As seen in the "Manual" Video, a way to run the puzzle is to start with the boxcars in numerical order on sidings 2 & 3, with a target of having the cars in alphabetical order by their color (Blue, Brown, Gray, Green, Orange, Red, Violet, Yellow).
When the simulator is run in the automatic mode, it takes 23 moves to solve the puzzle. More than the optimal 20 moves.
- 23 Move Auto solution.
- 23_Moves.png (34.75 KiB) Viewed 15286 times
Setting up the puzzle in the same way but running it in the manual mode, I found a 16-move solution. Switching to the automatic mode for the last move, adds 2 extra moves to finish. Why the software moves the three boxcars from the headshunt to siding 1 and back, before moving them to siding 2 is one mystery to be solved.
- A better solution.
- 16_Moves.png (28.14 KiB) Viewed 15309 times
The cure for boredom is curiosity.
There is no cure for curiosity.
