Talk:Hawkhurst railway station

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Closure date

I'd better explain why I altered the closure date in the infobox from 10 June 1961 to 12 June. The short answer is: that's what is in Butt.

The long answer is: I have a problem with closure dates. There is a good essay on the topic which I agree with (it's applicable to all railways, not just Underground ones):

Rose, Douglas (2007) [1980]. "Some Thoughts on Dates of Closure". The London Underground: A Diagrammatic History (8th ed.). Harrow Weald: Capital Transport. ISBN 978 1 85414 315 0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

Basically, any one railway station has two possible "closure dates": the last day trains called, and the first day of no service. The "last day trains called" is easy to describe: it is the last day upon which a train ran (or the final day of service). The "first day of no service" is best summarised as being the first day where no train ran, but on which a train would have run had the station not been closed.

The "first day of no service" method assumes that the reader is familiar with the local timetables in the weeks prior to closure. Consider Hawkhurst. The last trains ran on 10 June 1961, so under the "last day trains called" method, the station closed on 10 June 1961 - easy. However, under the "first day of no service" method, the closure date is 12 June 1961. Why not 11 June? Because 11 June was a Sunday, and the line had no Sunday service, so Monday 12 June was the first day with no trains where previously there had been trains. Unfortunately a reader seeing 12 June, and not being familiar with the timetable, might assume that the last train ran on 11 June.

From some weeks of examining different entries in Butt, and comparing against other published sources, I have come to the conclusion that in most cases - including Hawkhurst - he uses the "first day of no service" method; but see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways/Archive 14#Date of closure. Since Wikipedia policy is that of WP:VERIFIABILITY, and Butt is considered a WP:RELIABLE source, I went with Butt and ignored which method he used for this case. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:17, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think it makes more sense to adopt the first day of no (regular) service approach as that is the moment from which the station can be considered to be "closed" as such, and it's also the approach used by Subterranea Britannica. Surely the most reliable source in this case would be the timetable itself which would take precedence over Butt in the event that he uses another method. Lamberhurst (talk) 08:52, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot to mention: I would have preferred to leave it as 10 June, but could not source it - but can dig up something like four different authorities all giving 12 June. Unfortunately, refd facts take precedence over unrefd speculation - even when the speculation is more accurate. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting discussion - last day of public service 10 June (Sat). Last public train (non-scheduled excursion), 11 June (Sunday, no public service), First day without a service, 12 June (Monday). Mjroots (talk) 09:31, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For consistency, I've altered the article on Goudhurst station to show 12 June as the closure date. All four station articles now say the same thing. Mjroots (talk) 09:37, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Assume that you mean in the infobox. Horsmonden's infobox already had 12 June; I amended the infoboxes of Cranbrook and Hawkhurst from 10 June to 12 June; I also added the closure date of 12 June into the body text of all four, but I overlooked the infobox of Goudhurst, possibly because before I started out, that article was somewhat larger than the other three - and was partially refd, whereas the other three were entirely unrefd (a bunch of "External links" is nice to have, but per MOS:APPENDIX, these are not references used to support the article text). --Redrose64 (talk) 09:53, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd made a mental note that the station articles needed improvement, but you've already added refs to all four articles, thanks. Mjroots (talk) 15:49, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]