Hello, hope all is well.

I have never tried to create the switch “nightmare” you are inquiring about, but would think it is possible to do this in “Z”. There are many options with the Marklin brand of track.

I hope you find the z track plan document information useful for this. I can see the basic shape of your picture is perhaps similar to those shown on page 45 but add a few more switch points.

https://www.maerklin.de/...Buch_Spur_Z_komplett.pdf

There are different opinions about who makes the best track I only have the Marklin track and can tell you it takes longer to install because it must be ballasted. Even with this, as stated earlier, there are many options with the track pieces. I cannot say the same amount of options are available with the other track brands. It is nice when it comes with the ballast, but many also say, they don’t like the fake plastic look which you get. In this regard, it is your preference on how you want it to look.

Hope this helps. Take good care.

Dwight

I certainly do it and I have also seen exhibition layouts were it has been done. I have only done it manually and the main shunting exhibition layout (using American couplings) I have seen also does it manually (use a cocktail stick or small screwdriver). The key is to be patient and go gently, it is quite easy to derail light wagons. I tried a couple of 8587 uncoupling tracks, but they don't work very well for me - so I won't bother with getting any more.

Carim

It can occur with HO track as well. You can shim up the low sides with thin cardboard, thick paper, or wood on ho. You can either ballast to hide it, or glue scatter material next to it, or use the grass mat cut to fit.

Hello Jonathan,

Those pictures look lovely! The one with the ICE train almost looks real.

I agree, personally I find that Z lends itself to running long(ish) trains. I think you will get frustrated with shunting only in Z. By all means do it, at least for the scenery, but think about incorporating it into a bigger picture. At least pre design an option so you can add the shunting module to a larger layout later without destroying all the hard work. Even if you only run a couple of basic loops around it.

My current layout it basically two completely independent loops, folded up to have long runs. In effect two layouts in one layout. If I had the room I would put in a shunting area, I even have a 8994 transfer table, but quite frankly it would be there for the scenery only.

I had a custom transformer made, which I believe was a chopped power supply of some sort. It could creep a loco along by the mm, in this respect it was brilliant, but the motor in the loco sounded horrible. I was concerned it was doing damage so didn't use it.