In the Micro Model Railway Dispatch; Star Lane Sidings, 000 gauge- a folding shunting puzzle

The Micro Model Railway Dispatch The Home of The Micro Model Railway Dispatch – Just another WordPress site is an excellent source of inspiration for anyone looking to build a small railway. People from all over the globe showing their layouts, and they tend to be very much on the achievable end of the spectrum.  There's a lot to be said for doing a mini project, as opposed to working on some giant layout that takes years and years.

The editor put out a shout for people to submit articles on 'Inglenook' shunting puzzles- this is a type of model with a fan of three sidings, usually 8 wagons, a single loco, and you select a train of 5 to make up in as few moves as possible (you usually select the consist by shuffling cards with the names/pictures of the wagons on).

I'd had a plan to make some sort of portable, folding puzzle layout, and this brief fit the bill nicely. 

Here's the box that would be used for the project- an old wooden art box, no contents.

The hinges would need moving to the ends of the box to make a longer layout- one half for the sidings, one for the headshunt (and integrated storage for the rolling stock).

The original plan was for two longer hinges, hence the blocks either side of the end joints, but in the end the original hinges were good enough to re-use.

The removable cover for the tunnel/bridge to hide the line going off-scene.

Standard Lone Star 000 track was used, with the rest of the scenic details a mix of packing foam, plaster, offcuts of plasticard of various types.

And here it is; scenic work was very simple, a bit of scatter and some very basic bog-brush trees.

The donors for the rolling stock; Lone Star 000 models (these very early predecessors of N scale) tend to turn up in this condition. They're good, solid, but tend to have very battered paint finishes.

A bit of repainting, to keep them distinctive; Citadel acrylics to recolour them, then washed over with nuln oil to bring out the relief details.

The buildings are mainly some old Bluebird Thomas the Tank Engine playset items; a derelict station, a signal box, a water tower, and a crane (this latter was an original Lone Star item, taken off its wagon which was too long to be shunted on the layout).

I liked the idea of everything being contained inside the box, to keep this a portable playset; two wooden pencil boxes formed the storage, disguised as a car park...

Lined with foam, they -just- contain a set of stock to run the puzzle. The plan eventually is to remove the centre spine and fabricate a new lid, that would give room for a few more wagons for a bit of variety.

Showing just how portable the layout is- it can even be used outdoors (because these are push-along models, no need to worry about power supplies or controllers).

And here it is, in the mag.

This was a fun little holiday project in the end, even if it was a bit of a challenge to make something away from the workshop. It could do with some finishing touches, but that's something that can be worked on.