards with 5 on one track and other wagons allocated to other tracks. We can use more than 8 becuase of the 4th siding.

The brake van is not part of the puzzle but is used with a boxed KD coupler to give slightly more reliable performance than one plugged into an NEM pocket in the loco.

[meil]

The classic is John Allen's Timesaver: http://www.wymann.info/ShuntingPuzzles/Timesaver/timesaver-trackplan.html

[jcm@gwr]

Simple answer,

WIN, but don't  cheat!  

[corax67]

Here’s my baby - Pushabout Sidings - at our last show in October which is a 5-3-3 Inglenook. All stock is Kadee fitted with uncoupling magnets fitted at the throats of the sidings.

 

I run a wide variety of stock, all of almost identical length, such as 7-plank PO wagons, presflo’s, ore wagons, box wagons, etc with pannier tanks, saddle tanks, 03’s or 08’s - all on a 4x2 board  
 

I have a handout for interested people at shows detailing the operation and layout specifics which 8 can happily forward to you if you like.

 

 

Karl

[josh_will]

Apologies for resurrecting an old topic, but I'm after some help as well.

 

I'm not able to do any real modelling right now, so I'm just temporarily playing around with some Setrack on the desk. I'm using American HO stuff, so there's only room for a 3-2-2 version.

 

Is it possible to make this more difficult? I've tried adding a caboose in there (which will never be part of the finished train), but much like solitaire this means that it's not possible to 'win' every time. (Or I'm not smart enough?) 

 

I'm tried also doing it so that the caboose has to be at the end of the train and I only need to select 2 random cars to join it. Any ideas? Does a 4-2-2 work at all? Might be able to fit that in.

 

 

Josh

[SteveyDee68]

Hi Josh

 

Take a look at the shunting puzzles website referred to earlier - it gives you how many possible combinations there are for each size of Inglenook when following the “formula”.

 

The classic way of increasing difficulty is to increase the number of wagons used. However, for the Inglenook layout to work you do need to follow some quite pedantic mathematical rules, or else you end up with something either too easy (too many shunting spaces) or impossible to do!

 

Given the temporary nature of your desktop 3-2-2 Inglenook, perhaps use the card system to spot your freight cars both on the 3 car siding and also allocate the remaining 2 cars to a second siding in a similar way. That *should* make things a little more complicated as you have to think about what traditionally are regarded as the “spares” as well as the ‘consist’

 

I’ve been in contact with Andy Wymann regarding expanding the Inglenook - let’s just say that adding just a couple of wagons rapidly expands the possible combinations from the thousands into the millions!!

 

Good luck

[fulton]

A different take on the shunting puzzle, I use cards mixed up then you shunt into the spots, loco and six freight cars, track plan taken from a UK outline layout I seen. Layout 5' long by 2' 6" wide sized to fit into my car roof box. Photos by Adrian at the Uckfield show.

[josh_will]

 

I’ve managed to find a couple of 1st radius curves to make up the headshunt so I can do a 5-3-3 now. Happy days.

 

As an aside, does anyone find a Kadee uncoupling tool effective? I got one yesterday and it doesn’t seem to work very well, even though I’m using the ‘spade’ end as recommended. A skewer works much better.

 

 

Josh