I am designing a fairly long branch line off my double track mainline that is already built and I am going to have a turntable and small yard at the terminus.
My question is whether it would be prototypical to place the turntable at the stub end of the yard allowing incoming locos to pull directly onto the turntable and then transfer to a clear track to head to the servicing facilities. The passenger and yard tracks would all lead directly to the turntable, four or five tracks total. Since the branch line isn’t going to be very busy, I’m not worried about it creating a bottleneck. It seems a simple solution and a good use of space but I don’t think I’ve ever scene it done that way on either a model or a prototype, other than San Francisco’s cable car system.