User talk:Geof Sheppard

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Contents 1 Moretonhampstead 2 Falmouth Docks railway station and friends 3 List of railway viaducts in the United Kingdom 3.1 Viaducts list 4 South Devon Sea Wall Rail Incidents 5 China Clay Railways 6 Cornish Riviera Express 7 Navigation template formatting 8 Highbridge railway station 9 Camping Coaches 10 Railway stations on the South West Coast Path 11 Bristol stations 12 Closed stations (general comments regarding grouped pages) 13 Disused railway stations (Exeter to Plymouth Line) 14 Disused railway stations (Plymouth to Penzance Line) 15 Route over the Treffry Viaduct. 16 SR West Country and Battle of Britain Classes 17 Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway‎ 18 ? Wikiproject Somerset 19 Rail Templates 20 Devonport railway station 21 You deserve one of these 22 Franchise changes 23 Comment desired 24 Penwith Wikiproject & Cornwall Wikiproject 25 Lostiwthiel 26 Categories on redirects 27 A question for you 28 Back to Bristol stations 29 DYK for Torquay railway station 30 Devon Belle Observation Coach 31 DYK for Reading to Plymouth Line 32 DYK 33 Culm Valley Light Railway 34 Great Western Railway

[edit] Moretonhampstead

Thanks for putting me right. I purchased this photo years ago in Teignmouth. I always thought that a pixie was standing against the fence in the foreground!! Computer magnification dispels that belief. I am glad you like the photographs of the last train - one (Heathfield) was wrong & is now corrected. I am writing an article on the Haytor Granite Tramway at the moment.

Rosser1954

[edit] Falmouth Docks railway station and friends

There are a couple of places in these articles where you got your Wiki markup wrong:

=History=

should be

==History==

since headings are meant to start at the second level (the first being reserved for the page heading), and

[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk| The National Archives]

should be

[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk The National Archives]

since external links use a space to separate the target from the text, not a pipe. Still it's nice to see station articles that do more than describe the current train service. I'll tidy them up when I add pictures to them. --bjh21 11:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of railway viaducts in the United Kingdom

I need some help with the expansion of this list. I hope to this will contain all the railway viaducts and bridges in the UK. Simply south 12:59, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Viaducts list

I will move the page in accordance. Simply south 12:51, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] South Devon Sea Wall Rail Incidents

Another editor has listed an article that you may have an interest in, South Devon Sea Wall Rail Incidents, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/South Devon Sea Wall Rail Incidents. Please look there to see why this is, if you are interested in whether it should be deleted. Thank you. -- Eastmain 19:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] China Clay Railways

I was thinking "Cornish China Clay Mining" or "China Clay Mining in Cornwall" would be a good title for the main article (other potential names could be redirects), as it is the origin of the freight on the railway anyway, and in that capacity the article would serve as the "origin" of the railway articles (albeit created in the wrong order), almost like a start page where users can follow the process from the pit to the railway to the port, or back the other way. It would basically be the tree trunk from which other articles branch out. I was thinking that to coordinate our efforts we might want to start a wikiproject to perhaps encourage others to participate in areas needing attention? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this. ▫Bad▫harlick♠ 15:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Inviting contributions through the Cornwall wikiproject sounds like a good idea to me. The subject is within the scope of the project, and as a standalone topic probably isn't large enough to make the grade for a wikiproject - I was mainly thinking in terms of ways in which we could bring attention to this overlooked area. Cornish mining in general is probably a better bet for a wikiproject, but at the time I was fresh out of ideas.

As for the title of the article, whichever title is chosen we must be mindful of all potential search strings, and make allowances for these by the provision of redirect articles for as many variations as we deem most likely. Also, a link/disambiguation to the Cornish China Clay page on the Kaolinite article, and vice versa, may also be helpful to people interested in the subject. ▫Bad▫harlick♠ 01:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cornish Riviera Express

Geoff - re your edit to Solihull - I have no doubt that you are right that the Cornish Riviera Express ran from Paddington and therefore not via Solihull. However...... as a 10 year old train-spotter, spotting from a bridge over the line just above Solihull station, we used to see Kings and Castles wearing the Cornish Riviera Express plate hauling long passenger trains out of Snowhill. It is possible that they may be been out of service or in transit but as a 10 year old the only way that I would ever have known of such a service was to see the trains themselves. Any explanations would be very welcome. Velela 14:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the response - you are probably right - I can only blame ageing brain cells !Velela 16:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Navigation template formatting

This is fixed now... I put   (non-[line]-breaking space) between the two words to prevent it from line wrapping there, and forxe the table's colun to be wide enough. By the way, when doing templates links using {{tl}}, use curly brackets, not square ones :-) Tompw (talk) 14:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Highbridge railway station

Thanks for putting the picture up on this page, I've always wondered what the station looked like during the Somerset & Dorset days! PiffPuffPickle 11:39, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Camping Coaches

Having added the list of stations from the 1957 leaflet from BR I intend to work through the links etc when I have the time. Please feel free to add comments particularly re the format; I feel that a single column would look simpler but leave a lot of white space and little content. The next job is to ensure that all links go to the stations not the towns - do you think that putting in red links for stations would encourage people to write more station articles? Britmax 22:13, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Railway stations on the South West Coast Path

Hi there. I've made some modifications to your table of distance to the path on each railway station article and changed it to a template, Template:Swcp. Hopefully this will make it easier to maintain and ensure consistency across the articles. I've added Category:Railway stations on the South West Coast Path to the template so it doesn't need adding manually. Regards. Adambro 15:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bristol stations

Should i make the older template a redirect to this one?

Secondly, instead of the name Bristol railway stations, i think it would be beter called Greater Bristol railway stations as it does not just serve the Bristol area. Simply south 16:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Closed stations (general comments regarding grouped pages)

The Disused railway stations (Bristol to Exeter Line) article is definitely the way to go regarding closed stations. It should address the majority of concerns about their inclusion in WP. Do you think the article would cope with the addition of station photos?

Main reason for writing is that when I was proof-reading, I checked that Hele was correct (it was, but there is a Hele Bay in North Devon, isn't there?) and noted that that article referred to its railway station. So, I created an anchored link back to your article. And the thought struck me: shouldn't we do this for each of the stations mentioned?

My initial thought was that it should be the article creator who does this linking ( :o) ), but I've since realised that there's enough work to make it into a mini-mini-project for each page – it would be enough to have a talk page list of the stations to link and some means of indicating which had been done, and any editor could then work their way through the list....

Just a thought!

(It's surprising what these routemaps have unleashed, isn't it?)

EdJogg 13:56, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

It is always my intention to wade through station and route articles, checking that there are working links both ways between the railway and topgraphical articles. As you have noticed, there can be a lot of these. Sometimes I get bored with clicking on all those links so I go off and write another article instead! (Exeter to Plymouth is on the way - most of it is merging the old individual pages)

I love the way that Wikipedeans tend to smooth out most of these blips (and the proof-reading - thanks for yours). Geof Sheppard 15:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes. The pages would be improved if there were photographs of the stations - both as they used to be and also as they are now where there are visible remians. Geof Sheppard 07:03, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disused railway stations (Exeter to Plymouth Line)

Just completed my proof-reading of Disused railway stations (Exeter to Plymouth Line).

Not many problems to fix, and just a few requiring consultation:

• Wrangaton railway station would appear to be redundant now. Redirect required?
• Exminster and Cornwood both use the phrase "station staff master", which I don't recognise. Do you mean "station staff", "station master" or "station master and staff"? Or something else?
• Route-map contains a few omissions/anomalies:
  • Kingsbridge Branch Line is not shown, although mentioned in text. (Incidentally, trying to include links to both "Kingsbridge" and "Kingsbridge Branch" in such a short space is tricky, isn't it? I hope my revised text is still OK with you!)
  • Cornwall-bound trains would appear to have to reverse at Plymouth Millbay, which I didn't think was the case...

Keep up the good work! -- EdJogg 13:32, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I take a few days off, come back to finish editing the new page and you have done half of it for me. And someone nominated for the Main Page DYK!

I think I have finished the merges, but there is still the links to and from the topographical pages relating to all these towns that need to be added. (BTW - Cornwood and Exminster never had station masters based there, the accommodation was for "the person in charge")Geof Sheppard 13:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Having just proof-read Disused railway stations (Newton Abbot to Kingswear Line) and subsequently looked at Riviera Line, I couldn't help feeling that there was a certain amount of overlap between the two routemaps. Indeed Riviera Line's map seems to duplicate quite a few other maps' features, and still contains some closed stations, although there were some features (eg crossings and tunnels) that appeared to be unique. It just occurred to me that you might care to consider all this during your rationalisation process. (I think I found at least four pages containing maps which showed all or part of the Painton to Dartmouth Steam Railway, and each showed a slightly different set of features!)

EdJogg 12:48, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

We are both thinking along the same lines. My gut feeling is that the disused stations with little or no remains should disappear from the route articles, and the historic company articles should only show features open before they were taken over by the GWR/LSWR/whoever. I'm holding back for a few days in case the discussion at UK Railways throws up any extreme views. Somehow, I doubt it!

The station articles have very few non-station features on purpose - they are about stations, after all! I'm not sure that the "LUECKE" icons are relevant on these, or else the links could be changed to be like "Disused railway stations (Exeter to Plymouth Line)|To Exeter"? Geof Sheppard 12:55, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

No problem about the 'non-station' features, although I would have thought it helpful/appropriate to include links to the main 'line' article. As for 'LUECKE' icons, I think they make it clearer where a line continues, and look more natural than an abrupt end. In general I have avoided adding them to branch lines (although that would be a natural progression!) as I anticipate they would become overpowering -- maybe something a little more understated is required for these?

EdJogg 13:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disused railway stations (Plymouth to Penzance Line)

On 19 May 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Disused railway stations (Plymouth to Penzance Line), which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--howcheng {chat} 06:49, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

But I hadn't proof-read it yet!! (It was on my todo list, honest.)

Have done so now! (reactive editing :o)). Fortunately, not much needed doing.

You're doing well with DYKs, aren't you?

--EdJogg 08:48, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I am aware of the discussion we had regarding map rationalisation (see above), but having just compared this route map with the Cornish Main Line map, it is clear that they both need some attention. It is surprisingly difficult to compare the two! Listing the many differences would be unhelpful here, so I won't. But if you take a look you may agree, for example, that the various branch lines should look the same (I love the Gunnislake branch loop on the CML page!) and that there should be similar 'features' on both maps to aid navigation and context-setting.

(This is not intended as a 'nag'. Rather it is that I had made a note to do this comparison and thought I'd mention my conclusion here for your future reference!)

EdJogg 18:38, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Route over the Treffry Viaduct.

Hello Geof.

I've just noticed a small inconsistency between the excellent route diagrams that you have created for the articles on the Atlantic Coast Line, Cornwall and the Cornwall Minerals Railway.

• The ACL article shows that the former tramway that ran over the Treffry Viaduct had a direct route from Pontsmill to Luxulyan without reversal.

• The CMR article shows a reversal being needed at a point marked The Treffry Viaduct, Colcerrow Tramway.

I've no idea which is correct. It is possible both were true at different times. But equally one might be a simple markup error with the rather fiddly graphics, so I thought I'd best point it out. Any thoughts?. -- Chris j wood 17:38, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Well spotted! it is a complicated location and I got my right mixed up with my left. I think the CMR map is now essentially correct, although I have a nagging doubt in the back of my mind that the Colcerrow branch was actually fed off a kick-back siding as the curve is so tight at the end of the viaduct. Geof Sheppard 07:27, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SR West Country and Battle of Britain Classes

SR West Country and Battle of Britain Classes Hello, as a fellow member of the trains wiki-project, is it possible that you could give a run-through of the above article, as it is up for FA status. Any feedback you give would be gratefully received, and taken onboard on improving this article for FA status. Thanks, --Bulleid Pacific 12:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway‎

Hi, I see that you removed the 'Broad guage' cat from this railway - ISTR reading somewhere that the lines were actually a mix of guages at one stage, as at least one of the constituent railway companies used broad guage, but I can't recall or find out which one, off-hand. A couple of the stations look like they were once broad guage. I'm travelling for the next few weeks so won't have a chance to track down the reference, but you might want to keep an eye open for this. Best regards, Ephebi 08:22, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit]  ? Wikiproject Somerset

Hi, Have you seen the proposal to create a Somerset wikiproject at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals ?— Rod ^talk 17:51, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rail Templates

I still prefer the old ones Mark999 13:38, 20 September 2007 (UTC) can i have a say in something Mark999 22:34, 20 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mark999 (talk • contribs)

Experiments should not be put on live pages - they should be for talk and project pages. And I've been through the discussion and can see no evidence of any agreement for changing infoboxes. Besides which, the emphasis should not be on the route but the operator, and your experimental ones do not give this emphasis. Unless there is agreement that infoboxes across the entire network be changed en masse, then they should be left alone. I will be changing them back at the earliest opportunity. Hammersfan 02/10/07, 14.20 BST —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 13:20, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Devonport railway station

Hi, I've just realised that we have an article on the GWR Devonport railway station but not one on the LSWR station - would you be able to start one? The reason I'm asking you is that you seem to be highly knowledgeable and productive about railways. Thanks. DuncanHill 12:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

It is on my "dreckly" list! Right now I am trying to advance all the stub status open railway station articles, but at some point I need to fill in all the gaps for the closed lines and Kings Road and Friary are both important ones that are currently missing. In the meantime, I am watching the slow advance of the West of England Main Line and the associated routes, so someone might beat me to it! Geof Sheppard 13:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, cool - I must say I really appreciate all your contributions, I've learnt so much through reading them. Best wishes, DuncanHill 13:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

All done now – Devonport Kings Road railway station and Plymouth Friary railway station, with Railways in Plymouth as a bonus! Geof Sheppard (talk) 14:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] You deserve one of these

		The Original Barnstar
		for consistent hard work on railways in the West Country DuncanHill 13:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Franchise changes

Please can you leave them, its only 5 days and there are so many about, think it would be easier to leave them Mark999 14:19, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The WikiProject UK Railways has always followed the WP:CRYSTAL process of not including future events unless they are notable, hence it is okay to create a page for a new franchise when it is awarded, but this information is not put into the station link boxes of individual station articles until the actual change. With the Virgin CrossCountry franchise changing to Arriva on 11 November 2007, that is when the changes should be made. Newquay railway station in particular does not need to change so early as Ariva does not Arrive there until next summer.

Similarly, I notice that the planned december changes to the First Great Western local services pattern around Bristol have started to appear. (Groan! I thought they had settled that last year!). IMHO this just confuses the station link boxes. Remember, Wikipedia is not a timetable Geof Sheppard 08:59, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment desired

Your input would be very much appreciated at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways#S-rail redux. Thanks, Mackensen (talk) 17:27, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Penwith Wikiproject & Cornwall Wikiproject

Hi, I see you are a member of the Cornwall Wikiproject. A proposal has been made to merge the Penwith Wikiproject into it. You can join in the debate here. Best wishes, DuncanHill (talk) 12:25, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lostiwthiel

Ummm.... this diff [1] - spot the deliberate mistake? DuncanHill (talk) 13:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, it starts with the right letter...! Geof Sheppard (talk) 08:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categories on redirects

Geoff, re: [2]. There you go, you really do learn something new every day. Thanks for fixing my mistake. Gwernol 14:17, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A question for you

Hi Geoff, I hope you are well. I asked a question at Template talk:Disused railway stations (Plymouth to Penzance Line), which I then thought would be right up your street - hope you can answer. DuncanHill (talk) 09:15, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Y Done Well spotted! That's the problem with laying in redlinks months before the article actually gets written! Geof Sheppard (talk) 13:49, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - and thanks for all you've done on railways in Cornwall. There is a new article at Transport in Cornwall which needs expansion - fancy taking on the rail section? I can't think of anyone who could do a better job. DuncanHill (talk) 15:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Back to Bristol stations

With the template mentioned above, i'm not sure what to do with it so i have left a note on WT:Rail. Simply south (talk) 21:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK for Torquay railway station

On 17 March 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Torquay railway station, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Bencherlite^Talk 09:43, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Devon Belle Observation Coach

A picture at last!! Thank you! EdJogg (talk) 14:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK for Reading to Plymouth Line

On 8 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Reading to Plymouth Line, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

(looks above) As you can tell, I've got a soft spot for train-related DYKs when I get to pick them!

Bencherlite^Talk 10:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

On 1 May 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Tregenna Castle, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Gatoclass (talk) 15:14, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Culm Valley Light Railway

I would query your removal of Tiverton Parkway, Tiverton station and the Exe Valley line from the diagram here. My thinking was that in its previous form the diagram informed the uninitiated that the current Tiverton Parkway is neither the station in the town, nor on the site of the former junction station, and showed what the relationship of these railways was: and for very little diagram space used. Thoughts? Britmax (talk) 13:20, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I always thinks that an article's diagram should reflect the article. As the subject for this one is the Culm Valley line then Tiverton Parkway is certainly outside the scope (both geographically and historically) and Tiverton railway station itself is only relevant as to show where some of the through trains ran to, but that line too should just be the subject of a separate article (I was originally thinking of creating the Tiverton branch as just a sub-heading in the histroy of Tiverton station – see Clevedon railway station for the nearest west Country equivalent. After logging off I thought that it might make sense to leave the LUECKE for the branch but show an exBHF for Tiverton station (a similar thing happens on the Reading to Plymouth Line diagram to show Paddington and Penzance).

A thought for the station articles... rather than create a series of stubs that are unlikey to ever become fully-fledged articles, why not add the stations to the exisiting Culm Valley article and just create redirect pages for the individual names? (As was done for Castle Cary Cut-Off).

But thanks for working on the articles for this area - I can cross them off my to do list! Geof Sheppard (talk) 07:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Great Western Railway

Keep up the good work with this. I'm making proof-reading your changes a priority, as you make them, but only to a 'normal' level. Once we actually try for GA status it'll need a more serious proof-read, but you need a 'complete' article before doing that really.

Anyway, the reason for dropping by was to suggest that the history in the infobox should include a reference to The Grouping. Was there any change of status to the company at this point, or did it simply inherit a number of smaller railways? (The latter is all I am aware of, and I couldn't think of a 2-3 word description for the infobox!) Of course, it may be sufficient to mention the 1921 Railways Act at that point and be done with it!

EdJogg (talk) 14:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Nice of you to drop by! I'm particularly interested in seeing how the GWR fits into the semi-standardised layout that has been suggested for the Big Four as its continuity through the Grouping makes it a rather more complex beast than the other three. I think that it was legally the same copmany, and anyway the merged railways were spread over about 30 months so there was not one simple date. I'm mulling over the Infobox and will put some comments on the UK Rail project talk page sometime next week (I'll be off network for a couple of days now).

I am thundering through all the likely sections so that we can get a proper feel for what the finished article will look like, and going back to do a rewrite on the History and Locomotives sections will almost certainly fall at the end of the To Do list (you never know, someone else may get there first:-)

The next things to tackle are the People and Operations sections, then I want to finish the Further reading, See also, and External links. If the sky stays blue I'm off with the camera tomorrow to try to fill a couple of gaps in the images. Meanwhile, there is also Bristol Temple Meads railway station which I satrted doing a rewrite of before this turned up in the project "goals", and I am hoping that thinking through the GA process will help me clarify how to finish the job on GWR. My guess is BTM can be nominated in June or July if the locals don't revert the Services or Description section, and then GWR about August.

More power to your dictionary! Geof Sheppard (talk) 16:18, 30 May 2008 (UTC)