Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Waterloo to Basingstoke railway service

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus. humblefool®^{Deletion Reform} 20:17, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Waterloo to Basingstoke railway service and Waterloo via Weybridge railway service

Delete non-encyclopedic. This just says that trains run between two towns — we could have articles about X to Y where X and Y are one stop apart! -Splash 23:27, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

To be fair, the pages are about entire routes, not just one stop between towns. My comment was

• if we plan to do such things, it will be a massive task,
• couldn't it be on South West Trains where a whole rail system could be done at once?
• there ought to be some way of automating page generation for such rote tasks
• if it can be autogenerated, it could more easily be programmed into an external site and linked to from wikipedia.

Ojw 00:19, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

comment Waterloo via Weybridge railway service, a similar page, was created by me. The point from Splash above is a entirely valid, via reductio ad absurdum. Perhaps a more appropriate page title might provide resolution? However, information on what regular, timetabled, multi-stop railway services are available to UK railway users is encyclopedic, and useful. Sliggy 00:28, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

• • Personally, I don't think the information is encyclopedic. There are rail lines between nearly every town, village, and city in the UK. To explicitly state so doesn't really impart information of encyclopedic note. I think the absolute most it warrants is mentioning under the operator's article, but none of the operators do so at present. I'm inclined to suggest that there is probably a reason for this: the information is not really encyclopedic. For consistency, and not out of spite, I'm going to add that other article to this VfD. I will let the editors so far know. -Splash 02:00, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
    • comment Agreed both pages should be considered. Sliggy 11:18, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete both, nothing suggesting notability of these train. Pavel Vozenilek 01:04, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep or merge with South West Trains. If these are stretches which are covered by frequent commuter trains, the articles are as valid as articles about individual subway lines, even though naming them is quite awkward. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:16, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
  • As mentioned below, lines are (marginally) encyclopedic. The services that run on them at the moment are't. -Splash 14:39, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
• comment There is something I don't understand. Looking at pre-existing pages, it seems it is encyclopedic to include the fact that a railway service can run between stations (for example Bexleyheath Line). It is also encyclopedic that a railway service used to run between stations (for example Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway). I do not see why it is not encyclopedic to include the fact that a service does run between stations? That said, I'd be happy including many services on to a single page (although I am not sure whether a service should be linked to a particular train operating company). Sliggy 11:11, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
  • The difference is between line and service. Railway lines are encyclopedic - they last for a long time and even when they carry no trains they leave their mark on the countyside. Railway services are much more transitory and belong in WikiTravel not here. -- RHaworth 11:53, 2005 July 20 (UTC)

• Merge into operating company article. See my comments above. -- RHaworth 11:53, 2005 July 20 (UTC)
• Merge with South West Trains. Dcarrano 16:32, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete both
• Delete both as they seem to be written by Neville Shunt. FunkyChicken! 23:13, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. The Basingstoke service in particular is in need of cleanup because it omits a few stations which are stops on this line. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:07, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

• Keep or merge with the line(s) that it operates along. As this merge is nontrivial if it uses more than one line, I am voting keep. As for train services, see Amtrak#Amtrak routes and services, as well as Template:New Jersey Transit and Template:MBTA, for links to other services (the latter two deal with the lines as well, but there is a mostly one-to-one mapping here). --SPUI (talk) 20:33, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

• Comment - I've updated the Basingstoke page to rectify the faults Tony Sidaway identifies above (I did before remembering to log in; no intention of acting as a sockpuppet, just forgetfulness)
  • OK, not one of my best days. The above comment was written by me. Sliggy 15:24, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.