Thanks for the comments. Not sure it answers things. I asked because on a recent talk I gave it came up as a question which prompted me to try and find the answer. Here in Portugal, where I live, the official designation of a halt (apeadeiro) is a station (estação) which doesn't have any pointwork. So there are plenty of places which have station staff employed by the equivalent of NR who are there to operate pointwork to allow trains to pass but who don't sell tickets which is the responsibility of the train operator which here is still basically state run. So in a way these are unstaffed stations. And the opposite is also true with stations which are staffed and sell tickets but have no points and are therefore halts!
And it's quite funny how locals are really aware of it. I was on train recently when a couple of old women sitting close by were in conversation when I overheard a dialogue along the following lines, in Portuguese of course:
" Is this Carreço station?" said one.
"Yes, this is Carreço but it's not a station now it's an apeadeiro."
I just can't imagine such a conversation on a train in UK!!
As regards Sugar Loaf, that's a strange one. It only actually started to appear in the public tt in, I think, 1995 and don't think it was officially called a halt. It existed prior to that until 1964 as a point at which banking engines used to be released to return to Llandovery. Then it was officially called Sugar Loaf Summit, nothing else.
