Weird Places for Services to Terminate

[Western Sunset]

Is there a timetable showing these? Would love to see.

Tring works perfectly today, vs the previous habit of sending everything to MKC, half empty. Also frequency is way up on what it was, for the likes of Berlin but also LB/Bletchley fasts.

Berlin??

 

[Furrysquid]

Four Oaks, which is a suburb of Sutton Coldfield (and one stop after Sutton Coldfield), has regular terminators.

Four Oaks has platform 3 as a convenient place to put them.

 

[The exile]

Four Oaks has platform 3 as a convenient place to put them.

Smallish place just beyond largish one is a fairly logical place to terminate- gets things out of the way and potentially picks up a bit of local commuter traffic in addition to the main flow. The really odd ones are “obscure place just before large place” which is usually getting things in to depot last thing at night. An example of the reverse effect is the 04.50-something Fratton - Bristol.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Smallish place just beyond largish one is a fairly logical place to terminate- gets things out of the way and potentially picks up a bit of local commuter traffic in addition to the main flow. The really odd ones are “obscure place just before large place” which is usually getting things in to depot last thing at night.

Trains terminating at Bletchley are for this purpose, generally. There are only a few of them, though, and they are extended Tring semi fasts rather than cut-short MKC stoppers. Same going into service in the morning. Might as well run them in service as the driver and guard are likely Bletchley crew so are there anyway, though some of them don't.

You get sort of similar at Aylesbury Vale Parkway - arrivals from London tend to work back to Aylesbury in service rather than as ECS (though again not all do). Hardly anyone will use it for that, but the odd one might find it useful so they might as well. Though there are even odder ones there - there is a 1758 AVP to Aylesbury which goes on to work an 1818 Aylesbury to Marylebone as a separate service. Given that Chiltern don't tend to lock trains up before the driver arrives it is quite odd that this isn't timetabled as a through service as it is the same unit.

 

[The Planner]

Whitlocks End !

Big car park, and was put in as part of the resignalling along there. Used to terminate at Shirley I think and shunt at the south end.

 

[birchesgreen]

Four Oaks has platform 3 as a convenient place to put them.

Most (if not all) Redditch trains start/terminate at Four Oaks, Bromsgrove trains go onto Lichfield TV. I guess this may help with the timetabling?

 

[Parallel]

GWR have a Sunday afternoon service which terminates at Castle Cary; the 16:48 departure from Bristol Temple Meads.

There is also an afternoon service from Barnstaple which terminates at Axminster, though I believe it continues ECS to Castle Cary via both Yeovil stations for route knowledge retention.

 

[SargeNpton]

Having regular services terminating at Bedwyn must be seen as quite peculiar since it is a smallish station with much larger stations further down the line (I know that the paths/rolling stock required for these services to reach Westbury doesn't exist)

Wasn't Bedwyn the last station down the line for Network SouthEast services? If so the current service pattern may be a legacy of that.

 

[The exile]

Wasn't Bedwyn the last station down the line for Network SouthEast services? If so the current service pattern may be a legacy of that.

Predates that - was the NSE boundary because that’s where the suburban service stopped, rather than the other way around.

 

[D6130]

Ribblehead. Historically, the morning and evening peak services to/from Leeds started from and terminated at Settle....but when the signal box there was closed and the crossover removed, they were extended to Horton-in-Ribblesdale. A few years later the box there burnt down and they then ran empty to Blea Moor to cross over and started back from Ribblehead. The next development in the saga was the building of the new Down platform at Ribblehead, which allowed the evening service to terminate there. Now, of course, the morning Up service is a through train from Carlisle, instead of coming empty from Skipton.

 

[cle]

Berlin??

Berko - autocorrect! There and Hemel used to do with 2tph slows, and now need 4tph minimum - Tring serves for that.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Ribblehead is surprisingly useful for walkers, though, hence why son of DalesRail spins there.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

At various times, there have been Greenbank (a suburb of Northwich) terminators, not sure if there still are.

Yes, they did in the past, pre-COVID. Not at present, though.

 

[Western Sunset]

There used to be (pre-COVID) a train around 9am ish that terminated at Branksome, then returned east via the crossover at the London end of the station.

 

[omnicity4659]

Chathill is certainly another contender

 

[Horizon22]

Having regular services terminating at Bedwyn must be seen as quite peculiar since it is a smallish station with much larger stations further down the line (I know that the paths/rolling stock required for these services to reach Westbury doesn't exist)

I wouldn't say its peculiar, more a quirk of railway geography and it has a turnback siding. Same applies to Ore (as discussed in the thread too).

Greater Anglia have a few Witham terminators/starters which are a little odd, sometimes to do with the Braintree branch but other times just to provide extra peak capacity. There's some general weirdness around that time of peak like this service that starts at Chelmsford

GWR have a late night Worcestershire Parkway terminator which again is not a natural location when Shrub Hill might me more reasonable, but is to do with shunting the ECS afterwards.

Berko - autocorrect! There and Hemel used to do with 2tph slows, and now need 4tph minimum - Tring serves for that.

Tring is also a weird railway quirk in itself to terminate trains; mostly a tiny village that has developed to become something of a railhead - because of the fact its a terminus!

Some of the Thameslink and Southeastern terminators at various Medway towns are a little odd and is more out of operational convenience than anything else.

 

[GordonT]

I expect there a few locations which have experienced feast or famine in terms of hosting terminating trains depending upon the nature of ensuing service recasts. Markinch in Fife is a case in point.

 

[Jellyfish261]

Couple of other quirks on the TfW network - morning 0420 out of Shrewsbury terminates at Llandrindod - there's a similar up from Carmarthen which terminates at Llandovery, presumably both intended as a positioning move for the commuter services back.

There used to be a Mach - Barmouth early morning service, but think this must have ended with the Dec '24 timetable change.

(And if we're talking quirky start-points, there's an early morning Welshpool start headed West... presume it must travel there empty rather than terminate?)

 

[brad465]

Strood for peak services to/from London. Makes sense for Medway Valley line services, but considering an awkward shunt move is required after turning round at Strood (or even an ECS run to Maidstone W and back), it's a lot of effort compared to going one stop to Rochester, where a third platform exists that can easily be reversed out of. I imagine the main problem is pathing over the Medway, although from May there is an evening peak Strood terminator being extended to Rochester.

 

[Mr. SW]

I always thought Coulsdon North was a bit peculiar: A full terminus in the middle of nowhere. No wonder it was closed.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

Bourne End is a fairly small place to have terminating services, although I understand the logic of splitting the peak service there.

Trains have to reverse to reach Marlow, but there's only one platform they can use. So running a peak half-hourly or better service requires separate shuttles, Maidenhead to Bourne End and Bourne End to Marlow with a change at Bourne End.

There was a plan some years ago to add in an extra set of points and connecting track so the trains could pass at Bourne End. I don't know what became of it. Perhaps it was dumped along with potential electrification.

 

[Taunton]

Tring is also a weird railway quirk in itself to terminate trains; mostly a tiny village that has developed to become something of a railhead - because of the fact its a terminus!

Tring has long been a more significant point on the railway, regardless of local population. Halfway between Watford and Bletchley, and at the top of the climb over the Chilterns, even in LNWR days it had major siding accommodation (where the car park is now) and even a turntable to turn locos round. Some freight services would have had an assisting loco up to the summit here. For passenger services, it was about the limit in steam days of daily commuting to London.

I always thought Coulsdon North was a bit peculiar: A full terminus in the middle of nowhere. No wonder it was closed.

This was yet another of the Southern's 1930s electrification services (like Ore) where locating the car shed there was the main service driver.

 

[D1537]

The Rose Grove to Paignton and v/v Summer Saturday service was always a good one. Of course there was a logical reason for the service to start/terminate there, but it was clear that passengers generally had no idea where it was when it was announced at somewhere like Bristol TM!

 

[nwales58]

(And if we're talking quirky start-points, there's an early morning Welshpool start headed West... presume it must travel there empty rather than terminate?)

Splits from the first Aberystwyth-Birmingham. I'd heard it has to be Mach-crewed because Shrewsbury drivers no longer sign ETCS, but that's hearsay.

Tan y Bwlch has no local population larger than squirrels and badgers but many trains reverse there.

 

[cle]

Medway places are just based on platforms and turnbacks, Rochester used to turn services but now they go on. Gillingham was full, so Rainham had a platform added. Gravesend was expanded too. Faversham isn't as heavily used to turn trains either, but could in theory be.

What it adds up to is a pretty decent metro frequency between them (per the medium sized city commutes thread) - although these are more about local journeys - and all by virtue of London services.

 

[JD2168]

Ribblehead is an odd one at first glance.

I think there’s also a couple for Carnforth and Barnsley.

Yes Barnsley is a terminus, on a very early morning run from Sheffield.

 

[GordonT]

Garelochhead and subsequently Arrochar & Tarbet were unusual start points in their turn of the first WHL service of the day into Glasgow Queen Street. Now provides a very early departure from Oban at 0511 maintaining a pre-0900 arrival at GQS at 0842. I expect the former "weird" start points required the set to run ECS from the Glasgow end to form the journey.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

Adwick always seemed an odd sort of place to terminate.

It's the last station in South Yorkshire and it also has a convenient turnback by running onto the freight line towards Stainforth at Carcroft Junction, the latter being just north of Adwick station.

What about Battersby?

Realtime Trains | 1055 Hexham to Battersby | 15/04/2025

Real-time train running information for 1055 departure from Hexham to Battersby on 15/04/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

I think the reason for this is to provide a better service to Great Ayton. However the section for the electric token is Nunthorpe to Battersby, hence the train continues to there.

 

[lawried123]

If you want to add annoying terminating stations into the mix, you could add the Bracknell terminators on a Monday to Friday evening leaving hourly gaps through to Wokingham and beyond. Apologies for mentioning my pet peeve, Waterloo is not the most exciting place to have to wait 45 to 50 minutes.

 

[D6130]

If you want to add annoying terminating stations into the mix, you could add the Bracknell terminators on a Monday to Friday evening leaving hourly gaps through to Wokingham and beyond. Apologies for mentioning my pet peeve, Waterloo is not the most exciting place to have to wait 45 to 50 minutes.

There's always the Hole in the Wall!