Talk:Classification yard

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The German (Deutsch) version is a LARGE article with description of: geography, layout and technics, and history of hump yards; and with a theoretic diagram of a hump yard.

Today I have added further informations from this site: http://web.archive.org/web/20031230182358/www.railroad.net/forums/messages.asp?TopicID=388 I have the copyrights because I have written that. As English is not my native language, any corrections are welcome. Michael Krumholz, Münster (Westf.), Germany.

Contents

[edit] Truck / Wagon / Car

Whoever made the last changes, perhaps you would like to know that in British English a wagon is what horses pull, and a truck is what engines pull freight in. Wikipedia uses both British and US English, so if you say "wagon" is OK in US English it's fine. Saintswithin 09:59, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

oh, I do have a bit of a problem with "car" for us Brits, though, as that is only for what I believe people in the USA call "automobiles", and in some parts of this it is a bit confusing as it sounds as though the train has a load of automobiles it is taking somewhere. I shall change this to "wagon" as I guess people will not presume the train is going to the Wild West! Saintswithin 10:04, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Well, the first instance of car int the article is linked to railroad car, which I hope would be sufficient. I would definitely avoid the word "truck" because that's the US term for bogie. If you really have that much problem with car, I find "rolling stock" preferable to "wagon". -- ckape 05:45, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I think User:Saintswithin mischaracterises British usage. 'Wagon' is the general word used to describe rail freight vehicles in the modern era. 'Truck' is largely confined to Thomas the Tank Engine; it would certainly never be used by anyone familiar with the subject of railways. 'Engine', by the way, is also rarely used by those who understand railways to mean 'locomotive', but it is in more common use among the general public. I don't think the usage of 'car' is any more confusing than the use of 'wagon': both are easily understood by residents of the other country, provided the first usage is linked (and possibly the other term given the first time it's used in the article).
Furthermore, since I believe there are no operational hump yards anymore in the UK and there were never many, this is much more of a US practice article than a British, and thus US spellings and words are appropriate. —Morven 09:46, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
Hi, I'm not an expert on British railway vocab, so I bow to anyone's improvements re. the use of "truck"! I'm actually more familiar with the steam train vocab through my dad who works in that field, hence the Thomas the Tank Engine-like language! Actually my original point was just referring to someone who had corrected my use of the word "truck" saying that "trucks go on the road" (i.e. in the sense of what we Brits call lorries). Saintswithin 20:28, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Railways are possibly one of the most awkward fields for terminology US versus UK; they developed largely independently of each other in that way, and many others. No problem! —Morven 20:42, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
Actually, in the U.S., at least, the word "engine" is actually used by railroaders. In fact, according to the General Code of Operating Rules (a railroading rulebook that most American railroads subscribe to as their base for rules), the definition of a train is: "One or more engines, with or without cars, displaying a marker and authorized to operate on a main track" (or something close to that). GCOR uses the word "engine" in many places, although it also uses the word "locomotive." On the Alaska Railroad, most trainmen seem to refer to a locomotive as "the engine," "the motor" (if it's a single unit or a light switching engine), or "the power" (usually describing the whole locomotive consist as one). Just a side note--further proving that British/American railroading terms are different... cluth 09:47, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Sorry for the extra post, but it just occurred to me: I think a substantially higher proportion of British (or at least Commonwealth English-speaking folks) use and edit Wikipedia as compared to Americans. Considering the population of the UK, or even the UK+Australia+New Zealand, or even those plus Canada, Ireland, and the myriad other nations who, at least in a small way, use British style as compared to the population of the United States--I calculate 121 million versus 298 million--I'm continually shocked at how often I see the word spelled--er, spelt, I guess--"colour." In fact, I'd dare to say that I see it spelled the British way more often than the American way. I'm not at all saying that's a bad thing; I'm just making an observation that I think is rather interesting. Sorry for being slightly OT...cluth 10:00, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hump vs. Classification

I'm thinking that this article should be re-written as an article on classification yards with a section on hump yards. As it is much of the article isn't actually about hump yards anyway. -- ckape (talk) 05:18, 2005 Jan 18 (UTC)

Inclined to agree, here. That it talks about non-hump classification yards explicitly suggests that the renaming & textual changes should take place. —Morven 08:11, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

This is a difficult question because the practice is different in various countries: while in Europe almost nowhere are done classification operations in flat-shunted yards, there are several still in operation outside Europe. Further, as my native language is not English: as far as I know the term "hump yard" is known in UK, Canada, India etc. and also the USA while otherwise in UK etc. usually is also spoken of marshalling yards but in the USA of classification yards (a similar case in my native language German: Rangierbahnhof in Germany and Switzerland, but Verschiebebahnhof in Austria). Thus I have decided to choose "hump yard". Redirection pages already are installed. Michael Krumholz, Münster (Westf.), Germany.

Well, a hump yard is a type of classification or marshalling yard, but a flat-shunted or flat-switched yard is a type of classification yard, not a type of hump yard. The fact that the terminology is messier for classification yards than for hump yards is a problem, but is not a valid reason to make the article about hump yards instead of classification yards. -- ckape (talk) 20:28, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Improper move

Well, that move was completely improper. Considering the long edit history for this page I'd hate to lose it like that. Is there an automated way to revert so that page can get properly moved via the correct procedure? I notice that had the improper moved not occured any user would've been able to move it, but it looks like we need an admin now. -- ckape (talk) 22:33, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Please observe that I am German and thus not all what I do here is perfect. It was impossible to move the article in the usual way because the article "classification yard" already existed as a redirect page. I have copied the whole discussion also into the moved page "Classification yard". Michael.

[edit] Move done properly

I have performed the move properly and restored the history. Now to make sure all the redirects are good ... —Morven 19:02, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Railroad yard redirects here?

Why is this, since this is only about one type of railroad yard? Or is this the only kind of railyard, and the intro is wrong? --SPUI (talk) 09:39, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, classification yards are not at all the only type of rail yards. As far as I (German) know, this is a specific problem in English language in contrast to many other languages which do not know a difference between railroad stations and railroad yards (or sidings), but sometimes otherwise a difference between the whole station (passenger and freight tracks, platforms, signal boxes, public and operational buildings, roundhouses etc.) and the passenger station building only. In German, French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Russian etc. the translation of the word "station" means all types of stations (passenger station, freight and classification yards etc.) and when needed the type of station or yard is added to the term "station", e. g.:
English              German           French            
------------------------------------------------------------------
station              Bahnhof          gare
passenger station    Personenbahnhof  gare de voyageurs   
freight yard         Güterbahnhof     gare de marchandises
classification yard  Rangierbahnhof   gare de triage (or triage)

Thus I recommend to create an article "railroad yard" resp. "railway yard" (one article and one redirect) instead of the existing redirects which describes shortly all kinds of railroad yards and contains links to the further articles on each type of railroad yards: thus "freight yard", "passenger coach yard" etc. additionally to this article on classification yards, like it is at least partially done in the articles on railroad stations in non-English wikipedias. Further the new article has to be added and linked to the existing article "train station" also with a reverse link. Otherwise the articles "hump yard" and "marshalling yard" should remain redirects to this article "classification yard" but these terms also should be mentionned in the article "railroad yard" with the related links. But at all I recommend that to be done by a native English speaker for clarity. Michael 07/III/2005.

Made new article rail yard but then realized it should be "railroad yard" I have requested a move. and "Rail yard" and "Railway yard" will redirect to "Railroad yard" Afterburner 01:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Loose Shunting

Recently, at Peterborough station in the UK, I saw a snow plough with 'not to be hump or loose shunted' painted on its side. Thanks to this article I now know what hump shunting is. Does anybody know what loose shunting is? Incidentally, why shouldn't a rail snow plough be loose or hump shunted? --AjAldous 13:22, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This must be an old painting because since ca. 20 years in UK all hump yards are closed. But as I am German, unfortunately I cannot say you what's loose shunting. Michael 18/III/2005.
In Germany the inscriptions usually say "Nicht abstoßen oder ablaufen lassen". ablaufen means hump shunted, maybe loose shunted means abstoßen: Here, the tracks lead into a flat shunting neck at one or both ends of the yard where the cars are pushed to sort them into the right track. (Flat-shunted yards) --Sascha Claus ✉ 15:49, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Sascha Claus is almost correct: loose shunting is also sometimes known in the UK as 'fly shunting'. It is rather difficult to describe in text: it involves uncoupling the wagons in the train one by one, and then applying the power in the shunting locomotive in a less-than-smooth manner to give the uncoupled wagon enough momentum to roll across the shunting neck into the correct track (imagine starting a game of pinball!) It is a sort of hump shunting without the hump, if you will, and therefore can put the same stresses and strains on wagons and their loads. The few yards in the UK that still need to split and reform wagon-load trains on a regular basis use this method of shunting, hence the warning is still relevant.BaseTurnComplete 17:57, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki Project Trains / Optimizing the article

Having been the author of the article's first version and some alterations though my native language is not English but German, I know that until now it is not yet of besternmost quality. I invite everyone who speaks German, French, Italian, Dutch, Romanian, Spanish or Russian to use facts written in the correspondend articles in these languages after translation for which I regret actually not having the ime to do it. The largest of them is the German version of which I am the main author. The Svedish and Finnish articles do NOT describe CLASSIFICATION yards but only railway yards in general with only few informations on CSF. yards as far as I could understand.

Similary someone already has enlargened the originally quite small French article using extracts of the German and English articles, and it seems that it also has been done with the Japanian article using extracts of this English article (but which I cannot read at all). At least it might been less labour to incorporate translated extracts of the existing articles in other languages then to write all totally new after searching such additional facts in the citated litterature which unless the first one at all does not contain any conditions outside of the English speaking world. Michael.