Talk:Transcontinental railroad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Trains, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to rail transport on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. |
| See also: WikiProject Trains to do list | |
| Start | This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale. (assessment comments) |
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale within the Trains WikiProject. |
What is the name of Canada's transcontinental railway? Do we have an article on it? Wondering simply, -- Infrogmation 16:48, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)
First came the Canadian Pacific Second came the Canadian National Tabletop 10:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Are there any trans-South America or trans-Africa railroads? Rmhermen 16:14, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)
- I remember there was a British plan to build a trans-African railway, but little of it was actually built. Anyone know more? Warofdreams 16:17, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
-
- That was a plan of Cecil Rhodes to build a "Cape to Cairo" railroad which would have run from Johannesburg to Cairo. Mr Rhodes was heavily involved in exploiting the natural resources of southern Africa and wanted a quicker and easier way to get his product to European markets rather than sailing around the continent. I don't think much of the planned route got built outside of Zimbabwe (which was then called Rhodesia). slambo 15:45, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
[edit] San Diego and Arizona Railway (SD&A)
Recently, an anon editor posting from IP address 86.10.51.14 began routinely removing the following passage:
- *John D. Spreckels completed his privately-funded San Diego and Arizona Railway in 1919, thereby creating a direct link (via connection with the Southern Pacific lines) between San Diego and the Eastern United States.
After this removal was reverted several times The Proffesor left a message on my talk page regarding these previous edits. In the interim, The Proffesor has entered into a cycle of reverts over this issue with several other editors; his last edit began with
- Some consider the San Diego and Arizona Railway transcontinental...
which was reverted (properly, in my opinion) by Mdhennessey on the basis of Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words. I have since left a response on The Proffesor's talk page citing several sources that support designating the SD&A as a transcontinental railroad. Just minutes ago I reverted this same edit by The Proffesor and am asking that further discussion take place here prior to any further edits regarding this issue.
The last thing I want to see is an edit war erupt over this; any input or guidance from "outside" editors will, I am sure, be appreciated by all involved. I'd even support protecting the page, if necessary.--Lord Kinbote 06:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- I've taken some time to consider the issue before commenting here (partly to see if anyone else spoke up first). It seems to me that SD&A qualifies as a transcontinental as much as California Southern Railroad does. Both railroads were built to form connections between a longer system and the Pacific coast at San Diego, but neither of the shorter railroads got past the California-Arizona border. The other railroads on the US list here all directly connected points near or east of the Mississippi River to the Pacific and are more intuitively transcontinental; if nothing else, they all crossed the Rocky Mountains on their own rails. So it comes down to a question of qualifications. If we are going to include railroads that were built and intended to form parts of transcontinental connections, then we also need to include companies such as California Southern Railroad, Atlantic and Pacific Railroad and other subsidiary and separate companies. I'm more inclined to limit the list to companies that connected the longer distances with their own rails. However, I also think that mention should be made of these smaller companies that were intended to form parts of larger transcontinental systems; we just need to specify that these smaller railroads weren't by themselves transcontinental railroads. Slambo (Speak) 13:04, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
