If trains depart in opposite directions from here then there will be a bit of a problem...
It is possible for two trains to be occupying P13 or P14 at Piccadilly, but highly undesirable as it leads to a stampede of people waiting at the departure end when they think their train is about to leave from the other end.
Trains to Tonbridge go east, Trains to Reigate line go west, trains to Gatwick Airport go south so geographically in different directions
They all go south; none go north (there is a buffer stop). It's no different from a terminus platform where multiple trains going to different locations can be stacked (Manchester Piccadilly terminus platforms being a good example).
Already happens in Marylebone. I have a memory as a child of seeing 2 trains on the same platform at Marylebone.
Happens at Waverely on a regular basis. 6 cars often terminate and then split for different destination, often departing within minutes of each other.
As mentioned above there has always been interlocking against simultaneously signalling trains into both ends of a through platform. The subsidiary aspect that is used to admit a train to an occupied platform conveys the meaning that the driver must be prepared to stop short of any obstruction, but that is for a non-moving obstruction not a train approaching on the same track!
ISTR trains doing that at each of the throiugh platforms (3,4 & 7). Indeed hals of P7 has 3rd rail for Merseyrail terminators whereas the other half doesnt as it normally takes starters for the Frodsham line.
Signalling a train into a platform while one is signalled out the other end runs the risk of the following train hitting the first if it doesn't move out, it stops unexpectedly. I understand that the accident that caused the ORR to take a dim view of the practice was because of an accident caused by a driver becoming so used to being signalled in on a call-on only to find the platform empty by the time he arrived, that finally the day came when there was something there he was unprepared for it and so unable to stop in time.
I saw such an incident unfold in front of me from my office window in Reading's Western Tower during the 1980s. It was common for empty DMUs exiting the old Triangle depot to enter service via the old platform 5, the up platform loop used by the vast majority of up express services at the time. The DMUs could go straight into service on #5 for a stopper to London, cross to and reverse on the reliefs into one of the east end bays for a later departure, or get to the Southern lines for a Gatwick service. One day an HST stopped very quickly again after dispatch towards London. The empty DMU driver, following rather too close behind, couldn't stop in time, resulting in two neat round buffer holes in the nose fairing of the rear power car!
I recall it used in WR mechanical locking too.
Is/was that a throwback to the days when the loco needed to be released from the front of a rake of inter city coaches?
Not since the Merseyrail boundary was moved to Headbolt Lane.
Ormskirk works, though there are buffers.
Two platforms for Merseyrail, one for Northern.
From personal memory in the 70s, and probably before that, the incoming locomotive would follow the departing train at Piccadilly before stopping at the signal to await a route, with both in motion at the same time. It would probably have returned to the station shortly after to take a later departure. If the other pairs of platforms had also had crossovers, the adjacent one would have had to be empty to release the locomotive at the buffer stops, and the station was just too busy to rely on that. This would be the case at most major termini. Some stations had middle tracks between two platform tracks to allow loco release when both were occupied, but this took up more space.
I think doubling up of trains is still commonplace at Manchester Airport, probably at all four national rail platforms.
They are being extended again so longer trains can work permissively.
It's not always done very well at Nottingham! I've seen a train recently sitting half on 1B and half on 1C, and two services were due to depart, one each from 1B and 1C respectively, within 10 the next minutes (one of them hadn't arrived yet). The train destination indicator hadn't been set (still showing "Nottingham"), and the doors were open for boarding. One of the station staff was running about trying to make sure passengers were not boarding (or failing to board) the wrong/right service.
