Shoebox Inglenook

Carl Arendt started it all with his "shoebox" sized layout, Carl's Imports. After he introduced "Shoebox Madness" on his web site, I decided to try laying out a classic Inglenook Sidings style switching puzzle in a shoebox.

I had some track, switches, and a piece of paper with a 1" grid on it. I arranged the trackwork and tested the siding capacity using several AHM Minitrains cars - the smallest HO cars around - and an AHM Plymouth diesel. I found that there are at least five possible track arrangements that will fit in the 13" x 5" space. Photos of the mockups are below.

Now, my problem is that I would like to build such a layout; but I don't know how to get or make suitable uncouplers - and uncoupling is a major element in an Inglenook puzzle. So, if you visit this page and know of a solution to my problem, please send me an email.

NEW! See below for new uncoupler information.



	All five variations accomodate five cars on one siding, three on the other two, and the loco plus three cars on the headshunt. I did not arrange the cars properly in every picture, but did test the lengths to see that they would fit.
Even an Inglenook needs some scenery. Since this one is to be in a shoebox, I think a good theme would be a Dutch waterfront, with the railroad serving a wooden shoe factory (Klompen Atelier) and perhaps a cheese shop (Kaaswinkel). The buildings could be in the style of Dutch canal houses, very narrow and tall, with ornate gables, like the ones below:

3/22/04 Thanks to Ruud Witenkok, of the Netherlands (check out his web site by clicking on these words), I now have some authentic Egger-Bahn decouplers. And they actually work pretty well! So, there is no excuse for not proceeding with this project.	Below is the decoupler. The ramp pivots on two wires and is actuated by a solenoid in the black box. The yellow thing is just to hold the ramp up for the picture. I think that I shall have to do some work to conceal the solenoid - perhaps find a way to invert the box below ground level.

	9/7/04 Well, I finally got some work done! This is just a test layout; but you can see three Egger Bahn electric uncouplers and two Shinohara code 60 turnouts in an Inglenook arrangement. The turnouts are operated by old Atlas switch machines mounted underneath. Everything is held in place on the foamcore board by double sided tape. The good news is that it all works pretty well. I do think that shrinking this to shoebox size is going to take some real tinkering, though. The Egger Bahn uncouplers are remarkably reliable, but occupy considerable length of track - length I won't have in a shoebox. 2/20/05 Martin Ket sent an excellent suggestion: Use one uncoupler located on the switching lead and tilt the layout so that cars, when uncoupled, roll into the yard tracks by gravity. this saves length on the yard tracks. Sounds like a hump yard!
10/11/06 After quite a long time, I'm really working this layout now. The Egger-Bahn uncouplers worked fine, but their coils, mounted on the top, were too big and in the way. I finally obtained some REPA/Uhlenbrock uncouplers that mount under the layout and found that they work equally well. After some further experimentation with coupler location and track lengths, I found that the Inglenook pattern would fit in Carl Arendt's "standard shoebox" of 13" x 5". Here are some pictures of progress to date: At the right is a mockup with Dutch canal buildings, a couple of trees, and a jib crane (not supported properly. Directly below is the actual track layout on the cut-to-size baseboard. The front edge will be a canal wall. Below right shows the Atlas switch machines and the three REPA uncouplers. Second picture below shows the three REPA uncouplers with their vertical actuators installed and adjusted. They require about 1.5" clearance below the baseboard. Second picture below right shows the REPA uncoupling ramps. I've cut two of them to a shorter length, and will cut the third as well. The length is not needed with the tiny Egger-Bahn cars.