N Scale Modular - Weston Yard

Weston Yard is an 8' industrial yard, home to seven or eight businesses that require regular deliveries of raw materials or empty cars to ship finished goods. It can be operated by one or two people and can (and has) been used as a stand-alone layout at shows.

Incoming trains are delivered to the passing loop either from the main line or from one of a pair of hidden storage tracks at the back right that represent a branch line joining the main through the yard. The locomotive of the incoming train picks up an outgoing consist from the departure road nearest the main and leaves with it. The yard switcher then procedes to build a new outgoing consist in the departure road from the cars that have been in the yard the longest (and are thus most awkward to get to) and distributes the cars in the recently arrived consist to the appropriate industries. (Each car has hidden markings indicating which business it should be spotted for.) The puzzle is to do this in as few movements as possible, without trapping cars or the switcher and without blocking the main line! The entire cycle takes 30-40 minutes and is then repeated with the next consist.

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