Sir - Mention is made (RG 12.00 p836) of the installation by Switzerland’s Rigi Bahnen of a modern version of ’the stub turnout used on industrial railways in the 19th century’. Stub turnouts were also much-used by ’main line’ companies!
JC Bourne clearly recorded, in 1839, stub turnouts at ’the entrance to the Locomotive Engine House, Camden Town, London & Birmingham Railway’. Later in the nineteenth century stub turnouts were used by many main line railways in the USA, such as the Housatonic, the Connecticut Western, and the Southern Pacific. A Southern Pacific three-way stub turnout remains in situ and in use at the California State Railroad Museum.
Further afield, a five-way stub turnout remains in use in New Zealand, on the preserved McLeans Island Bush Railway.
Perhaps there is good potential beyond the Rigi Bahnen for re-introduction of the stub turnout.
Alan M Levitt
New York, USA
