Published on Saturday 24 January 2026 by That Model Railway Guy
The Inglenook shunting puzzle looks simple… until you actually try to solve it.
In this video, I take on one of the most famous model railway shunting challenges and see if I can get all the wagons in the correct order under strict operating rules. It’s a brilliant way to add purpose and challenge to shunting on a model railway — and much harder than it first appears.
EARLY ACCESS: www.youtube.com/channel/UCx7OfzRi8-nPLyYuuU74l4Q/join SHOP: shop.thatmodelrailwayguy.com ___________________________________
This video is proudly sponsored by Specialist Aggregates!
Check out their scenic True To Scale range at: truetoscale.co.uk ___________________________________
I’m back with another attempt at the Inglenook Shunting Puzzle, a classic operating game anyone can play on their model railway. The rules are simple:
- You have 8 wagons on your layout and must shunt these into a train of 5 in a specific order.
- You have 3 sidings. Sidings 1 & 2 can hold 3 wagons. Siding 3 can hold up to 5 wagons.
- The headshunt can only hold 1 locomotive and 3 wagons maximum.
With those rules in place, my challenge is to work out the correct sequence of moves to build the train without breaking any of the constraints.
In this video I'm using predominantly Accurascale models with their Class 31 in charge of shunting duties. The wagons are then made up of the ICI Hoppers, the exclusive ZDV Hoppers and the 21t mineral wagons.
Rather than reviewing the models I figured it was best to show them in action doing what they do best. And of course if you want to run these on your own layout, check out the links below...
Accurascale Class 31: www.accurascale.com/collections/brush-type-2-class-30-31?sca_ref=3910801.DlQ0S2Kwhm ICI Hoppers: www.accurascale.com/collections/ici-hopper-wagons?sca_ref=3910801.DlQ0S2Kwhm HTO/HTV/ZDV Hoppers: www.accurascale.com/collections/hto-htv-hopper?sca_ref=3910801.DlQ0S2Kwhm 21t Mineral Wagons: www.accurascale.com/collections/mdo-mdv-21-ton-mineral-wagons?sca_ref=3910801.DlQ0S2Kwhm Bachmann Queen Mary Brakevan: railsofsheffield.com/search?filter.p.vendor=Bachmann&filter.v.price.gte=0&filter.v.price.lte=190&options%5Bprefix%5D=last&q=queen%20mary%20brakevan&ref=TMRG&sort_by=relevance
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:34 - The Rules
03:21 - Shunting Session
17:06 - The End Result
(may contain affiliate links which support the channel at no extra cost to you)
Thanks for watching 😃
The video description and textual content is provided by the publisher of the video, and may contain external links. RailwayModels.uk has no connection with the sites linked to, and links are not checked before the video is published here.