Small town passenger stations on main line?

Stations along single-track main lines were very common on lots of railroads.

@Dave Ripp. posted:

I failed to find enough length for a passing siding.  I'm wondering, did real railroads ever stop at small passenger stations on the main line?

Of course they did, especially if it was a single track railroad.

On my "home" rails of the New York & Long Branch all the station stops were on the main line. The line  was mostly two tracks and there were no true passing sidings.  Some of the stations such as Sea Girt were just sheds while others were larger and more elaborate.

What was interesting to me when I rode the Rocky Mountaineer from Vancouver to Banff was how all the stations and platforms on the CP were on the mainline and the passing sidings were around the station stops.  I since learned that this factored into the decision to reroute the VIA Canadian over the CN mainline in 1991 as the CN stations were all off the mainline with the exception of a few stops in rural Ontario.  In Canada freight has priority over passenger trains.

My photo from the summer of 1982 at Little Silver station when I was 13.  Hard to see the southbound platform in this photo, but it was the same as the platform seen on the northbound track. 

Dave, you can also Google train stations along the Philly to Harrisburg, etc. such as the R5 route. As I recall from years ago taking the R5 to Temple University from Paoli, there were 4 lines, 2 eastbound and 2 westbound, with the inner lines being local and the outside lines being express. Like you, I don't have the room for passing sidings, but I can use trickery by using my outside mainline as a passing siding.

Also, there is tremendous vestiges of the PRR still left and a wonderful array of scenes to model in the route referenced above. I think my love of urban railroading was established as a child and then reinforced as a young man taking the train into the city from various directions; tunnels galore, giant industries and smoke stacks, every square yard seemed to be utilized back in the old days.