CAROL’S CUT-OUT-AND-KEEP GUIDE TO TRAIN TRACKS
YOU are the engineer, laying an railway line from Village A to Village B. The track must never cross over itself. It is a single continuous line — no buffers, no forks. That’s it.
Except... you have to ensure that the right number of track pieces go in each row and each column of the grid. A number at the top of each column and at the side of each row tells you how many. The pieces of track can be straight or curved into a 90 degree bend — up or down, left or right.
STEP 1
THERE’S no more room in the far left column nor the bottom row for track. Fill in the empty cells with Xs.
STEP 2
THE track can’t go straight from A to B — it has to take in the spare piece of track in the third row up. Also, the track can’t cross itself, so it must curve left or right above B (but which is it?). That curve fills two cells, and we’re only allowed four pieces of track in that row. Therefore, the track must curve up from A.
STEP 3
THERE are no buffers allowed, so the track going up from B must link to that spare piece above it. This means the track in the second column has to keep rising: it can’t join up yet. Still, at some point, it will have to travel across to the right-hand side of the grid. In doing so, it will use up a fourth cell above point B – and we are allowed only four pieces of track in that column.
STEP 4
NOW, look at the sixth column. It should contain six pieces of track ... though not necessarily in one straight line. One thing is sure — the line must enter that column in the lowest possible cell, and turn upwards. That uses all five available cells in that row, and both cells in the row above — so the track on both sides must keep going up. No curves.
STEP5
LOOK at the far-right column. The same logic applies. The line runs in at the lowest cell available, and out at the top, because there are four pieces of track in that column but only two in the column next to it. Then go down to fill up the column of six.
STEP 6
NOW it’s easy. Straight across, across again and down, to link up with the other length of track. Choo-Choo!