Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2006, 3

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Contents

The Regional Terminology Problem

I've started on a campaign to improve the Category:Railway signalling articles, and the terminology difference is starting to become a problem. My current strategy is this:

  1. Give each major type of working (e.g. Centralized traffic control) its own article.
  2. Keep railway signal as a separate article and have it deal solely with the different singal technologies, not with the ways the signals are used. (I've already made this change.)
  3. Leave the various national articles alone, for the most part.
  4. Try to eliminate some of the smaller articles which are essentially definitions with parts of other articles attached. See home signal and distant signal for examples.
  5. Turn the railway signalling article into a discussion of the most general principles, with links off to the other articles.

Right now, the problem is, on the most immediate level, that the central articles are centered on British practice. I suppose I can get past this except that the terminology conflict has reared its head again. For example, in Centralized traffic control it says that "The term CTC generally applies to a single track railway with crossing loops." In the usual perverse fashion, "crossing" and "loop" have almost opposite meanings in the USA, where we would refer to "passing sidings". It's particularly questionable in this article since CTC is (as far as I know) of American origin. In another instance we have interlocking tower and signal box, which appear on inspection to be, respectively, the USA and UK names for the same thing.

As it seems I will be end up creating articles in the course of this I would like some sort of organizing principle for the naming. I'm likely to us US names for things, and we are liekly to end up with even more of a hodge-podge of names than we have already. Mangoe 01:01, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

In other articles where there are regional variations this is mentioned in the text. If the variations are major then an entire section could be devoted to the description of the variations. SilkTork 20:06, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how a section of an article is going to fix some of these issues. When it's just one item and there's a simple substitution of names (e.g. the (train/railway station debate) I don't see much problem. (In that case I don't see much of an issue because "railway station" is perfectly uderstandable to Americans without explanation.) Even in the "truck/bogie" case it's possible to live with being stuck with "bogie" all the time.
The problem comes when the meanings only partially intersect. "Siding" and "loop" don't cover the same range of meanings, as far as I can tell. It's going to be really difficult to fix the Centralized traffic control article (and it needs a lot of help) with the mix of American and British terminology and the fact that crossing loop redirects to passing loop, the latter of which really seems to be about station layout in spite of the attempt to re-Americanize it with a not utterly pointful reference to Casey Jones. It's getting to the point where we'll need a separate article for each separate phrase, and the articles are going to be nothing but definitions.
While I'm at it, the nomenclature articles are a mess. At the very least they need to have entries for both British and American practice, whereas at the moment the American entries are almost entirely lacking. (I also think the lists are getting too long, but that's another issue.) Mangoe 22:11, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad some folks have already started discussing this. I posted the following on the Talk:Railroad switch page (that page is a good example of regional usage intermixing). Any further suggestions?

I understand that Wikipedia is a multinational project, and I've always tried to be sensitive to how countries outside of the U.S. use the English language (which, admittedly, we did not invent). I definitely don't go around editing articles to conform all to American usage. However, the radical difference in terminology between North American railroads and railways in the rest of the English-speaking world can lead to some very choppy and inconsistently-written Wikipedia articles. In most rail-related articles, it's very obvious that the articles were written by many different people, as terms, usage, and style vary wildly between paragraphs and even sentences in the same paragraph. Non-cohesive writing is, I believe, somewhat destructive to the sense of flow and order that should be in every Wikipedia article.

I'm not sure what the solution is--I hesitate to call for standardizing terminology to one standard or the other, and it's very cumbersome to put "U.S.: xxx, U.K.: yyy" (or the longer but more inclusive and accurate "North America: xxx; Commonwealth: yyy") at every point (no pun intended) in the article . Any suggestions? Or do you all vote that it's OK as is?

I'm going to place a copy of this post in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains#The Regional Terminology Problem--the discussion's kind of started there. cluth 02:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

It appears that in two sections below this one, User:JYolkowski said that Wikipedia:Manual of style#National varieties of English says that it's OK to be inconsistent across articles as long as you're consistent inside each article--and that it probably works best to defer to the style used first in each article. That makes sense, but it still presents problems in places like crossing loop that were mentioned by Mangoe above.
I'm cross posting this part of my reply to the Talk:Railroad switch page along with a note to continue the discussion here. cluth 02:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Teminology translator
(set of) points UK, Aus
switch, turnout USA

Should we (a) select regional terminology according to the guidelines, and (b) include "translation boxes" in the articles near the first uses of the words, as at right? — Philip J. Rayment 08:31, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Trains article assessments

As part of the update to the {{TrainsWikiProject}} template, I've setup the project's article assessment categories and intro page. This assessment system is basically a copy of the assessment systems already used by some other WikiProjects, and I've gone through several hundred articles where the template is included and sorted them into the appropriate assessment categories (and found a few to nominate for GA status in the process). If you've got some time, take a look at the list of articles in Category:Unassessed rail transport articles and add the appropriate class parameter to the project banner template, following the guidelines on the assessment intro page. The counts at the top of the intro page and the log at the bottom are both automatically updated once a day.

I will be monitoring this category as well and assessing more articles as I have time. I haven't added the importance scale to the template yet; that will be the next major task once the quality assessments are under control. Slambo (Speak) 11:50, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I am curious about the assessments process. What criterion is used to attribute an article to one or another sub project of WikiProject Trains as, as far as I've witnessed, articles have been tagged as maintained by one or another subproject when they are not. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 18:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Railway station v Train station

There has been some debate recently about which term to use for the Train station article. The debate has largely centred on the British v American argument - yet it appears to me more one of simple common sense. The main and sub-categories are Railway station. In the article itself the term Railway station appears 3 times as frequently as Train station. Train station in this instance looks rather odd, lonely and somehow perverse. An argument that the use of Train station is older is possibly wrong because there is evidence that Railway station has been in use for longer than initially appears and might have been corrupted or deleted. Due to the awkward behaviour of RichardHarrold people may have got themselves into an entrenched situation which has blinded them to the simple common sense use of Railway station over train station. A glance at Category:Railway stations shows how at this stage changing all the cats into Train stations would be more difficult than simply changing the name of the main category article. Lets have some plain and simple consistency here. SilkTork 20:01, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual of style#National_varieties_of_English for how this should be handled. Since this article isn't particular to either American or British stations, and since the first author of the page used the term "train station", then the term "train station" should be used. It's okay to use the term "train station" in some articles/categories and "railway station" in other articles/categories. JYolkowski // talk 20:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
  • My point is that Wikipedia is overwhelmingly dominated by Railway station usage. The main and subcategories are all railway station. There are over 2,000 articles with the title Railway station, and something less than 20 with the title Train station. Take a look through the Category:Railway stations and have a count up yourself. After about 10 minutes you'll see my point! SilkTork 20:58, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
    • True, but my point is that it's perfectly okay to be inconsistent across articles. JYolkowski // talk 00:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
      • I take your point. But mine is not that we have sometimes Train station and sometimes Railway station, but that we have massive and almost consistent use of Railway station on Wiki apart from the main article on the subject, which perversely uses the title Train station. The situation seems a little odd. Other than an argument that it's OK for there to be inconsistency, there seems no genuine reason to keep this inconsistency. For the pleasure of saying that we accept inconsistency, and here's a good example of one, we deliberately keep this example? SilkTork 08:39, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
      • In fact "Train Station" is a recent coinage in the US, where "Railroad Station" or "Depot" was used instead - see any movie made before or set before the 1960s.

Exile 20:21, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Station naming scheme

Hello all. Is there any all-wiki rule on how to name articles on particular train/railway stations? In most European countries for the sake of simplicity the local rail operators use local names in international planning. Thus the German DB informs of trains to Praha Hlavni Nadrazi rather than "Prager Hauptbahnhof" or "Prague Main Station", Belgian trains run through Warszawa to Moskva rather than through Varsovie to Moscu and so on. At the same time the naming scheme for cities is pretty clear that we should name the articles on cities with the English name where available. What solution should we adopt here? The question is by no means academic as my recent example of Warszawa Gdańska shows.

Another issue is whether we should include the descriptive of "station" to the name of the article when there is none in the real life. For instance, should the article on Berlin Hauptbahnhof be moved to Berlin Hauptbahnhof Station or not? What do you think? //Halibutt 10:06, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

'Hauptbahnhof is German for main station, so to include station would perhaps be redundant. Having said that, In UK-based station articles, the article is normally Placename railway station to distinguish from other types of station. regards, Lynbarn 13:42, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, frankly speaking we don't have any problem with stations located in English speaking countries, do we. //Halibutt 06:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I usually attach railway station to articles where it isn't perfectly clear that a railway station is the subject of the article. For example, Hannover Hauptbahnhof and Berlin Ostbahnhof would not need anything attached, same with Praha hlavní nádraží, as it is obvious they are railway stations. Fröttstädt railway station, on the other hand, is explicitly marked with railway station.

There's borderline cases of course, but my suggestion would be to omit the "railway station" at the end whenever it is a well-known large station (either some sort of Hauptbahnhof or other large station) and the risk of having a name collide with another entity is comparably low. (Hamburg-Altona railway station would be sensible since there could be a Hamburg-Altona article at some point, whilst Warszawa Centralna has a pretty low risk of colliding with a Warsaw-related article. As I said, it's borderline.) --doco (☏) 08:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

And this is another issue: should we stick with the WP:UE at all cost and move Gare de L'Est to Paris East Station, or should we rather stick with the naming convention used by the railways? I'd say the latter is the way to go, but perhaps I'm alone on this one. In the case of Paris it's not that important as the name of the city is the same in French and in English, but let's take Warsaw for instance. The name of the city is Warsaw in English, but the railways (both Polish and foreign) stick with the name of Warszawa Centralna and not Warsaw Central Station, Warschau Hauptbahnhof or Varsava Hl.n.... //Halibutt 08:51, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

User reverting train edits

A user is reverting edits to train articles. Please look at Rebecca's contributions list at least back to 23 September. I believe the original edits improve the articles and the reverts make the articles worse. I do not want to undo the reverts myself but other editors may wish to do so. bobblewik 10:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I've wasted enough of my precious hours on earth reviewing the changes involved to wish, frankly, that both of you would keep your mitts off the railroading articles. But I would have to oppose the way you went through and systematically changed "tractive effort" units from "lb" to "lbf". The correct English units measure is "pounds". Period. I've looked at some of the other changes you've made (and some of the argument about them) and frankly I think Wikipedia would be a better place if you applied yourself to substantive copyediting and writing and eschewed your program of computer-amplified nitpicks. Mangoe 11:29, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
A few of them were on my watchlist and I've taken care of those that I agree with (and added {{TrainsWikiProject}} as appropriate). Some of the changes that were reverted were only whether or not solitary years were linked. Since I have no substantive opinion in that debate, I have left those specific changes alone. It looks to me like Rebecca doesn't like any of your units edits (I see a lot of edits to ship articles, for example), and this dispute is better suited to another location. Slambo (Speak) 12:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for undoing the reverts. As far as the other comments ('lb' v 'lbf' and formatting 'nitpicks') are concerned, I will copy the comments to wp:mosnum. That is probably the best place. See you there. bobblewik 18:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Criteria for deletion?

The stub article Godavari Express, about a named passenger train service in India is nominated for deletion on the grounds (?) that it is "Non-notable listcruft". The article is labelled as being in WikiProject Trains, so what's notable in this field? Mereda 11:37, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Since it wasn't linked directly yet, here is the deletion discussion.
I would say that any passenger train service that has an official name given to it is notable enough to warrant an article. These names are printed in advertising materials; they are the identification of the specific service and provide a way to uniquely identify a service regardless of its timetable schedule or specific route. Unofficial names, however, do not necessarily connote notability unless the names have entered into popular culture ("Wabash Cannonball", for example, although I seem to remember reading somewhere that this name was officially conferred to at least one train service). Slambo (Speak) 12:07, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Aside -- I found the article on Wabash Cannonball after typing the above note. The train service was named as a result of the song. Slambo (Speak) 12:17, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed that the small stub Bainbridge Northern Railway was nominated for deletion - see discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bainbridge Northern Railway. I already voted "keep", but am still wondering if nominating this for AfD was reasonable. It's obscure, but that in itself is not reason for deletion. So far I can't find an AAR designation on the web for it, but I'm not sure where to look (I've tried the "B"s at the Railserve AAR listings [1], but so far haven't come accross it. They've got to update their serch function). Any thoughts about warrenting an article for such an obscure railroad? --Marriedtofilm 18:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not likely that you'll find a reporting mark for it as the railroad was no longer a separate entity when the AAR came into existence. I also voted keep on this AFD discussion; with the large number of edits from the nominator that have been reverted, I wonder if this was really another attempt at vandalism by this editor. Slambo (Speak) 19:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeouinaru Station

In case anyone is interested, there's an AfD for a subway station in Seoul, Korea, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yeouinaru Station. It's only a stub, but as with all these things, there's room for improvement. Anyway, I voted keep citing WP:AFDP about train/subway stations, but I'd be interested in what others from our project weighing in on this would think. --Oakshade 07:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

ENSCO Inc. AfD

There's a railroad company called ENSCO Inc.. They appear, among other things, to make high-tech railroad signaling and monitoring systems. It is up for AfD (AfD page here). I don't know much about this company and if what it does is worthy of an article so I haven't voted yet. Maybe someone here can give their wisdom on this. --Oakshade 05:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I've voted delete, as I can't see anything in the article that makes them notable. Someone from the US might know something more though. Thryduulf 07:59, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Locomotive articles and comparison of types

Right now User:Attilios and I are on the verge of another edit war over locomotive and the various related type articles, particularly electric locomotive. The latter has a section on "advantages and disadvantages". The problem, it appears, is that electrification in Europe (particularly on the continent) and in North America took very different paths. It is proving difficult to write this in a way that is acceptable to him and also preserves an accurate picture of the NA situation. You can visit the articles for a better picture of the dispute, but suffice to say that he has dropped this into the Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias open tasks hopper.

What I would like to do is the following:

  • Move all the comparison of type material into the main locomotive article, with particular emphasis on how one type spuerseded (or did not supersede) another, and with particular attention to regional variation.
  • Possibly amplify the steam locomotive article with material on continental differences in the primary pattern. Also discuss phaseout of steam on the continent.
  • Add material on European development to diesel locomotive (right now it's pretty much all USA).
  • Add material on spread of electrification to electric locomotive (a chart of route-mi/km by year would be very nice).

We have a similar problem with railcar and the various multiple unit articles, except in this case the problem runs the other direction (the articles are very Eurocentric).

If people could comment, or better still, update the articles accordingly... Mangoe 21:35, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I thank Mangoe for having brought the dispute here. However, just a note: he wrote "write this in a way that is acceptable to him and also preserves an accurate picture of the NA situation". I want to say that I've never deleted material regarding US stuff (often added things to clarify that the view of the article conncerned mainly US situation), while He always reverted back my edits (I tried several version, all deleted.) I've recently added some material about electric locomotive history in Europe. Anyway, all articles lack stuff all around the world. The poorest is Steam locomotive: it should be renamed Steam locomotive in the US, as it is now. And all railway articles here are extremely sketchy from the technical point of view. Good work!! Attilios 22:24, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Terminology list move proposed

Beland (talk • contribs) has tagged a large number of glossary pages with {{Move to Wiktionary}} today. Looking at his contributions list, I don't think it'll be too long before it pops up on WP:AN/I or similar discussion areas. In a quick search around the wiki, I don't see any further discussion on this matter, so I've removed the tag from the article. Slambo (Speak) 13:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Added importance assessments to {{TrainsWikiProject}}

I've just added the importance parameter to {{TrainsWikiProject}} and created the associated categories. I marked all the articles linked from {{Train topics}}, this project's core topics, as Top importance. I've added some basic information on grading by importance to the assessment department page, but there's easily more that could be said on this topic. Tomorrow, the importance assessment counts should start showing up in the statistics as well as on the work list.

This importance parameter is to identify an article's importance to the Trains WikiProject and not to any subproject or task force. I plan to add subproject and task force importance parameters to the template as they are needed, probably starting with Underground since there are quality assessments there now too. Slambo (Speak) 14:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I've gone through the FA and GA articles and tagged them with importance=FOO depending on the subject's historical or industry significance. Subjects that are vital to understanding the history of rail transport worldwide and how it works (such as articles about the most basic topics in rail transport like rolling stock types, the largest railroad companies and the most historically and culturally significant topics) are marked as High importance. Subjects that are well known but not necessarily vital to understand rail transport (such as main stations in secondary travel markets, former Class I railroads and more specialized types of equipment) are marked as Mid importance. Subjects that are only well known by researchers in specific areas of rail transport or that are on strictly local topics (such as subway stations, one-off constructions of equipment or facilities that otherwise had no significant impact on the rail industry and short line railroad companies) are marked as Low importance. Only the topics identified in {{Train topics}} are marked as Top importance.
For those subprojects that want them, we can set up additional importance parameters that are specific to those subtopics to display in the infobox something like the following abbreviated example (using NYCS as an example):
Portal:Trains
 Trains Portal
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.
Start This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale
Low This article has been rated as Low importance within WikiProject Trains
This article is maintained by WikiProject New York City Subway
High This article has been rated High-importance within WikiProject New York City Subway
Why would this be necessary? Articles could be more important to subprojects than they would be to TWP itself. For example, New York City Subway nomenclature is currently rated as Low importance within TWP, but the NYCS subproject would probably rate it as High importance within their scope. Adding the subproject importance rating would add the article to the appropriate subproject's importance category. Since the quality rating is consistent across projects, we don't need to split out parameters for class. What do you think? Slambo (Speak) 19:11, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable to me. What about importance criteria for biographies of railroad executives, like Henry Villard, James J. Hill, E.H. Harriman, and others in Category:American railroad executives of the 19th century and Category:American railroad executives of the 20th century? There should probably be criteria for those biographies, based on how important their railroads were and how much they contributed. James J. Hill, for example, would most likely rate a High within the Trains WikiProject. The others that are common names (like Villard and Harriman) would probably rank as high, I think. --Elkman - (Elkspeak) 20:06, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
So far, I've been using the "critical to understanding the history of rail transport" rule of thumb in rating articles, and it's a rule that can easily be extended to biographies. If the subject is critical in the history of rail transport (such as Richard Trevithick, Matthias W. Baldwin or James J. Hill), the article should be High importance. If the subject is important and may be failry well known outside the rail transport industry but is not necessarily critical to rail transport (e.g. Cyrus K. Holliday, Leland Stanford or Nigel Gresley), the article should be Mid importance. If the subject is mainly known only within the rail transport industry (e.g. Webb C. Ball, John Axon or J. Elfreth Watkins), the article should be Low importance. Most executives will fall into the Mid importance category under this criteria. Slambo (Speak) 14:45, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I tried adding a sub-line like the example shown for LUL-importance since those categories now exist, but it didn't quite work like I wanted. I probably missed something simple, but just couldn't see it. I'll take another look at this update soon (unless someone else wants to jump in and get the sub-lines working). Slambo (Speak) 20:23, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, now I've got subproject importance ratings integrated for both WP:LUL and WP:NYCS (although the latter project has not yet created the assessment tasks or categories). The LUL-importance parameter can be used to set the importance within WP:LUL, while NYCS-importance can be used for WP:NYCS. If you have any questions, please ask. Slambo (Speak) 15:10, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Passenger Trains

I just got done making pages for all of the Passenger trains in both Arizona and Virginia. I still have to go over them and make some minor corrections. I made two categories one for Passenger train stations in Virginia and one for Passenger train stations in Arizona. Im not sure which state I will work on next. John R G 05:10, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to delete Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Todo/Improve

A proposal has been made to delete Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Todo/Improve. I originally created this page as a place to list articles that need improvement. With the updates to {{TrainsWikiProject}} and the automatically generated lists based on parameters to it, the Improve page has become superfluous. Since this is a project-specific page, rather than going through WP:MFD, please join the talk page discussion there. AdThanksVance. Slambo (Speak) 12:45, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Last call!

Unless I hear otherwise, I will delete Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Todo/Improve tomorrow. Slambo (Speak) 13:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan to me. I don't see the necessity of maintaining two project pages when everything can be addressed on one. Erzahler 18:17, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

The deed is done. I'm updating links now... Slambo (Speak) 17:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

With the Improve page now deleted, I've put some more time into the main project todolist page. This page is now much more useful, pointing to other categories and lists of tasks within the project. This morning, for example, I just added the unref=yes parameter to {{TrainsWikiProject}} to highlight articles that lack references, and added a link on the todolist page to its associated category: Unreferenced rail transport articles. When you've got some time, please peruse the todolist and work on items that are listed. Slambo (Speak) 13:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Hey Slambo, could you take a look at a page like Northern Pacific Railway, which has an extensive list of references without citations. What I'm getting at is, maybe the "This article lacks references" should read "This article lacks sufficient references and/or adequate citations", or something to that effect...? Gws57 13:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
The more I think about it, and after looking at a few more articles, the more I agree with your suggestion... standby... Slambo (Speak) 15:11, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Updated to "This article lacks sufficient references and/or adequate inline citations." I was originally going to suggest a second parameter for underreferenced, as opposed to unreferenced, articles, but this solution is much simpler. Slambo (Speak) 15:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that's the stuff. Thanks! Gws57 15:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Limit size

Hi all. Do someone have a scheme of the limit size for railway vehicles in Germany and Russia? Those nations use a bigger encumbrance limit than most of Europe, but I can't find anything about them. I need these data for a new article for it.wiki. --Jollyroger 09:31, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Translation fix

Please, someone give a look HERE. If a native speaker can fix my poor translation, I will later move that to en.wiki and call for the Polski translation. This is part of a joint project to write articles on machines used both in Italy and in Poland. If someone speak Italian and wants to do a little translation works, on it.wiki we completed almost all the articles about the actual electric locomotives and coaches. Ask me if you want to bring some of them to en.wiki and find any trouble. --Jollyroger 21:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

CfD help

Can someone drop in on WP:CFD#Category:Loop_lines CfD for a discussion on a rename of Category:Loop lines. I'm not sure what the right rename should be and would like an expert to point the discussion in the correct direction. Vegaswikian 06:34, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

US rail stubs large, sub type ideas floated

The stub category Cat:United States rail stubs is rather large now: I've proposed some possible new sub-categories here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals/2006/October#US_rail_subtypes. If anyone has any thoughts, suggestions, offers of help, please wade in. Alai 06:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Update: {{US-rail-museum-stub}} has been created. Slambo (Speak) 11:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Newsletter Proposal

Hey there. I've got a proposal: why don't we set up a Wikiproject:Trains newsletter, similar to the Wikipedia Signpost. Perhaps if we had this and filled it with a list of articles on the to-do list that are in need of work. As well as requests for editors to work on the to-do lists, we could have the latest rail news and Wikiproject:Trains news.

I would be willing to be the editor for the newsletter, although I would be looking for 1 or 2 willing Wikiproject:Trains memebers to help.

What do you think?

--Anthonycfc (talk • c • ama) Sunday, 22/Oct/2006 (UTC)

I'd be interested in seeing an example. If I can manage the time, I may be able to contribute as well. Slambo (Speak) 11:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the interest. Unfortunately, no-one else seems to be showing interest so perhaps we should back-shelve the newsletter proposition for now. Cheers anyway. --Anthonycfc (talk • c • ama) Sunday, 22/Oct/2006 (UTC)

Call for help!

Please can someone give a look at FS ALn 772? It will need some major tranlsation fixes. Moreover:

  1. the Littorina page redirects to a shell. Littorine were the italian motor rail car in Fascist years, and remained as a name for three class of italian motorcars FS ALn 56, FS ALn 556 and FS ALn 772.
  2. I don't know how the train box template works on en.wiki. I have hidden the italian one, but it is still there, with some data not present in text. Can someone fix that too?

thanks pals --Jollyroger 21:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I've added the first bits of {{Infobox Locomotive}} to it, but I'm not sure about the translations. All of the parameters for this infobox are described with two examples on the template's talk page. Slambo (Speak) 11:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I did what I could. Some data are still hidden, but I have added a line to explain what they are. I don't know if they could fit in your template. Please give a look, else we could add them to text. Is translation from italian ok? C'mon, I can't believe I got so good at it! --Jollyroger 14:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Reworked the article and polished it somehow. Is that enough to remove the cleanup tag and re-assess? --BrokenArrow 21:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

New User - First Edit

I just corrected a small error on the Challenger (passenger train) page--all dome cars were not removed in 1970, only the dome diners and I have the relevant Official Guides as a reference. However, when I attempted to cite my source using the citation template, I couldn't get it to work. What am I doing wrong? Ehbowen 05:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. The problem was that you were using parenthesis (()) instead of curly braces {{}}. Slambo (Speak) 11:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Matthias W. Baldwin vs. Matthias William Baldwin

Another editor has decided to move Baldwin's article so the title has his middle name spelled out rather than as an initial. I moved it back this morning seeing no consensus or policy for the original move, but the other editor has moved it back to the spelled out name again. All of the reference material on a quick check through my library refers to him with a middle initial, if it's included at all. I've asked the editor for his reasoning on the move, but I'd like to hear what other TWP members think of the page title. Is there a consensus for the move or should it stay at its original title? AdThanksVance. Slambo (Speak) 17:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

There is ample precedent for either scenario, so if Matthias W. Baldwin is what is in "common" usage, then that's what the article title should be with other name forms entered as redirects (no Matthias Baldwin?).--Lord Kinbote 17:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I've only seen it with W. and not William. I got a message from the other editor on agreement for the page name, and it will remain at W. for now, so we're back to Defcon 5 on this issue. B-) I'm still curious if William is spelled out in other references that I don't have access to. The ones that I've got all say W. if they specify anything for a middle name. Slambo (Speak) 17:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
on The Encyclopedia of Trains and Locomotives (by David Ross et al.), a very complete and reliable text (IMHO), it is stated as Matthias W. Baldwin (page 17, Lancaster 4-2-0) and later (page 23 Atlas 0-8-0) as Matthias Baldwin, but here the author seems to assume that the reader knows him. I would stick to the "W." version. --Jollyroger 23:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad

Though I'm sure this is fairly far down the list of important train articles, the "Acquisitions" section said it was acquired by another company in 2063, which must be wrong. --GeoffreyVS 05:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC).

That was a vandalism from an IP, fixed --Jollyroger 07:25, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 23:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


New Resource (Timetables)

Just wanted to let everyone know that I am in the process of setting up a new website devoted to North American passenger train timetables as published in the Official Guide of the Railways. While it's not much to look at now, I'm hoping to add four to five timetables a week on a consistent basis. I do take special requests (as time permits); email me at the address on the main page of the site. Currently I have at least one Official Guide from every year from 1954 through 1971 except 1955; I also have one each from 1889, 1916, 1938, 1941, 1947, and 1950. I hope that I can be of some help to everyone in the future. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ehbowen (talk • contribs) 02:14, October 27, 2006.

Way cool, thanks for the heads up. Looks like a good start over there. I look forward to seeing a more densely populated database in the future. B-) Slambo (Speak) 10:51, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Divisions of major railroads

Is there a list or database online of the divisions of the major U.S. railroads? For instance, I found out that the Interstate Railroad is now part of the NS Pocahontas Division, but I'd like to know all the lines that form that division. --NE2 02:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I found [2], which is pretty useful but has some errors (for instance it lists one crossing as being B&O). --NE2 18:05, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that's pretty hard to deal with. Does anyone know if it's possible to view the data in a GIS viewer? It includes latitude and longitude fields. --NE2 18:51, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm still trying to figure out the names of the Norfolk Southern lines. The milepost prefixes seem to be used often, but are ambiguous: there are separate SA Lines in South Carolina (Branchville to Augusta) and Georgia (Savannah to Augusta). Can someone offer advice? --NE2 19:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Question about organization

The Clinchfield Railroad is now CSX's Kingsport and Blue Ridge Subdivisions. Would it be better to let Clinchfield Railroad cover the history and write articles about the subdivisions, or to put everything in the former name? --NE2 02:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I normally write articles on fallen flags as histories of those specific railroads and leave the bulk of discussion about what happened later to the successor line articles. For example, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway covers the history while the Santa Fe was a separate entity, and BNSF Railway picks up the history from the 1995 merger forward. Slambo (Speak) 15:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Two items of project matters

There are two items of importance that you might not have noticed with this WikiProject.

First, I've been working with another editor to get a bot that will automatically update the list of articles within the scope of the project for the Recent changes link on the main project page. On a weekly interval, the bot will build a list of all articles with {{TrainsWikiProject}} on their talk pages and store it on the recent changes list.

The second items regards a new entry in the project navigation box (which is now at the top of many of the project pages, like on this page). The Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Manual of style (MOS) link is the newest addition. Hearing no objections to anything on the MOS page that I mentioned many months ago (see previous discussions above), I made a bold move and moved my proposed page to the live address. The guidelines there are based on what I've seen in looking at almost 8,000 articles while doing the assessments. If there's something in there that needs to change, please speak up.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled editing, already in progress. B-) Slambo (Speak) 18:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Image task force

I think there would be much value in this, there is certainly a great need to add proper images (photos) to rail-related articles and to replace fair use with free images wherever possible. Any interest?--Lord Kinbote 19:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, Category:Rail transport articles needing images is quite large (sure, it's still under 1000, but it's over 800 already). And that's just the articles that don't have any images at all. Slambo (Speak) 20:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Hearing no objections, I've created the task force page. Slambo (Speak) 15:52, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Railroad pictures

Hello all, I just wanted to put a link here to my collection of railroad-related photos: http://lensovet.rrpicturearchives.net; please look through the photos there and let me know which ones you would like me to upload. I will then upload the photos to the Commons using my license. Also, there might be some photos on http://lensovet.byethost12.com/photos/gallery2/; if there are any photos you would like to see on wiki that are there, let me know as well.

Thanks! —lensovet–talk – 05:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Whyte type detail articles

There is a discussion at Talk:Whyte notation about the need for separate articles on each of the types listed on {{Whyte types}}. Please join the discussion there. AdThanksVance. Slambo (Speak) 11:22, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Corridor Cities Transitway and Red Line (Baltimore)

FYI, I have two articles that you may wish to incorporate into your works. In both cases, light rail is among the options being considered. The CCT is in need of more information and the Red Line is in need of a cleanup. I added relevant tags to the discussion pages and have added a bit to the CCT, but do not know much more about either project nor too much about trains in general to provide much further information -- so I'm just passing on the work to you folks. Enjoy! --Thisisbossi 01:30, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

CN article merge proposed

Another editor added the {{mergeinto}} template on Canadian National Railway suggesting that the content there should be merged into Canadian National Railway Company. Please join the discussion on the proposed destination's talk page. Slambo (Speak) 11:56, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposed change to UK stations infobox

See Template talk:Infobox UK station#Bilingual station names for my proposed way to standardise the formatting of stations that have names in more than one language (e.g. English and Welsh names). Thryduulf 22:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Assessing list articles

There are two list articles in the TWP "Requests for assessment" queue, but I'm unsure how list articles fit into the current grading scheme. Please join the discussion. Slambo (Speak) 14:50, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Questions for anyone familiar with CSX operations

I'm working on an SVG map of the CSX network from the BTS data and other sources, and have a few questions about what they own:

  • Baldwinsville Subdivsion: the data shows the part from Fulton, NY to Oswego, NY as "NM" with CSX trackage rights
  • CL&W Subdivision: part of it at Lorain, OH is shown as "LT" (Lorain Terminal?) with CSX and NS trackage rights
  • Harrisburg Subdivision (high line in Philadelphia): does CSX or Conrail own this?
  • Landover Subdivision, Pope's Creek Subdivision, and Herbert Subdivision: does CSX still operate over the Northeast Corridor from DC to Bowie, MD and then south over the Pope's Creek and Herbert Subdivisions? The data shows the Pope's Creek as NS only and the Herbert as "USG" with CSK trackage rights.
  • Lurgan Subdivision: the data shows the line north af Chambersburg as "PSCC" - what is this?
  • Memphis Terminal Subdivision: is the north-south piece parallel to Scott Street owned by CSX or UP?
  • Niagara Subdivision: the data shows NS ownership with CSX trackage rights on most of the line between downtown and the Belt Subdivision
  • Toledo Terminal Subdivision: how far west from Hallett, OH does CSX own (jointly with NS?)?
  • Trenton Subdivision: are any parts of this owned by SEPTA?
  • Does CSX have overhead trackage rights over the Buckingham Branch Railroad from Clifton Forge to Richmond or only to Doswell?
  • Does CSX have trackage rights along the NS Guyandotte River Branch between Gilbert, WV and Gulf Junction, WV?

If anyone can clarify any of these issues, it would be most appreciated. Thank you. --NE2 23:59, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's what I currently have:

If someone can help me, I can complete this. --NE2 18:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Somewhat to my surprise, it appears that CSX owns the High Line. This is probably related to the pre-Conrail-breakup plan where the City of Philadelphia wanted to have the East Side Line pulled up entirely and reroute all CSX traffic over the High Line...nowadays, both lines are in fairly active service. The Trenton Sub runs over SEPTA Nice Jct. to Cheltenham Jct. and Neshaminy to CP Wood; north of CP Wood is owned by CSX, but SEPTA maintains the catenary and has dispatching control to West Trenton. Choess 04:08, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Are you sure about Neshaminy to Wood? [3] shows a separate CSX track there. Also, how sure are you about Nice Junction being the limit? It looks like the tracks are separate until Newton Junction. --NE2 09:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Also see [4], which doesn't appear to show any trackage rights. --NE2 09:44, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
If you aren't already using them I found the CSX state pages at http://www.csx.com/?fuseaction=general.state_facts to be useful for fact checking. Thanks for doing this, I think it's a definite improvement over the one I did. Kmusser 15:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion about disambiguators again!

There is yet another discussion on using "(U.S.)", "(United States)", or even ("United States of America)" as disambiguators instead of "(US)" as in current practice. Please join the discussion. Slambo (Speak) 16:17, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Ashorne Hall Railway tagged for deletion

I don't know anything about the subject, but others here may be interested. --NE2 01:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks like an interestng little narrow gauge railway. Did some Wikifying, added WikiProject Trains stamp and external links/refs. I'll do some more work in the next day and then contest the prod. Others are encouraged to make more improvements. --Oakshade 02:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Is Rowlee Steiner notable?

The article reads like he's just a random historian. --NE2 01:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Article Renaming Debate

The article titled 'Railroad engineer' is subject to some discussion on it's talk page. Perhaps others with an interest in trains would like to put their input.

You can read the talk page but in summary, the debate so far seems to be:

  • any term without the use of 'engineer' in the title is preferable (e.g. train operator or train driver) as 'engineer' is misleading and confusing - they are not professional engineers, as is suggested by the use of the word.
  • 'train driver' does not describe in full such a persons role (they do not only drive trains)
  • 'railroad engineer' is misleading as such persons do not engineer railways.
  • 'train operator' is confusing as it is a similar phrase to 'train operating company'

There are some other comments there such as "some US regulations say it's called an engineer", but the US government does not determine Wikipedia naming policy and has no oversight over what terms are called in the English language as a whole (at least outside of the USA).

Anyway - get stuck in.--jrleighton 00:20, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The British train drivers' union is called the "Association of Locomotive ENGINEERS and Firemen". So it looks like the term originated in the UK and then went out of use there.

Exile 20:23, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

List of rail accidents

There is currently a discussion about whether we should set criteria for inlcusion of accients on the List of rail accidents page, and if so what the criteria should be.

The discussion is located at Talk:List of rail accidents/Criteria for inclusion, where your input would be most welcome. Thryduulf 00:42, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Afd forKey of the Gulf Railroad and many others

This is an AfD grouping that might be of interest here. There are 33 railroads up for deletion (yes, 33). These are either of defunct railroads or ones that were just proposed. All the articles seem to only be excerpts from old Florida law archives and are not exaclty helpful and are frequently confusing as to indicate if the railroads were actually built/operated or not. --Oakshade 22:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Structure of categories

I've been thinking about the structure of categories for major railroads, like Category:Pennsylvania Railroad or Category:New York Central Railroad. Can I get some comments on whether the following is a good idea:

  • Only major subsidiaries get their own subcategories, which follow the same rules as the main category. For instance, NYC has the Big Four and B&A, both of which were known as those names after being absorbed into the NYC. The Nickel Plate category would not be a subcategory of NYC, since it was split off.
  • A single subcategory (maybe "railroads related to the New York Central Railroad") is made to contain every railroad company that the main railroad "had dealings" with - leases, mergers, ownership, but not trackage rights - so the Nickel Plate article would be in this category for NYC. These articles also go in the "state railroads" categories.
  • Another subcategory ("New York Central Railroad lines") is made for articles about lines - for the NYC, this would include articles like Niagara Subdivision and Dayton District.
  • Other subcategories, such as stations, bridges/tunnels, and passenger trains, can also be created. The names should be standardized.

Thank you. --NE2 07:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Since there has been no response, I'm going to start doing this for the NYC. Hopefully I'll find any flaws early on. --NE2 09:48, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I've completed the reorganizaton of Category:New York Central Railroad; what do you think? --NE2 11:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I give it thumbs up. n2xjk 15:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

London Underground

London Underground is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy (Talk) 02:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


Image for HSR-350x

HSR-350x is a recent Korean High-speed rail, developped by KRRI. I'm working on this article called Korean G-7, which talks about HSR 350x. You can help developing this article, if you like. Nevertheless, I need help uploading image for HSR-350x. --User: Kingj123 23:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Lines vs. companies

I've been concentrating on articles about lines (Category:CSX Transportation lines, Category:Norfolk Southern Railway lines, etc.) rather than the railroad companies that built and operated them. I believe that they should be mostly separate, even where the extents are the same, since the railroad company usually had some operating history before the line became part of a bigger system. However, in cases where the bigger company leased the smaller one from opening day, there's usually almost nothing to say about the smaller company. In these cases, like Bergen County Line and Bergen County Railroad, should the railroad redirect to the line? (This probably isn't the best example, since the Bergen County Line has been extended.) --NE2 10:14, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a fundamental issue no one has resolved. This side of the pond, we have a long list of train companies operating on a particular stretch of track. But the stretch of track has a designation (eg SO400) but also a service name (eg Channel Tunnel Rail Link). But generally speaking only the latter has the article and the detail of the track itself (stations, tunnels, bridges, etc). Problems then come in when many services run over the same line (in urban areas approaching the main stations). I don't think there is an answer out there so bodge it but be consistent! Pickle 15:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Luckily in the U.S. there always seems to be a name rather than an alphanumeric code for a line, at least with one of the big companies. --NE2 17:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Towns in categories?

Category:Baltimore and Ohio Railroad includes a number of towns along the line. Is this a good idea? --NE2 20:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

While tending to the Indian station Kodai road due to an AfD, I noticed a similar issue with List of railway stations in India where almost all of the links are to the cities and towns and not the stations. I don't think it's a good idea and a bit of a time waster for both the eidtors and readers. --Oakshade 21:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Merge editor needed

There was an AFD discussion that affects a number of articles within this project's scope. The result of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Key of the Gulf Railroad was to merge the associated articles into List of defunct Florida railroads. We need a volunteer to perform the merge on the articles listed in the AFD. Slambo (Speak) 20:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

U.S. station categories consistency

Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 December 10#Category:Passenger train stations in Arizona is a proposition to have consistent names for the subcategories of Category:Railway stations in the United States. Posting here to alert members of this project. Tinlinkin 13:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: There is a large consensus (including myself) already to rename them into a consistent naming scheme. So far, it looks like "Category:Railway stations in region" is the preferred scheme. Slambo (Speak) 12:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Potentially many current rail transport GAs to be delisted from GA

After discussion over the summer about requiring inline citations and some time of very little activity on current GA listed rail transport articles, several articles within this project's scope are now likely to be delisted from GA status. I've tried to solicit assistance (see above) in September on improving these articles to current GA standards.

I made a list at that time of some tasks that need to be completed. Please take some time as soon as possible to "adopt" an article and help to get it up to current GA requirements. Slambo (Speak) 19:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

About 35 of the 46 articles have now been tagged on their talk pages with a polite warning of pending delisting. Slambo (Speak) 12:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Succession boxes

Beg pardon if this is the wrong fora. I've designed a set of generic succession boxes modelled on the Template:S-start system with the idea that they could replace the limited single-use boxes. I'm experimenting with this system at Union Station (New Haven). Is this something worth pursuing? Mackensen (talk) 22:00, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Have you looked at the New Jersey Transit boxes? They seem to have a nice system where the colors and terminals are automatically generated by the line name, and the template compares the terminal to the next station and removes the terminal line if they are equal. See Mount Olive (NJT station) for an example. If you can integrate this into your system (like most of the individual state highway infoboxes have become part of template:infobox road), that would be useful. --NE2 10:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that won't be a problem. It does mean a more involved system of templates, but we gain flexibility in the process. Mackensen (talk) 16:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Hang on, let me actually read the whole comment. That's an extremely complex system and might be difficult to imitate. I'll need to investigate further. Mackensen (talk) 17:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure we'd want to imitate that functionality in a general system. It would be difficult to modify and if it ever becomes necessary to move an article it could break in unexpected ways. Mackensen (talk) 17:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't see the problem - use an optional "system" parameter and subtemplates like "s-rail/NJ Transit color" with switch functions. For instance, State Route 76 (Virginia) calls Template:Infobox road/VA shield, which tells it where to get the shield image. If the state changed their highway shields, and new ones were uploaded with different names, only that would have to be edited to match the new naming. --NE2 18:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, I do like a challenge. I'll see what I can come up with. Mackensen (talk) 19:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
If you'd like me to give you a hand, let me know. I've been successful in adding functionality to infobox road. --NE2 19:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

One minor thing to keep in mind is that there might be multiple stations with the same name on a system. An optional "prev_disambig" could take care of this - if prev_disambig exists, use prev_station (prev_disambig), otherwise prev_station (s-rail/system disambig). --NE2 19:07, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I've got a working example up at Niles, Michigan. For reference, it calls the following templates:

--Mackensen (talk) 20:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. I don't like how Template:Amtrak stations specifies links to the towns rather than the stations, which might redirect to the towns. Someone splitting an article about a station from the town could easily forget to change that template. There's also the possibility of two stations along a line sharing the same name; that could be solved by making the switch substitution "Union Station (Chicago)|Chicago" rather than "Union Station (Chicago)". --NE2 22:58, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't seem that likely to me that there would be two stations (cities, really) with the same name on the same line. If there were, it would be easy to disambiguate just by adding the state (i.e. Michigan City, Indiana or Michigan City, IN). The benefit of the table lookup in Amtrak stations is that it also ties into Amtrak line and Amtrak line2 for the terminus lookup. Mackensen (talk) 23:07, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
That's probably a good point. I still think it's a good idea to make it piped - if Footown changes its name to Barville, we can temporarily only change the one template from "Footown (Amtrak station)|Footown" to "Barville (Amtrak station)|Barville" while keeping Footown as an acceptable argument. Multiple arguments could cause issues with the elimination of identical termini (see below), unless we also run it through the stations switch before comparing.
I changed the template so if the previous or next station is identical to the terminus, the terminus line is eliminated. Niles, Michigan demonstrates this.
Another issue is with multiple termini; many NJ Transit lines do that (see Broad Street Station (Newark)). We need to decide what the most termini we'll have is (will two be sufficient?) and how to deal with the identical terminus elimination. We also need to either set a different line code for each branch or make optional terminus fields (NJ Transit's setup uses the latter). --NE2 23:20, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't seem that likely to me that there would be two stations (cities, really) with the same name on the same line ... I'm guessing you've never looked at the CTA's train map ;) (look for stations named 'Western' for fun). After finishing the conversion of the Metra pages to this system, I've started to work on changing over the CTA progression boxes. Most of the Purple Line stations have been changed over - I'd welcome any comments if you see any cludginess in the implementation of s-rail for the CTA so far. Sorry for breaking the template for a few seconds when I added the one-way operation option, I apparently forgot how to count {'s correctly for a moment. -- Loco830/Espio (Rant) 21:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


This probably isn't related to the design of the templates, but how do we want to handle branches? On a system with many trains along a single line (like commuter systems, but not most of Amtrak), the succession is for lines rather than individual trains. But how do we handle situations where a branch service merges with the main line? I would suggest only including the branch on the main line stations at the last station before the split, but then we don't show all the possible destinations on the "to" line at other main line stations. There is also a possibility that no main line trains, only some branch trains, stop at some stations on the main line; the whole situation can become pretty complicated when we try to reconcile the divide between lines and services. And if we go by services, what happens in a "skip-stop" situation, if trains in the A-B-C-D order can go from A to B or skip B to stop at C, but trains that serve B always skip C on their way to D (or maybe only Foo Branch trains serve both B and C)? But if we go by lines, we need to decide where to draw the line and say "ok, these services coincide for long enough that we should choose the more major one and only list it" - because it's pretty clear that at Secaucus Junction we should keep at least most of the lines separate, since most of them split at Secaucus or Newark Penn, but what about the North Jersey Coast Line or Bergen County Line? --NE2 23:48, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

My thinking was to specify an optional "id" parameter in S-line which would be recognized by the backend as a different branch without affecting the overall line. Regarding the services issue, this comes up with the Michigan Services, because the Wolverine and to a lesser extend the Blue Water vary their stops. However, they still run over the same contiguous line, and we aren't providing a timetable service here. Mackensen (talk) 23:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
One specific issue that brought this to mind was the Long Island Rail Road. The Main Line travels from New York east to Greenport, but service-wise it is considered to be several different services. Most "Ronkonkoma Branch" (which is not the name for a stretch of track, since Ronkonkoma is on the Main Line) trains run express between Hicksville and Jamaica, so, with respect to services, stations like Westbury are on the Port Jefferson Branch. But line-wise they are on the Main Line, which is not even named as a service. So at Westbury, should we have succession boxes for the Main Line only, Port Jefferson Branch only, Port Jefferson Branch and Main Line, or Port Jefferson Branch and Ronkonkoma Branch? (We also might include the Babylon Branch, whose timetable includes the trains that use the Central Branch between Bethpage and Babylon. And at Babylon, what station do we use as "next" for the Central Branch? Bethpage, despite the fact that no trains from Babylon stop there? Or Hicksville, the first place they do stop?) --NE2 00:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I think I've got the handler working now. If you go to Union Station (Chicago) you can see it in action (sort of) with the Lake Shore Limited. Mackensen (talk) 01:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

We have a small problem: the single-terminus ends need to be linked in the switch statement or they will not be linked in the box. But then the check to see whether this is equal to the next station fails:

Terminus
   Lake Shore Limited  
whatever's next
toward [[ (Amtrak station)|]]
[[Chicago (Amtrak station)|Chicago]]
toward Chicago
   Lake Shore Limited  
whatever's next
toward [[ (Amtrak station)|]]
toward Chicago
   Lake Shore Limited  
who knows?

I'm not sure how to fix this. --NE2 02:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I see what you're getting at. This could only happen where the junction occurs directly before one (or both) of the endpoints. Thing is, we wouldn't want to remove mention to either one in that instance, or the split isn't obvious. Mackensen (talk) 02:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually the problem happens wherever the junction is. If we don't link Chicago in Template:Amtrak line, we get the desired effect, but no link in the box for other stations (such as "whatever's next"). But if we do link Chicago there, it's no longer eliminated at the final station. (See the new second line in the table above for what would have to be done for the desired effect.) --NE2 02:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
One possible solution would be to make a new template that takes as arguments system, line, type, and which side it's on (line or line2) and outputs whether it's a single station. That seems very kludgy though. --NE2 02:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I admit it, I'm dense. I'm just not seeing the problem here. The first row appears to produce the desired result. Mackensen (talk) 02:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
But now, with your change to Template:Amtrak line, Chicago is not linked on the second line. --NE2 02:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
And the light suddenly goes off. Moment. Mackensen (talk) 02:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I've added a third row. I think it's at least half-fixed. Mackensen (talk) 03:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Something I pled for in the NJ Transit succession boxes (and couldn't get consensus for or against) was making sure succession boxes are transparent and easily editable. While I like the uniformity that comes from the use of Template:Amtrak line and Template:Amtrak line2, it was very unclear to me, when trying to edit Union Station (Chicago), how to add a new line, especially one that was identical in route to an existing line and therefore (depending on style judgement) collapsible into one line (I speak of Illini (Amtrak) and Saluki (Amtrak), and Illinois Zephyr and Carl Sandburg (Amtrak)). It is also unclear to me how Template:Amtrak stations saves any time or effort over just using wikicode, because of the very high number of exceptions that will eventually have to be included in the template (including just about every station on the Northeast Corridor that I can think of off the top of my head. I beg you to reconsider, and allow wikicoded station links (minimally) in station succession boxes. Thank you, —CComMack (t–c) 04:15, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

As a proponent for the reverse of this, here's what I think: there's absolutely no need to have a single template for all agencies. Each agency can create its own template. There are really not that many stations on the NEC – there are a lot of commuter stations, but not that many Amtrak ones. I also want to point out that using a template such as this makes it much easier to go along a line and create station stubs for all the stops along the route. Wikicoded station links might be "easier" (though I don't think that piped links are easier or more manageable than simple template parameters), but they result in inconsistent naming and formatting, which is quite annoying to then go back and fix by hand. —lensovet–talk – 04:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Just to clarify my point on station article titles on the NEC, of the 29 stations serving Amtrak, only one (Providence) is of the form "Name (Amtrak Station)". 5 more are redlinks. The other 23 exist at locations other than the one assumed as the default. I don't suppose List of union stations is shrinking either, and almost all of those are also "exceptions".
The property of template parameters that makes them more difficult than piped links, especially in context, is that you then need to wade through to the transcluded templates and figure out how they interact with each other, possibly requiring understanding knowledge of arcane wikicode (and yes, it is arcane, even if all of us here can understand it, because the average editor can't.) This is way more effort than should be necessary for a simple update like a station being closed or a train being added, which ought to be a task that we can distribute among our casual editors! Piped links, OTOH, are everywhere, and are usually a skill picked up by editors at the same time or immediately after learning to link with double brackets. Problems have already arisen on Union Station (Chicago); we can expect more there and elsewhere in the future. I'd just like the code to be robust enough to do what editors are going to ask it to do. —CComMack (t–c) 06:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
It would be easier in that way if we used a lot of sub-templates instead of the switch statement, since then a non-existent case would give a red link rather than a blank. --NE2 06:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't have time to respond to all of this, but I'll try. There are several benefits of the new system:

  1. Updating the system is done centrally, which reduces the likelihood of articles linking to the wrong locations, or articles having the wrong links.
  3. It does not require the user to know where the line ends, or where the exact station is located. In many cases, someone need only enter {{s-line|system=Name|line=Name|previous=City1|next=City2{{ and they get a line of markup with all the links pointing to the correct locations. Branches are a problem but a note of explanation in the right place can take care of that.
  4. These are stackable not only with each other but also for multiple systems. The manual of style has long favoured placing succession templates at the bottom of the article and when possible grouping them together as well. For Union Station in Chicago, for example, the Amtrak boxes can be grouped with the METRA boxes.
  5. The use of one common template system eliminates most opportunities for forking and guarantees a common presentation with minimal effort on the part of the end-user. It shouldn't be and is indeed not necessary to create separate boxes for individual systems.
  6. It helps enforce a common naming scheme. The {{{{{System}}} stations}} template suggests a user-defined default name format when no exception has been noted above. This could be tweaked easily to allow a different default naming scheme on a line by line basis, as is down with the NJ Transit boxes. Again, this reduces the need for end users to figure out where the piped links go, and also makes it easier to eliminate redirects (not necessarily a selling point, but not a bad thing either).
  7. Problems may develop, but we can fix them. Union Station (Chicago) looks fine to me at the moment; there's a slight problem with the other end of the Lake Shore Limited that I thought I had fixed last night, and which I'll look again this morning. Some actual substitution within the wiki is necessary if we're going to identify and address these problems.
  8. One more note. The exceptions on the Northeast Corridor need only be entered once, and then never again. Furthermore, if many of them have the City (Amtrak station) link as a redirect, then they'll still work until they can be identified and changed.

--Mackensen (talk) 11:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

On a different matter, I think I've finally fixed that nagging problem with multiple stops. Mackensen (talk) 17:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

And on yet another matter, I've created Template:S-jnct to deal with junctions. There's an example of it at Union Station (New Haven). Mackensen (talk) 20:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Would it be possible, like I've seen with person succession boxes, to combine the "Boston South - Terminus" lines - at least in groups of 3 and 4 - on Back Bay (MBTA station)? --NE2 21:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

  • I've been thinking about that. We have to balance usability and complexity. I've got an idea about how to do it cheaply, though it's a bit of a hack. Mackensen (talk) 21:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • OK, go look at Back Bay now. This will only work when the final destination is the same. Mackensen (talk) 21:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I haven't looked at how you did this, but take a look at {{BART lines}} for some ideas. —lensovet–talk – 05:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Additional lines

Union Station has an additional line that could be documented... CDOT's Shore Line East. just adding s-rail and s-line invocations failed horribly so I am guessing there is more you have to do? Does CDOT need to be set up like MetroNorth and Amtrak are? ++Lar: t/c 16:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The short answer is yes it does. We (I) really need to document how this is done, although it's reasonably straightforward once you wrap your head around it. You need five templates to make the system work. Let's start with the New Haven example. You add two boxes:

{{s-rail|title=CDOT}}
{{s-line|system=CDOT|line=Shore Line|previous=Bridgeport|next=State Street}}

Now, that gives this:

Previous station   CDOT   Next station
toward [[Template:S-line/CDOT left/Shore Line (Shore Line East station)|Template:S-line/CDOT left/Shore Line]]
   Shore Line  
State Street
toward [[Template:S-line/CDOT right/Shore Line (Shore Line East station)|Template:S-line/CDOT right/Shore Line]]

Which is pretty ugly and broken. However, it does link you to most of the templates that you need to create. I've paired each one with the equivalent example from the MBTA (since it's simpler than Amtrak).

When you've created those three you'll be prompted for two more tables, which define the left- and right-hand terminals for the particular line. Mackensen (talk) 16:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I actually had gotten the page to the point of displaying the red links in your example, but abandoned it. I should have done it in a sandbox instead, and will, when I get a chance. Ultimately, would this set of setups be done for every commuter authority? (METRA, SEPTA, MBTA, etc etc...) There are a lot. Who decides on the colors to use? (MBTA probably ought to be purple for example) ++Lar: t/c 08:07, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Some authorities like Metra use different colors for each route. For the others I guess we can choose a color from their logo, or a color that they use (like purple for MBTA). --NE2 12:54, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

More about services vs. lines

On the Long Island Rail Road, should we use services or lines? At Jamaica, there are really only three lines to the east, but ten services are included. It is very hard to verify with the timetables that the next stop on Ronkonkoma Branch trains is indeed New Hyde Park - in other words that all Ronkonkoma Branch trains skip Hollis, Queens Village, Bellerose, and Floral Park. And this may change with the next schedule change; in other words, someone has to go through and check each time new schedules come out. But it's very clear that the next Main Line station is Hollis. I don't know how well "Main Line" is known to the public though. Does anyone have any ideas? --NE2 00:47, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

  • There's a similar issue in Michigan with the Wolverine--the schedule varies which each numbered train. However, as they all run under the Wolverine banner, I show the succession tracking through each station that is visited by at least one Wolverine train. Given that these services are named, and have their own colors, the situation is, as you say, even more complicated. Hrmm. Mackensen (talk) 01:35, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Who is using this info? Us Anoraks or the general public? Is this info available somewhere else? Should we just send people there? What's the right level of detail for a general interest encyclopedia? I'm not sure I know the answers to any of those questions but I suggest that they may drive how to track (er, sorry!) this... the idea of tracking 10 different services and updating them every time a schedule changes may be a bit much. ++Lar: t/c 01:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
      • That's my point - on the one hand, we should make it easy for those faniliar with the system to follow along and find information on the stations, but on the other hand we should make it easy for those that don't know the systems to get the information, and we should make it easy to update. I suggest that we use the real name (Main Line, Montauk Branch, Atlantic Branch, Central Branch, etc) but in parentheses below we add the name the LIRR uses. Then at splits we use the junction template. I'll have an example in a bit. --NE2 01:50, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I've implemented my idea at Floral Park and New Hyde Park; please compare it to the LIRR map and comment on whether it works well. --NE2 02:07, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
        • Oops... that was a bad choice, since the Main Line and Hempstead Branch tracks don't join until Queens Village. Hicksville shows how a split works. --NE2 05:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

With the Long Island Rail Road, there are many variations of services. They don't change frequently, but they can be very flexible. Very few Ronkonkoma Branch trains will stop at New Hyde Park; rather many of them stop at Mineola and Hicksville. (There used to be a weekend service pattern where Ronkonkoma Branch trains would stop at New Hyde Park and Carle Place as part of a skip-stop pattern, this is now discontinued.) Most service to St. Albans is from the Babylon Branch, yet is attributed to the West Hempstead Branch. There are other service anomalies that occur during rush hours (train 1501 from East Williston, local up to Floral Park, arriving Penn at 8:14; train 2350 from Penn at 4:54, local beginning at New Hyde Park, terminates at Farmingdale). And a few Montauk Branch trains stop at Mineola or Hicksville. In my opinion, the succession boxes should show which services serve a station (not only shown with termini). I don't know if a service that rarely serves a particular station is worth mentioning in the succession box. But NE2's solution regarding lines looks promising. Tinlinkin 15:36, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I've finished implemented it; what do you think? The only places that turned out a bit strange were Babylon and Valley Stream, since they are places where lines change names rather than branch off. At Valley Stream I had to fudge a bit; there are two weekday outbound West Hempstead trains that actually run through from Jamaica and stop at Valley Stream. But it was already complicated enough, and they do essentially become Far Rockaway Branch trains there. --NE2 16:28, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Haven't had a chance to go over all stations and the templates, but I'm satisfied for the most part. A couple of things I would add, though: In Jamaica (LIRR station), I would add all services that would be accessible (e.g. in the Main Line box, I would add Port Jefferson Branch, Ronkonkoma Branch and Oyster Bay Branch to the existing Hempstead Branch. I am not sure if all Babylon Branch trains [that don't stop at St. Albans and are more likely to stop at Lynbrook instead] use the Montauk Branch or the Atlantic Branch between Valley Stream and Jamaica.). Similarly, I would also mention Ronkonkoma Branch in the Main Line box for Mineola station. Tinlinkin 12:46, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Why do you want to add Ronkonkoma Branch to Mineola but nowhere else that it stops inside Hicksville? And if you do want to add it everywhere else, how do you suggest finding quickly what all those stations are? At Jamaica, how would you quickly determine what the next station for each service is? And when someone gets there, and doesn't see the service, they'll probably be more confused than if they had to follow the line the service uses from Jamaica. --NE2 12:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, not pointing out all services from a station in the infobox would look like the missing services are unavailable from the station. Printed public timetables show Mineola as a regular stop for Ronkonkoma trains, and in fact, most Ronkonkoma trains stop there on weekends and weekday off-peak. Ronkonkoma trains are normally express from Jamaica (actually oftentimes at Hillside Facility) to Mineola and Hicksville. The only difference between branch services regarding next stations is express services. Perhaps the situation at Jamaica is not a case for brevity, but I am happy with using the 3-line format to the east. I'm sure I'm not going to come up with an answer to all possiblities. Tinlinkin 13:13, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
However, the format is by lines, with services included more as a benefit to those following along with the official map. Someone wanting the Ronkonkoma Branch can easily see that the Hempstead Branch is the one to take out of Jamaica. --NE2 13:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by your last sentence, but yes, Hollis (or again, Hillside Facility) is next for the Main Line from Jamaica, served by Hempstead Branch, not Ronkonkoma. I don't think you have started converting SEPTA stations yet. But the succession boxes are service-based there. How would you handle stations like Temple University, Wayne Junction and SEPTA service at 30th Street Station? With services, it is easy to delineate what stations are next. If there is confusion using lines for an infobox, maybe reverting back to services as the infobox criteria may be better. Tinlinkin 13:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
SEPTA publishes separate timetables for the full length of each service. But in the case of the LIRR, finding all the stations served by Ronkonkoma Branch trains requires combing through three separate timetables (times four for the direction and weekday/weekend split) and comparing train numbers. This is not something we should have to do every time a new schedule is released. --NE2 13:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
LIRR schedules do not change drastically. When a revision comes, they come about 4-5 times a year, there is a page posted on the LIRR service advisories and "Keeping Track" and most of those revisions are concerning train times or bus substitutions--hardly encyclopedia worthy. The weekend skip-stop on the Main Line was the most recent major service change that affected train stops, and those were noted in the two links above as they happened. Off-peak weekdays and all-day weekends are typical services, and changes for these services are easy to track, even amongst mulitple timetables. Is one train that breaks the typical service pattern for the MAin Line notable? Tinlinkin 14:22, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
4-5 times a year is a lot to check to make sure one tiny thing has not changed. If we are going to include stops on "foreign trackage", how are we to decide which ones to include? Anything but all is arbitrary and would likely be more confusing than the current layout, and all is hard to keep track of. Would it be acceptable to simply change the text in the middle, so on Floral Park (LIRR station), the top box says not only Port Jefferson Branch but also Oyster Bay Branch and Ronkonkoma Branch? Putting these in italics would probably make it clear enough that they run along the line but may not stop at this particular station. --NE2 14:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I disagree that LIRR service changes are as difficult to keep track of or document as you think. I hope to hear what other editors think as I don't know what else to add. Tinlinkin 15:03, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
The service advisory about the new timetables simply says that "the new timetables reflect added service during the holiday season." This doesn't look easy to keep track of. --NE2 15:06, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
That refers to extra trains that run on specific days around every major holiday. Does it say anything about changes to regular service? No. Is that worth mentioning in Wikipedia? Perhaps if you want to say "Extra service is provided the day before holidays on the following lines..." but I'm not gonna do it. That's the extent of the MTA message. There's going to be another press release on New Year's service. Is that worth getting worked up for? I hope not. Tinlinkin 15:14, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Further LIRR discussion

Forgive me for butting in here, but can you guys give me a digest of what exactly the problem is here since I'm not too familiar with LIRR scheduling? I dunno, on the other side of the hudson, we have the M&E lines and those have various express services. for example, some trains only go to summit, some trains go to dover but make no stops until summit, etc. we just list every stop on the line, regardless of how many times it's actually serviced per week. there's a few stops on the raritan valley line that get a total of 2 trains per day, but we still put them there. similarly, RVL service to hoboken is weekend-only, and we notate it as such. —lensovet–talk – 19:57, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

We have been talking about how to use succession boxes for LIRR stations. There are several points about the LIRR that make it different from other US commuter rail systems:
  1. For all stations not in the City Terminal Zone and Jamaica, the LIRR classifies them as belonging to one branch (from the online map and in printed timetables--branch and station timetables), even though trains of another branch may serve a station (e.g. Mineola, St. Albans, Lynbrook). (I think the published "The Map" that shows all MTA commuter railroads shows LIRR stations that belong to different services/branches, like Mineola is shown as being served by Port Jeff, Oyster Bay, and Ronkonkoma services, but I don't know if there is an online version of it.)
  3. Some services regularly operate express through the 3 major lines of the LIRR: Main Line, Montauk Branch, Atlantic Branch. Most Ronkonkoma Branch trains, for example, do not stop between Hillside Facility and Mineola, and again until Hicksville. But some rush hour trains may be locals to Farmingdale, and they would be local from New Hyde Park east. We're debating how this situation would be represented in succession boxes, and also how this is verifiable without browsing through mutiple schedules.
  4. Another situation: take Jamaica station. The next (passenger) stop east on the Main Line is Hollis. It is correct to say Hollis is the next stop for Hempstead trains, but not Oyster Bay, Ronkonkoma, and Port Jefferson trains. So at Jamaica, there is only a link to Hempstead Branch. But I feel the other 3 branches should be mentioned somehow: they serve Jamaica and are all part of the Main Line.
  5. When service patterns change, the LIRR always explains them with a press release (see links above). Most of the time they are changes in times or added seasonal trains, and rarely changes in regular station stops. I don't think it's hard to keep track of the LIRR changes, but apparently NE2 does.
I don't think the above explains all the nuances from my POV, but this is the best I can explain for now. Tinlinkin 06:01, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks for that. But to respond to number 3, and specifically the Main Line issue, what stops you guys from simply adding another row to the table for the Port Jefferson and Oyter branches, and have Floral Park be as their next stop. It appears to me that this is actually what goes on, so I again am not really seeing an issue here. We do that in NJ with the gladstone branch and no one thinks twice about having it double the morristown line for all the stations between NYP/HOB and Summit. Yes, this will make the table on Jamaica extremely long. But if it wasn't for this explanation you just gave me, I'd have no idea that Oyster Bay even stops there at all.
As for which stations to use for express/local services, again, seems to me like the issue is simple: just use the stations listed on that branch's/line's own wiki page! For example, go to the Ronkonkoma Branch article – there's a table there. As an unsuspecting user completely unaware of the LIRRs scheduling intricacies, I expect that every in-service station in that table will have a succession box and that continually clicking on one side will get me over the entire line (i.e. if I start at Jamaica and keep clicking on the right box, I expect to eventually reach Greenport).
Does this make sense? It seems to me like the solutions I'm proposing are not complicated at all. Since someone's already keeping in place the tables of stations served by branches, I don't see how changing succession boxes will really be any harder. Cheers. —lensovet–talk – 08:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
NJ Transit publishes a Gladstone Branch timetable that shows all the stops those trains make. But you can't tell from the Oyster Bay Branch timetable that those trains make any stops between Mineola and Jamaica; you have to compare train numbers with the Port Jefferson Branch and Hempstead Branch timetables to generate that list. --NE2 12:09, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Regarding timetable publishing, why should the LIRR print time points for intermediate stations on several branch services if the timetable for one of the branch services can document all of the trains that stop there? To me, that's a sylistic issue the LIRR chooses and is nonstandard compared to other commuter rail systems. My hypothesis is that the LIRR wants to save whitespace and printing costs and also wants to direct commuters to quickly identify a branch for their home station so they can quickly pick up their branch timetable (although they do publish individual pocket station timetables). So why not point out that some branch services stop at stations that are not listed in their own timetables? You would never know that Floral Park is served by the Main Line because Floral Park is not mentioned in the Port Jeff timetable—you can only surmise that because of notations in the Hempstead timetables, and those timetables don't even mention Port Jeff service specifically. The LIRR used to publish a booklet solely for Main Line service—I bought one from eBay, but I have to look for it (from the 1950s I think).
But in light of this, I would settle for stations displaying only what the branch timetables say what their stops are. This means:
  • Jamaica should show all pertinent services
  • Mineola should show Port Jeff, Ronkonkoma, Oyster Bay, and Montauk branch service
  • Hicksville should show Port Jeff, Ronkonkoma, and Montauk branch service
  • Valley Stream should show Far Rockaway, Long Beach, and West Hempstead branch service (already done)
  • Lynbrook should show Long Beach and Babylon service (already done)
  • Babylon should show Babylon and Montauk service (already done)
The following exceptions should be granted (Regular riders of the last two would recognize those service patterns):
  • Floral Park should show Hempstead and Port Jefferson branch service (already done)
  • St. Albans (when it's created) should show West Hempstead and Babylon branch service
  • Locust Manor, Laurelton and Rosedale should show Far Rockaway and Long Beach branch service
All other stations (east of Jamaica) would list only one service. Tinlinkin 14:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Then we're actively being incorrect, saying that the next stop for Ronkonkoma Branch trains after Hicksville is Mineola, when some trains stop at Westbury. Our goal is not to show the intricacies of the schedules, but is also not to be incorrect; the current way accomplishes this, as would simply adding the "superseded" branches to the middle of the box in the existing row. --NE2 02:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Ah... that's what I needed to understand, the "superseding" part. All right, I'm with you there. However, from a services point of view that explanation would not be apparent when, in a station article, a user looks at the succession boxes and sees in the preceding prose that other services serve it. I guess as long as the prose describes the service patterns and succession boxes reflect the physical layout of lines (we are saying the Main Line, Atlantic Branch, and Montauk Branch are the main articles to look at), it's A-OK to me. :-) Tinlinkin 03:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, the boxes reflect the lines rather than the services. Do you think it would be a good idea to add the "superseded" services under the lines - so for instance, the Main Line box at Jamaica also includes Oyster Bay Branch and Ronkonkoma Branch with Hempstead Branch? --NE2 03:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I'll agree to that. Then, in a situation like Queens Village (again, when that article is created), the corresponding prose would have to explain that certain services on the Main Line don't stop there, is that correct? Belmont Park Branch would also have to be edited. Tinlinkin 04:01, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I figure the Belmont Park service is a special service that always runs express from Jamaica, and should have a separate row there. --NE2 04:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

PRR Centennial History is out of copyright

The book was published in 1946. Any works published first in the U.S. and published before 1964 are out of copyright unless their copyright was renewed with the U.S. Copyright Office. There is a database of copyright renewals at [5], and the PRR Centennial History's copyright was not renewed.

Would anyone be interested in helping to OCR it for Wikisource? Someone has scanned it and uploaded it to [6]. --NE2 10:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions - and vs. &

I have noted that most articles use "and" rather than "&", and I agree with this. I was hoping to cite something either at this WikiProject or at the manual of style that says that for an uncontroversial move of Wilmington & Western Railroad, but it doesn't seem to be stated anywhere. Shall I add it to the WikiProject page, or is it hiding somewhere? --NE2 10:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The Manual of Style, Section 4.2 Wording covers this -
Avoid special characters in headings, such as an ampersand (&), a plus sign (+), curly braces ({}), or square braces ([]). In place of the ampersand, use the word and unless the ampersand is part of a formal name.
Hope this helps. regards, Lynbarn 11:14, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Also, if you look back through this talk page's archives, there's discussion there on using the word "and" instead of an ampersand in article titles. Being such a longstanding practice, it's also on Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Manual of style. Slambo (Speak) 12:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks; that's what I was looking for. --NE2 14:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Grafton and Upton Railroad

Hi. Long time ago I put a question on the talk page of this article which isn't answered yet. Does anyone know (or can find out) which gauge the narrow gauge line of the Grafton Centre Railroad had? Grtx, --Thogo (Talk) 12:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Since the book is sitting right next to my chair right now, I took a look in American Narrow Gauge Railroads (George W. Hilton, Stanford University Press). The Grafton Centre Railroad is discussed on page 418, but there is no mention of what gauge it used. Perhaps an inquiry to the Kalmbach Memorial Library would find the answer? Slambo (Speak) 12:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

List of cities that no longer have trolleybuses on AFD

This list has been nominated for deletion. While it is not strictly a rail subject, it is closely related. --NE2 15:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

New patent search resource

I just read about a patent issued to Google for the look of the search results. What interested me more in the story and what we can use here is the Google Patent Search. The about page lists some helpful searching tips too. Slambo (Speak) 15:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I bet they planned that, so anyone that read about their patent would also see that they were doing good. :| --NE2 13:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Hrmmm... Vedy interestink... Actually, I had thought of that. I think I've been reading too much about the General Motors streetcar conspiracy lately. B-) Slambo (Speak) 17:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Template:infobox rail line freight

I created this template for use on individual freight lines (rather than companies): see it in use on Fort Wayne Line. --NE2 13:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Algoma Central Railway nominated to lose Good Article status

On December 10th, Algoma Central Railway was nominated for delisting from Good Article status due to its lack of citations. Today I added seven citations from four sources to the article, however if anyone else has contributions that could help the article keep its Good Article status, please feel free to lend a hand! --Kralizec! (talk) 00:57, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Trains reference desk?

Would it be reasonable to make some sort of offshoot of the reference desk for rail-related questions, so those with information can help those who need information for an article they are writing? --NE2 16:53, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

We could easily create a project subpage for this; however, seeing no questions in the current reference desk queue that ask about railroads or railways, I don't see a strong need for it yet (and I'd love to be proven wrong on this one). Since I don't monitor the existing reference desk, the need for a trains-specific help desk isn't as apparent to me. Slambo (Speak) 19:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd use it, both to ask and answer questions, but if no one else would, it wouldn't be useful. --NE2 20:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Does a leased railroad have presidents?

I've added a list of presidents to LIRR, and there's a gap between the 1920s and 1949. The PRR directly operated the LIRR from 1929 to 1949; is this why there's a gap? --NE2 16:11, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

That seems a likely reason. I've seen some instances where a parent company will install a president for a subsidiary (can't think of any off the top of my head right now), but that seems more the exception than the rule in the roads that I've looked at so far. Sometimes you'll find a managerial title other than president fulfilling those duties for the subsidiary, so we could list the most senior manager and properly label it to fill the gap. Slambo (Speak) 19:42, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Anyone want to help on LIRR?

I'm currently rewriting and expanding Long Island Rail Road, and I seem to be better at describing history of construction than general history of operations once construction ends. Is anyone interested in helping out? I'm hoping that we can eventually bring this up to featured article standards. To that end, it might need more reliable sources to replace the PRR Chronology. --NE2 19:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

There seem to be a number picture books about the LIRR, and I don't know if they are useful. One would have to research newspaper and magazine articles, I would imagine, to fill in most of the desired info. The electrification of the Main Line (Ronkonkoma) in 1988 and the subsequent ridership growth should have great media coverage. Tinlinkin 12:52, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
The other issue is that most of the details should be in the articles about the lines; only general "milestones" should be in the main article. --NE2 12:55, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
If I don't write any articles, I'll gladly throw some info your way. I've got a few photos of Medford & Port Jefferson Stations that I took, and I can find some links on other stations. FYI, Patchogue Station is on Division Street between West Avenue, and South Ocean Avenue(not "Ocean Avenue" like the MTA site says). DanTD 15:49, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Patchouge-Medford Library's Local History Department has a huge aerial photo of Medford Station from the early-1960's with two tracks going over NY 112. If I can get back up to New York, I'd try to get the photo for you. If not, you're going to have to deal with them yourself. DanTD 15:54, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I've requested a few books about the LIRR through interlibrary loan; hopefully I'll at least get "Steel Rails to the Sunrise". --NE2 16:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Railroad articles

It would be helpful if in assessing and improving railroad articles, editors made sure to mention whether railroads provide or have provided passenger or freight service, or both. This basic information is often missing. If there are major customers (a named population center, a large industrial customer, a certain industry clustered in a geographic area), that would also be very informative. Thanks! -- Beland 01:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the assumption is that it provided both; it's a rare thing for a railroad (pre-1940s) to have had only one, and thus that will probably be mentioned. --NE2 02:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Singil Station

10 Seoul, Korea rail stations are up for deletion. Like alot of stations on this project, there isn't alot of text in the article, but alot of infobox information. I think like all articles like this, they can be expanded over time, but there are many in WP who feel that they're not inherently notable. Others on this project might want to weigh in on them. --Oakshade 01:32, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

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