INGLENOOK SIDINGS
LAYOUTS & VARIATIONS

Layouts – Variations

Layouts

As you are using a computer to browse and read this website, it's quite fitting to start with a virtual Inglenook Sidings layout. Terry Franks (TaF Web) has created a faithful reproduction of the original layout for the railway simulation Trainz.


Click for larger images. Screenshots are © Terry Franks / Taf Web. Reproduced with kind permission.

Quite a number of layouts based on Inglenook Sidings can be found on the web:

New material is published on the internet daily, but there's also a fair number of webpages which disappear at the same time. I have decided to flag links rather than just deleting them if there is a problem, because not all access problems are permanent. However, if the problems persist, you can try to access the link through the Internet Archive. If that doesn't help, well - sic transit gloria mundi.

One really nice thing about the Inglenook Sidings puzzle is that it is so simple that you can actually set it up in no time as a temporary layout on a rainy Sunday afternoon (much the same way you would get out the Monopoly game board) using pieces of set-track (i.e. the "snap together" type that comes with any train set). In the example below, I used Kato N gauge "Unitrack", which in this case has the advantage of offering track pieces with ready-installed Micro-Trains (Kadee for the larger scales) uncoupling magnets, which together with Micro-Trains freight cars and an Atlas GP9 with added MT couplers allows for hands-off coupling and uncoupling. Five minutes to shake the box, set it all up and get the loco going, and presto, an instant shunting puzzle on your dining room table. No scenery, no frills, just pure shunting puzzle operation fun.


Click to enlarge images

 

Variations

There's more to be found on variations of the Inglenook Sidings layout in the specialised printed magazines. For example, the June 1998 issue of Railway Modeller featured an article on Southampton Docks and how the "general atmosphere" of such a railway setting could be incorporated into modelling a small shunting layout. The first track plan suggestion isn't really a variation of Inglenook Sidings but rather very much the real thing with some added buildings (including a warehouse with covered or even enclosed loading dock on the "5-capacity-siding") and a level crossing for added scenic interest.

The second track plan suggestion illustrates nicely how layout schemes based on the Inglenook mould can quickly evolve into something more complex which seems to offer more operating potential at first sight but actually provides less possibilities on second, closer inspection. In this case, a traverser offers the possibility of using a larger variety of rolling stock and motive power. While this is certainly no bad idea, the attempt to include a runaround track by means of inserting an additional set of points on the scenic part and using the traverser to complete the runaround move, isn't quite as good an idea as it might seem to be to start with. The main problem is that these two additional points effectively halve the capacity of the two uppermost sidings. If the length of these two sidings (one being the "5 capacity siding") isn't extended accordingly, the 5-3-3 formula will no longer work. Furthermore, the traverser needs to be used constantly for stock moves in order to access all three sidings - certainly a matter of taste and not every operator's cup of tea.

Much more to the point is the third trackplan variation of the article in question: a mirror image of the original Inglenook Sidings trackplan is complemented by a single line serving a small seaside passenger terminus. The first impression that the operating potential is increased is, in this case, correct: apart from shunting, this type of small layout also offers the possibility of running a passenger stock shuttle (preferably one or two-car EMUs or DMUs) from the left hand corner (where it disappears behind a row of low-relief buildings) to the terminus platform to the right. [See my Battersea Sidings layout for yet another way of putting together these elements, i.e. passenger shuttle at the front on a lower level track]

The combination of freight and passenger operations, separated in the layout above, can even be connected in a way which adds an additional momentum of operational interest.

This trackplan separates the shunting puzzle tracks and the passenger service shuttle track to a large extent, but not completely. The uppermost track of the shunting puzzle arrangement forms part of the main running line (a complication - and potential source for dangerous situations - usually avoided on the prototype, but not always possible to eliminate completely), which means that shunting moves may have to take into account the arrival or departure of a passenger train at platform 2 and clear the line for this well in time. There are several ways of introducing the effects of this complication. You can either limit the number of shunting moves (i.e. after 10 moves the uppermost "siding" must be cleared because a train is due for arrival or departure), or - if using a card or token system to select cars - you can introduce a special token/card which, when drawn in the process of determining the shunting order, rules that the uppermost siding must be cleared once (or even each time) the car which was drawn just before the special card/token is involved in a shunting move. This operational complication is a bit like "chance" cards in a game of Monopoly and can at times add quite a bit of added headscratching to the process of solving an Inglenook Sidings shunting puzzle...

Another interesting variation which comes to mind is, of course, to combine the two classic shunting puzzles, i.e. Inglenook Sidings and the Timesaver, and double the fun. Straightforward as this may sound, it's not that easy to come up with a really working combination. Paul Van Hove not only managed to do this with his trackplan for an N scale layout he is currently building, he also gave the whole layout a credible industrial background: the Timesaver layout is a paper mill, and the Inglenook Sidings layout becomes a yard serving this paper mill.


(copyright Paul Van Hove, used with kind permission)

This trackplan hints at the fact that an Inglenook shunting puzzle need not be small. As illustrated below, if space permits the addition of a marshalling (classification) yard can greatly increase the complexity and variation of the shunting and spotting orders to be generated from the layout:

The following shunting cycle illustrates the operational possibilities of such an "extended" Inglenook layout:

 

 

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Page created: 01/MAY/2001
Last revised: 18/OCT/2006