A digital companion for the classic Inglenook Sidings shunting puzzle — built for model railway enthusiasts who want to practice with their own rolling stock.
Built with Blazor Server · EF Core · SQLite · Self-contained
Inglenook Sidings is a model railway shunting puzzle created by Alan Wright (1928–2005). The track layout is inspired by the real Kilham Sidings on the Alnwick-Cornhill branch of the North Eastern Railway. Wright's design turns a simple yard into a deceptively challenging logic puzzle.
- You have 8 wagons distributed across three sidings (5-3-3)
- A headshunt allows you to move 1, 2 or 3 wagons at a time
- Your goal: form a specific train of 5 wagons on Track A — in the correct order
- A Brake Van, if included, must always be last
Simple rules. Surprisingly deep strategy. Over 40,000 possible combinations. Learn more ↗
Wagon Collection
- Add your own wagons with photos, rolling stock numbers, type and era
- Upload photos from your phone or camera — automatically cropped and resized
- Default images per wagon type if no photo is available
Puzzle
- Generates puzzles from your own collection — you see your actual wagons on screen
- Headshunt with correct movement rules (1, 2 or 3 wagons per move)
- Move counter — one move per loco operation regardless of wagon count
- Brake Van always placed last in goal automatically
- Filter puzzles by era and wagon type
- Win detection and session saving
Settings
- Define your own wagon types and eras
- Seeded with British Era I–III types and wagon types out of the box
Dashboard
- Collection overview with breakdown by wagon type
- Puzzle stats — total solved, best score, average moves, current streak
Dashboard — collection overview and puzzle stats
Wagon collection — your own rolling stock with photos
Puzzle — play with your own wagons using correct headshunt rules
Print / PDF export — generate a puzzle card for physical play on your layout
Prerequisites
- .NET 10 SDK
Clone and run
git clone https://github.com/mib71/InglenookPuzzler.git
cd InglenookPuzzler/InglenookPuzzler
dotnet runThe database is created and seeded automatically on first run — no manual migration needed. Data and images are stored in %APPDATA%\InglenookPuzzler\.
- Settings — configure your own wagon types and eras (or use the defaults)
- Collection — add your wagons with photos and rolling stock numbers
- New Puzzle — generate a puzzle from your collection, filter by era or wagon type
- Play — use the headshunt to move wagons between tracks, form the goal train on Track A in the correct order
| Version | Features |
|---|---|
| V1.1 ✅ | Print card or save PDF for physical play |
| V1.0 ✅ | Wagon collection, image upload, digital puzzle, move counter, win detection, session saving |
- Inglenook Sidings — Wikipedia
- Rules & Operation — wymann.info
- Mathematical analysis of Inglenook puzzles — arxiv.org
Built by mib71 — a .NET backend dev from Sweden who also happens to like model railways.