Main line balloon loops

[Barry169]

Am doing the Vietnam North-South railway in November and noticed that at Nha Trang there is a balloon loop in use.

Is this unique for a main line or are there other examples?

 

[The exile]

Coquelles and Cheriton immediately spring to mind. There’s also one on the Selketalbahn if that counts.

 

[rvdborgt]

Tønsberg (Norway):

 

[The exile]

Tønsberg (Norway):
View attachment 211754

Isn’t that a spiral, though (ie you can’t use it to go back the way you’ve just come?)

 

[alex17595]

Theres one at Bay Head on the North Jersey Coast Line

 

[ricohallo]

Afyonkarahisar (1st screenshot) and Kütahya (2nd screenshot), both in Türkiye.

 

[The Pelican]

Balloon Loops (with either one station, or none) are especially common on narrow gauge railways, including quite a few on the Queensland North Coast line.

British mines and coal power plants also had plenty due to the system of Merry Go Round trains, which ran coal trains continously through a loader and one end and an unloader at the other, without re-forming them.

Several metro systems have them- the Stuttgart S-Bahn has one, as does the Oslo metro core, and the Northern Line Charing Cross branch has a former one at Embankment and a current one at Kennington- both ran through, and not around, by a southbound train from Charing Cross to Battersea Power station.

Melbourne, Sydney, Liverpool and, since very recently Auckland all have loops under their city centres. All are multi-station, all apart from Liverpool's are two-way.

Probably the most "mainline" loop setup in the UK is the ability of Cross Country trains to run from the Bristol direction into Birmingham New Street from either end.

 

[DanielB]

Sargans (Switzerland)

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

Karlsruhe Hardtbahn and Albtalbahn have several loops (Neureut Kirchfeld, Ettlingen Albgaubad, Bad Herrenalb, Langensteinbach St. Barbara and Ittersbach Rathaus) in what is officially railway territory. Of course it's more a tram-like operation and the loops are due to single-ended trams

 

[edwin_m]

Grand Central in New York has one underground.

 

[Jim Jehosofat]

Dungeness on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway.

 

[WestCountry]

Probably the most "mainline" loop setup in the UK is the ability of Cross Country trains to run from the Bristol direction into Birmingham New Street from either end.

It's a long way from Kings Norton with several intermediate stations, so I don't think that really counts.

Newcastle on the other hand can be used as a balloon loop from the south without passing through any other stations.

If loop lines with multiple stations count then the Merseyrail loop under Liverpool is by far the most used example.

 

[Gloster]

Tønsberg (Norway):
View attachment 211754

Isn’t that a spiral, though (ie you can’t use it to go back the way you’ve just come?)

‘
Rougly so. Trains coming from the west pass over the mouth of the Jarlsberg Tunnel and then go round clockwise until they enter the tunnel and pass under the line they used a few minutes earlier. Until the Jarlsberg Tunnel opened in 2011 the two lines ran parallel, but at different heights, for a short distance from the north-west until they reached the point where the tunnel mouth is now and then diverged. The trains from the west to the north then ran anti-clockwise round the loop.

The arrangement that was superseded in 2011 had existed since 1915. Before that trains from the west could turn north without going into the town. The town‘s station was on a branch from a junction facing trains from the west at the start of the curve.

 

[jadmor]

Does Newcastle and Gateshead count? Trains can be despatched in either direction and I believe this is sometimes done to reposition the first-class portion to the right end.

 

[Taunton]

Grand Central in New York has one underground.

A number across the USA near major long-distance terminals, given the one-way setting of rakes of stock, to turn trains around. An alternative is a "wye", a triangle of track to one side of the main line specifically for turning trains around. Possibly the most visible Balloon is the one around New York Sunnyside yards, for Amtrak trains into Penn Station, visible from the Long Island commuter line when going out to Jamaica and JFK airport.

 

[AdamWW]

A number across the USA near major long-distance terminals,

Not always major ones - the Miami Amtrak station has a balloon loop which I believe handles a whole two trains a day.

 

[Gloster]

I think that there used to be one at Bowen on the North Coast Line in Queensland. It has all gone and there is nothing but a platform with a basic shelter on the outskirts of town.

 

[181]

Ely. I doubt whether it's ever been much used for trains from the March direction to go back towards March, but presumably it could be if the need arose, and it certainly looks the part on a map. (And if not being used to return trains the same way disqualifies it, is the same true of Sargans? My impression is that that is used mostly as a sort of back to front triangle, to enable trains from the north to head either west or south-east).

The Ordnance Survey map shows a loop in the angle between the Southampton and Fareham lines at Eastleigh.

 

[Gordon]

Sargans is not a balloon loop as such. Perhaps visually it looks like a balloon loop but it is not designed as such. The right hand side of the loop was built in 1983 to negate the need for trains running Zurich - Buchs SG to reverse at Sargans. An inspection train or some such could in theory run Buchs - Sargans - Buchs but no 'normal' trains would do that.

Ely comes into the same category as Sargans - nothing 'normal' runs March - Ely - March, but I used to traverse it regularly in the late 70s early 80s on trips from Peterborough to Norwich on the 'NOR-BIR-SER' which when loco hauled avoided Ely to remove the need for a run round.

IMHO Newcastle - Gateshead and anything in the Birmingham area are 'accidental' and therefore not genuine balloon loops

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 01:23 ==

There are genuine balloon loops at two of Switzerland's main marshalling yards, Denges (Lausanne Triage) and Chiasso. As they are designed to carry full blown freight trains they count as 'main line' despite being within the 'envelope' of a freight yard. However the Chiasso one is not quite as 'genuine plain balloon' as the one at Denges

 

[Austriantrain]

Sargans (Switzerland)

While it can be used as a loop, that is not its purpose of course.

 

[D6130]

While it can be used as a loop, that is not its purpose of course.

What is its purpose?

 

[AdamWW]

What is its purpose?

See earlier in the thread.

 

[Tester]

What is its purpose?

It enables trains between Zürich and Austria to avoid the previous need to reverse - while maintaining through running from the Chur direction.

 

[Austriantrain]

What is its purpose?

It was built so that trains from Austria via Buchs to Zurich don't need to change direction in Sargans (which, due to the station layout, is complicated) and is still used for this.

 

[D6130]

See earlier in the thread.

It enables trains between Zürich and Austria to avoid the previous need to reverse - while maintaining through running from the Chur direction.

It was built so that trains from Austria via Buchs to Zurich don't need to change direction in Sargans (which, due to the station layout, is complicated) and is still used for this.

Thanks everyone!

 

[Whisky Papa]

...
Several metro systems have them- the Stuttgart S-Bahn has one, as does the Oslo metro core, and the Northern Line Charing Cross branch has a former one at Embankment and a current one at Kennington- both ran through, and not around, by a southbound train from Charing Cross to Battersea Power station.

Melbourne, Sydney, Liverpool and, since very recently Auckland all have loops under their city centres. All are multi-station, all apart from Liverpool's are two-way.
...

If we are considering metro systems, then surely Chicago's L must have the most impressive Loop of all, although I grant you it isn't exactly balloon-shaped.

Link to Chicago Transit Authority online map, which shows the Loop as having four terminating services:

Brown Line enters from the north and runs anticlockwise
Purple Line enters from the north and runs clockwise - peak hours only
Pink Line enters from the west and runs clockwise
Orange Line enters from the south and runs clockwise

In addition, the Green Line runs enters from the west and runs through the north and east sides of the Loop to exit at the south.