A balloon loop or turning loop allows a rail vehicle or train to reverse direction without having to shunt or even stop. Balloon loops can be useful for passenger trains and unit freight trains such as coal trains.

Balloon loops are common on tram or streetcar systems. Many streetcar and tram systems use single-ended vehicles that have doors on only one side and must be turned at each end of the route.

Balloon loops were first introduced on metro and tram lines. They did not appear on freight railways in large numbers until the 1960s when the modernising British Rail introduced merry-go-round (MGR) coal trains that operated from mines to power stations and back again without shunting.

Balloon loops are essential for operating single-ended trams. Balloon loops were also used in Sydney, especially for its steam trams; some loops were retained for double-ended electric trams, such as at La Perouse as they provided greater turn-around capacity on this very busy system.

On a balloon loop: the station is on the balloon loop, and the platform may be curved or straight.

Samuel "Sam" Houston (March 2, 1793–July 26, 1863), was a nineteenth-century American statesman, politician, and soldier. He was born in Timber Ridge in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, of Scots-Irish descent. Houston became a key figure in the history of Texas and was elected as the first and third President of the Republic of Texas, U.S. Senator for Texas after it joined the United States, and finally as a governor of the state. He refused to swear loyalty to the Confederacy when Texas seceded from the Union in 1861 with the outbreak of the American Civil War, and was removed from office. To avoid bloodshed, he refused an offer of a Union army to put down the Confederate rebellion. Instead, he retired to Huntsville, Texas, where he died before the end of the Civil War.

His earlier life included migration to Tennessee from Virginia, time spent with the Cherokee Nation (into which he later was adopted as a citizen and took a wife), military service in the War of 1812, and successful participation in Tennessee politics. Houston is the only person in U.S. history to have been the governor of two different states (although other men had served as governors of more than one American territory).