Turn and leave the rail terminus with a writer (5)
I believe the answer is:
gogol
'writer' is the definition.
(author Nikolai Gogol)
'turn and leave the rail terminus' is the wordplay.
'turn' becomes 'go' (a person's move in a board game).
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'leave' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (I've seen 'left' mean this).
'the rail terminus' becomes 'log' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'log' in reverse letter order is 'gol'.
'go'+'gol'='GOGOL'
'with a' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for gogol that I've seen before include "Russian writer" , "Russian novelist" , "Nikolai -, Russian author (Dead Souls)" , "Russian author/playwright" , "Nikolai ---, Gov't Inspector author" .)