Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Strategy

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[edit] Finding former railroads

One strategy for getting all former railroads is to look through state laws and find all the chartered railroads. It's not as hard as it seems; you just have to look through the index, and, at least in early years, they may be all next to each other. I've started to do this in Florida, and will continue next time I'm at the downtown library. -SPUI

Another way to look for former railroads requires that you have access to a large library. If so, try Poor’s Manual of Railroad’s. It was published annually from 1868 - 1924, and became the railroad section of Poor’s in 1925. This series is great for tracking railroad name changes and which railroad bought which other railroad.
The downsides are wading through all the financial data, and figuring out which construction news to believe. Sometimes, construction of a new line would be announced one or two years in a row. After that, all references to that new line would be gone – as though it had never been built. This conclusion would be confirmed by the fact that no other source would subsequently mention that line, either. Rmeier 02:30, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
For the record, Moody's covers in later years what Poor's used to cover. Some libraries may have one or the other. --SPUI 12:25, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Railroad History Database includes many notes from Poor's and Moody's, and other official and semi-official sources. Unfortunately there is no list of all railroads, but there are searches based on name. --SPUI 05:51, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization

I've noticed that Category:Locomotives is getting rather cumbersome, and I'm thinking that we should work on making subcategories for it. I'm thinking that hood unit, A unit, the Whyte notation pages, etc should go into a locomotive types subcategory, and then American Freight Locomotives, British Passenger Locomotives, and so on for some other subcategories. Any other suggestions? -- ckape (talk) 05:30, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Amtrak Routes

Please note that I have (at least for the moment) made it so that Category: Amtrak routes is no longer a subcat of Category: Named passenger trains of the United States. Please refer to the talk page for Category: Amtrak routes for my discussion of the rationale. There are some route vs. train distinctions that we need to iron out here. Discussion? Fawcett5 20:29, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] discussion from Category talk:Amtrak routes now moved here

I removed this category from being a subcategory of named passenger trains of the United States for a few reasons:

  1. Many of the current Amtrak routes have historical antecendents that should not neccesarily appear under the Amtrak route section, especially since the historical trains did not always follow the same routing.
  2. Several of the articles here combine two routes, which screws up the indexing for named passenger trains. These articles should be split before Category: Amtrak routes is even considered as a subcat.
  3. Some of the articles here, such as regional and accela express really refer to a family of trains instead of a particular train. There are other cases where several trains operate along a route (or related routes) all under the same moniker (perhaps with multiple departures a day, or sections that continue further), where I would agree that they are all "Named trains". This distinction between a train and a route is admittedly not quite cut and dry.

I would further propose that most or all of the "Train name (Amtrak)" articles should be moved to "Train name (passenger train)", especially in the case where there was an historical train with the same or similar name. Fawcett5 19:18, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I completely disagree. These are all named trains and they are all in the United States. Any pre-Amtrak info could go in a separate article. Any other problems could be solved by changing the name or purpose of the parent category. Are you going to create articles like Acela Express train 904? How would these articles be split up to be 'appropriate' for the parent? --SPUI (talk) 20:16, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Well, they are clearly NOT all named passenger trains. Carolinian and Piedmont for instance should EACH be getting their own entry, but are not. Same for Cardinal and Hoosier state. And Acela is just Amtrak branding for a class of trains, not the name of a specific train. It should probably NOT appear on a list of named passenger trains. Consult for instance [1]. This is clearly the type of source document that was use to make several entries - but following this logic, we should have separate Northeast corridor 1, 2, and 3 entries. Similarily, things like "Michigan services" is just a catchall for mostly numbered trains used by amtrak for the purposes of publishing a timetable, rather than the name for a specific train. You are confusing timetables with routes with trains. Yet by your logic we should have a named passenger train called "Illinois/Missouri services". Let's build a consensus with the people active on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Strategy. Fawcett5 20:50, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
How are 'named trains' defined? Individual trainsets? If so, most of the articles probably shouldn't be there, and should be moved to Category:Named passenger train routes of the United States or the like. --SPUI (talk) 20:50, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, we sure kicked the anthill on this one. B-) Where to start.... I guess it's best on the subject of moving Amtrak Cascades to Cascades (passenger train). I did the move originally because I saw the diff in my watchlist where Fawcett5 said "Should be moved to "Cascades (passenger train)"". I agreed with the sentiment so I did the move. I have very little preference over article naming, and if the train is really called Amtrak Cascades, so be it (as an aside, it's a pet peeve of mine the way companys are tagging their name on the front of their products like Microsoft Word for Windows or Disney's Doug for example; it's almost as bad as calling something "ultra" - yuk!). I'm not going to argue about the page title for this article, it's not worth the trouble as redirects are cheap.

However, on the issue of train names that were used historically, I agree somewhat with Fawcett5. For example, the name California Zephyr was in use as much as 25 years before Amtrak existed, even though Amtrak still runs a train by that name. On the CZ page, we've attempted to address this with sections for the pre-Amtrak CZ and Amtrak's CZ. So far it works, but if the article gets much longer, it should be split into two like California Zephyr (passenger train) and California Zephyr (Amtrak) with the original article becoming a disambig to the two new articles. I suggest using (passenger train) for the pre-Amtrak train because it was operated jointly by more than one railroad. For something like the Broadway Limited, when the article grows, the historical treatment should be named Broadway Limited (PRR) or something along those lines and the article about Amtrak's train should be Broadway Limited (Amtrak); I only suggest (PRR) because it's easier to type than (Pennsylvania Railroad), and a similar discussion has already taken place elsewhere regarding (US) vs (United States). I could make similar arguments about other trains such as Silver Meteor or Auto Train.

I'll need to think a little more about the third point before I can make an opinion on it here. slambo 21:37, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that this is all confusing. However, I think that most of the named train sets were used on routes that actually required multiple headways, IE multiple train sets. An exception was the Pioneer Zephyr train set, which didn't even get that name until years after various other Zephyr-named route services started. IE, it took three complete train sets to plan for the stillborn Chessie service of the C&O in the Robert R. Young era. There are two train sets in service each day on the Auto Train route. On that line of think, I believe that 'named trains' in our context really defines a route service, which might be called branding. Acela Express is most definitely a named train, on a very specific route, not just a class of equipment. It has its own pricing service and many departures as we would hope a successful name train should have. A class of equipment branding would be business class, etc.
I agree with SPUI that the current Amtrak routes belong in there with other current and past named trains. The fact that Amtrak combines scheduling information and printing for economy purposes for several route services which operate separately (IE Cardinal and Hoosier State) shouldn't dictate combination for Wikipedia, even if they run in combination at times. Piedmont and Carolinian are also not the same even if the schedules and some services share similarities. It worthy of some pondering. Just my first thoughts, folks. Vaoverland 21:58, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
After reading slambo's comments, I believe we are singing off the same sheet for the most part. I better live with Auto Train (Amtrak) than Amtrak's Auto Train or Amtrak Auto Train. Also, thinking forward, if some of the Amtrak dismanteling takes place as some legislators in DC propose, the naming convention might change again (ie Adirondack (Amtrak) could become Adirondack (new company)). Also, personally, I like easier typing like the US vs United States naming conventions cited. Vaoverland 22:10, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
I seem to recall that the category/naming schemes for these have been through some revisions in the past, so it's good that this discussion is occurring.
I generally agree with slambo wrote above, although my naming suggestions are somewhat more verbose. For passenger train routes where disambiguation is required, I think they should be at "Train name (passenger train route)" instead of "Train name (Amtrak)". Makes better semantic sense, since "Train name" is a passenger train route, not an Amtrak. This makes it easier in cases where multiple railways operated a train, such as that of the California Zephyr, as slambo mentioned above. If we had separate articles on routes with the same name, then I would suggest names such as "International (GN passenger train route)" and "International (Amtrak/VIA passenger train route)".
As an aside, "Train name" should be whatever the railway calls it, so we would have "Adirondack (passenger train route)", "Amtrak Cascades", and "Auto Train" as article names.
I think that the current category system has a few inconsistencies. The first is that we typically write articles about train routes, not individual trains. As well, the "named" in the category names probably isn't a good idea because articles about notable unnamed trains would have to end up somewhere completely different.
Instead of Category:Named passenger trains, Category:Named passenger trains of the United States, etc., we should rename the categories to Category:Passenger train routes, Category:Passenger train routes of the United States, etc. Category:Amtrak routes should be a subcategory of the U.S. one, and we should also create subcategories for other railways that ran passenger trains that we have articles about. JYolkowski 23:34, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
""Train name" is a passenger train route, not an Amtrak." Yes, but Southern Railway isn't a US or a UK, yet we have Southern Railway (US) and Southern Railway (UK). The parenthetical disambig is to differenctiate between two or more articles that would otherwise have the same title, not to describe what the title refers to. The first sentence of the article defines what the article refers to. slambo 14:06, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

The category changes suggested by JYolkowski make sense to me. Vaoverland 09:23, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

OK, perhaps SPUI will be willing to split some of the articles that are causing trouble, such as Cardinal and Hoosier state? But what about "timetable" articles like Michigan Services which I believe are really several different routes. Fawcett5 13:50, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I may get to that; I'm a bit busy on the NYC Subway though. It seems to me to be similar to the situation with the Three-digit Interstate Highways; only now are ones with the same number (same timetable) being split into individual routes. I don't really see the problem with keeping them together, especially in cases like the Silver Services where they mostly share routes. MBTA Green Line is one article, after all, not one for each branch. 5 (New York City Subway service) includes rush hour variations. --SPUI (talk) 14:12, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I'm not too concerned whether some of these articles are split or not. As long as we can say that the articles are about passenger train routes (either singular or plural), I think that's okay. JYolkowski 21:59, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is a somewhat difficult task due to the extent of the Amtrak system and the overlap of trains named or otherwise. I hesitate to stick my nose in here (but have been asked to do so) as I really don't see an awful lot to argue about. I tend to agree with Fawcett5 for the most part. Having looked at what already exists I do not see that there is any great problem, it all appears to go together well enough. Having stubs for say, Michigan Services is a good way to cover the "route" aspect of things. I am not sure changes are really necessary. Have I missed something glaring? R.L.Kennedy 19:53, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I really wish I'd noticed the referral to this discussion before creating two new named passenger trains last evening - I created them for VIA in the form of Train_name (passenger train) as they had preceded the creation of VIA, in some cases by 75 years. As for suggestions on what to do... from having read this thread, I really don't have a clue. My two articles referred to long-distance intercity routes, one of whic hadn't changed markedly over the years, although there were several major changes to the other. There were also changes in the name from "<train> Limited" to just "<train>" (as per Canada's bilingualism policies" and I just included all of this information in the articles under various sections, including the route changes. The article name uses the last incarnation which the trains followed, and since they are common English language names ("Ocean" and "Atlantic"), I added the (passenger train) qualifier.
As for Amtrak and the current discussion... this approach of combining all the information (previous train names, history, present operations, routes, etc.) under one article could be done for many of the long-distance Amtrak trains/routes as a means of simplifying the number of passenger train-related articles, although it would also be perfectly appropriate to split apart the train from the route as well - I really am at a loss at what to recommend with regard to Amtrak and VIA for that matter.Plasma east 15:39, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Looks like most of the "regulars" have weighed in here, so I'm thinking we should probably look at starting to build consensus. Do we agree on the following?

For the train named "Train Name":

  • If no disambiguation is required, the name of the article is "Train Name".
  • If disambiguation is required between the named train and something else, and the train was operated by two or more railways, the name of the article is "Train Name (passenger train)".
  • If disambiguation is required between two named trains, the name of the articles are "Train Name (railway1 passenger train)" and "Train Name (railway2 passenger train)". Railway1 and Railway2 are abbreviated.
  • If disambiguation is required between a a named train operated by a single railway and something else, I don't see a consensus here yet.

Are we in agreement with these points (except for the last one)? As well, does anyone disagree with my proposed category scheme?

JYolkowski 00:08, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm still not totally clear on the difference between train names and route names. Are most of the articles we have route names? Are only the ones that have more than one trainset route names? --SPUI (talk) 00:44, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
You're right, most of them are about routes. I had proposed we use "Train Name (passenger train route)" instead of "Train Name (passenger train)" above, but since no-one else used this terminology, I dropped it in my proposal above. So, do we want to go with "(passenger train)" or "(passenger train route)"? JYolkowski 02:59, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I dislike the idea of having the article names strictly by routes...we have multiple instances where one named train used several different routings over its history (e.g. The Canadian). There seems no reason not to do it by train name for the article titles at least whenever possible.... there are actually only a few articles that would have to be split to reflect separate named trains. But to my mind the trouble is not so much with the article names but with the category. I think we should go with Yolkowski's original proposal for train naming conventions, but adopt SPUI's suggestion of making the category something like "Passenger train routes of the United States" so that it doesn't look strange when something that is not easily split, like "Michigan services", does crop up. To my mind there are not so many routes that we even really need a separate Amtrak routes category, especially since lots of those trains had historical antecendants that were non-Amtrak.Fawcett5 04:23, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I think that makes sense; I've struck through my previous statement. Based on Fawcett5's explanation, is everyone "on board" with my initial proposal? JYolkowski 00:23, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Sounds logical to me. Most Wikipedia readers who are only vaguely familiar with Amtrak, VIA, and predecessor passenger railroad services will figure it out I'd say. The problem of distinguishing between a route/service and an actual name train appears to be more common with Amtrak, where you frequently have numerous trains running over similar routes. I have some old VIA and Amtrak timetables (and predecessors) so I'll see if any need to be added to the master list as well. Plasma east 04:13, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
How would that work with stuff like the Acela Express, which has many trains over the same route? --SPUI (talk) 05:48, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Are you guys proposing to split apart each Acela train in the timetables, or just refer to Acela Express as running on the "Northeast Corridor"? I'd say there could be some room for manoeuvring where Acela and some name trains operate on the corridor...? Plasma east 07:36, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Boys? (Yes, I'm assuming ...) What was the consensus?

The bulleted list above seems pretty good to me and allows some flexibility. I can't agree with the "route" folks - named trains are named trains. Even with examples like the Zephyr, it may have started out as the name of the trainset, but it ended up describing a train.

Is Acela Express a train, a service, or a route? It's certainly not a route, since 1) there's no reason the train can't run to Harrisburg and 2) not all Acela Expresses cover the entire Northeast Corridor. It's certainly a service, distinct in pricing and accomodations. It's certainly also a trainset (even if it was incredibly expensive, of questionable design, and not likely to be reproduced! I know, I know: {{fact}}!).

The other thing that kind of bugs me is that the Cardinal and the Hoosier State were never split. Two different trains partially sharing a route!

--plaws 00:19, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Valve Gears

I'm trying to impose some order on the various steam locomotive valve gears. I've pulled them from the category:Locomotive parts and made category:Locomotive valve gear a subcategory of "parts" and of category:Steam locomotive technologies. (Valve gear itself remains in "parts".) Please visit talk:Valve gear and see if you can help out on this. Mangoe 03:16, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scope of station- or line-related articles?

I'm wondering where information about interesting features of stations and/or lines should go. Things like tunnels, bridges, drainage, signals -- is there any place for them? The relevant line article (it would get huge I think), or attached to the article of the nearest station? Any precedents? (And, possibly more to the point, where would I find the answer to, or more correctly ask this question?) Sam Wilson 07:23, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

We've just started talking about this with respect to stations at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains. My inclination is to keep stations as a mention/image in their respective locale (e.g. Point of Rocks, Maryland) unless there is quite a lot one can say about them (e.g. Grand Central Terminal). I suppose for other things the notability rule ought to apply; if someone might search for the specific thing and find a reasonable article about it, then it gets a separate article. By way of contrast, I didn't put in a separate article about the Elysville bridges when I wrote Old Main Line (Baltimore and Ohio Railroad), because there's little to say and what little there is to say is really only interesting in terms of OML history. But I'll probably mention them if/when I do an article on Daniels, Maryland, since that's where they are. Mangoe 10:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)