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Odd font

Does anyone know why certain templates are showing with the font Aerial Black? Please see WP:VPT#Template font link. Simply south...... walking into bells for just 6 years 23:40, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Should Template:Rail navbox titlestyle be used

{{Rail navbox titlestyle}}

What is the point of putting two large blocks of colour in the title bar of template? Surely the colour could be better integrated ?

  • We appear to be following the practice of the Japanese Wikipedia, though we certainly don't need to. The template appears to be used (mostly) on Japanese articles. I confess I've never seen it before today. Mackensen (talk) 13:13, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:Suburban Transit Access Route

Could I have some assistance at Template:Suburban Transit Access Route? A new user, KMCDOnough3439 (talk · contribs), continues to add unsourced names for stations on the proposed line (we might consider deletion; it's unlikely the Suburban Transit Access Route will actually be built). I've left messages on his talk page and the template talk page but haven't gotten a response. Thanks, Mackensen (talk) 02:34, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

New Jersey Transit ridership data

This document of detailed station-by-station ridership numbers was noted on the railfan forums the other day. I'm not terribly involved with NJT articles so I'm not sure if I'll have the motivation to go through station-by-station updating the numbers, nor do I have anything like AWB to make the task easier. Is anyone willing to update the numbers? Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:31, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Done. That was boring, whoever keeps the Amtrak station articles up to date has greater patience than I. C628 (talk) 00:28, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Canadian Northern Railway

Canadian Northern Railway has a 1905 image of the 1st train to reach Edmonton. The sign on the train says CNR not CNoR though. Is there an error somewhere?--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:12, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

The CNoR was absorbed after they reached Edmonton according to the article text. Should the sign have read Northern not National then?--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:27, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • "On December 20, 1918, a Privy Council order directed CNoR and CGR to be managed under the moniker Canadian National Railway (CNR) as a means to simplify funding and operations, although CNoR and CGR would not be formally merged and cease corporate existence until January 20, 1923, the date that CNR was formally consolidated."--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
AFAIK, the abbreviation CNoR was something created by the enthusiast community to differentiate the Canadian Northern Railway from the Canadian National Railways. Useddenim (talk) 00:44, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
I am just wondering why the sign says National 10+ years before it existed. Nickname for CNoR?
Ooops! My bad for not checking sources. I suppose one could email museums etc. in Edmonton to see if they have more information. Should we re-write the caption somehow to reflect that?--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:24, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Alberta Railway Museum is not far from me. I phoned them and got a machine. The article says it is on an old CNoR subdivision which could be where the the picture was taken. I may have time to drive down there and take some pictures possibly. Loco 103 is not listed in their collection but they may know the fate of it. I will resolve this section for now unless anyone has anything further to add.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:23, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Resolved
The museum phoned back. Their records haven't been catalogued yet. The curator assumes it was scrapped for the war effort, a shame but understandable.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:52, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Route boxes on station articles: contrast problem

For some time now I've been considering the problems of WP:CONTRAST in station routeboxes like this. Briefly, the problem is that blue link text on a purple or blue background is almost invisible, and even on other colours it is not very readable. Some people have attempted to fix this by forcing the linked text to be white, but this also goes against WP:CONTRAST (links should clearly be identifiable as a link), as well as not providing a distinction for non-existent pages ("red" links).

I have devised a solution which I have applied to all the stations in the Cardiff Valleys network, like this. The horizontal coloured stripe is narrower than the stripe it replaces, but the essential feature is that colour is not being used as a text background. Besides the benefit regarding contrast, routeboxes modified in that manner occupy slightly less height - but are still slightly taller than those without any route colour (the exact difference in height probably varies between browsers).

To use this feature, the |lightcol= parameter has been provided on many of the templates in the {{rail line}} series (specifically, {{rail line}} itself, plus those listed at Template:Rail line#See also). Those with the facility for displaying two or more rows, such as {{rail line one to two}}, have been provided with a set of |lightcol1=|lightcol2= etc. for the individual rows (as seen at Treforest railway station), as well as |lightcol= which applies to all rows (as seen at Abercynon railway station). --Redrose64 (talk) 22:10, 6 January 2013 (UTC) amended Redrose64 (talk) 15:46, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

For the first rev, do you mean this one? Simply south...... walking into bells for just 6 years 23:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Not really... that's from after I started converting the routeboxes. Whilst converting, I fixed some red links and I also put colour back into the Coryton line which had lost it four years earlier. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:21, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
I think that's a good improvement. The line could be made thicker if people want, but I don't really think there is a need. Thryduulf (talk) 16:24, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
The line is 8px high. I picked that size because I didn't want it to be so narrow as to lose the impact; at the same time, I didn't want it to be too broad as that would significantly increase the height of the routebox row compared to the variety without a "light" colour. Consider the relative heights of these (cribbed from Bowness railway station):
Preceding station Historical railways Following station
Annan Shawhill   Caledonian Railway

Solway Junction Railway

  Whitrigg
Annan Shawhill   Caledonian Railway
Solway Junction Railway
   Whitrigg
Annan Shawhill   Caledonian Railway
Solway Junction Railway 		  Whitrigg
In my browser (Firefox 17.0.1 under Windows XP), the respective heights of the three rows (excluding the 1px borders) are: 56px; 53px; 45px.
For those technically minded, the line is achieved by using an empty <div /> element with a style= attribute, and setting the height and background-color properties, also switching off border and margin.
I named the parameter |lightcol= because of the existence of colour templates named {{Caledonian light}} etc. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:28, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
For those pages which use {{s-rail-national}}, they can all be changed over with a single edit to {{National Rail lines/branches}}. Compare these:
Preceding station National Rail National Rail Following station
TerminusFirst ScotRail
TerminusFirst ScotRail
The new form is admittedly slightly taller than the old. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I think the new form looks better than the old. If it's easily demonstrable then I wouldn't mind comparing these with a mockup where the coloured stripe is central rather than at the bottom. Thryduulf (talk) 00:59, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I did consider a central stripe - but didn't want to complicate the way that the {{rail line}} series is used. Presently these take four parameters |previous= |next= |route= |col= (the junction variants may have |previous1= |previous2= etc. but there are essentially four param groups in all of them). My intention was to create the simplest possible change from the point of view of the non-template editor: add a fifth parameter (or param group) without changing the meaning of the existing four. The normal usage of the |route= parameter is
|route=[[major railway company/operator]]<br /><small>[[minor company/branch/route]]</small>
With route colour identification we've traditionally done this by styling the second half of the |route= value:
|route=[[major railway company/operator]]<br /><p style="background:#colour"><small>[[minor company/branch/route]]</small>
It is possible to add a central stripe, but that adds even more clutter to the Wiki markup in the articles, because the stripe needs to go into the value fed through |route= - it can't easily be built into {{rail line}} (but see later):
|route=[[major railway company/operator]]<br /><div style="height:8px; background-color:#colour; border:none; margin:0;" /><small>[[minor company/branch/route]]</small>
and would look like this:
Preceding station Historical railways Following station
Annan Shawhill   Caledonian Railway
Solway Junction Railway 		  Whitrigg
Besides fixing the contrast issues, I wished to cut down on the markup, not increase it. This is why I put the extra markup into {{rail line}}, which in turn forced me to have the stripe either before or after the |route= text. It could have gone "inside" the |route= text, but only if |route= were itself split into two parameters - |routemajor= and |routeminor= perhaps. I didn't want to do that.
For {{s-rail-national}} it's just as easy to put it in the centre as at the bottom (or even at the top), but I would prefer to have those routeboxes consistent with {{rail line}}. This is not so much a problem where a given article uses exclusively one style or the other, but where both are used, it would look odd to have some stripes central, the others at the bottom. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:20, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I think I prefer it in the centre, but it's not worth it if the code issue is that significant. I completely agree about the need for consistency. Thryduulf (talk) 12:36, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

City of New Orleans

There is a proposal to move City of New Orleans to City of New Orleans (train). Please see Talk:City_of_New_Orleans#Proposed_move. Mackensen (talk) 00:29, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Template: Rail color box

I had noticed that a lot of articles were putting rail line color boxes by using the following code: 

[[Purple Line (Chicago Transit Authority)|{{color box|#{{CTA color|Purple}}}} Purple Line]]

and I wondered why they didn't use Rail_color_box. I saw that Template:Rail_color_box uses template:legend as the way it was displaying names and colors and therefore isn't suitable for using inline. It seemed a little silly to me, why have rail_color_box if it was only going to be useful in bulletpoints or the infobox of an article so I expanded on it at template:rail_color_box/sandbox. I added a new parameter, inline, which if yes will give a template:color box and if small will give a small box. For example: 

(normal; no inline parameter is passed){{rail_color_box/sandbox|system=CTA|line=Purple}} (inline=yes) {{rail color box/sandbox|system=CTA|line=Purple|inline=yes}} (inline=small) {{rail color box/sandbox|system=CTA|line=Purple|inline=small}} (the above code for comparison) [[Purple Line (Chicago Transit Authority)|{{color box|#{{CTA color|Purple}}}} Purple Line]]

The downside of this is the colorbox is not linkable, but I don't think that is a major issue. I'm curious to hear if others feel this is worth rolling into the main template.

Agree. Useddenim (talk) 14:01, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Well, maybe it should be made linkable. On a slightly related topic, is there any way we can combine rail color services in single infoboxes? I've never liked not being to add only Metro-North parameters to Yonkers (Metro-North station), and leaving only the color bars and Amtrak services to stations like that. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 14:25, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Making the box itself linkable inside the template would be pretty difficult. I did add a new option, inline=box, that would just create a color box in the correct color for the line. This could be put inside a wikilink if that was desired, ie.[[Blue Line (Chicago Transit Authority)|{{rail color box/sandbox|system=CTA|line=Blue|inline=box}}]]      -Killian441 (talk) 05:35, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Would the {{RouteBox}} template accomplish what you're trying to do? Useddenim (talk) 13:30, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
For all except the palest background colours, {{RouteBox}} has problems with WP:CONTRAST, very similar to those described in the section above. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:06, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Underground ages

I've been browsing various underground pages and noticed a lot of discrepancies in the list of 'oldest underground'. For example,

1) Mersey Railway claims to be the second oldest underground in the world 2) Glasgow Underground claims to be the third oldest in the world (after london/budapest) 3) Budapest claims to be the fourth oldest in the world (after london/athens/mersey) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.69.87.21 (talk) 14:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The claims are different: In no particular order (so I've made the table sortable)
System Date opened Claim in article
Mersey Railway 1886 underground railway
Glasgow Subway December 1896 underground metro system
Budapest Metro 1896 underground railway system
Athens Metro 1869 Athens-Piraeus Electric Railways opened as a suburban railway, was electrified in 1904 and gradually converted into a Metro

As far as I can determine, the Athens system was not underground and the status of the Mersey Railway as a Metro system is disputed. So the order is going to depend on what you are comparing. Edgepedia (talk) 17:35, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm being to suspect that the Athens Metro claim on this list is original research. Tyne & Wear Metro runs through Walkergate Metro station on infrastructure that opened in 1839, according to the article. I'm sure others can be found. Edgepedia (talk) 18:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Of course, at random, the London Underground Hammersmith & City line between Paddington and Westborne Park follows an alignment that opened 4 June 1838. I'm sure that's not the oldest. Edgepedia (talk) 18:32, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
That bit's not in tunnel; at least, the "tunnel" section (the dive-under between Royal Oak and Westbourne Park) is somewhat newer than 1838. How about Marc Brunel's Thames Tunnel? --Redrose64 (talk) 21:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
AFIK the Athens Metro is not in tunnel, at least most of isn't according to the map in the article. The point I was trying to make was that claiming to run on infrastructure built 1869 is nothing special. Edgepedia (talk) 21:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Redlinked templates

Hamburg Central Station has five redlinked templates listed below the edit box. It is probably from nested translusions I don't know where they are coming from. I find it hard to tack down these things. Something to do with {{S-rail}} template apparently. Can someone take a look? Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 01:46, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

  • Four of the five are style templates; which are optional. I'm uncertain if it's possible to write a template call to check for the existence of template without also attempting to transclude the template. Mackensen (talk) 04:02, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
The {{#ifexist:}} parser function, when applied to a template, does not transclude the template during the testing phase, so in this case it won't be {{#ifexist:}} causing those redlinks. This is easily demonstrated: if I put
{{#ifexist:Template:HVV style|The HVV style template exists|The HVV style template does not exist}}
just here, I get
The HVV style template does not exist
and there should be no redlink in the template transclusions when either editing the whole of this page, or when previewing an edit. So I would say that there is an attempt to transclude the non-existent templates {{AKN style}}, {{HVV style}}, {{HVV2 style}}, {{RE-MV color}}, {{RE-MV style}}.
The main reason that I dislike the {{s-line}} template is the myriads of subtemplates that you need to create - consider this lot and this lot, all of which are required because there is at least one {{s-line}} with |system=DB-ICE. Nightmare. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:04, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Looking at {{s-line}} and {{s-line/side cell}} some of the calls are already wrapped in ifexist. I'll test. Mackensen (talk) 12:41, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Updating the Denver RTD light rail template

The Denver RTD light rail template (template:TheRide Light Rail) seems a little different from other system templates (see Template:Bay Area Rapid Transit or template:Chicago L) and I've put together some alternatives here: template:TheRide Light Rail/sandbox. I've started a discussion here. Any feedback or comments are welcome. - Killian441 (talk) 21:40, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Coordinates in infoboxes

Recently User:C16sh has removed a lot of coordinates from railroad station infoboxes claiming they weren't necessary. I tried to ask him about this and he wouldn't answer me. In the meantime I saw that some articles he removed them from already kept their coordinates(which can't be found), and others didn't. I thought we were encouraging the use of coordinates for railroad stations. When did this policy change? ---------User:DanTD (talk) 05:15, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it really matters whether the coordinates go in the infobox, title, or both; that's an individual stylistic preference. However, it appears this user is removing the coordinates entirely, and that's against both common sense and encyclopediac policy. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 05:56, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
Normal Wiki practice across all projects seems to be that coordinates go in an infobox by default. Only if there is no infobox, then the coord template is placed near the bottom of the article, but made to display in the title. So there should never be a reason to remove them from an infobox. Coords are exactly the sort of data that should be in an infobox. --Bermicourt (talk) 07:20, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
The coordinates should be in both locations. Having them in the "title" location makes the article discoverable by the "nearby" function of our mobile app, and in things like Google's Wikipedia layer. Having them in the Infobox means that they're emitted as metadata. Mass removal combined with ignoring discussion is disruptive; and should be reverted. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:31, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
It depends upon the infobox.
  • If you use {{infobox London station}}, it's best to put the coords in the |latitude= |longitude= parameters, since that will generate both a locator map and also clickable coords. These generated coordinates are automatically given the parameters |type:railwaystation_region:GB|display=title (the region:GB may be overridden by using the |coord_region= parameter), so they go into the page title line.
  • If you use {{infobox GB station}}, using the |latitude= |longitude= parameters is also a good idea (even though there is no locator map) since the generated clickable coords are automatically given the parameters |type:railwaystation_region:GB_scale:10000|display=inline,title, so they are displayed both in the infobox and in the page title line.
  • If you use {{infobox station}}, there is more flexibility.
    • You can specify |latitude=|longitude= or |latd=|latm=|lats=|latNS=|longd=|longm=|longs=|longEW=, and the generated clickable coords are automatically given the parameter |type:railwaystation| - by use of |iso_region= or |country=, _region: may also be set. These coords are displayed in the infobox, unless |coordinates_display= is non-blank, the coordinates will appear in the title as well as in the infobox.
    • Alternatively you can specify |coordinates= which allows full customisation but no automation.
There is no harm in having coordinates in both the infobox and in the title, but it should be done with the minimum chance of error - that is, specify the latitude and longitude once each. In other words, don't use a separate {{coord}} to generate title coords if the infobox is also displaying coords inline - if there are two sets, and one is amended, the other will no longer agree. On that basis, this edit was done with good intention, but could have been better: personally I would have removed the {{coord}} from the External links section, and either (a) altered the {{coord}} in the infobox so that it specified |display=inline,title instead of |display=inline or (b) removed the {{coord}} in the infobox, replacing it with |latitude=40.002545|longitude=-75.710363|coordinates_display=inline,title --Redrose64 (talk) 12:39, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
The edit summary for the edit you site was "coordinates are unnecessary in the infobox" and was part of a series of edits where the display of coordinates in infoboxes was undone. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:38, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
See the comments at Template talk:Coord#Placement of coordinates which confirms that normal Wiki practice is to have the coords in the infobox and title. We are looking at clarifying this by stating it in the template documentation. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:21, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

2013 Saltsjöbanan train crash

The 2013 Saltsjöbanan train crash article has been nominated for deletion. Mjroots (talk) 06:02, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Napoli Afragola railway station

The construction of this railway station is on hold. Someone interested in updating it with more detailed information? Bipafareto (talk) 17:28, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Category:Proposed railway stations scheduled to open in 2012

The Category:Proposed railway stations scheduled to open in 2012 still exists, despite the fact that 2012 ended almost a month ago and the remaining 8 stations in that category are still listed as proposed. Looks like we've got the same problem here as we had with the 2011 category. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 20:13, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I did some quick net searches for more info on all of the articles in the category when I noticed it earlier this week. I didn't find anything useful on my search, so the articles are now tagged with {{update}}. A more thorough search, especially in other-language resources, should come up with something... Slambo (Speak) 20:31, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Patrimoine Ferroviaire et Tourisme

Here's a new page about the Belgian railway preservation society. I briefly pondered the naming before being WP:BOLD and getting it together anyway.--Railwayfan2005 (talk) 15:02, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

1767 in rail transport

The 1767 in rail transport article has recently survived an AfD discussion but it was suggested that all years in rail transport before 1800 would be better organised by decades rather than individual years.

This is as good a place as any to discuss such reorganisation. Please state whether or not you support or oppose this suggestion. No information would be lost from Wikipedia by doing this, and a few C-class articles are better than many stubs (IMHO). Mjroots (talk) 20:45, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree - Seems to me significant progress in rail didn't occur frequently enough prior to 1800 to warrant an individual article for each year. By decades seems a good compromise. -Killian441 (talk) 21:29, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Agree - Per Killian441's comments. Most of these articles contain only birth dates, and organizing by decade, perhaps with a subsection for each year, would probably be a better way to present the information. - MountainRail (talk) 22:00, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Agree - deleting the article was clearly incorrect, and I'm glad the AfD found as such - but a decade-wide spread would work well. Lukeno94 (talk) 08:39, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Agree - Given the quantity of information we have about these years, organisation of the content by decade seems rather sensible. Any particularly busy years can of course be split out again in the future if necessary. Thryduulf (talk) 18:29, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Seeing no objections, I am going to go ahead and merge these articles into the decade format. MountainRail (talk) 22:45, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
 Done I have finished merging all existent articles into decade articles. I have only put redirects into the articles that already existed, so any article that was not already existing does not have a redirect to the appropriate decade. I can add these redirects if you would like me to or think it necessary. MountainRail (talk) 00:57, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Blue Ridge Tunnel Length

Please see Talk:Blue Ridge Tunnel for a discussion on the length of this tunnel and associated tunnels. There is ambiguity as to its length, and different articles state different lengths. Thanks! - MountainRail (talk) 20:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Wolferton railway station

Comments are invited at Talk:Wolferton railway station#Wholesale changes. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:19, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Deerfield Beach (Tri-Rail station) and South Florida Railway Museum

Anybody remember the dilemma I had regarding the merging of the museum portion of Marshall (Amtrak station) a few years ago? Well, now I'm considering doing something similar by merging the South Florida Railway Museum into a separate chapter of the Deerfield Beach (Tri-Rail station). If you look at the links, Amtrak, Tri-Rail and the museum have the same address. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 15:42, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh yes, I agree with that - and the station article needs a lot of work anyway. Secondarywaltz (talk) 15:55, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Sharing an address doesn't necessarily count as a point in favour of merging. If you were to suggest that the articles for England and Wales Cricket Board, Marylebone Cricket Club and Middlesex County Cricket Club be merged into Lord's Cricket Ground it wouldn't go down at all well. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:19, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Isn't that kind of the like the New York Yankees and Yankee Stadium being merged? I don't think the example of merging sports teams and the stadiums they use applies here. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 16:33, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
On further consideration the point for continued separation has some validity and Wikipedia:Not paper would also apply. I have also recently come to the point of view that shorter articles can often contribute to readability, especially in mobile devices. My initial response was inspired by the need to cleanup the station article. Secondarywaltz (talk) 17:22, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Karachi City

There's a requested-move discussion at Talk:Karachi City Station to which members of this project may want to contribute. Mackensen (talk) 15:21, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

ETCS

Doc from DfT

I just got this back from MoT, cannot remeber what question I asked but is has any heard of this national Roll Out of ETCS Level 2.
Kitchen Knife (talk) 18:30, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Network Rail are presently fitting out the Hertford National Integration Facility (test track facility) on one track of the Hertford Loop. Previously ETCS level 2 already replaced Radio Electronic Token Block on the Cambrian Line in 2010. The migration from Cab Secure Radio to GSM-R is already happening aswell and fitments of GSM-R equipment for mainline rolling-stock is now mandatory. —Sladen (talk) 20:36, 6 March 2013 (UTC) A better forum might be Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways.
I knew about Cambrian and GSM(R) but not the plan for ETCS level 2.Kitchen Knife (talk) 20:58, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
The plan has been in place for ~15 years, and is also EU-mandated for interoperable corridors. ETCS Level 3 was where the fabled 140-mile-per-hour running (230 km/h) on the West Coast Main Line was going to be coming from, and why the Class 390 Pendolinos were ordered to be capable of those speeds. Current plan seems to be ETCS Level 2 on the GWML, ECML, Thameslink core, and MML, … in that order (but not Crossrail) and happening in the next control period. —Sladen (talk) 21:11, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Think I have worked out what the question beyond ECTS was and it hasn't been answered it was whether the new franchise would look at London->Liverpool->Scotland trains as part of the franchise. When the Liverpool Wigan line is finally electrified. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kitchen Knife (talk • contribs) 21:53, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
What's the history behind this reply from the DfT? Did you write them an email? Or contact them in another way? —Sladen (talk) 22:42, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I used one of their online forms either FOI orStd which don't send you a copy of what you send in, but I had spent the previous day trying to get virgin to comment on the L->l->S route. 22:54, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Infoboxes at Line 1 (Metro Bilbao) and Line 2 (Metro Bilbao)

Both these articles start with two infoboxes side by side, with introductory text later. That doesn't look right to me, per WP:LAYOUT, but tinkering around with them, I can't fix them myself, I guess they should either be merged or the first infobox moved to the right. Could someone fix? Valenciano (talk) 06:34, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

The initial "infobox" (the right-aligned box) is using an overcomplicated table to hold a route diagram, it should really be built as a WP:RDT, and placed lower down. The smaller left-aligned table is doing the job of an infobox, but in a very non-standard manner. At Line 2 (Metro Bilbao) I've redrawn that table to use {{Infobox rail line}}. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:00, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
I've done the same with Line 1. There are some good route boxes on the Spanish wiki which can be re-used here with some tinkering (I already did #1). Mackensen (talk) 17:32, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Images in Rapid transit

Someone has raised a good point in that the rapid transit article has far too many images. However, people need to be selective which ones to delete so it doesn't end up being biased towards any continent. Anyone up for it or want to discuss it at Talk:Rapid transit#Images? Simply south...... catching SNOWballs for just 6 years 19:30, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Format of train times

Should train times use colons to separate hours from minutes, as shown at MOS:TIME, or periods because "the time expressed in standard BR format is a part of the name of the service"? This is in relation to this edit and this revert. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:25, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm trying to get my head round this. Was there a service called the "22.50 Edinburgh – King's Cross"? As far as I can see "the 22:50 Edinburgh – King's Cross" is the service scheduled to leave Edinburgh at 22:50. I can't see how any confusion can arise. Edgepedia (talk) 17:55, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
As far as I can tell (from the other side of the pond), British Rail exclusively uses the 22.50 format. The question then is whether the official style trumps the more common 22:50 style normally used for times on Wikipedia. My off-the-cuff preference would be to keep the style that BR uses for their own services. However, here in the US our trains don't run on every-hour schedules like in the UK so it's not a problem I usually deal with. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 18:18, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Network Rail, who create the UK timetable, use colons (see for example [1]) so I suggest we all agree to use colons. Railwayfan2005 (talk) 22:38, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
nb. the trains in question are from the 1960s; Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways may get better answers. —Sladen (talk) 08:09, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I believe that we should use hh:mm for consistency with other times; the fact that BR (deceased 1994) may have used a full stop is irrelevant, unless we are going to say that Roman chariot wheels were IV feet VIII and a half inches apart. The consistency point is that we don't want to say that Driver Bloggs booked on at 10:30 (colon) to work the 11.10 (full stop) to Bristol. Remember that the purpose of these articles is for people who don't know the answer and in many cases are not railway insiders. The exception would be in a direct quote from an old document, where the format should be kept as in the original, as far as this is sensible.Afterbrunel (talk) 21:55, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

User:Frysun

Frysun (talk · contribs) has been moving train articles controversially, and moving them again when the moves were reverted. You may wish to examine his contributions. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 14:18, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Please examine these edits: [2][3] ; Frysun's change was subsequently changed again for Shanghai, but not for Beijing, should the article be reverted to the form it was before Frysun started deleting notes? -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 05:57, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

International trains

We need one of an article, list or disambiguation page relating to international trains. Currently the situation is a bit of a mess:

There are probably other relevant articles too. I don't have time now to sort this out, and anyway it probably needs discussion to work out how we want to treat this. Thryduulf (talk) 19:08, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Extension Dorval - Loop ligne orange.JPG

file:Extension Dorval - Loop ligne orange.JPG has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 01:35, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Infobox engineer

Template:Infobox engineer has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Redrose64 (talk) 21:34, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Doorwarning-seoulsubway.jpg

file:Doorwarning-seoulsubway.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 05:49, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

railways list for BC

I"m just going through a historical resource on BC history and coming across names of railway companies and routes, built or not, in the heyday of railway speculation; some have since been absorbed by other railways. Not sure of List of railways in British Columbia or List of historical railways in British Columbia - maybe the latter is better - or too exclusive? Crowsnest Pass & Kootenay, Vancouver Victoria and Eastern, New Westminster & Southern, and more......over 150 if they were all listed. Only a few so far as in Category:Defunct_British_Columbia_railways and/or Category:British Columbia railways Some are named in the Grand Trunk and CPR articles and there may be redirects to them, which should have one of those categories; ditto the Howe Sound and Eastern Railway which was to become the BCR.Skookum1 (talk) 04:18, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Houston MetroRAIL maps up for deletion

Several Houston MetroRAIL maps are up for deletion, see Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_files/2013_April_7 -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 06:56, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

File:S10C3803Redfern24021972 (820 x 560).jpg

File:S10C3803Redfern24021972 (820 x 560).jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 04:16, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

First fully automatic railway in the world

The ATO, in the Ore Delivery Department of the Iron Ore Company of Canada is completely automated and was the first in the world I was always told. It is completely forgotten from your article Neil Simmons Duty Electrician shift 3 ATO/ODS IOCC PO Box1000 Labrador City NL Canada Neil.simmons@ironore.ca — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.54.139.105 (talk) 10:51, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Help!

The article Mozart (train) has been nominated for deletion due to lack of sources. I don't think it deserves to be, but I don't have any railway books to hand that mention it. Can anyone find a book that features it? Those of you who have been working on the other recent Category:EuroCity articles may particularly be able to help. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 21:48, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I have done what I can - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mozart (train). Bahnfrend (talk) 03:03, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! ArtVandelay13 (talk) 09:30, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

1873 accident in Bourne

See Talk:Bourne_railway_station#Accident_in_the_railway_station. Does anyone have any references?--Robert EA Harvey (talk) 07:18, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Tom thumb peter coopers iron horse 6092027.jpg

file:Tom thumb peter coopers iron horse 6092027.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 23:17, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

The deletion of this historic image was a disgrace beyond belief! -------User:DanTD (talk) 12:53, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
Well, based on the deletion rationale, there's really not much one could do. No source, has to go. If you can find another, sourced copy, I doubt anyone would object to re-uploading it. And if they do, they're a fool. oknazevad (talk) 13:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
Actually, the file page did contain a source when it was deleted:
{{Information
|Description=Tom Thumb - a replica of the first American built locomotive designed by Peter Cooper.
|Author=Unknown
|Source=Baltimore County Public Library
|URL=http://external.bcpl.lb.md.us/hcdo/cfdocs/photopage.cfm?id=17686
|Permission={{Attribution}}
|Date=1927
}}
The server that url points to isn't working at the minute so I can't verify it, but unless I'm missing something that should not have been speedily deleted? Thryduulf (talk) 14:23, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
Actually, that source and url were present from the upload, including when it was tagged. I'll ask user:Magog the Ogre (who tagged it) to comment here. Thryduulf (talk) 14:29, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
I just found a new link(http://catalog.bcpl.lib.md.us/polaris/search/searchresults.aspx?ctx=1.1033.0.0.6&type=Keyword&term=Tom%20Thumb%20Locomotive&by=KW&sort=PD&limit=TOM=*&query=&page=0), and a second one(http://polaris-fusion.bcpl.lib.md.us/repository/6092027.jpg). Whether these could lead to restoration of the image is anybody's guess. -------User:DanTD (talk) 14:46, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
Those two links are the same - the first goes to the description page, the second to the image, There is enough information there to provide a full source, so that's fine. There is no copyright statement though that I can find, but works published in 1927 are now in the public domain if the copyright was not renewed, but I don't know how to find that out. Thryduulf (talk) 16:29, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
I found a photo of the 1927 replica on the LIbrary of Congress site. It's a U.S. Government photo, no copyright problems. I uploaded it to Commons & will add it to the article. Perhaps it's not the greatest photo around, so maybe a better replacement will come along. Caseyjonz (talk) 00:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Until one does, I uploaded it to the article. -------User:DanTD (talk) 00:44, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
The reason that I, the deleting admin on English Wikipedia, and the deleting admin on Commons all missed the source is because {{Information}} does not take a parameter called URL. You can add the URL parameter to the template, but it does not display, so the only way we have of knowing the source is looking at the wikicode. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 00:48, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
To clarify: the URL of the image's source must go in the |Source= parameter, nowhere else. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:42, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Ok, I wonder if there are any other images that have this issue? Thryduulf (talk) 10:11, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Good question. I'll write up some wiki code to look for that in the short future (if I remember). Magog the Ogre (t • c) 11:21, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

French stations

moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (stations)#French stations_2

Clarify rail article

Maple Leaf (train) mentions that it is a Codeshare agreement and is blue linked in the lead. The codeshare agreement article mentions air-rail but not rail-rail agreements. Out of my fields or I would fix.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:25, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

correction

Whitley Bay and Cullercoats need transposing on the map of the Tyneside Electrics.

Indeed they do. Checked with a map and done as requested. Britmax (talk) 10:19, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

File:N Scale model of BR Standard Class 3 2-6-2T.jpg

File:N Scale model of BR Standard Class 3 2-6-2T.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 21:42, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Picture may be useful (KarTrak Bar Code)?

Trains are not really my thing, nor is using commons, but if anyone thinks this picture might be useful, it should be available to upload to commons. Ping me if I need to change the license to something else. Thanks Ditch ∝ 17:10, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Request for suggestions

Shanghai Circus World Station was proposed for deletion, I deprodded the article as all the related articles suffer the same problems, and I suggested to eventually merge and redirect every metro station articles into an omnibus article about the relevant metro line. After taking a look I realized it is a bit problematic as several stations (eg Xinzhuang Station (Shanghai Metro) or Shanghai South Railway Station (Metro)) are part of multiple metro lines. So, which are your suggestions? Should all these articles about Shanghai Metro be merged somewhere, simply redirect to List of Shanghai Metro stations, deleted, kept as they are, or there are other solutions? --Cavarrone (talk) 11:00, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

  • Metro stations are normally taken to be individually notable, and as there isn't a 1:1 relationship between stations and lines there is no merge target that suits every station. I'd suggest leaving them as they are as there is plenty that can be said about them (planning, area, design, services, history, architecture, etc), even if it isn't yet. Thryduulf (talk) 11:37, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Each station is different, has its own reason for notability, and can easily be expanded should the need arise. I'll also suggest to keep them. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 12:27, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Proposed station page name change

Talk:Jeffco Government Center (RTD) - Seeking input on the talk page for a proposed name change to the Jeffco Government Center (RTD) page. Thanks, -Killian441 (talk) 21:02, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Archiving talk page messages

Am I the only person who thinks that the most recent archived messages in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2012, 2, should be moved to a new archive page for 2013? -------User:DanTD (talk) 16:08, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Nomination of Central station for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Central station is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Central station until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:25, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Articles for the Shanghai Metro

Lots of stations on the Shanghai Metro don't seem to have their own articles, especially those for Line 11, Shanghai Metro and Line 13, Shanghai Metro. See the template below.

Many are red-linked in English, but they already exist in Chinese.. Could someone help make the English articles? Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 23:28, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

As of this update, only five stations in the template are red-linked, three of which are closed stations. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 23:31, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Northern Heights Map Mockup.png

file:Northern Heights Map Mockup.png has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 06:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

File:Brixtonrailmap.png

File:Brixtonrailmap.png has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 06:57, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

File:Bulgarian State Railway 46.20 Locomotive.jpg

File:Bulgarian State Railway 46.20 Locomotive.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 00:42, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor is coming

The WP:VisualEditor is designed to let people edit without needing to learn wikitext syntax. The articles will look (nearly) the same in the new edit "window" as when you read them (aka WYSIWYG), and changes will show up as you type them, very much like writing a document in a modern word processor. The devs currently expect to deploy the VisualEditor as the new site-wide default editing system in early July 2013.

About 2,000 editors have tried out this early test version so far, and feedback overall has been positive. Right now, the VisualEditor is available only to registered users who opt-in, and it's a bit slow and limited in features. You can do all the basic things like writing or changing sentences, creating or changing section headings, and editing simple bulleted lists. It currently can't either add or remove templates (like fact tags), ref tags, images, categories, or tables (and it will not be turned on for new users until common reference styles and citation templates are supported). These more complex features are being worked on, and the code will be updated as things are worked out. Also, right now you can only use it for articles and user pages. When it's deployed in July, the old editor will still be available and, in fact, the old edit window will be the only option for talk pages (I believe that WP:Notifications (aka Echo) is ultimately supposed to deal with talk pages).

The developers are asking editors like you to join the alpha testing for the VisualEditor. Please go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and tick the box at the end of the page, where it says "Enable VisualEditor (only in the main namespace and the User namespace)". Save the preferences, and then try fixing a few typos or copyediting a few articles by using the new "Edit" tab instead of the section [Edit] buttons or the old editing window (which will still be present and still work for you, but which will be renamed "Edit source"). Fix a typo or make some changes, and then click the 'save and review' button (at the top of the page). See what works and what doesn't. We really need people who will try this out on 10 or 15 pages and then leave a note Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback about their experiences, especially if something mission-critical isn't working and doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar.

Also, if any of you are involved in template maintenance or documentation about how to edit pages, the VisualEditor will require some extra attention. The devs want to incorporate things like citation templates directly into the editor, which means that they need to know what information goes in which fields. Obviously, the screenshots and instructions for basic editing will need to be completely updated. The old edit window is not going away, so help pages will likely need to cover both the old and the new.

If you have questions and can't find a better place to ask them, then please feel free to leave a message on my user talk page, and perhaps together we'll be able to figure it out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:11, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Correction: Talk pages are being replaced by mw:Flow, not by Notifications/Echo. This may happen even sooner than the VisualEditor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:43, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Template:Rail text color

I see that Template:Rail text color is being used in many articles to provide colored links to rail lines. When used in info/navboxes (as in S2 (Berlin), for example) I don't have a problem with it, but it's also being used in running text, as in Birkenstein station, Oberspree station, and Strausberg Hegermühle station. This latter usage seems to run counter to a Manual of Style guideline discouraging the changing of colors on article links. As I noted when contacting the original author of the template, the MOS item apparently didn't exist at the time the template was created. But now that it does, we should probably discourage the use of the template in running text. Would someone like to go through the articles it's used on and convert the uses in running text to plain wikilinks? Any objections if I do this myself in a few days? - dcljr (talk) 21:12, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, go for it, especially since some of those pale colors look exactly like clicked redlinks. On the other hand, the highlighted links like in the infobox for U1 (Berlin U-Bahn) might work as they're clearly not redlinks. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:37, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
OK. I see there's actually a network of templates working together here. {{Rail text color}} calls two templates based on its parameter values, one for the color (e.g., {{SBB color}}) and one for the wikilink (e.g., {{SBB lines}}). So instead of replacing the template calls with plain [[wikilinks]], I'll change them to use the appropriate {{NNN lines}} template, like this — but only in running text, not in nav/infoboxes nor in regular tables. Speak Now if you see something wrong with how I'm doing this... - dcljr (talk) 00:55, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I guess I lied. [w] I've changed all the German rail articles that used Template:Rail text color in running text, but I also came across some U.S. rail station articles using it in "Station layout" tables, which are sort of borderline, IMO: they are not running text, exactly, although they can contain short stretches of it; OTOH, they don't contain simple stand-alone links like "{{rail text color|system=SBB|line=S3}}" (like in the navbox at the top of S7 (Berlin)) — instead, they have things like "←{{Rail text color|system=PATH|line=JSQ-33 (via HOB)}} toward 33rd Street or Journal Square Transportation Center" (in the Hoboken Terminal article). For me, this is not only hard to read (in this particular case), but in similar cases other colors might look like missing articles, visited articles, or not even like links at all. I changed some of these tables, but 2 have been reverted already.

Here are the ones I changed, with links directly to the original (colored) and changed (uncolored) versions of the "Station layout" tables:

The ones that have been reverted:

The ones I have not changed yet, but which I think should be changed:

And finally, some containing "Station listing" tables that are simple enough that I don't think they need changing:

In these last 5 articles, the tables are clearly set off from the rest of the article (with standard "wikitable" formatting) and the colored links are the only things in their cell, so there's less potential for confusion.

So, what are other people's thoughts about the "Station layout" tables? Should we remove the colors on the links? Change the table formatting to make them more like the "Station listing" tables? Keep the current (and, as needed, revert back to the original) versions? Note that for all of these instances of colored text, there are issues of readability for color-blind readers, which I have not addressed at all here, mainly because I have no expertise in that area. - dcljr (talk) 19:14, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Imho the links should should be blue, but we should find a way to incorporate the colour somehow. I think someone worked on something like this (possibly using the █ character) in the context of British railways (possibly around the Portsmouth or Cardiff areas?). I can't immediately find it now, but my search-fu is weak currently. I wondered if it was user:Simply south, and I'd ping them about it but they've just gone on a wikibreak. Thryduulf (talk) 19:38, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I think that in the Taipei Metro layouts, they put the color in a small box. On the Tamsui Line, for example, this comes up when you put the template {{Tamsui Line}} in:
      Tamsui Line.
    I suggest putting a small box with the color in lieu of the colored links for the PATH. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 23:37, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
    • I would agree with this approach. BTW, note that at least one station-layout table in that group of articles uses bold white text on a colored background, an approach I don't recommend. The vast majority seem to do it the way described by Epicgenius; I recommend changing the PATH station layout tables in that direction. While I don't love their appearance otherwise, I won't lobby for changing the "physical" layout of the tables. (It might be worth considering how more of their code could be encapsulated in templates, however.) - dcljr (talk) 18:21, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment -These charts were proposed and discussed at the New York City public transportation project talk page. Further discussion should be brought there. oknazevad (talk) 20:54, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Given what Thryduulf found, I think discussion should continue here, since the 3 mentioned WikiProjects are all either "children" or "siblings" to this one. I can notify these other WikiProjects and point them here, as I just did at the Port Authority Trans-Hudson talk page. oknazevad (or someone else), can you give a link to the NYPT discussion, or an approximate time frame in which the discussion took place? I can't find the discussion in the archives. I can try again later, but if you know of the top off your head.... - dcljr (talk) 22:10, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
It's still on the page, in the section here. Their deployment was part of an effort by a couple opf editors (not including myself) to add platform configuration charts to all the New York City Subway station articles; PATH was a bit of a throw in. oknazevad (talk) 22:20, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Oh, wow, I didn't realize the relevant edits were so recent. OK, I've notified User:Epicgenius about this discussion. - dcljr (talk) 22:57, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment - The deployment of platform layouts on the NYC Subway and the PATH was based on the platform layouts of the Taipei Metro. See this, this, and this. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 12:12, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I've just notified the Stations and Transport WikiProjects about this discussion, since they seemed to be (along with this one) the most relevant, active "parent" WikiProjects in this context. And since prior discussions at the UK Railways, London Transport and New York City Public Transportation WikiProjects have been linked to in this discussion, I've notifed them, too. There are many other projects that might be relevant, but someone else can notify whomever they think I've unfairly left out. - dcljr (talk) 18:21, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps any new commenters should focus future discussion here at the bottom? The flow of the conversation is getting a little hard to follow above. [g] - dcljr (talk) 18:46, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Additional comments

  • Comment. The current consensus seems to be that coloring the text on links in running text ("prose text") is specifically forbidden by the Manual of Style; doing so on links in "Station layout" tables is probably a bad idea and should be deprecated in favor of colored boxes (e.g., "█") next to the linked text; doing so in simpler tables that are clearly "wikitable" formatted and in which the links (one or several in a list) are the only text in each table cell (see infobox in S2 (Berlin) article) is probably acceptable. Fair enough? - dcljr (talk) 18:46, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment. Oh, and there doesn't seem to be consensus about changing the physical layout / appearance of the "Station layout" tables (of the kind seen at 33rd Street (PATH station)#Station layout), but consideration should be given to creating new templates to standardize and simplify their use in articles. - dcljr (talk) 19:01, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm not sure what screen-reader software will make of the █ suggested above, so per MOS:ACCESS it might be best avoided. You can see this technique in use at Valleys & Cardiff Local Routes#Surrounding lines.
Further up that page, a different technique is used - the {{colorbox}} template, which is the same one as used in {{Tamsui Line}} (mentioned earlier). There exists at least one further template which creates a coloured square: {{color box}}, which takes different parameters from {{colorbox}}; but in both cases, the first one is a colour value - and if there are no other parameters, the only difference between them is whether the border is grey or black: {{colorbox|#9c6}}→  {{color box|#9c6}}→  --Redrose64 (talk) 20:17, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
I've left a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility#Coloured links and █ characters asking for someone with knowledge of accessibility issues in this area to contribute to this discussion. Presently we seem be basing our comments on supposition and guesswork. Thryduulf (talk) 12:25, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
The █ character reads as "black right-pointing small triangle" in at least the latest two versions of my screen reader JAWS, the most popular Windows screen reader. However I don't think any other screen readers would recognize it; NVDA, a free Windows screen reader, certainly doesn't. Graham87 15:02, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I guess I should have been more careful. I created the box in my comment with a "box character" because at the time I posted my comment(s) I didn't have time to research how the boxes were actually being made in the articles they currently appear in. Whatever the best method of creating the boxes is, we should do that. [g] - dcljr (talk) 00:20, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Template include size is exceeded

I noticed that recently several train-related articles have appeared in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded. I tracked down part of the problem to changes to {{infobox rail line}}, {{infobox rdt}}, and {{infobox public transit}}. I made some changes to those templates to reduce complexity (removing the number of parser function calls, and reducing the transclusion depth). basically, if you use '{{#if:{{{map|}}}|{{{map}}}}}' it includes {{{map}}} twice. templates like {{infobox}} do this for every input argument, so reducing these calls reduces the problem. however, it seems as though this isn't entirely solving the problem. it appears as though there have been additional changes to some of the other core templates which has increased their complexity. the tracking category is filled with non-article entries, but here is the (current) list of problematic pages:

you can frequently see the issue at the bottom of the article, where the navbox templates do not show up, or the references are missing, etc. it is possible that some of this could be due to this recent edit? Frietjes (talk) 17:08, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Good catches. New Haven Line also has a similar problem. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 17:10, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
seems that problem was addressed here? Frietjes (talk) 17:12, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
See also Template talk:Infobox rail line#Transclusion problem. There were a lot of changes to the RDT system recently, see WT:RDT#Proposed changes to protected BS-overlap, BSpx, WT:RDT#Route maps 3x faster by BS-overlap update but lack pictogram links and Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 111#Edit protect request to highly-visible template stalled?. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:42, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
If this issue cannot be easily resolved, would it not be better to roll back the recent changes to the stable version of the RDT and its various subtemplates? Lamberhurst (talk) 20:01, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
And do I note correctly that is has nothing to do with W:LUA? -DePiep (talk) 22:07, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
as far as I can tell they are all using a large number of calls to {{BS-overlap}} through a high-number BS template ({{BS7}}, {{BS8}}, {{BS7-2}}, {{BS8-2}} ...) as a temporary measure, I was able to fix a few of them by moving the map outside of the infobox and into {{infobox route map}}. this is really a temporary fix, and I will happily have {{infobox route map}} deleted once this is resolved. Frietjes (talk) 23:04, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
My experiment so far is that the included template code generated from {{BS-overlap}} is around 50-100 characters more than before, and for every icon in the map this gets multiplied by 5 to 6. For example, I previously checked Berlin S-Bahn has 777 icons, which makes the included size increased by at least 466200. My long term idea is removing (currently mandatory) inline styles in icons, rows, map table, etc. and put those inside the global CSS file to reduce include size.
Secondly, as mentioned, the {{BS-overlap}} is within as many as 7 levels of inclusions, for example {{BS-overlap}}→{{BSrow}}→{{BS}}→{{Berlin S-Bahn route diagram}}→{{Infobox/row}}→{{Infobox}}→{{Infobox public transit}}. I agree that the development so far has ignored this non-functional constraint, and I am also interested to know what optimisations and coding practise can be done in this case. — Peterwhy 01:38, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Take a look in this compare page between {{BS-overlap}} and {{BS-overlap/sandbox2}}. These reduced 65 characters (at least) is multiplied by the number of levels of template substitutions and total number of icons, which can easily become a 6-digit number. As far as I know these custom data attributes are not used anywhere yet. — Peterwhy 01:59, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
that looks like the way to go, along with moving more to site-wide css. thanks for finding a solution. Frietjes (talk) 17:19, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Manchester & Milford Railway

The Wiki article on the Manchester & Milford Railway implies in the second paragraph of the section entitled The Vision at the beginning, that Brunel built the Severn Tunnel.

"Isambard Kingdom Brunel had had the vision for the Great Western Railway to become a fast track for passenger carriage from London to the new world of North America, and had hence moved his port of embarcation from Bristol to Milford Haven, through construction of the Severn Tunnel and the South Wales Main Line."

As Brunel died in 1859 and work on the Severn Tunnel did not begin until 1873, I suggest that this paragraph should be re-written. I am no computer genius nor am I really a railway expert so I leave you chaps to consider what I have pointed out and to act as you think best.

All the best, Nick Flowers.

109.205.157.145 (talk) 08:18, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

File:1457ankara.jpg

What am I?

Can anyone identify this train? It looks vaguely like a Bombardier product but I couldn't swear to that. It's running on double-track third-rail electrification and the destination appears to be "Ki--ay". Takers? Mackensen (talk) 13:35, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

See Ankara Metro#Ankara Metro Rolling Stock, so I would say that the destination is Kızılay. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:24, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
That's it, thanks! Mackensen (talk) 21:07, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata Property Proposal - Track gauge

http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Property_proposal/Unsorted#Track_gauge HSRtrack (talk) 03:00, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Are you yet another Tobias Conradi sockpuppet? Andy Dingley (talk) 08:59, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Fairfield train crash

I've started the Fairfield train crash article, but it needs putting into American English. Mjroots (talk) 20:11, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm used to writing articles in British English. Thought it was best to make a start and leave the polishing to those better qualified. Mjroots (talk) 21:07, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Return of Tobias Conradi (talk · contribs)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/HSRtrack

Help requested to supply some historical diffs Andy Dingley (talk) 10:13, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Identifying a photo

Where am I?

This one of many photos from the Documerica set. According to the metadata it's the Broadway Limited's Washington section somewhere between Harrisburg and Baltimore, and it's stopped at a station. The trouble is that the Broadway Limited didn't make any stops between the those cities (indeed, there's not much on the Port Road Branch). The picture is indistinct; my theory is that it might be Perrysville (just short of the Northeast Corridor) and they're making a crew change. I can't find anything to back that idea up though, nor can I figure out where the photographer would be standing. Anyone? Mackensen (talk) 02:55, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that looks like the wye at Perrville; the station features match up. It makes sense they'd stop there to change locomotives - the Port Road wasn't electrified. I believe that would place the photograph about on Otsego Street, facing just about due south. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 03:04, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Not quite; the Port Road was still electrified at the time. (I think they stripped it in '89 or '90 when CR discontinued electric traction...I remember seeing the freshly lifted rail of the P&T Branch in '91, but I digress.) With only 2 catenary poles in view, the photographer must be standing quite close to the west leg of the wye at Perryville, to the south of Broad St. I'm going to say the catenary pole in the foreground is the one two poles down from the signal bridge. Choess (talk) 03:25, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
For the record, it's actually "Perryville." One of the series of pics I took at that station years ago, and am still proud of. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 05:52, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Polish Railway Expedition

In case you haven't seen it, Wikimedia Polska have organised a really promising project - Railway Expedition, in cooperation with the the Polish State Railways:

Polish Railways has offered the opportunity to teach Wikipedians to navigate the railway premises, after which they will receive ID cards entitling them to enter and photograph objects normally inaccessible to the public. Polish Railways will provide us with free monthly railway tickets for all participants and special passes to legally enter and photograph rail tracks, workshops, rail yards, cargo railway stations and museums belonging to Polish Railways. Wikimedia Polska will cover the costs of accommodation and food (travel to Poland is not covered).
We are looking for people interested in this form of Wikiexpedition. We want to form 2-3 person teams, with Polish-speaking leaders and participants from other countries. We’d like to underscore the fact that you will not need to speak Polish to participate; we’re happy to help you navigate the language. (...)

They're looking for people interested to sign up at wmpl:Wikiekspedycja kolejowa 2013. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:28, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Station names being messed up again

moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (stations)#Station names being messed up again

File:BSVRR EMD FP9.jpg

I've listed File:BSVRR EMD FP9.jpg at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2013 May 25, if anyone's interested in weighing in. Mackensen (talk) 21:26, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Trans-siberian

Hi all,
There's something of a dispute over at Trans-Siberian Railway. I have not yet succeeded in luring the other person (who uses various IPs) to the talkpage. They seem keen to add lots of links to a blog page with "official prices" for trans-siberian tickets, although the blog site belongs to a small business reselling tickets. If we need to have prices in the article, we could just get them direct from RZD. I'm concerned that this repeated linking of a ticket reseller may just be a way of driving customers to their site; but maybe it's just a massive coincidence that the editor adding the links has the same name as the owner of the ticket-reselling business. What do the wise folk of WikiProject Trains think? What's the best way forward? bobrayner (talk) 21:28, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

  • No, I doubt that's any kind of coincidence, and we shouldn't have fare information regardless. Mackensen (talk) 23:22, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Indeed, we shouldn't have fare information (unless the fares are the subject of notable discussion in reliable sources about which we can write encyclopaedic content) as we are not a travel guide. The site lined would seem to fall squarely under WP:ELNO, and because of the long-term repeated addition and reversion of this, and refusal of IPs to engage in discussion I've semi-protected the article for 6 months. I hope that is sufficiently long enough for them to get the message, but I sadly would not be surprised if they come back in November and do it again, if so we can just protect the page again. Thryduulf (talk) 00:13, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

California commuter trains up for renaming

See Talk:Coaster (San Diego) for two trainlines up for renaming. -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 04:44, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

File:Haydarpasha train station istanbul - Recoloured.jpg

File:Haydarpasha train station istanbul - Recoloured.jpg has been nominated for deletion (here and on commons) -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 08:08, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Collingham Bridge.jpg

image:Collingham Bridge.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 06:32, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Gibbs-governor.jpg

image:Gibbs-governor.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 05:22, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Assistance requested on new article DYK

Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton Railway is a new article, which could use an outside look at the pending DYK nomination, Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Wilkes-Barre_and_Hazleton_Railway. The issues are whether the first proposed DYK hook accurately reflects the source, and whether the source itself, which is also used for the alternate hook, is reliable. Any assistance would be appreciated. Regards, Kablammo (talk) 14:00, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Hemolch-2.jpg

image:Hemolch-2.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 05:46, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

London Necropolis bombing.jpg

image:London Necropolis bombing.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 05:12, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Capitalisation

There is a discussion about capitalisation at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject NZR/Manual of style#Capitalisation that could do with additional input. Thryduulf (talk) 12:25, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

TheStuartDepot.jpg

image:TheStuartDepot.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 11:23, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

NOTE a much larger version of this image exists here. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 18:09, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

a question

I put a recently created article 21st Century Steam under this project a week or so ago. The article is about the recent revival of interest at N&W in running excursions pulled by steam locomotives. Can anyone suggest an appropriate infobox for the article? Gtwfan52 (talk) 05:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Interesting article. I suggest Infobox rail service, with some of the route parameters either deleted or left blank, as the service has no fixed route. Bahnfrend (talk) 13:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Meadowbank railway station, Sydney

Since this was moved from Meadowbank railway station, I'm trying to get the templates on the neighbouring stations fixed:

From Rhodes railway station: 

{{s-rail-start}}
{{s-rail|title=CityRail}}
{{s-line|system=Sydney Trains|line=Northern|previous=Meadowbank|next=Concord West}}
{{s-end}}

and from West Ryde railway station: 

{{s-rail-start}}
{{s-rail|title=Sydney Trains}}
{{s-line|system=Sydney Trains|line=Northern|previous=Denistone|next=Meadowbank}}
{{s-end}}

I've fixed the main route template at {{CityRail Stations}}, but it appears that there is a list somewhere in template space where the {{S-line}} template pulls the previous and following stations. Can anyone here help? -Niceguyedc Go Huskies! 09:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Probably {{S-line/Sydney Trains right/Northern}} or {{S-line/Sydney Trains left/Northern}}. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Those two templates give the ability to change the 'towards' links, but not the station links above them. -Niceguyedc Go Huskies! 11:58, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Try {{Sydney Trains stations}}. Test it with {{Sydney Trains stations|line=Northern|branch=|station=Meadowbank|state=}} --Redrose64 (talk) 12:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
That was it. I needed to add a line to the {{Sydney Trains stations}} for Meadowbank to get the disambiguation correct. Thanks! -Niceguyedc Go Huskies! 14:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

"Metro Light Rail"

The usage of Metro Light Rail (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is under discussion, see talk:Metro Light Rail (Phoenix) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 01:35, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

New York Subway redirects

See WP:RFD where several NYC subway redirects have come up for deletion recently -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 03:51, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

New South Wales K, V & Tangara Sets - Whats the Top Speed?

Does anyone know the top speed of these trains? I would like to complete the fleet table on NSW TrainLink but I can't seem to find the top speed of these units. I do find it quite odd that its soo hard to find, being British we know the top speed of every train in the UK! Likelife (talk) 08:19, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

New article notes question

I've got a question about the new article notes. I have a list of stations along the former Hudson Branch of the Boston and Albany Railroad, which was previously known as the Hudson and Boston Railroad. Rather than keep it in my sandbox until who knows when, I thought I'd transfer it to the New Article Notes section in case somebody wants to write an article on this. However, since the administrators want us to put it in alphabetical order, should I name it "Boston and Albany Railroad: Hudson Branch" or "Hudson and Boston Railroad?" Or even "Hudson and Berkshire Railroad?" ---------User:DanTD (talk) 13:34, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

DOT111/TC111

Can someone start an article on the DOT-111/TC-111/111-class? The type of oilcar involved in the Lac-Mégantic derailment, being featured in the news due to its vulnerabilities in a derailment. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 08:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Uncontrolled train (or runaway train disaster) also needs an article. There is a category, category:runaway train disasters, but runaway train just redirects to a song title, which isn't at all helpful. K7L (talk) 16:14, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
glider (train) would redirect there, I'd expect? And a link from ghost train? (being used in the news conferences to refer to being unmanned) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 01:06, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Henry h rogers bw portrait.jpg

file:Henry h rogers bw portrait.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 01:51, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Categorise accident articles by cause?

Thinking about the see also sections at Lac-Mégantic derailment and Brétigny-sur-Orge train crash has got me wondering whether it would be useful to categorise rail accident articles by their cause. Both as a way for readers to browse similar articles and for editors to easily find articles that should be in see also sections.

For example Lac-Mégantic could be in Category:Rail accidents caused by runaway trains and Category:Derailments, while Brétigny-sur-Orge could be in derailments and Category:Rail accidents caused by track failure (or possibly subcategory Category:Rail accidents caused by points failure). Some could be subdivided by country if wanted, but I don't expect that to be likely.

The categories used would probably need to be agreed ahead of time, particularly so we don't get duplicates caused by BE/AmE terminological differences - we should probably use neutral terms where they exist (e.g. Rail accidents not Railway or Railroad accidents) and agree to use either BE or AmE for the entire category tree where they don't. Thryduulf (talk) 08:28, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

But is a runaway the cause, or the effect? In the case of Lac-Mégantic, yes, it was a runaway train - but that wasn't the cause. The cause is yet to be established - it may have been some fault in the train's braking; an error made by the train crew; or some local kid fiddling with the controls - but whichever it was, the runaway was the effect of that occurrence. Perhaps Category:Rail accidents involving runaway trains would be better. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:16, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes that's a good point. It would allow categorisation by other notable features even if it wasn't the cause - e.g. I suppose head on collisions are worthy of note but are not the cause of an accident. Thryduulf (talk) 09:25, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
A similar system of categorisation already exists for airliner accidents and incidents. See the subcategories in Category:Accidents and incidents involving airliners. Note that some of the categories are "Airliner accidents and incidents caused by ..." and others are "Airliner accidents and incidents involving ...". Note also that some of these categories could be adapted for use for rail accidents, eg Category:Airliner accidents and incidents caused by mechanical failure‎ could be adapted to "Category:Rail accidents caused by mechanical failure" and Category:Airliner accidents and incidents with an unknown cause‎ could be adapted to "Category:Rail accidents with an unknown cause‎". If such categorisation is to be introduced, it might also be an opportune time to rename existing "Category:Railway accidents ..." categories as "Category:Rail accidents ...". Bahnfrend (talk) 10:32, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I've come up with an initial proposal to start the discussion about which categories we should have. It needs work still, including agreement about names - I've listed topics rather than category names. Many have examples, but where they don't it just means I couldn't think of any off the top of my head and I've run out of time to continue looking through the lists of accidents articles. I might have missed some topics, and others may not have enough to fill a category, but everything is up for discussion. It's a bit detailed for here, so I'm placing it at Category talk:Railway accidents by type (which currently has four inconsistently named sub categories for fires, fog, runaway trains and level crossings). Thryduulf (talk) 09:11, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

If there are no more comments on this, I'll assume my proposed structure is acceptable and detail the individual category names in a day or so. Thryduulf (talk) 07:24, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
One other; Will they be mandatory? ---------User:DanTD (talk) 12:24, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't understand the question. If you mean will it be mandatory to categorise e.g. an accident caused by/significantly involving fog as such, then it wont be mandatory as such but it would rather defeat the point of the category (which is to enable readers to find similar accidents). If there is no suitable category then I don't intend to shoehorn it into one, but I can't promise nobody else will of course. If you disagree with a categorisation then like any other category it can and should be discussed. Thryduulf (talk) 12:53, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I meant will it be mandatory to categorize and accident by cause, and you answered me, so thanks. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 15:58, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

T. H. Myres - railway architect

The current issue of the Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society newsletter includes an article about Thomas Harrison Myres who designed several of the stations on the Bluebell Railway, including Sheffield Park, Horsted Keynes and Kingscote and also several on the Chichester to Midhurst line, such as Lavant, Singleton and Cocking. It says that the goods shed at Singleton has recently been listed as Grade II. He is not mentioned anywhere on Wikipedia nor can I find any reference to him on the Bluebell Railway website. This is the same person. Does anyone know any more about him? -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 14:21, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I have found this item on You Tube. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 14:25, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
I have now found details of the listing of the Singleton goods shed - see here. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 15:55, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Naming of accident articles

I noticed that many recent articles about railway accidents omit the year and the country in their title. For example wouldn't it make more sense to name Lac-Mégantic derailment

2013 Lac-Mégantic,Canada, derailment? XOttawahitech (talk) 15:45, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I thought we only added the disambiguation when needed, surely there's only one Lac-Mégantic derailment? What advantage is there in adding the year to the article, or disambiguating the place? This is also a minefield as the town's article is at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. Edgepedia (talk) 16:04, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
The current guidance is at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events)#Train wreck Edgepedia (talk) 16:10, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
Not directly related to the above derailment but, as I read it, the above convention means that Purley station rail crash should in fact be at Purley rail crash as the crash did not take place in the station but to the north of it? Lamberhurst (talk) 18:47, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
I haven't got time now, but I really think we need to change that convention away from "train wreck" which is a very American term and as such is not really appropriate for anything outside North America. From my British perspective it also sounds incredibly sensational whereas something like "collision" or even "crash" does not. In almost almost no cases should "place, country" be needed - indeed unless the name of the place is commonly disambiguated that way then I can't see it ever being best, e.g. we'd use "London, Ontario" if needed. As for the year, unless it is ambiguous without it then I don't see why we should include it? Regarding Purley, go with the sources. Thryduulf (talk) 19:35, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
I think collision, derailment or fire would cover most cases. Edgepedia (talk) 17:05, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

New Milton picture in article British Rail Class 432

My local knowledge of New Milton station tells me that as the bridge is at the east end the train shown is, if not moving wrong line, travelling toward Bournemouth not London. This in turn means that the country end cab is probably a 4-TC and does not illustrate subject of the article at all. Should it stay there? Britmax (talk) 08:50, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

The formation of Bournemouth line trains was (technically) flexible, in that the 4-REP could be at the front, back or in the middle. However, in this picture, the unit facing the camera has a number which has 3 digits beginning 4, so is therefore a 4-TC (of the other original Bournenouth line stock, 3-TC would be 3 digits beginning 3; 4-REP 4 digits beginning 3; 4-VEP 4 digits beginning 7). --Redrose64 (talk) 16:58, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

AfC submission

I don't think this is notable as it stands. Is it? Cheers, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:10, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

I find an ITN clip, and there are surely newspaper articles ... however the article has copyvio from one of its cited sources and the book is self-published. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:23, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Hyphenation of "narrow gauge", "standard gauge" etc. when used as a compound modifier

Most instances of "narrow gauge railway" and the like in WP articles are unhyphenated. I don't know why this is the case. Standard rules of hyphenation call for a hyphen in this case. Consider "a two-foot-gauge railway"; it would look pretty stupid as "a two-foot gauge railway". Would that be a gauge railway (whatever that is) that is two feet long? If "two-foot-gauge" needs a hyphen before "gauge", shouldn't other gauges be handled the same way? I'm only talking about cases where "xxx-gauge" modifies a noun, not cases like "Brunel chose a broad gauge". Chris the speller yack 21:52, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

A two foot gauge railway (ignoring all hyphens) is not two foot long: what would be the point of two foot long railway? "Two foot" is a measure of the separation of the rails which form that track. (Note, there is another measure that relates to the separation distance of adjacent tracks). So, in this case "gauge" is referring to the "width" of the track expressed in units of rail separation (either in feet and inches, or metric units of mm). For historical reasons, "standard gauge" often means a track gauge of four foot eight and a half inches (but now expressed as a metric unit), in contrast "narrow gauge" or "broad gauge" are often just a comparison, i.e. a two foot gauge railway is considered to be just one example of a "narrow gauge" line, since it is narrower than four foot eight and a half inches. The opposite applies to "broad gauge". Pyrotec (talk) 22:45, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
You are telling me a lot of things I already know. Your comments also tend to confirm what I suspected, that some of the editors on the Trains project know a lot about trains and tracks, but not much about punctuation. It takes both kinds of knowledge to produce a professional-looking encyclopedia. The purpose of hyphenating a compound modifier is so the reader doesn't have to stop and figure out whether "narrow" modifies "gauge" or "railway". Train fanatics know, but Wikipedia is for general readers, not just for railroad buffs. It should use clear language and standard spelling and punctuation. I am trying to clarify whether there is a compelling reason for Wikipedia not to use standard punctuation in this case. Chris the speller yack 00:16, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
I would have thought that the compelling reason is well established usage - by longstanding convention, the expression "narrow gauge", whether used in combination with "railway" or "railroad" or not, is simply not hyphenated, as can be confirmed by a google search, or by a visit to any library of books about rail transport. For example, the Narrow Gauge Railway Society ("Serving the Narrow Gauge World since 1951") does not hyphenate its name. Bahnfrend (talk) 00:59, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Then we should remove the hyphen where we see "narrow-gauge", "broad-gauge", and so on? Chris the speller yack 03:54, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Bahnfrend implies that this term is never hyphenated, but that is incorrect. The organization he mentions as an example is British (and he is Australian). In American English, some writers hyphenate these and some do not (it seems to be a matter of preference), but the hyphenless form is probably more common, or at least appears to have become more common in recent decades. Google search results are distorted by FUTON bias. I have several (U.S.-published) books and magazines in my collection that write "standard-gauge" and "meter-gauge" (that's how we spell metre in American English!), etc., when used as an adjective. The treatment should be consistent within each individual article, but I would object if someone proposed setting up a bot to remove all the hyphens, particularly in articles concerning U.S. topics. SJ Morg (talk) 12:14, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm still not sure precisely what point Chris the speller is trying to make. I also find this lexical analysis (that's what I assume it is) somewhat contrived. It's main purpose seems to be an attempt to make one party look "smart" and the other side not "smart", but perhaps that was not the intention. A narrow gauge railway has a (so called), narrow gauge but it is also physically narrower than a (so called) broad gauge railway. The wikipedia article most often has a link to narrow gauge, etc, so the term can be looked up. I'm not too convinced that further analysis of this phrase is needed. However, to make the point: I know what a gauge (in general) is: it is a "thing" that measures and/or displays a measurement. I can go to my dictionary and it will make those very points in the manner of a dictionary. It also informs me that the origin of the word "gauge" is Old English, from Old French. On that basis I can make an educated guess that it is a railway with a narrow gauge not a gauge railway that is narrow. However, if it was the latter, then what is a gauge railway? Furthermore, a two-foot-qauge-railway looks odd to me. My preference is to have no hyphens. At one time I bought "six inch nails" (not six nails that were one inch long), now I have to buy 150 mm nails (not 150 nails that were one mm long). I also know perhaps intuitively that the "measurement" refers to the length of the nails, not the width. I accept potentially there is uncertainty, but in many cases it can be determined by context or by specific specification. For instance, If I was rich I might a 46" TV and that measurement refers to a diagonal measure of the screen, not the length or width, its defined in the technical specification for the TV. As an aside: SJ Morg makes the point that "meter-gauge is used in the USA, since that is they way they spell metre, well yes but I was also under the impression that the USA used "gage" instead of gauge. We accept English variants, so we don't worry about this (well sometimes we edit war when they are changed). Pyrotec (talk) 13:34, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
SJ Morg and Pyrotec have beaten me to it. I was going to reply to Chris the Speller's most recent post by saying that I would suggest removal of hyphens, but would also suggest that we wait for some further feedback first. In response to SJ Morg, I agree that I am more familiar with British and Australian English. I personally had never seen the expression "narrow gauge" hyphenated before I read Chris the Speller's first post, but if the expression is sometimes hyphenated by American authors, then I agree with SJ Morg that existing articles, at least about US topics, should be left as they are, on the basis that both forms are acceptable. More generally, my observation about hyphenation and other, similar, forms of punctuation, is that authors tend to use it less often now than in previous decades, at least here in Australia. So, for example, whereas Australian newspapers used to use the form "Foo-street", they now use "Foo Street" instead. Finally, in response to Pyrotech, I think the point Chris the Speller is making is technically correct, but as we all know, standard technical rules of punctuation are not always followed, particularly by those who are not well aware of those rules, and their purpose. Bahnfrend (talk) 13:53, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
The RCTS, one of the more reliable railway publishers, consistently uses the unhyphenated form in books such as
  • Reed, P.J.T. (1953). White, D.E. (ed.). The Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, part two: Broad Gauge. Kenilworth: RCTS. ISBN 0-901115-32-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
and others in this 14-volume series. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:49, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
First, this discussion is not about terminology. As Chris the Speller indicated in the heading and in a later post, this discussion is intended only to be about hyphenation when those gauge-related terms are used as compound modifiers (a.k.a. compound adjectives). When those two-word terms are not being used as an adjective, everyone agrees that no hyphen is called for. Second, the RCTC (the Railway Correspondence and Travel Society; I had to click on the link to find out) is another British example. I just now checked 10 U.S.-published books in my collection (requiring visual scanning of the text to try to find any examples of use of one of these gauge terms as a compound adjective; took me about an hour), and almost all of them hyphenated in these cases. I also scanned (with my eyes) a few issues of the two largest-circulation railroad magazines in the U.S., Trains and Railfan & Railroad, and found almost no examples (of use of one of these terms as a compound adjective), making it impossible to determine whether they hyphenate or not, but on its website, Trains magazine's Glossary of railroading terms does hyphenate when using "narrow gauge" as an adjective: "Some 3-foot-gauge track remains ...". And I found that the smaller-circulation Passenger Train Journal also hyphenates in these cases. It seems clear that there is a significant difference between U.S. practice and non-U.S. practice, which is not surprising to me, because as an American who reads a lot of British magazines, I have long been aware of the fact that British English (and presumably Australian, but not Canadian) generally uses far less punctuation than American English does. The reason I mentioned FUTON bias before is that, the average quality of the grammar one finds on the Internet (and thereby in most Google searches) is much lower than what one finds in writing by professionals or semi-professionals, in books and magazines. As far as I can tell, professional writers using American English still tend to hyphenate these compound modifiers more often than not. As for other versions of English, I don't know. In view of the apparent absence of consistent practice among the different versions of English, it would be unwise for the Trains WikiProject to impose one or the other of the two hyphenation practices. SJ Morg (talk) 04:25, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

AfC submission

You might be interested in this submission. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 18:22, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Feel free to review the article yourself. We need experienced reviewers. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:56, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

AfC submission

Another one for you guys and gals: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/DOT-112 Tank Car. Cheers, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:55, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

It's a little thin at the moment (and needs to be decapitalised), but given the size of the DOT-111 tank car article it seems possible that this is sufficiently notable. I don't know enough about North American railways to be sure though. Thryduulf (talk) 07:23, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Union Pacific 4014

With the announcement of the planned return (albeit distant return) of the 4-8-8-4 class locomotive #4014 I figured to get a head start on the page here. I did what I could to make the page accurate, but the information - especially in the table - could use a better trained eye than mine to address the issues. Also, as a new article, there is a chance for a dyk hook here if anyone cares to follow through with it. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:26, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

New articles about narrow gauge railways

An editor has recently been creating a large number of individual articles about narrow gauge railways in most countries in Europe. An example of these articles is Narrow gauge railways in Norway. It seems that the editor has been forking most of the new articles from the existing article narrow gauge railways. Any editor who takes this type of initiative has my support. However, most of the new narrow gauge articles are either unreferenced or only sparingly referenced. It would be therefore be very helpful if any project members who are able to add references to these new articles could do so now, before another editor proposes that they all be deleted due to insufficient referencing. Bahnfrend (talk) 14:38, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Narrow gauge categorization

Should Narrow gauge railways in Wales list narrow gauge railways in Wales?

See Category talk:Narrow gauge railways in Wales

Andy Dingley (talk) 11:58, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Infobox rail service: "Start" and "End" vs. "Termini"

I notice that the template for the rail service infobox has the parameters "start" and "end", but it seems to me that it would be more correct to have parameters for termini, such as "western terminus" and "eastern terminus". "Start" and "end" suggest that the train always starts at the "start" and ends at the "end" and does not operate in the reverse direction. Is it therefore possible to add more parameters to this infobox? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mosamiazaz (talk • contribs)

I think I agree about "Start" and "End" but I don't think "western terminus" etc are the right answer. Not all services run clearly east-west or north-south - for example, the London Underground Jubilee line has a northern terminus and an eastern terminus based on the official descriptions of the service as north/south between Stanmore and Westminster and east/west between Westminster and Stratford. I wonder if "terminus1" and "terminus2" would be better? Thryduulf (talk) 10:52, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's all that big a problem. The infobox supports the article; the article ought to make it pretty clear whether the train only operates in one direction or makes the reverse trip. There was an ambiguous termini parameter in the old {{Infobox Amtrak}} (now deleted) and its open-endedness encourage long lists of important stations on the route. I think the status quo works. Mackensen (talk) 12:44, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
I disagree. Someone should be able to read only the infobox and come to the same conclusion by reading article. If someone reads the infobox now, they may rightly come to the conclusion that the various trains have a starting point and a stopping point and do not run in the opposite direction.(talk) 16:29, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I've opened a discussion at Template talk:Infobox rail service. P.S., you can sign your posts with four tildas (~~~~). Best, Mackensen (talk) 16:52, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Move discussions

It has been proposed that South Station and North Station be renamed. Please see the appropriate talk pages for discussion. Mackensen (talk) 11:10, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Railway halls of fame

Category:Railway halls of fame has been proposed to be renamed, see WP:CFDS -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 04:56, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Reference question

Coming here because presumably you're more familiar with rail details than the average Reference Desk regular would be.

This page shows the Bardwell Illinois Central Railroad Station; because it's definitely PD-US (postcard mailed 1910) and because the depot no longer exists, I've uploaded a copy of the image as File:Bardwell Illinois Central station postcard.png. Two questions related to the image:

  1. Is there any way to identify the locomotive type?
  2. What do you call the guy with the white hat, standing with the cart between the tracks in the middle of the image? Is he the stationmaster?

Please be sure to look at the source website; the image I uploaded is much lower resolution because you can't download high-resolution images except in PDF. Nyttend (talk) 01:35, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

An expert on U.S. steam locos (not me!) may be able to identify the locomotive class.
The guy in the white hat won't be the stationmaster - that's too important a post to be moving goods around. He will either be a lower-ranked member of the station staff - such as a porter - with the task of loading those crates onto the train; or he may be a private trader who is delivering the crates to the station for loading. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:18, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Multi RM

As discussed by among others User:Wheeltapper and User:Bahnfrend at Talk:Central station, the multi-RM for 121 stations is at Talk:Kaiserslautern Central Station. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:18, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

German/Austrian station naming

There has been an issue raging for some time over the naming of German and Austrian central or main stations aka Hauptbahnhöfe. Essentially the debate is over whether we use the English name "Foo Central Station" or leave the article title in German i.e. Foo Hauptbahnhof. The truth is there are arguments both ways, but the debate has polarized opinion and is leading to inconsistency as we change titles based on our own perspectives. I will try to summarize the essentials in an objective a way as possible:

  • Many English sources use Foo Hauptbahnhof alone
  • Many English sources use Foo Hauptbahnhof and an English translation – either may be in brackets
  • Many English sources use "Foo Central Station".
  • Quite a number of English sources use "Foo Main Station", for certain stations this is even the most common name used.
  • The national railways of Germany and Austria use "Foo Central Station" and Foo Hauptbahnhof (and sometimes both) in English publications and web pages
  • Depending on which side of the debate editors lie, "Foo central station" and "Foo main station" may or may not be counted. Those "against" argue these are descriptive, those "for" argue they are proper names.
  • Leading and specialist dictionaries recognise that Hauptbahnhof can mean "central station" or "main station". Some editors vehemently oppose the former term (see Talk:Central station).
  • There is confusion because "central station" could mean geographically central to the city or operationally central to the railway network.
  • In reality the most common name in English sources varies from station to station. It may be Foo Hauptbahnhof "Foo Central Station" or "Foo Main Station".
  • For some stations there are few English sources.
  • For others, especially the big stations, there are thousands of online English sources.
  • There have been at least 4 heated discussions on talk pages to change names. Of these 3 have supported "Foo Central Station" (Nuremberg, Leipzig and Berlin I).
  • Following the latest debate, Berlin Central Station was moved to Berlin Hauptbahnhof. There is a proposal to do a mass move back to Foo Hauptbahnhof, possibly following a short RM discussion based on the top few.
  • Meanwhile sporadic moves continue.
  • Current Wiki practice for ordinary stations is to translate Bahnhof Foo as "Foo station" or "Foo railway station"

I’m not aiming to spark yet another argument over the merits of the different names or to debate the above, which is only intended to indicate the complexities and the need to do some research before forming an opinion. I am really seeking views on the best way forward.

The whole subject is crying out for a proper review of English-language sources. I feel that is best led by this project, with the support of WP:WikiProject Germany and WP:WikiProject Austria. It may also make sense to avoid wasting everyone’s time, that no more moves take place until this is sorted out. Ultimately I don’t mind which way this goes as long as it is based on sources not POV, that there is some consistency amongst articles and that article text recognizes all significant usage, both English and German usage. Bermicourt (talk) 19:51, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Moved to Talk:Central station § Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains
 – Redrose64 (talk) 14:49, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Extended content
Avoid posting the same thread in multiple forums. This fragments discussion of the idea. Instead, start the discussion in one location, and, if needed, advertise that in other locations using a link. If you find a fragmented discussion, it may be desirable to move all posts to one location, and linking to it. Make sure you state clearly in edit summaries and on talk pages what you have done and why.
Does anybody object if I follow that advice and move all of this to Talk:Central station leaving a single sentence here which points to that page? --Redrose64 (talk) 12:20, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
The idea was to alert the 3 lead projects, not to divert the discussion here. By all means move the previous two entries which get into the debate I was trying to avoid here, but the opening entry was intended to set the scene and invite views on the way ahead and participation in future discussions and should not IMHO be moved. Bermicourt (talk) 13:23, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 Moved --Redrose64 (talk) 14:49, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Typical naming of rail lines

Hi, I've recently had a discussion regarding the typical naming of rail lines at User talk:Doremo#Rail lines in Slovenia. Perhaps the members of the project would wish to read it and copy it here. --Eleassar my talk 10:02, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Punctuality

Existing articles about British railways concentrate very much on routes and trains, cover much else, but Punctuality of the passenger service is almost always omitted. It would be useful if punctuality figures and methods of achieving punctuality were included in most of these articles (or have its own article). Perhaps the embryonic railways often had poor punctuality owing to poor track and unreliable rolling stock. Perhaps this improved to perhaps the best punctuality in the 190Xs, 1910s or 1920s? Then deteriorated with the world wars, government control, and nationalisation? It would be nice to know. FreeFlow99 (talk) 10:31, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

It's probably a matter of personal bias by the historians. It's easy to find information about where and why lines were built, the difficulties of construction, opening ceremonies, takeovers and closures - but whilst the historians often give a sample timetable from the first year of operation, there is then a conspicuous lack of the day-to-day operation, which suggests that if nothing of note happened, they didn't note it. In accounts of accidents (which do get noted by the historians, sometimes with overmuch detail - such is the public appetite for sensationalism), you may find that the cause of a rear-end collision was the late running of the train whose tail was hit. For example, in Red for Danger (pp. 48–49)

While the glittering 'Lord of the Isles' was speeding westwards from Paddington the 9.27 mixed train for Banbury left Didcot thirteen minutes late. In the two years that it had been running this shocking train had never once been known to run to time and this morning was no exception. ... [it] trundled on to Aynho where it arrived thirty-eight minutes late. ... The guard of the 'mixed' was unloading cheeses from the van and the station staff at Aynho were preparing to unhitch a couple of wagons from the rear when upon this pleasant and leisurely rural scene there burst in swift and awful majesty the 'Lord of the Isles' running at over fifty miles an hour.

At the other end of the scale we have locomotive historians (particularly Cecil J. Allen and O.S. Nock) who gush about such-a-locomotive arriving at the destination six minutes early despite having been five minutes late 100 miles back. They produce tables with rows for stations, junctions and other points along the route and columns for distances, times, speeds, even the settings of the controls; from these they analyse locomotive power output, fuel consumption and various other measures of "performance" - yet never once describe a normal run against which the exceptional run may be judged. It is the normal, the everyday, the humdrum and boring proceedings that are ignored. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:38, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

GAR

Good article reassessment for Maglev

Maglev has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 20:57, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Buangor6.jpg

image:Buangor6.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:41, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Light rail in the United States by political division

Does anybody want to fill in all the redlinks in the Light rail in the United States by political division navbox? I can think of a few states that can be added to that. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 12:29, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Which navbox are you referring to? The one listing light rail systems in the United States (Template:USLightRail) has no redlinks, while the other one is autogenerated by the Template:North America topic template, and automatically looks for articles of the pattern "Light rail in xxxx". As "light rail" is a typically local North American term, it isn't surprising that the only such articles are Light rail in the United States and Light rail in Canada. It does not, and should not, contain subnational units like states and provinces. That's not what that navbox is for. The appropriate navbox for that is the Template:USLightRail one that already contains links to every active system in the country. oknazevad (talk) 15:59, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
Check out one of the ones used in the Light rail in New Jersey article. It also has links to Minnesota and Washington DC. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 16:57, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
I see it now. Honestly don't know if we need that. Seems pretty redundant to the Template:USLightRail one. The article linked for DC is DC Streetcar, for example, which clearly belongs on the other template. Honestly, light rail by its nature is a city/metro-area thing, not a state level topic, for the most part, even if its a state agency that oversees a system, like in Baltimore. oknazevad (talk) 17:23, 22 August 2013 (UTC) Addendum: Two of the only three active links in the navbox are redirects, which are to be avoided in navboxes. I am further convinced that the navbox shouldn't be used at all. oknazevad (talk) 17:37, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
Okay, so I'll just add (Template:USLightRail) to the New Jersey article as a replacement, and maybe convert the state into a link. I don't know who made that other link though, because I can't find the history on it. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 18:22, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

India rail budget articles

The following new articles are copy pasted from India government documents. I'm not sure if the content is in the public domain. "...Although Government (India) works are copyrighted, the reproduction or publication of following works not copy protected...Report of a committee, commission, council, board or other like body appointed by the Government...". I also don't know if the articles themselves are appropriate.

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:41, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Maybe best to centralize discussion here. The post at project India says basically content from www.indianrailways.gov.in are all right reserved. I'll check with the copyvio people at the appropriate page and see if I can get some fast answers at IRC. If they're copyvio, I'll just delete the lot as G12 unambiguous copyright violation. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:00, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

If they are to be kept, those articles definitely need slimming down and wikifying - at the moment they're just huge slabs of unreadable historical detail which provides little benefit for readers. As-is, wikisource might be a better place for them. But first, we need to answer the copyright question. bobrayner (talk) 12:08, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
All deleted as copyvios. Sources will be posted at User talk:Praveenkumarchrg in case somebody wants to add them to an article or Wikisource. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:39, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Station info needed

I need info on three railroad stations; 1)Berea Union Depot(How many railroads used it, and any other details), 2)Athens B & O Train Depot(When was it made), and 3)Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Depot (Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin)(Correct closing date, and any other details). Anything would be helpful. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 04:46, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I did the Fond Du Lac C&NW Station anyway. I still need info on it. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 05:24, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Beech Creek Railroad

I've stumbled across Beech Creek Railroad and frankly the article's a mess. I can't even tell if this the proper name of a subsidiary or the colloquial name for a branch. The article probably ought to be stubbed and rewritten once we figure out what the topic actually is. Eyeballs appreciated. Mackensen (talk) 12:38, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

It seems like a branch or a subsidiary, or something like that, but yes it's a disaster. I just started to try to fix the references, but I don't know how much else I can do. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 13:12, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
It appears to be this, which ran a few miles north of I-80 near State College. Watchlisted and I'll try to remember to take a hack later. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 13:36, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I fail to see why this has a separate article, when the stretch is only a part of the Middlesbrough to Whitby line. Unless it had a historic separate existence, and maybe even if it had, I would suggest AfD for this article. Britmax (talk) 18:16, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

True. Britmax (talk) 19:00, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
In fact, the AfD people complain if you propose merges there. Back to the original q: I don't recall the details, I'll need to dig about in Tomlinson:
but IIRC at the time that this short line was built, the Stockton & Darlington Railway had not yet amalgamated with the North Eastern Railway, and this line linked the two at a strategic point. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:40, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
It's not really notable enough in its own right to sustain an article; I would suggest merging it. bobrayner (talk) 14:50, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Seems that I wrote this which is directly relevant. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:54, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

{{Mississippi Tennessee Railroad}}

Template:Mississippi Tennessee Railroad (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.244.158 (talk) 07:25, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Nominated because it was unused, this diagram has now been renamed and placed in the article about the renamed railway. As such the nomination should be withdrawn. Britmax (talk) 10:44, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Could someone please take a look at some of these? I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with them. It's just that when I see mass production, it's often good to check to see that they are started with the right components and conventions in order to save later work. Cheers, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:43, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I've had a quick look at some of them. They seem okay to me. They appear to be written in Indian English, which is appropriate for articles about Indian railway infrastructure. I would have used endashes instead of hyphens in the names of the articles about the "sections", but other than that, I can't see any obvious issues with the articles. Bahnfrend (talk) 01:10, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
That's great to hear. He's not very communicative and has had issues in the past, but seems to be creating product, so I'm pleased to see him continue. Many thanks for the feedback. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:20, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

RijnGouweLijn

Could someone take a look at RijnGouweLijn. This was translated from Dutch by a non-native English speaker three years ago, using automatic translation. While appreciating that effort, the article really needs a complete rewrite into natural English by a native speaker, and a considerable amount of duplication needs eliminating. Skinsmoke (talk) 23:35, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Planned Article: Queens Super Express Bypass

I'm currently trying to find information on the Queens Super Express Bypass line of the New York Subway proposed in the 1960's, so that I can create an explanatory article. So far all I've managed to turn up are a few forum posts with gives me the following information the single track line was to run between the 21st Street – Queensbridge Station and the Forest Hills – 71st Avenue Station, the line would have been partially in tunnel and partially on the surface with no intermediate stops.

What I am lacking is:

  1. Citeable documents, newspaper articles, planning reports, etc
  2. A clear understanding of how the line was to be used in the NYC Subway network.

If anyone is willing to join in and help, I would be very happy.Graham1973 (talk) 02:12, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Although many editors follow both, this seems like a better question for the specific New York City public transportation wikiproject.oknazevad (talk) 02:26, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
There is a link on my user page to the California Digital Newspaper Collection. Might be worth a try searching there. Mjroots (talk) 19:35, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
It's not that notable and besides, it would be better classified under the article IND Second System, which talks about that. As you can see, the New York subway has a separate page devoted to failed construction.
The Bypass is part of the IND 63rd Street Line—Second Avenue Line project, so consider including a section about the Bypass in the articles. This and this are all I was able to find. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 23:15, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Comparison of train and tram tracks

The article Comparison of train and tram tracks is badly in need of a review by a civil engineer or mechanical engineer or both. Peter Horn User talk 16:00, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

It's also in need of the combination of those four tags into one. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 21:51, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
Oh, if only all fixes were that easy. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:17, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Metro Line

{{Metro Line}} has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.244.158 (talk) 06:53, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Help with routemap template for TAZARA?

I just created a Template:TAZARA for the TAZARA Railway. Could someone who understands these things better than I do please look it over and tell me if anything should be changed? Thanks. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 23:19, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

It's good to see someone creating content about an African rail topic. I've deleted a superfluous line. My only other comment is that it might be better to turn the whole map upside down, and show it as a Dar-es-Salaam to Kapiri Mposhi map, in keeping with the general convention that maps show north at the top and south at the bottom (and that's also the way the line is described in the TAZARA Railway article). Bahnfrend (talk) 13:35, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Bahnfrend. I think your suggetion to invert it makes sense. I'll do that now. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 14:50, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I have information and photos of restored running 12T and under Plymouth Locomotives - But I have no idea how to help

Greetings! New here, clueless. I was on the Plymouth Locomotive Works page, looked under "talk", noticed that photos were needed, information was requested. I have 4 running Plymouth Locomotives, one from 1929-ish (on live rail no less - yah I know - crazy. I want to help, don't know how? Someone point me in a direction? Thanks! ThisIsMary (talk) 12:47, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello Mary, and welcome. :) If you own the images and would like to add them, you can upload them here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard
Then, you can add them to the article. Very best wishes, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:54, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
To add them to the article after uploading, see Help:Image tutorial. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:11, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Firefly train.jpg

image:Firefly train.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.249.39 (talk) 08:19, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I've changed the tag to a {{now commons}}, as the same image is there under the same name, with source infomation. Edgepedia (talk) 10:11, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

"The Loop"

The usage of The Loop (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is up for discussion, see Talk:Chicago Loop -- 70.24.249.39 (talk) 03:55, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Dispute at Jaipur Duronto Express

Hello everyone. I really need a favour. Two editors at Jaipur Duronto Express disagree on practically everything.

Bugging Wikipedia:Dispute resolution doesn't seem like the best way. There are too many points, the discussion is too long, and they need to know about train articles.

So, I have a creative solution. I need an editor who meets these criteria:

  • Has five minutes to spare
  • Knows train articles

Could you please spend a mere 5 minutes on the article? Remove, add, modify, whatever you see fit.

It just needs a neutral editor to create a stable version. Then, they can work on changes bit by bit using the WP:BRD cycle.

I would be very grateful for any help on this one. Thank you, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 18:11, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Loop (train)

The name for the article Loop (train) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is under discussion, see Talk:Loop (train) -- 70.24.249.39 (talk) 00:04, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Land speed record for rail vehicles

It will be great if project members can comment on the current proposal here Talk:Land speed record for rail vehicles#A couple of readability problems to restructure that page to bring it up to Wikipedia standard. Your comments are appreciated. Z22 (talk) 22:34, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Template:Seetal railway line

{{Seetal railway line‎}} has been nominated for deletion. Useddenim (talk) 04:21, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Rail start

Template:Rail start has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Redrose64 (talk) 10:54, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Milwaukee Road Depot (Tacoma, Washington)

The article says the building is 400 square feet. Unless it's only about ten feet deep, it's a lot bigger than that based on the included picture. Could it be 4,000 square feet? 184.34.24.104 (talk) 21:49, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Start Date and Age Template Problems

In case anyone was not aware, the "Start Date and Age" template has changed its format. Dates must now be typed in this way: {{Start date and age|yyyy|mm|dd}} to display formatted as: March 25, 2010; 14 years ago (2010-03-25) Mysteryman557 (talk) 03:28, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

How is that different? It's been documented like that for years. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:07, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
For the New York City Subway and some others, we used to write it like "March 25, 1904." Now were are getting error messages. Mysteryman557 (talk) 13:45, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
I've been through every revision of the doc page right back to the original version. It has never suggested that {{start date and age|March 25, 1904}} was a valid form - it has always shown {{start date and age|1904|03|25}} or similar. If putting a full date into a parameter that was intended for a bare year has worked at some point in the past, it seems like you were exploiting a bug or other undocumented feature. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:25, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Regardless of how it was set up, there has been a sudden outbreak of error message on these templates. I've fixed some of them, and it's a task that has proven to be time consuming, but not difficult. Most dates have been arranged in the manner that Mysteryman557 has described, and they've had no problems until the past week. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 14:49, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Then perhaps it could be mentioned at Template talk:start date and age? I doubt that the people who maintain that template are regular watchers of this page. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:14, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Merge proposal: dome lounge into dome car

Following its use as a feature in Portal:Trains/Did you know earlier this month, the proposal has been made to merge dome lounge into dome car. Interested editors are asked to please join the discussion. Slambo (Speak) 15:16, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor

Hi, there is a problem with VisualEditor and some railway line templates. Perhaps someone more familiar with these templates can help at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback#Railway templates consuming entire page width. Thank you! --John Vandenberg (chat) 07:42, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Relevance of RDTs

I am having problems with an editor who feels that RDTs are simply a Navbox or a list of stations, and can replaced with a table and a .png map. Anyone who has an opinion on this should add their comments to Wikipedia talk:Route diagram template#Purpose and scope. Useddenim (talk) 19:31, 1 October 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.205.48.136 (talk)

National Railway Museum, York - editathon 19th October

Hi, we have an editathon, backstage pass and tripods allowed photography session at the National Railway museum in York on the 19th October. We still have some spaces available, and for people who don't fancy coming to York, we are happy to take requests for photographs to be taken on the day. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 14:11, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Change to WP:TWP template

I've proposed a change to {{WikiProject Trains}} which will affect how image requests pertaining to this project are categorized. Please see Template talk:WikiProject Trains#name of image request categories for discussion. Thanks, Mackensen (talk) 02:12, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Lists of rail accidents

Template:Lists of rail accidents has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Set theorist (talk) 02:54, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

ShareMap - Wikimedia grant - community feedback needed

Hello members of WikiProject Trains ShareMap is a collaborative map creation tool. It is currently applying for Wikimedia grant to continue project development. One of of ShareMap principles is to provide tool for create train railway on free licenses (both both existing and rail dismantled systems) that can be easily reused.

Currently there are a lot train maps:

Also this maps are often used at Wikipedia - just take a look to some Amtrak routes articles (ie. w:California Zephyr) or some coutry rail system maps (ie. w:Egyptian National Railways)

Here is video screen cast how to create railways map:

One of grant results will be creation free mobile off line map viewer application for maps created by Wikimedia community, which feature can be useful for train fans during outdoor trips.

I will be very happy for endorsement, opinions or even criticism from all WikiVoyage community member on Wikimedia grant project.

meta:Grants:IEG/ShareMap#Part_3:_Community_Discussion

If you would like to learn more about ShareMap project please visit:

--Jkan997 (talk) 13:01, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Identification needed

What is the train shown here? Do we have an article on it? Mjroots (talk) 05:23, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

The accident appears to be covered at the article on the station. Yngvadottir (talk) 12:00, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
As I understand it, the question is about which train was involved. From the images available, the train looks similar to this one which is described as a Toshiba 62 EMU. Lamberhurst (talk) 14:51, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
The accident is covered at 2013 Buenos Aires train crash. I was hoping to use that source to reference the unit number and class of EMU involved. Mjroots (talk) 15:24, 21 October 2013 (UTC)


Grain haulage in Western Australia

A major component of a large project related to Rural community outreach in Australia - see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Rural_Community_Engagement is the role that grain trains have had or are still doing, in the sub project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Takes_Western_Australian_Wheatbelt_Railways_2013 - just in case anyone from other geographical areas with grain haulage might be interested. Please contact if you are interested satusuro 00:08, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Timetables - existence and convention

Should articles contain timetables? If so, can we agree on a convention for their appearance and content?

Current disputes:

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:32, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

  • I tend to think that articles should not contain timetables. We're not supposed to be a guidebook (see WP:NOTGUIDE), and current information like timing, fares, and travel policies doesn't seem encyclopedic. If this were a former service, I think a brief timetable would be appropriate in order to illustrate the nature of the service. I created something like that at Expo '74 (train). On the other hand, a raw list of station stops is fine, since that's showing the route. Mackensen (talk) 23:37, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
Yes and no I feel. I write mainly about stations, and I take the view that it is appropriate to have:
  • The next and previous stations on the line
  • Lists of services which call at the station, their frequencies and their next and previous calling points
  • Some minimal information on timings to major destinations - for instance for Nailsea and Backwell I listed the standard time to Bristol Temple Meads and to London Paddington
I do not think that actual timetables are useful or encyclopaedic, though they should probably be linked to. But timetables are by and large ephemeral beasts which change every few months by a tiny bit to no major consequence. It doesn't matter if the train runs at xx02 instead of xx00, the important thing is it's hourly. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:58, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
I write about both stations and trains, and I agree with the comments above. Some of the articles about the former TEE trains include limited timetable information, to provide the sort of illustration described by Mackensen above, eg Le Capitole (train) and Mont Cenis (train). Bahnfrend (talk) 02:22, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
Whenever I see a schedule listed on a station article, my first thought is that whoever added it put it in as filler because they don't have enough decent info on the stations. Personally, I never use them, although I understand why somebody else might(again, as filler). I try to focus on the history, the physical structure, surrounding activities and events, and what not. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 03:54, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Well i don't entirely agree with my fellow wikipedians for the following reasons :

1. Indian Railways due to the sheer number of services provided changes the time table only once a year & that too after extensive publication of what changes are due to take place in local newspapers. Each zone of Indian Railways takes care of its own area but it is easy enough to track any changes.

2. I would probably agree with User:DanTD for the stations although i feel a mention of some important trains that pass through it is a good idea but not for a train schedule. However i keep a limit on the number of stations i mention to around 10 - 15 although i have at times overshot my own limit. The reason is similar to what Dan has said. A time table should be a rough guide as to the general route a train takes, it should not be a filler & sometimes the number of halts in a train go well over a century, it is not a practical option to list every station. A user User:Adityamadhav83 has brilliantly created a map of the route a train takes on some pages. This coupled with a brief timetable magnifies the information on a page.

3. As far as Jaipur Duronto Express is concerned, the dispute is about the format of the time table not whether it should be included or not.

4. My disputes with User:Abhishek191288 have been around for a while. Ofcourse when someone cannot tell the difference between Mumbai central image & http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surat_railway_station&diff=562828261&oldid=562347791] & again on August Kranti Rajdhani Express, it is difficult for me atleast to listen to such expert opinion particularly if it has a demeaning tone. In addition, he has only 3 articles & 1 image upload to his credit while i stand at 92 (80 articles + 12 revamps) with 750 uploads.

5. He would probably be horrified to know that he has actually agreed with me on Secunderabad Mumbai Duronto Express on the fare section but we approached the issue differently. I put up a note on the talk page & likely at the editors talk page while he just went ahead & removed the fare section. I am not saying that what he did was wrong but it just's how we chose to approach the problem in different ways.

Superfast1111 (talk) 07:15, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I write mainly about railways and stations, and when I wrote Portsoy railway station I provided a summary of the timetables I had access to, showing how the service had changed over time. I did not mentioning any times, I didn't see this as significant. I can see an argument for including an outline timetable on an article to a named train that has run a fixed schedule over a period of time, but agree with Mattbuck that these can be rather ephemeral.
I think timetables are really a kind of list that can contain unnecessary detail, and some kind of summary prose would be better (See WP:PROSE). If we publish an up to date timetable we risk people using Wikipedia as a travel guide, which we are NOT (see WP:NOTGUIDE). Edgepedia (talk) 06:54, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Well for now lets agree to disagree. Let's give it some more thought although personally i would never use a site where anyone can edit anything for a travel guide. Superfast1111 (talk) 07:15, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

  • In regard to the original q: No. Wikipedia is not a railway timetable, and Wikipedia is not a travel guide. Regardless of how often a railway operator amends their timetables, as soon as we publish a timetable that is claimed to be current, we are then under obligation to keep it up to date. This is a mammoth task, and is far more easily served by omitting all timetable information providing a link to the rail operator's website instead.
Turning to the other points raised, and also going into personal opinion: an article about a railway line may describe the services that use that line - this can include their typical off-peak stopping patterns and frequencies (but not the actual times); early morning, peak-time and late evening variations are atypical and should be excluded. Articles about stations may show which services call at that station, and which stations are adjacent on those services - but again, off-peak only. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:29, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
  • How about paying a visit to Paschim Express & Golden Temple Mail ? In both cases the trains have more than 35 stops but i have listed only about 7 most important stops. And almost all the train articles i have created/revamped all are long distance trains & there is no peak/off peak frequency for them. Will that be acceptable? And do look at the superb route maps that have been added to the page. Superfast1111 (talk) 12:41, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
External links excepted, each of these two articles has just two references (both of which are for the timetable). In both cases, one of the two links is dead, the other is a primary source (and regarding that, my browser has warned me that the website is attempting to store data on my PC). Wikipedia prefers secondary sources: have any newspapers or magazines written about these services? Whether the route maps are superb or not is irrelevant to the inclusion of timetables. I notice also that both articles have sections devoted to trivia. Please remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tourist guide. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:38, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I went from don't-know-don't-care to makes-sense-I'm-on-board. I see five editors all making a very good case against timetables. Good rationale, many points, and pretty darn specific guidelines saying no timetables unless there's a very good reason. Include me on that list, so now six. I call that rough consensus. Correct me if I'm wrong. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:31, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
  • All right, lets call it a day on this one. I'll tag along for the ride though i still maintain my position. I will discontinue the timetable section in any article i create in the future. and Redrose, thanks for pointing out the problems although in all fairness i did not have the storage problem. I think historic information or history would have been a more appropriate title for the section. As far as Golden Temple Mail goes, when i revamped the article i used a bit of information that was already present there. Good day ladies & gentlemen.

Superfast1111 (talk) 05:04, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Pressure unit problem

I am working on a module intended to replace the {{convert}} series of templates. There is an inconsistency between how certain units are named, and while investigating I found an error which someone here might fix.

The inconsistency is that these units are pressure:

Unit code Symbol Name
kg/cm2 kg/cm2 kilograms per square centimetre
lb/in2 lbf/in2 pounds-force per square inch

while these units are mass per unit area (and should never be used for pressure):

Unit code Symbol Name
kg/m2 kg/m2 kilograms per square metre
lb/sqft lb/sq ft pounds per square foot

When introduced in a week or so, the module will display an error message if there is an attempt to convert between "pressure" and "mass per unit area" units, while the current template will display an incorrect output value.

The error I noticed is in Russian locomotive class Ye#Subclasses Еа, Ем, and Емв which contains the convert shown below:

  • {{convert|70|kg/m2|MPa psi|abbr=on}} → 70 kg/m2 (0.00069 MPa; 0.100 psi)

The output values are not correct. Could it be that "kg/cm2" was intended in the convert? That's a very high pressure, but it does talk about "forcing the boiler":

  • {{convert|70|kg/cm2|MPa psi|abbr=on}} → 70 kg/cm2 (6.9 MPa; 1,000 psi)

I'm hoping someone here will do whatever is needed to fix the article (replacing the convert template with manually-calculated text if necessary).

Also, is it likely that a boiler pressure would (almost) never be specified using kg/m2 or lb/sqft? The following shows how the module would display the above convert:

  • {{convert/sandboxlua|70|kg/m2|MPa psi|abbr=on}} → 70 kg/m2 (0.00069 MPa; 0.100 psi)

Johnuniq (talk) 02:07, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Since the kilogram-force is the downward force acting upon a mass of 1 kg under normal Earth gravity at sea level, if a mass of 1 kg is evenly distributed over an area of 1 m2, that area will experience a pressure of 1 kgf/m2. There should be no difference in the result of the calculation if the "wrong" unit (kg instead of kgf) is used.
But 70 kgf/m2 is awfully low for a steam locomotive. 70 kgf is approximately 690 newtons, so this pressure works out at approximately 690 pascals (0.100 lbf/in2) - consider that the earliest practical steam locomotives operated at around 40 lbf/in2 (280 kPa) and that by the 1950s, pressures of over 200 lbf/in2 (1,400 kPa) were commonplace in the UK. In the UK, and doubtless the USA, boiler pressures were invariably quoted in pounds (force) per square inch, which is variously abbreviated - I have often seen lb/sq.in. with the "f" for "force" implied rather than stated explicitly. I don't know which units the Russians used, but it was not necessarily either lbf/in2 or kilopascals: it might have been kgf/cm2; bar; or atmosphere.
It was added with this edit. It may be that there was an error in translation from Russian, and that a word actually meaning "gramme" became translated to "kg"; or that a word actually meaning "centimetre" became translated to "m". I'd stick a great big {{fact}} on the figures in question. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:29, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't begin to understand any of this, but I have found the Russian: "В ходе них выяснилось, что при форсировке котла 70 кг/м²·ч и отсечке 0,6 на скорости 31,5 км/ч сила тяги паровоза могла достигать 16 400 кгс." What is that "·ч" ("h")? Abbreviation for "x 100" "divided by 100"???? I suspect that's the key. Yngvadottir (talk) 12:16, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
@Redrose64: I have been tossing up how to handle the issue because some articles, for example, use "kg/m2" as "mass per unit area" (really meaning "mass", not "gravitational force on a mass"), and it seemed more pure to require users of {{convert}} to specify precisely what was intended. However, your above comment was the nail in the coffin for that idea, and I have changed the module as outlined here.
Perhaps someone at WT:WikiProject Russia would help work out what is needed to fix the problem mentioned above. Johnuniq (talk) 06:44, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Station naming guidelines

I noticed this discussion rather late which is of importance Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Train_stations_.26_subway_stations_and_precision. Simply south...... cooking letters for just 7 years 18:46, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

"Up" and "down"

I don't have a special interest in railways, but I am a somewhat experienced Wikipedian. Just for kicks I clicked random article tonight, and in reading about Sleights (UK) railway station I noticed two terms unfamiliar to most US readers. The use of "up" and "down" to mean respectively "towards/away from a major terminus" is common in the UK but unknown in the US. I know how puzzled I used to be when reading English mysteries; here was another mystery!

I added anchors to the relevant definitions in Wiktionary (up and down). But if this is a reasonable addition, it's reasonable to do it for all (2,520+??) UK railway (station?) articles. That would be best done by a bot and checked by editors; certainly I'm not going to take it on.

I was going to put this proposal on Portal talk:UK Railways, but there's very little activity there. I'll put a pointer there to this section after I post it here.

If you want me to participate in any discussion on this, please ping me.

--Thnidu (talk) 05:37, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Um, no. At least not for many areas that are north of the big city. And “Uptown” is almost always further away from the central core than “Downtown”. (I certainly can’t recall anyone in York/Markham/Vaughan talking about going “up” to Toronto, which is “down” by the lake…) Useddenim (talk) 18:45, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Now you are talking geographic, which is exacly what I use in the context you mention here. "Up" and "down" in this context is a place of higher importance. When MPs get elected, they are sent up to parliament, no matter what direction it is. Secondarywaltz (talk) 19:05, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
In Toronto, isn't uptown north of the city centre? My understanding is that one of the lines in the subway system there is U-shaped (I think it's the Yonge–University–Spadina line), so you would go 'uptown' in both directions on that line. Epicgenius(give him tirade • check out damage) 23:38, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
It’s also north in Manhattan. What’s your point?
@Secondarywaltz: you sidestepped the point about “Uptown”. A quick google check of several major North American cities finds that it’s often some distance north of downtown (and east in Cleveland and Albuquerque), but nonetheless away from the central core. Useddenim (talk) 00:00, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
You are talking geographic direction, and I agreed. Uptown is not relavant to commuter or long distance train travel. You can stop now. Secondarywaltz (talk) 02:17, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, I think the style should be to avoid terms like "up", "down", "inner" and "outer", etc. where they are not necessary and to link and/or explain them on first use where they are needed. When talking about locations away from stations I can imagine that there will be occasions when avoiding terms like up and down would require extended circumlocution. Thryduulf (talk) 14:09, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I see that I forgot to mention in initiating this discussion that I linked (just) the first uses of "up" and "down" in the Sleights railway station article. (Interestingly, the railway sense of "up" is in the Adjective section, but "down" in the Adverb section.) --Thnidu (talk) 14:32, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
    I accept "up" or "down" as names of the tracks, eg "platform 4 is served by the 'up fast' line, for trains towards London St Cuthbert Street." If used in this manner, I think it's reasonable, but there aren't that many situations where you might want to refer to the names of the tracks. The main point is to ensure you define "up" and "down" within the article. -mattbuck (Talk) 16:13, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I would say that it's fine to use the terms so long as they are linked. The terms are useful when describing stations - e.g. location of station buildings and sidings - rather than having to use the points of the compass which can be more cumbersome. Lamberhurst (talk) 17:10, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Why do the anchors have different names between up (#Adv_railway) and down (#Adv_rail)? Should they be the same for consistency? Z22 (talk) 17:29, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Isn't 'up' actually "north" and 'down' actually "south"? Epicgenius(give him tirade • check out damage) 23:35, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
That's in geography — this discussion is about British railway nomenclature. Useddenim (talk) 00:00, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
  • No, or at least not in the UK. In the UK, "up" is equivalent to "towards London", and "down" is "away from London". Mostly anyway. There are some places where it gets a bit counterintuitive (for instance between Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway, "up" is the northbound line which heads towards(ish) London, because when the line was built the northern connection to London didn't exist, so going north meant going further from London), but by and large that's the rule. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:46, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Where this arises when writing about particular lines, or platforms at stations, it is always possible to say "the London-bound platform" or "the westbound lines", etc. Rather than linking "up" and "down" to some definition somewhere else, it is better (and usually quite easy) to avoid using these two terms altogether since this usage is specialised jargon known mostly only to railway staff and railway enthusiasts. We are writing for the general public. -- Alarics (talk) 07:44, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
So you’re saying we should “dumb it down” instead of writing correctly? Useddenim (talk) 11:51, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
The jargon within a field is usually seen as the "correct" language within that field but it may be an obstacle to outsiders (sometimes even a shibboleth). We need to strike a compromise. I think there's a place for "up" and "down" but in moderation, and it should be linked to a clear definition. bobrayner (talk) 12:49, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Replacing "up" by "London-bound", "westbound" or similar would be "dumbing down" only if we were removing some significant information. I see no loss of information, but we're making it easier and quicker for many readers to understand. -- Dr Greg  talk  16:49, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Not entirely true, as I said I think they have use when saying "the up main line" or similar, where it is the actual name of that track, and sometimes it can be useful to refer to a line by name. In that case information and clarity are being lost if you try and replace it. So long as you explain what you're referring to, it's no different to saying "platform 1". Taken in isolation it's confusing, but in context it's fine. -mattbuck (Talk) 17:29, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
(Late arrival) I don't think that linking to Wiktionary is a good idea. The descriptions there are brief, incomplete ("Traveling towards a major terminus" - many lines have two major termini, such as the four lines between Edinburgh and Glasgow, or the two between Liverpool and Manchester - which way is "up" in those cases?) and inconsistent (up is shown as an adjective, which is correct since it describes a noun (line or direction), whilst down is shown as an adverb). It would be better to link within Wikipedia, where we can give fuller descriptions - indeed, we already have the established redirects Down (railway terminology) and Up (railway terminology) for this specific use, and they may be seen at Didcot Parkway railway station#Platforms. It would also be a bad idea to avoid the terms "up" and "down" in cases where they are explicitly used by sources. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:07, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
We have an article about it here (Rail_directions) we should just link the terms to that if anyone wants to know what it means. I don't see why we shouldn't use the correct terminology which has been in use for the last 150+ years, as long as it is explained! G-13114 (talk) 16:22, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you for alerting me to the very useful rail directions article, of which I wasn't previously aware. I agree with your comments about linking, and usage. Bahnfrend (talk) 17:24, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I think that retaining up/down makes sense, as long as the terms are linked to the rail directions article mentioned above. The terms have a long history, and there is very little reason to remove them for the sake of it, assuming that appropriate definitions are at hand, which they are. RGloucester — ☎ 17:09, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata

You might want to take a look at d:Wikidata:Railways task force. Multichill (talk) 14:49, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Assistance needed at Blue Line (Minnesota)

I would appreciate some additional editors who could weigh in on this conversation on the article's talk page, regarding a section titled "Deaths". There has been a lot of disruptive editing going on lately with the page, and an expanded consensus either way with regards to the section may help with the edit warring. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 22:18, 2 November 2013 (UTC)


Platform layouts on less complex systems

User:Mysteryman557 and others have created some HTML-based platform diagrams, I believe originally for the New York City Subway system. They work very well for stations like Times Square – 42nd Street (New York City Subway), where there is an enormous amount of complexity in even a single station complex. However, he has begun adding them to MBTA subway stations, which are almost entirely two-track stations with one island or two side platforms. (Typical diff). This adds length to the article, but no real useful information, and I feel it's touching on WP:NOTTRAVEL. Additionally, the raw HTML code may not work very well with screen readers, thus hindering access.

My preference for the MBTA system would be to remove the HTML-based diagrams, and replace them with SVG diagrams for the handful of comple stations in the system that can't be adequately be explained by a photograph of the station. I don't work much with the NYC system, but due to the complexity of the stations (often with multiple services that change by day and hour) the diagrams may be worth keeping as-is. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:08, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree they're not needed. Good faith addition, but really just takes up space for no real benefit. Doesn't add any new info. oknazevad (talk) 00:49, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
I know I initiated a discussion about platform layouts a few months ago, I think it was at this page. I've got a feeling it fizzled out before coming to any conclusions but it would be worth looking at if anyone can find it. Thryduulf (talk) 01:06, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
These HTML-based diagrams are already on hundreds of pages about stations of the Hong Kong MTR, Taipei Metro, Guangzhou Metro, and Shenzhen Metro, just to name a few metros whose station articles all have layouts. That's where I based my layouts from. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 11:53, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Previous discussion here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2013#Template:Rail text color, I think. Mackensen (talk) 12:31, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Some more previous threads: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London Transport/Archive 5#Platform layout (December 2009-August 2010); Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways/Archive 17#Platform layouts (July-August 2010); Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways/Archive 21#Station track plans (June 2011).
Beginning yesterday, Epicgenius (talk · contribs) (who until then had made exactly two edits to articles about London Underground stations, so may be unaware of our conventions) has added some rather detailed schematics to tube station articles such as: Gloucester Road; Mansion House; St. James's Park; Sloane Square; South Kensington; Temple; Tower Hill. I think these should be carefully considered. Personally I am not in favour, since if the information is available from TfL's website, our diagrams will either be inaccurate or a copyright violation; but if it isn't available, it's probably WP:OR. Either way, I think that WP:NOTTRAVEL applies here. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:36, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
I got the platform layouts based on this website. Many London Underground station layouts are irregular, what with the island-side platform combinations. (For example, at Baker Street tube station there are 10 platforms.) They can be better shown with station layouts.
Also, the number of platforms is wrong—e.g. Mansion House tube station has one island platform and one side platform, not three platforms as the article says (but there are three platform numbers, which is correct). The station layouts are there to correct that. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 11:53, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
I think that trying to depict Baker Street (where the platforms are on three different levels at varying angles to one another) in two dimensions, using the linear layout that HTML imposes, is so difficult that the result will be incomprehensible to anybody who has not already studied the station limit; as such it is a pointless exercise. You give your source as cartometro.com - the maps shown there have tracks and platforms, but do not show concourses, or much of the other detail that you are putting in these diagrams. Since the website accepts coordinates in a query string, and all of the infoboxes have coordinates already, it would be a far simpler task to amend {{infobox London station}} to include a link to http://cartometro.com/cartes/metro-tram-london/index.php?zoom=5&gpslat={{{latitude|}}}&gpslon={{{longitude|}}} like this one for Baker Street.
When we speak of the number of platforms, that's the number of faces against which trains may stop to load passengers, not the number of raised structures. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:10, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
We don't need to depict it in two dimensions—just use three different tables, one for each level, then include a note that the platforms are perpendicular. That's what all the other station layouts in the world do. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 18:14, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm assuming that every station has a ticket hall and concourse. If I'm wrong let me know. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 18:17, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
Your diagrams give the impression that concourses/ticker halls are not at ground level - Gloucester Road and St James's Park for two are at ground level. The diagrams are also unsourced and where the layout is very simple add nothing. NtheP (talk) 18:47, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
1. If the ticket halls are at ground level, then the articles should say that.
2. See above for source—the track map on cartometro.com is the source. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 23:21, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
I can't add that St James's Park ticket hall is at ground level as that's OR and neither do I see cartometro.com giving station layouts, just track diagrams and if it is making the suggestion that the ticket halls are at a level other than what they are then I'd suggest it's not a reliable source. NtheP (talk) 08:01, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
I could just add the platform layouts without the ground and concourse levels then. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 12:39, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
You could, but I don't see the benefit that would bring. If we want to show platform layout, and unless the layout is encyclopaedically notable I think WP:NOTGUIDE would encourage us not to, then we should be creating a standardised concise diagram along the lines of the BSicon system rather than the those massive tables with limited accuracy (correct to the nearest 90° only). The amount of space in an article they take up is a clear violation of WP:UNDUE. It should also be noted that the platform locations shown at carto.metro are correct only with regards to the position relative to the line it is on, which in turn are relative only to other lines and can be distorted for clarity (e.g. at Earl's Court the Picc is shown south of the District not directly below it). Indeed, is carto.metro even a reliable source? Thryduulf (talk) 00:31, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
As in the case with platform layouts with perpendicular or intersecting non-parallel platforms, the layouts don't need to be oriented sideways—otherwise, how would you read them?
For explanations for the distortions, read the footnotes about the Picc line platforms that say that the District line platforms are superimposed above them. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 03:53, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Thryduulf. These layouts are frequently inaccurate, voluminous, add little or no information, breach policies and rely upon a source which provides us with no assurances of its reliability or its own sources. I am also disturbed that Epicgenius is disregarding WP:BRD and re-instaing hir table after its reversion and while discussion continues. NebY (talk) 16:23, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Where are you getting your information for stations like Royal Oak or Westbourne Park being on three levels? Don't say cartometro.com because it shows nothing that isn't either a track, platform or tunnel mouth. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:28, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
So they're two levels? Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 00:26, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
The question was, where are you getting your information for stations like Royal Oak or Westbourne Park being on three levels? Whether there are two, three, or indeed one, then if you cannot provide a reliable source for all of the detail (levels, ticket selling facilities, barriers, etc.), I can only conclude that all of your diagrams are mostly guesswork, and as such, have no place in this encyclopedia. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:37, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
As I said before, I can just add the platform layouts without any intermediate levels shown. Epicgenius(give him tirade • check out damage) 15:12, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
And that does nothing to solve the underlying problems that most articles do not need, and should not have, these diagrams. We already have multiple standardized diagrams, which fit in well-made templates, to indicate the services at a station. Unless there is an exceptional level of complexity - that is, multiple services, multiple platforms, or wholly unusual service patterns that are in and of themselves notable and thus citeable - this is Wikipedia and not a travel guide. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:04, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
@Epicgenius: at this point, continuing to add any platform diagrams (regardless of complexity) without consensus here is disruptive and is liable to get you blocked. Thryduulf (talk) 23:32, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Okay, can I add a modified version in the Korail articles, then? It's not nearly as disruptive (fewer bytes), and actually helps the article. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 23:39, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Ignore the above. I am simply modifying some MTR layouts to be correct. I can do that, right? Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 23:44, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Update: This type of layout is what I was talking about in the stricken-through paragraph. It will be correct regardless of the number of levels. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 01:18, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
I would just also add for the sake of completeness that per WP:ENGVAR, UK stations don't have "lobbies", "information counters" or "faregates", and when referring to the direction of travel, it is "towards X station" and not "toward". Lamberhurst (talk) 14:27, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
I just copied the layouts off of other metro systems' layouts; they sometimes have "toward" and other times "towards". In America, typically the two are interchanged. Epicgenius(give him tirade • check out damage) 23:05, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
Which implies further that you are not doing adequate research. Rail transport terminology is probably the area with the most significant divergence between US and British varieties of English so its always best to check first before blindly importing. As for the KORAIL diagram, what exactly is the encyclopaedic information is it adding to an article? Thryduulf (talk) 13:23, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
More importantly, if it's useless, why has it been in the article for several years? The Seoul Station layout is useful because there are 15 platforms (UK definition) for Korail alone, and 4 each for AREX and Seoul Metro, as well as being a key transfer point between railway lines. Epicgenius(give him tirade • check out damage) 23:49, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
If a station is sufficiently complex to justify a platform layout, then it should be as an SVG image, not kilobytes of raw HTML which will fuck up screen readers. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:04, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
The layouts are already on 1000+ pages. Besides, what do you mean by "sufficiently complex"? Do you mean that it has to have more than one platform or something? Blind people can't see images, with or without a screen reader. Epicgenius(give him tirade • check out damage) 12:34, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
Sufficiently complex = more than 2 tracks and an island, or two tracks and two sides. The layout and directions for such stations can already be determined by knowing the track count and platform type. Screen readers are going to trip up a lot less on a single embedded image (which is also a hell of a lot more useful, because you can show depth and angles better than the current system) than on 1.2 kB of raw HTML. Your continued insistence at working with these in the MBTA articles indicates that you just aren't getting this. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 13:45, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
I did not add a single layout to MBTA articles. Epicgenius(give him tirade • check out damage) 14:11, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Epicgenius has now created some templates for London: Template:LUL Platform Layout Metropolitan/island; Template:LUL Platform Layout Metropolitan/side; Template:LUL Platform Layout Metropolitan/side/Amersham and Chesham; Template:LUL Platform Layout Metropolitan/side/Watford, which may be an attempt to circumvent the above consensus. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:07, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Not only does it appear to be an attempt to circumvent consensus, they look to meet CSD criteria T3 as harcoded instances of templates. For example Template:LUL Platform Layout Metropolitan/island is usable only at Preston Road tube station. Thryduulf (talk) 19:49, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
These pictures, far from being worth a thousand words, tell us only that trains in one direction leave from one platform and trains in the other direction leave from the other platform. Their very lack of meaning is itself confusing. Not even a guidebook would be padded so. NebY (talk) 20:07, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Oh, you gave it away! I was hoping that Epicgenius might figure out the Royal Oak layout by doing some proper research (I would still have removed the layout though, correct or not). --Redrose64 (talk) 20:37, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
I used to live there but that would be WP:OR. So, I decided to take the shortcut by standardising the layouts. Epicgenius(give him tirade • check out damage) 21:18, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Are you saying that you knew the Royal Oak layout was inaccurate when you added it, but you didn't correct it because that would have been WP:OR? — Preceding unsigned comment added by NebY (talk • contribs) 10:04, 5 November 2013

Stations duplicated in two mutually-exclusive navboxes

I've started a discussion at Template talk:Current rail infrastructure projects in the United Kingdom#Duplicated stations concerning two mutually-exclusive navboxes which share some stations. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:25, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Revisiting SNCF article WWII section

Hello again to the members of this Wikipedia project, my name is Jerry Ray, and I am a consultant to SNCF in Washington, DC. Last year, I came here to discuss a number of inaccuracies in the information about WWII in the SNCF article, and I would like to revisit this information.

As I mentioned last year, this is a very complicated and sensitive subject, but one I feel should be approached from the perspective of historical accuracy. The section has improved and there are just two statements that I am now seeking to address. On the Talk:SNCF page, I have explained these and offered a suggestion to add an alternative view to the statements that are disputed, which you can see here: Talk:SNCF#Suggestion. I am interested to hear the feedback of independent editors from this project. Can anyone assist? Jerry M. Ray (talk) 21:30, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2012, 2#Problems with SNCF article WWII section and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2012, 2#SNCF WWII again. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:01, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Midsomer Norton railway station

I have just expanded Midsomer Norton railway station - any further edits welcome. I'd particularly appreciate advice re categorisation & the infobox. It uses Infobox UK disused station & is in Category:Disused railway stations in Somerset & Category:Former Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway stations. The station has reopened as a heritage project with museum etc & does run trains (on a short section of track) occasionally. Should it still use this infobox & be in these categories or is there a more suitable way of labeling & categorising it?— Rod talk 18:24, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

It's got the four standard cats for a closed station - Category:Disused railway stations in Somerset Category:Former Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway stations Category:Railway stations opened in 1874 Category:Railway stations closed in 1966 plus Category:Beeching closures in England which doesn't apply to all closed stations, but does in this case. Those are the only ones that I bother with, but some people add cats that are specific to the locality - Bath and North East Somerset or a subdivision of that, if there is a suitable cat. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:01, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
I see that, but if it has "re-opened" (even if occasional & the trains don't go anywhere) do these still apply?— Rod talk 19:22, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
I would say that it counts as a disused station if you can't actually get a train to a different station. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:47, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
OK fair enough.— Rod talk 19:55, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Questions regarding presumed notability of stations, etc.

Hi. I've recently learned that by AfD precedence, railway stations are usually presumed to be notable, if their existence can be verified. I have a few questions:

  1. Could someone familiar with the issue please edit WP:RAILOUTCOMES and WP:STATION to mention the fact?
  2. What about railway halts? (I'm looking at Yommarat Halt and Ramathibodi Hospital Halt at the moment).
  3. What about bridges? Many articles have been created under Category:Railway bridges in Thailand, but most of these bridges are unnamed and don't seem to be notable by themselves.

--Paul_012 (talk) 08:06, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

They are not automatically notable, as confirmed by an RfC. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes and Wikipedia:Notability (Railway lines and stations) are both essays. When I tried to edit essays to bring them in line with the RfC, I got reverted. Of course, using a descriptive statement ("Stations are often kept") as a prescriptive rule ("So, this station must be kept") just leads us to circular reasoning which is entirely divorced from the notability guideline. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobrayner (talk • contribs) 12:35, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Naming, again

I've revived my proposed naming convention at User:Mackensen/Naming conventions (US stations). I think it's clear that preemptive parenthetical disambiguation doesn't have a future, and I would argue that it's best for us to craft a standard which has some force in policy so that the issue stops coming up. I welcome everyone's input there. Best, Mackensen (talk) 00:53, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Best choice of top image in a couple of Japanese train articles

An editor has recently replaced the top images in both the Odakyu 50000 series VSE and Romancecar articles with what I feel is a rather poor-quality, grainy, and over-exposed image. As he is insistent that it is the most "beautiful", I have listed a number of what I feel are much better alternatives available on Wikipedia Commons on the corresponding article talk pages (Talk:Odakyu 50000 series VSE#About Photo and Talk:Romancecar#About Odakyu 50000 VSE Photo). Maybe some of the other editors from this project can have a look at the relevant talk pages, and offer some third-party views. Thanks. --DAJF (talk) 06:08, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the new photo is an improvement. There are several other better photos we could use. (I'll make the radical suggestion that a photo of the nose of a train isn't necessarily the best photo to introduce an article about a rail service). bobrayner (talk) 22:15, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
I think the old one was better tbh! The new one is badly framed, over exposed and not very sharp. It is poor from a photographic point of view, regardless of whether the angle might be better (which I don't think, but that's a matter of opinion). G-13114 (talk) 01:47, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Services from individual stations

Please would somebody please review the recent edits of Towns21 (talk · contribs) and my reverts (which have since been reverted, but per WP:BRD and WP:EW I'm not going to revert again). This user is silent to my comments on their talk page, preferring to revert rather than discuss. To take a specific example - Epsom railway station - I feel that advising "customers" where to change trains is very much travel advice; and that to state that a train runs "to Waterloo via Stoneleigh, Worcester Park, Raynes Park, Wimbledon and Clapham Junction" is excessive detail when there is only one route to Waterloo for trains from Epsom. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:41, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

You are absolutely correct. If the editor continues to revert without discussion, I would take him to WP:EWN. oknazevad (talk) 18:46, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
This user has resumed their disruptive behaviour. I've now served warnings up to {{subst:uw-disruptive4}} and also asked questions which are met with stony silence. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:00, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

New Trams task force??

Hello, I recently joined this wikiproject and would like a taskforce on trams. Is this possible? Fremantle99 (talk) 03:31, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Psst, right here. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 04:20, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Upcoming main page DYK

As a quick FYI, the article on Hale Holden, president of the CB&Q railway in the early 20th century, is scheduled to appear in the Did You Know section on the Wikipedia Main Page tomorrow. I would appreciate a few extra eyes monitoring the article for vandalism edits while it is listed there. Thanks! Slambo (Speak) 12:14, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Name of station in Saint Paul, Minnesota

A discussion has been opened on the name of the article covering the union station in St. Paul, Minnesota. The discussion can be found at Talk:Saint Paul Union Depot. Kablammo (talk) 01:31, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Troublesome user

Zmacinnes (talk · contribs) has lately been doing a lot of edits to Boston-area articles, including the MBTA system. While some edits add useful history and categories, others are very problematic. This edit added some clearly factually wrong information; the barest amount of research would have shown that the Fitchburg Cutoff had a station there until the early 20th century. This edit added one redlinked category and two categories with subcategories the article is already in; this subsequent edit added two duplicate categories (one of which I'd just removed) as well as Category:Boston and Albany Railroad which is again easily verified as incorrect (the B&A's Grand Junction Branch, which ran through the station, never had passenger service. Passenger service to Chelsea was always via the Eastern Railroad and its descendants, which shared the ROW). Now they've started doing bizarre category changes on Commons as well. They refuse to acknowledge talk page messages, so I'm really not sure how to get them to understand what they're doing. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:27, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Editor is now responding on their talk page - problem may be averted. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:23, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

duplication of effort in High-speed rail articles

As mentioned in the High-speed rail in Europe Talk Page, there is a lot of duplication of effort in the HSR articles, see WP:DUPLICATE:

all contain subsections listing various national efforts. This makes it hard to keep up to date as systems evolve, where certain articles are more maintained than others. My suggestion is a 2-tier hierarchy of articles:

  • High-speed rail with sections about continents & small sections about countries.
    • national articles

The distribution of information between the two articles be as follows:

  • High-speed rail be considered the main or top-level article for HSR.
  • The High-speed rail article should contain only systems that are under construction or completed.
  • Plans for future expansion that are not under constructon be delegated to national articles only.
  • The top-level article having sections about each continent, that contain bilateral or multilateral efforts (the Channel Tunnel is a good example or the tunnels under the alps).
    • The "continent" section in the top-level article has small subsectiosn (only 1 or two paragraphs) for each plus a "main article" link to the national article.
  • The "continent" articles for Europe and Asia be deleted as it's being replaced by "continent" sections in the top-level article.
  • The High-speed rail by country article be deleted, as it is now covered by the continent/country subsections in the top-level article.

Comments? Other suggestions? AadaamS (talk) 10:36, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me, if AadaamS is volunteering to do the necessary work. -- Alarics (talk) 11:38, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
I agree that there is a poor structure and a lot of duplication, and this looks like a reasonable way to fix it. If you need a hand with anything, just shout... bobrayner (talk) 19:57, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Some reasonable ideas here, but as for deleting High-speed rail by country I would suggest a re-think as it is simply a list. I doubt that you would gain consensus to delete this. I also doubt if you will gain consensus to delete the continent articles either. These are too well established, and I predict a lot of resistance to them being deleted. In principal, the idea of trying to avoid duplication is worthy, but I think it is almost unavoidable. Pages like the by continent articles would be almost impossible to delete as they do get edited. I have recently seen an attempt to delete a portal that was lasted edited in 2010, and was only lasted edited seriously in 2007. When is was proded, the opposition to this dead page was strong. So be prepared for a big fight to delete pages, that's all I am saying. - Bhtpbank (talk) 09:54, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
The High-speed rail by country says that This article provides a list of operating high-speed rail networks, listed by country. which in fact it does not as it lists Norway but Norway's HSR line won't be completed until 2017. I thought it was not maintained because of this. Note to self: I am going to add a Template:Duplication to articles duplicating information in the future. AadaamS (talk) 12:40, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
I think both articles should be kept, if restructured. High speed rail should talk generally about high speed rail and summarise what is happening on each continent. In actual fact perhaps High-speed rail by country should be renamed something like List of high-speed rail lines by continent with the tables kept? Simply south...... eating lexicological sandwiches for just 7 years 17:43, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi, Simply, what are your ideas for the Europe/Asia articles in your proposed scheme if the HSR article should talk about what happens on the continents? I think the High-speed rail article should deal with operational systems only, not systems planned or under construction. Systems planned or under construction belong further down in the hierarchy structure. AadaamS (talk) 11:12, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
If anything, perhaps the main High-Speed Rail article ought to be trimmed. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 18:57, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi User:DanTD, I have tried trimming that article a bit already, the United States section for instance. Which sections do you propose be trimmed in that article? AadaamS (talk) 09:26, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
I'd consider some European countries, of course. But honestly, I like Simply South's suggestion, and I don't think Europe or Asia should be merged into the main article. They're just too large to be merged. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 13:21, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
Well it should certainly be about current systems and past systems but only where relevant. The Europe and Asia articles should stay plus possibly other articles created on the other continents so that more detail can be created. For example, I am sure high speed in North America is not simply limited to the US. Simply south...... eating lexicological sandwiches for just 7 years 13:32, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Shouldn't these articles all be merged if all the articles are similar? Epicgenius (talk) 01:48, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Archer Avenue Line - More Sources needed

I've just flagged this article as single source. The three image references are all dead links and from what I can tell the only remaining reference, a NY Times article about the opening of the line is not the source of the article section marked "Extent and service" which freely mixes service information and (unsourced) historical information.

I've done a quick websearch (Google only) which did not turn up much. A search of offline sources might prove more fuitful. Graham1973 (talk) 08:15, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I just replaced two broken references with images I saw on a thread on SubChat. I don't know what to do about the third. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 14:35, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Talk:December 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment

Move request is taking place at this moment; comment there while it lasts. --George Ho (talk) 03:15, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Detail on station articles

On articles about individual railway stations, is it appropriate to show which types or classes of rolling stock are used to operate the services from that station? I'm sure this has come up before, but I can't find it in the archives.

My own view is that since rolling stock is used to operate the services of a particular train operating company (TOC) along particular lines, and that few services change their type of rolling stock en route, showing the rolling stock type on the articles about individual railway stations leads to duplication of the same information across several articles. I feel that it is more appropriate to show the rolling stock classes on the article about the line, or on the one about the TOC. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:40, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree, I think WP:DUPLICATION should be avoided (see my above section about duplication in HSR articles). A station article should mention which TOC operate services with wikilinks, then the TOC article could mention which trains are used for which services/routes. AadaamS (talk) 22:32, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
Redrose64, First of all, thanks for raising this topic. I've noticed that King's Cross has a link to the completely fictional Hogwarts Express, yet no sign of any real-life rolling stock detail which goes, or has gone, to the station. I would've thought that'd be more relevant? However, there is no sign of any rolling stock detail for Paddington or Euston, either. Yet, the lines (such as the WCML and HS1 linked from the King's Cross article) do mention rolling stock detail, which is as much Network Rail territory as the individual stations. In order to make the information quickly available to the casual reader, without having to click-through (something which I've always regarded Wikipedia should do, and is able to), would a possible subheading of "Rolling Stock" be appropriate for each station? After all, it is something which one would expect to find at a station - sooner or later! EP111 (talk) 07:50, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Agree with Redrose64. I feel the main info about rolling stock should go in the article about the company/franchise, not the station. There is quite enough duplication of information already (e.g. between company article and line article). -- Alarics (talk) 07:58, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
EP111 you make several points so I will adress them separately.
  • As for Hogwarts Express it is mentioned in the fiction section of the King's Cross stn article which I think is appropriate, although the section mentioning it is far too large, violating and giving WP:UNDUE weight.
  • What one expects to find at a station is a travel service. A piece of rolling stock is what a train enthusiast might expect to find there. The average traveller (and reader) go to a train station to travel, not to look at trains.
  • We have a Template:Duplication and its mere existence implies that duplication of information is undesirable. A section about rolling stock would mean that you propose that each and every station article a locomotive visits regularly be expanded with this information.
  • When a new train is put into service on a line, every article on that line will have to be edited or it will be out of date. It is more efficient for an editor to write in the article about the line (or TOC) to write about the rolling stock. Only one or two articles have to be edited instead of dozens or hundreds.
Anyway I volunteer to trim the Harry Potter section in the King's Cross article ... or even delete it entirely, as it lacks citations. AadaamS (talk) 08:33, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
User:AadaamS Thanks for your points, also. Though, please note that I was discussing the casual reader, not the average reader. I would regard them with significant difference. Personally, I would choose to weigh in favour of the reader, rather than the editor. Otherwise, Wikipedia would lose a significant degree of its purpose. Though, of course, that's just my point of view. EP111 (talk) 08:52, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
N.b. I'd also regard the Template:Duplication to be for sections (everything under a single subheading) or entire articles, as the template specifies, rather than similar sentences and duplicate links. If several TOCs go to a single station, then I believe that there could well be a relevant place for combined detail of their rolling stock, to the one station, under a single subheading. That would be to the interest of a section of the casual readers (the aforementioned train enthusiasts), though not necessarily for the average reader. EP111 (talk) 10:21, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi EP111 thanks for your input. On second thought, it is the operation of the train station (and its importance) that dictates how the article ought to be written, not readership of its Wikipedia article. Me including the readers in my previous comment was quite irrelevant for the same reason. If you have WP:RS listing train equipment used for a particular station, then feel free to add this. This I imagine could be the case if the station had to be rebuilt to accomodate new types of train (longer platforms for instance). See for instance how London City Airport article discusses types of aircraft that are possible to use from that particular airport due to its glideslope and noise restrictions. So I suppose that information about rolling stock in the context of the particular train station supported by WP:RS would be alright. See for instance Gatwick airport, where some aircraft types are mentioned along with operators & citations. I presume that for smaller train stations no such WP:RS exist and my objections due to duplication might therefore have been premature. AadaamS (talk) 12:57, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your further reply, as I wasn't intending to perform any edit which contravened the template which you've pointed out. I'll take that information into consideration. Regards, EP111 (talk) 13:52, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
There are reliable sources for smaller stations, or at least there are Network Rail documents showing what trains are cleared for which routes. I must say I disagree with the duplication thing - as far as I'm concerned, there are no problems with fairly large amounts of duplication between articles, so long as it's within the scope of that particular article. For instance, the Services section of any station on the Severn Beach Line will be pretty much identical, except for the time to Bristol Temple Meads being different. But clearly what services call at a station is of major importance to such an article. Similarly, I believe that the issue of franchising is important to station articles - we accept that what company built the station is important, and who operated it in the past, and clearly it's of relevance who runs trains there now, but somehow it's not important who will run trains there? As long as you aren't including extreme detail, there's no issue. I don't think quite the same about rolling stock, in that when I write station articles I generally do not go into details over past rolling stock, but I contend that what sort of trains are operated currently are notable. Perhaps not to the casual reader, but it's better to be thorough where possible. We aren't writing for the lowest common denominator, we're writing to be the most informative we can without going into trivia. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:55, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Imho if one resorts to WP:PRIMARY sources in order to list trains on a per-station basis, that the lack of WP:SECONDARY sources indicates that no recognised experts in the field thinks this is important enough to write about. Finding trade magazine articles about which companies run which train equipment would surely be easier at a guess. NB these are just my _opinions_ on this matter and I am not going to start edit wars about it. As for future developments, I simply think it's unencyclopedic to speculate about the future and imo a 'pedia should deal with established facts. So rather than saying "trains will run on the Flyfarthing to Sheepmeadow line in 2018" I would rather write "construction of the Flyfarthing to Sheepmeadow line started in 2012" and leave it at that. Why? For instance, every prediction on when trains will run through Hallandsås Tunnel has turned out to be wrong. Unless it's a regularly recurring thing like "next election will be in 2014". AadaamS (talk) 08:12, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

FAR in progress

Hello, I am informing WikiProject Trains that one of its Featured Articles, Manila Metro Rail Transit System is currently under an FAR. Sportsguy17 (T • C) 21:39, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

List of EuroCity services

I've created this article, based on the list that was on the EuroCity pages, to try and make it more informative and current. It's a work in progress, so it's still incomplete and a bit messy - any contributions to completing the page would be welcome. I noticed that a number of people are creating new articles for specific TEE/EC services, so this ties neatly into that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ArtVandelay13 (talk • contribs) 16:58, 6 March 2013

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