Inverness long had a procedure where some arriving trains, from both directions, ran past the station, and then reversed into the platforms used for departures in the opposite direction, done apparently to make connections into ongoing services more straightforward.
I've done that. The afternoon/evening train from Kyle of Lochalsh used to continue on to Aberdeen, I believe. So the service used the curve avoiding the station to then run into the lower numbered platforms for the onwards journey.
The majority - if not all - trains arriving from the Far North and Kyle lines used to do that.... partially to facilitate passenger interchange for those heading South and East - and also to avoid having to shunt out into the single line token section from Rose Street to Lentran.
Does anyone know if it still happens? If I remember rightly, my train went that way on both the occasions I've arrived from the Far North (1992 and 2002 -- i.e. in the Sprinter era, but no longer recent), although not when arriving from Kyle in 1993. In 2002 the same unit later formed an Aberdeen train, although it wasn't an advertised through service.
There were/still are several points on the USA/Amtrak network where trains arriving at a dead-end terminus will go round a triangle on the approach, and then slowly reverse in, to suit departing the 'right way round', US trains being effectively unidirectional, both for formation and individual seats. It even happened mid-journey. The San Francisco Zephyr from Chicago certainly used to reverse into Denver, though I haven't taken it since the station there was rebuilt.
The current equivalent is the California Zephyr, Amtrak train 5 (w/b) and train 6 (e/b), daily each way. Denver Union station is still a terminus, so both trains reverse there. I'm unsure whether they reverse in or out though, or how the move is controlled.
When I travelled on the westbound Zephyr in 2017 it reversed into the station. My guess is that the eastbound does the same (Google Maps confirms the existence of a triangle), but I don't know that for a fact.
Reversals like that happen in a number of places in Canada too. My recollection of arriving in Churchill in 1990 is that the train went round 4 sides of the triangle -- i.e. it ran past the triangle heading north, reversed onto it, pulled forward onto the main line facing south, and then reversed northwards, past the triangle again, to reach the station. My guess is that the track at the end of the headshunt wasn't considered suitable for locomotives. A member of staff at the rear of the train had a walkie-talkie for communicating with the driver.
