Inglenook Sidings

Railway shunting puzzle

Inglenook Sidings

Legend



					Spur holds 3 wagons
					plus the locomotive




					Sidings hold 3 wagons each

					Long siding holds 5 wagons

Inglenook Sidings, created by Alan Wright (1928 - January 2005), is a model railway train shunting puzzle. It consists of a specific track layout, a set of initial conditions, a defined goal, and rules which must be obeyed while performing the shunting operations.

More broadly, in model railway usage inglenook may refer to a track layout (or portion thereof) that is based on or resembles the Inglenook Sidings puzzle.

Details

The track is based on Kilham Sidings, on the Alnwick-Cornhill branch of the North Eastern Railway (NER).^[1] The sidings should be able to accommodate 5, 3, and 3 wagons, the leading spur accommodating 3 wagons and the locomotive. For the original version of the puzzle there are 8 wagons in the sidings, the rule being:

Form a train of 5 wagons selected at random of a specific order from the 8 wagons.^[2]

References

^ wymann.info, Inglenook sidings Shunting puzzles, Adrian Wymann.
^ wymann.info, Inglenook sidings, Rules & Operation shunting puzzles, Adrian Wymann.

External links

Inglenook Designs - Carendt.com - Small Inglenook Layout Designs (inspiration).
Model Railways Shunting Puzzles - Inglenook Sidings - A full description of the puzzle.
TaFWeb - Inglenook Sidings - Includes a downloadable Inglenook Sidings layout for Trainz.
Beaver Games : Inglenook Shunting - An online JavaScript based Inglenook game.
Inglenook Shunting Puzzles - A mathematical analysis of the solvability of Inglenook puzzles.