Timesaver is a well-known
model railroad
Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are Model building, modelled at a reduced Scale (ratio), scale.
The scale models include locomotives ...
switching puzzle (U.K. English: shunting puzzle) created by
John Allen.
It consists of a specific track layout, a set of initial conditions, a defined goal, and rules which must be obeyed while performing the shunting operations.
The standard layout consists of a simple yard, with five switches (three lefthand, two righthand), five spurs, and a runaround track at the center.
Power is supplied to the track, sufficient to run a locomotive at a fixed slow speed, controlled by a simple center-off reversing switch. Several freight cars are placed on the track, and the object is to move all of them to clearly marked destination positions.
Variants and gameplay methods
Timesaver can be played as a game, with the object to complete a given puzzle in the shortest amount of time. (Time spent thinking counts the same as time spent actually moving cars, and the number of moves is irrelevant.) The switching game became a contest at
National Model Railroad Association
The National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) is an American non-profit organization for those involved in the hobby or business of model railroading. It was founded in the United States in 1935, and is also active in Canada, Australia, the Unit ...
conventions.
Optionally, two Timesaver layouts can be connected with an unpowered interchange track (adding a sixth switch to each), with space for a single car. In this configuration, each player must (typically) exchange two "outbound" cars with the other. In this form, it becomes a
cooperative board game
Cooperative board games are board games in which players work together to achieve a common goal rather than competing against each other. Either the players win the game by reaching a predetermined objective, or all players lose the game, often by ...
. Because it can provide complex switching challenges in a small space, it has also been incorporated into a number of larger layouts.
Timesaver was first published in the November 1972 issue of ''
Model Railroader
''Model Railroader'' (''MR'') is an American magazine about the hobby of model railroading. Founded in 1934 by Al C. Kalmbach, it is published monthly by Firecrown Media of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Commonly found on newsstands and in libraries ...
'', in what would be Allen's last article; he died the following year.
See also
*
Inglenook Sidings
References
External links
* Small timesaver layout designs (inspiration).
* A full description of the puzzle.
* A version of the Timesaver layout for
Microsoft Train Simulator
''Microsoft Train Simulator'' (informally abbreviated to MSTS) is a 2001 train simulator game developed by UK-based Kuju Entertainment and published by Xbox Game Studios, Microsoft Games (now known as Xbox Game Studios) for Microsoft Windows, W ...
(MSTS).
* The Razorback Shunt layout and associated scenarios for
Trainz
''Trainz'' is a series of 3D train simulator video games. The Australian studio Auran (since 2007 N3V Games) released the first game in 2001.
The simulators consist of route and session editors called ''Surveyor'', and a ''Driver'' module t ...
Railway Simulator 2004/2006 (TRS2004/TRS2006) includes multiple Timesaver based puzzles.
Shunting puzzles
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