A Balloon loop allows a train to reverse direction without having to shunt or even to stop. Balloon loops can be useful for passenger trains, and unit freight trains, such as coal trains.
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History
Balloon loops were first introduced on metro and tram lines. They did not appear on freight railways in large numbers until the 1960s when the modernising British Rail introduced merry-go-round (MGR) coal trains that operated from mines to power stations and back again without shunting.
Tramways
Balloon loops are essential for operating single-ended trams. Balloon loops were also used by steam trams in Sydney, though the loops were mostly removed when double-ended electric trams came into use.
Examples
Passenger
On a balloon loop: the station is located on the balloon loop, and the platform may be curved or straight.
United States
- City Hall and South Ferry subway stations in New York City:
- City Hall station on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line is now closed, although the loop track continues to be used to turn trains. These trains discharge and take on passengers at Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall, one station to the north.
- South Ferry (see diagram) was a two-track loop station, with a sharply curved side platform for each track. Due to problems with train length and platform clearance, this station was replaced by a standard stub terminus with two tracks and an island platform (South Ferry–Whitehall Street), although the original trackage remains in use for turning trains.[1]
- Juniper Street Station in Philadelphia, the eastern terminus for the SEPTA Subway-Surface Lines
- Bowdoin Station on the MBTA Blue Line in Boston has a wedge-shaped island platform inside a balloon loop. The station will be closed when 6-car trains begin operating, as those will be too long for the existing platform and there is no room to extend it.
- World Trade Center station on the PATH subway system linking New York and New Jersey.
United Kingdom
- Dungeness, Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, Kent, England: single track, single platform for both boarding and alighting.[2]
- The miniature railway at Ruislip Lido, Ruislip, Middlesex, England
- The Eurotunnel Shuttle uses balloon loops: since the two tracks cross over at the French end the whole line forms a figure 8 loop. This evens the wear on the train wheels.
- Newcastle upon Tyne station is on a loop, so that trains from London can return using the High Level Bridge and King Edward VII Bridge (but they seldom do).
- Peasholm on the North Bay Railway in Scarborough, North Yorkshire has a reverse balloon loop, with the "neck" of the balloon facing the buffer stop. The loop is used to allow the locomotive to run round the train and reverse at the same time.
- The first Wembley Stadium station in London (opened 1923, closed 1968) was on a balloon loop, but the present station of that name is not.
Other
- Various stations of the Hong Kong Tramways
- Yuen Long Station of the MTR Light Rail in Hong Kong
- Olympic Park, Sydney, Australia: platforms 1 and 4 are for boarding, 2 and 3 for alighting.
Multiple stations on a balloon loop:
- Heathrow Terminal 4 and Terminals 1,2,3 stations on the Piccadilly line of London Underground.[3]
- The LACMTA Blue Line has four stations on its loop through downtown Long Beach (California).
- In Liverpool, England, on the Wirral Line of the Merseyrail network, trains arriving at Liverpool through the Mersey Tunnel fork left at Mann Island Junction onto a balloon loop, before reaching James Street (platform 1); they then call at deep-level platforms at Moorfields, Liverpool Lime Street and Liverpool Central before reaching James Street again (platform 3), then rejoin the original route at Mann Island Junction and then pass back through the Mersey tunnel.[4]
- The City Loop, Melbourne, Australia, has five stations. Trains enter the loop from two opposite corners, but there is no crossover — a train which enters at one corner must make a complete loop, making this essentially two overlapping balloon loops.
- In the Helsinki area, the Kehärata or Ring Rail Line is being built between an existing branch at Vantaankoski and the main line at Tikkurila, primarily to serve the airport which is presently only accessible by road. It is expected to open in 2014. Two existing stopping services (to Tikkurila and Vantaankoski) will be replaced by a single service which traverses the whole loop and returns to Helsinki, stopping twice on opposite sides of Pasila station. Four new stations are planned, but the loop will have a total of 21 stations, not counting Pasila or Helsinki. Roughly half of these stations are on the northbound and westbound mainlines, the loop line leaving them via diving junctions at Hiekkaharju and Huopalahti.
With balloon loop: The balloon loop is past the station.
- Bad Herrenalb, Albtalbahn, Germany: the train passes the loop before arrival
- Bowling Green on New York City's IRT Lexington Avenue subway line is the southern terminus for 5 service in the evenings & on weekends, with the South Ferry inner loop (see previous section) used to turn trains.
- Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall, also on New York City's IRT Lexington Avenue Line, is the southern terminus for Lexington Avenue local service (the 6 <6> trains), with the City Hall loop (see previous section) used to turn trains.
- Howard Station on the CTA Red Line in Chicago uses a ballon loop to turn a northbound train back south. Because the other end of the line does not contain a loop, the wear on the wheels is evened out after two trips.
- The Irish Steam Preservation Society's line at Stradbally, Co.Laois, Ireland consists of a balloon loop: trains operate from the station and back again via the loop.
- 69th Street Terminal, the western terminus of the SEPTA Market-Frankford Line in Philadelphia: westbound trains discharge passengers at the platform and go around the loop to one of two eastbound platforms to pick up passengers.
- Kennington tube station, on the London Underground Northern Line: trains from the Charing Cross branch can terminate at Kennington and then run around a loop to return north. Trains from the Bank branch cannot use this loop.
- Schwabstraße Stuttgart S-Bahn: the loop is south of the station and completely underground
- Tonnelle Avenue (HBLR station): the loop is to the west of the station.
Paris Métro
- Non-passenger loops: Porte Dauphine (line 2), Porte de Lilas (line 3bis), Porte de Clignancourt and Porte d'Orléans (line 4)
- Passenger loops: Nation (line 2), Charles de Gaulle-Étoile and Nation (line 6), Pré-Saint-Gervais (line 7bis)
- The western end of line 10 is a long loop: trains arriving at Mirabeau from Gare d'Austerlitz enter a loop with the following stations, Église d'Auteuil, Auteuil, Porte d'Auteuil (official terminus), Michel-Ange Molitor, Chardon Lagache and Mirabeau again, to continue eastwards
- There also are a few loops used for stabling trains, for example west of Invalides and north of Porte de la Villette.
Tram Systems
Balloon loops are used extensively on tramway systems with single-ended trams. Usually located at termini, the loop may be a single one-way track round a block. Single-ended trams have a cab at only one end and doors on one side, making them cheaper and having more space for passengers. On tram systems with double-ended trams balloon loops are not required. The Milan interurban tramway network, although using double-ended trams, had balloon loops at termini within the city limits so that they could be used as backup termini by the single directional trams used on urban service. In Milan, tramway depots are built as balloon loops, just as urban termini. Another example is in Potsdam, Germany.
Freight
New South Wales, Australia:
- Newnes Junction coal loader
- Mount Thorley - coal
- Camberwell - coal
- Ulan - coal
- Wilpinyong - coal
- Penny Road, near Moree - wheat
- Fassifern - coal - has triangle as well, so trains can go north or south.
- Vales Point - coal unloader
- Port Waratah - coal unloader at port
- Kooragang Island - coal unloader at port
- Newdell Junction - coal - has two balloon loops for different coal mines
- Bargo - coal - due to change in operational requirements, the balloon loop now points the wrong way, and requires trains to be top and tailed.
- Gunnedah - coal
- Craven - coal
- Catete, Angola
New Zealand
- Dargaville Branch - balloon loop providing access to Kirikopuni, 2 km north of the main line. This was eliminated by a bypass in 1943.
- Woodville - balloon loop linking the Wairarapa Line and the Palmerston North - Gisborne Line so that trains running between the Wairarapa and Hawke's Bay do not have to reverse. Unlike a triangle, the balloon loop enables these trains to serve Woodville station.
United Kingdom
There are several balloon loops at power stations in the UK - these have been provided so that coal trains may unload without stopping (known as the merry-go-round system). Examples include Cottam, Didcot, Drax, Eggborough, Ferrybridge, Ratcliffe-on-Soar.
United States
- Louisa Generating Station - coal unloader, south of Muscatine, Iowa
- National City, California - Balloon Loop near San Diego Bay.
Other
Both the French and the British terminals of the Eurotunnel Shuttle service through the Channel Tunnel consist of balloon loops.
Occasionally, balloon loops are used for reversing trains on lines with heavy grades and tight curves to equalise wear on both sides of locomotives and rollingstock. Such a balloon loop was constructed at Beech Forest on the 2ft 6in (762mm) Victorian Railways line from Colac to Crowes.
Advantages
The advantages of a balloon loop include:
- smooth operation.
- trains can arrive in any free platform, while another train is leaving any platform.
Compared to stations with stub platforms, balloon loops allow:
- fewer tracks and platforms would be required.
- arrivals into some platforms do not block departures from other platforms.
- time is not lost while drivers change ends and reset the train for the other direction.
- if the driver changed ends and discovers a hidden fault, then delays to trains are less likely.
Disadvantages
The major disadvantage is that a balloon loop is very space consuming. Another disadvantage is that the sharp curves cause noise, as well as wear and tear on wheels and rails. Also, if the platform is located on the curve, the gap between the platform and railcar door is a hazard. The former South Ferry station on the New York City Subway solved this problem by using gap fillers that extended out to the railcar door when the train triggered a switch on the tracks. The station has since been closed.
On systems where, for reasons of economy, the couplings are made non-reversible (eg by fitting the air brake pipe along one side of the car only), the use of a reversing loop will cause a proportion of the rolling stock to face the "wrong" way and it may not be possible to assemble a complete train in a depot, even if sufficient cars are on hand. This was the case on the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (now part of the Northern line of London Underground). After the opening of a loop at Charing Cross (Embankment) in 1914 (replaced in 1926 by the present Kennington loop) car ends were marked "A" or "B" (later, when axles were designated by letters, the "B" car ends became "D" to match the adjacent axle), and it was not permitted to couple cars together if the ends to be coupled bore the same letter. It was found necessary to provide a turntable at Golders Green depot (near the other end of the line), for use when there was an imbalance of car directions.[5]
To avoid this problem, on many systems with a balloon loop, the couplings and brake hoses are made reversible.
At coal ports such as Kooragang Island the space inside the balloon loops is used for storage of coal, so that is it not wasted space.
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References
- ^ MTA Capital Construction - Second Avenue Subway Planning Study
- ^ Trackmaps. 5 Southern & TfL [map], 3rd edition, Railway Track Diagrams. Cartography by John Yonge. (November 2008) ISBN 978-0-9549866-4-3. p. 18 Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway, E inset.
- ^ Trackmaps. 5 Southern & TfL [map], 3rd edition, Railway Track Diagrams. Cartography by John Yonge. (November 2008) ISBN 978-0-9549866-4-3. p. 43 Piccadilly Line: South Harrow & Heathrow - Acton Town, D inset.
- ^ Trackmaps. 4 Midlands & North West [map], 2nd edition, Railway Track Diagrams. Cartography by John Yonge. (March 2005) ISBN 0-9549866-0-1. p. 40 Hunts Cross - Moorfields.
- ^ Bruce, J. Graeme (1988). "7. The First of the Standard Tube Stock 1923/25". The London Underground Tube Stock. Shepperton: Ian Allan. pp. 56-57. ISBN 0-7110-1707-7.
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