Template talk:Main North Line

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[edit] What's being included here

I like this template, but it's way too long for this line; all the stations on the line aren't even here yet, and it already is too long for the page that the track is on. Can we take out some old stations and leave it to the major ones? JRG 07:20, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Over in Template talk:Railway lines in New South Wales, I was suggesting that collapsible sections would be good for shrinking that template. If there is a way of shrinking between the majors, I'd suggest that as a good option. To complicate it more, it'd be nice if the template could either be fed a parameter of which point or section of the line to expand, and only expand that one. Another possibility is if the template could create a small pre-determined length box with a scroll bar and again take a parameter to tell it where to centre. I don't know if this whole concept is within WP:MOS and whether it is possible but it seems like one of the few options available to allow the information to all be there but not be so long. --Athol Mullen 07:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template guru needed

I noted that the Sandgate Flyover was added to the article template, and I wanted to correct some details relating to it and the Hanbury Dive to Port Waratah but I can't figure out how...

Ideally, I'd like to be able to show:

  1. that the line has 4 tracks from Hanbury Dive to Maitland, with the western pair of lines being the coal lines and the eastern pair being the main lines (passenger and general freight) to clarify the separation of the tracks,
  2. that the line to Port Waratah has both a dive (main line goes over coal lines) facing north but also that the main lines have a south-facing branch for coal trains coming along the main lines from south of Broadmeadow (I think that Kooragang has this too but I'm not sure),
  3. that the line that goes under Sandgate Flyover then parallels the main and through coal lines past Sandgate station then turns away (the island station is between the main lines, which are flanked by 2 coal lines each side).
  4. possibly show how many tracks there are on various other sections?

I've looked at the templates and I have no idea how to do these! --Athol Mullen 01:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

As far as I have investigated the route template, there is no way to show how many lines there are on a given section. The pictograms just basically display a single line. I guess it would become too complicated to show mulitple tracks. Nomadtales 07:05, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree, in some of the station pages in the CityRail area, there are some trackplans (eg. Sandgate railway station, New South Wales), maybe this is the best place to put this level of detail.The Fulch 07:15, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
After having a look at the Sangate article I have attempted to update the page. What do you think? Nomadtales 07:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] North Shore junction

...is incorrect- it is not a Y junction. The Fulch 06:19, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Ummm .. I actually think it is. Have a look here. I have caught the train to/from Newcastle plenty of times and I couldn't remember a loop back to the north shore line. Nomadtales 10:24, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hanbury dive

Having a look a closer look the actual dive is before Waratah station, so I have depicted it as such. Also I have reconfigured it so we lose 2 extra lines, I think this better illustrates the route. Nomadtales 21:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] South Maitland line

Is this in the correct spot? The Pelton colliery line actually turns off just after Thornton, which needs to be added. Nomadtales 23:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Yes, the south maitland line location is correct.. It actually branches off the main line in almost the same spot as the eastern leg of the triangle where the north coast line branches. There is a line out to Bloomfield colliery branching off near Thornton, and I guess you're mis-identifying that as Pelton. You might want to refer to the maps on the ARTC web site. The cityrail site has a set of similar maps for the area within their control but I don't have a link off hand. --Athol Mullen 03:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Ah, this is a great resource. Thanks for the link. And yes I was thinking of Bloomfield. Looks like a few colliery lines need to be added. Nomadtales 04:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] To wikilink or to not wikilink...

Noting that some highway/freeway bridges are now shown on the diagram, I thought I'd add more of them.

The question is, when a highway has been wikilinked in one collapsible section, should I, or should I not wikilink it within a different collapsible section? Normal page layout, which doesn't have collapsible sections, would say no. With the collapsible sections, I'm inclined to wikilink the first occurence within a section for ease of navigation. --Athol Mullen 04:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you here. This sounds fine. Nomadtales 05:12, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other lines as dividing points for collapsible sections?

I've been looking at the current list of dividing points for the collapsible sections and I'm wondering whether other lines would be a better way to divide it.

  • Instead of Hornsby, use the North Shore line.
  • Instead of Broadmeadow, use the Newcastle line.
  • Instead of Maitland, use the North Coast line.
  • Instead of Scone, use the Merriwa line.
  • Instead of Werris Creek, use the Mungindi line.

I'm also inclined to suggest using Woy Woy rather than Gosford because there's it's about half way along the diagram between Hornsby/North Shore and Wyong and the Gosford-to-Wyong section is very small. --Athol Mullen 04:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I am inclined to leave as is. Using stations seems to be the norm across all the route line templates created so far. If we change one, we would have to start changing them all for conformity. Nomadtales 05:14, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Although in saying that I would like to see say the big line intersections displayed on the intial route without the need for expansion - Newcastle, North Coast, North Shore, this would be possible to do and keep the stations as the expanding point. Nomadtales 05:18, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for Hunter coal lines

I've been thinking about the layout around the dedicated coal lines between Newcastle and Maitland and I'm wondering if there would be support to widen the template from 3 columns to 4, even if just between Broadmeadow and Maitland (or preferrably between Newcastle line and North Coast line)? What I would envisage is running 2 parallel tracks to indicate what's actually connected to what and more clearly show the separation of the coal lines. I could do it in 3 columns if I deliberately ignored junctions such as Comsteel... --Athol Mullen 04:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I can see your keen to show the dedicated tracks for this layout, but remember all we are showing on this template is just the simplified route of the line. If we want to get serious and display all the tracks we would have to show every siding and loop and points, it would just becomes too complicated and unwieldy. Let's keep it as simple as possible. Nomadtales 05:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Format

I realise the problem - especially with regard to this particular article - about an unshortened table being too long for the text of the article. However, I'm unhappy about it the way it is: it just obscures all of the information about where exactly the line stops at, because it's completely not obvious that there's any information under those headings. As I said in the edit summary, I only discovered that it was actually there when I actually went to add it in on one of the other articles.

I'd also point out that shortening them across the board doesn't really make sense; the length problems here do not exist for all of them - for instance, I'm pretty happy with how the one for the Main South Line turned out. Rebecca (talk) 05:14, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a standard feature of this template and is used for rail line articles all around the world so there's no point in changing it. I would have thought the "show" and "hide" buttons made the fact there was something hidden fairly obvious, but maybe we do need to do something with the dotted line that sometimes gets added. Another thing - can we only add red links where we do have a page? While information on rural stations does exist (see the Bathurst page for what I did there), it can sometimes be hard to come by and I'd rather have nothing than red links or thousands of stub pages. JRG (talk) 13:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)