INGLENOOK SIDINGS
 
 
The classic British "shunting puzzle", Inglenook Sidings, is the brainchild of Alan Wright, who kindly enough provided me with first-hand information on the origins and principal features of his layout.
 

 
In his Model Railway Manual (first published in 1994, last reprinted in 2000) Cyril J. Freezer links Inglenook Sidings with A.R. Walkley's 1926 suitcase layout - an origin which is "attributed" and, in fact, wrong. Although the track layouts share certain similarities, Alan Wright himself has pointed out to me that he had never heard of Walkley or his work when he built his first small railway, the Wright Lines, in the early 1950s. It was on this small layout (consisiting of a "dented" oval and two sidings) that the principle of a five wagon train on the main line and three in the sidings was developed. The layout was developed over a couple of years, was described and illustrated in the Railway Modeller in 1958, and made a couple of appearances at exhibitions in the North of England.

The actual way Inglenook Sidings came into being is quite amusing and, in Alan Wright's own words, took place as follows:

"In December 1978, with the Manchester show approaching, my colleagues at work asked what I would be showing that year and when I said "nothing" I was taken to task and the next day one produced a blockboard off cut 4'0" by 1'0" and challenged me to build a railway on it and show it. Having some odd pieces of track and a couple of points Inglenook was born and the 5/3/3 formula was adopted. It was a roaring success at the show, I had the small controller on a six feet long lead and stood among the crowd listening to what they had to say and then carried out the movements they wished would happen.. The aura of magic such operation produced made the crowd wonder if it was worked by someone watching on television or was it a computer?"

Alan Wright won an award with the model that year and later went on to build several layout variations on the Inglenook Sidings scheme.

 
The inspiration for the basic scheme came from an actual location, Kilham Sidings, on the Alnwick-Cornhill branch (Coldstream branch) of the North Eastern Railway NER. In its original form, the 5/3/3 formula was therefore worked on the main line and two sidings (as on the Wright Lines layout). On the minimum space Inglenook Sidings layout this then turned into a stub line ending in three sidings.

An illustrated article on the second Inglenook Sidings layout (basically a mirrored trackplan [headshunt going off to the right, whereas the headshunt on the 'original' 1978 layout went off to the left] ) appeared in the December 1992 Railway Modeller ("Inglenook revisited", unfortunately out of print). A couple of pictures of the 1978 layout appeared in C.J. Freezer's Model Railway Manual (first published in 1994, several reprints since) and in the December 1984 issue of Scale Model Trains. Alan Wright recounts the Inglenook story "so far" in the May/June 1999 issue (#22) of Model Trains International.

  



(Click for a larger image)
 
Alan Wright's Inglenook Sidings is still considered to be one possible approach to "perfect railway modelling", and quite rightly so. In this ad, a picture from the second version (left-branching) layout takes center stage.
 

Hints for Inglenook Sidings solution strategies

(click on images for more information on specific aspects of the Inglenook Sidings shunting puzzle)
 

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Page created: 01/MAY/2001
Last revised: 10/AUG/2010