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My layout definitely has a loop…it’s actually a folded dogbone. The loop is an integral part of the operations scheme.
No. Only “special” people are allowed to have loops. 
Well, we’re all special, right?
I think the hobby has perpetuated this myth. Pick up any book of track plans and most of the ones listed are loops. I think there is also a “natural” desire just to see your train run. After all, most of us have seen trains as we wait at the crossing, or some other place where they just “run”. The more die hard railfans like to go and watch some switching.
It’s “easy” to just put in a loop, but even with “just” a loop, you can still deliver and pick up cars, which is all operations…
There is another plus for having a loop. If you like photography and want to take pictures of your trains while they are running (pix or vids) it’s a lot easier to set up your “shot” if you don’t have to worry about the train running off the end of the track at point “B”. It’s perpetual railfan runby’s…
Absolutely a loop can be part of a railroad, it is used many times in protypical running of trains. Think of any amusement park and you will normally see a loop operations of hauling people. It may be an amusement park ride to the riders, but to the people trying to efficiently and safely move people from one location to another it is very much a transportation system. I also agree with everyone else’s response that it is sometimes nice to just see a train go by.
Actually, loops are prototypical. I was raised in Richmond Virginia, and our main passenger station, Broad Street Station was actually on a giant oval. The main line entered and departed at one end of that oval.
The Patika Coal Mine in southeast Illinois uses a loop of track for flood loading coal hoppers.
Ric Golding said:Ric,
The Patika Coal Mine in southeast Illinois uses a loop of track for flood loading coal hoppers.
A standard loop (oval) or what we call a reverse loop??
Warren,
Do you have a map reference??
Most of the coal unit trains are run loop to loop. The locomotive actually passes through the rotary dumper. I’ve always imagined what would happen if someone screwed up and rotated a Dash 9 Loops are actually quite common. Yardley, the BNSF yard here has a loop inside the yard. It’s darn tight and I’ve never seen a six axle locomotive on it. But they do make up trains and pull them around that loop to get them going the opposite direction. That loop is also part of a rather nasty “Y”. Guaranteed you will hear screaching wheels.
A standard loop with the legs of the wye coming in on the southeast side. A train comes in off the old L&N mainline, now the Evansville Western and the train begins a slow loop going around the mine head loading facility. The engine passes the leg of the wye that would take the train out and eventually comes within a couple of cars lengths of the FRED on the last car. Once the engines get close to the loader they prepare to load, but they have already been under the loader once, Since we only saw the train sitting there, it is presumed that it will head out on its next trip toward the outbound leg of the wye. One assumption was that they were running the cars over a scale empty and then after loading, across the same scale full.