Talk:Illinois Railway Museum

Reporting Mark Confusion

According to the article's recent edit history, a slight WP:COI must've took place here on July 27th regarding the Illinois Railway Museum's actual AAR/FRA reporting marks, but it doesn't seem to have reached a formal consensus. In hopes of a bold attempt fixing this, I've cleaned up the previous edits and added a couple reliable sources regarding the information in question, hopefully resolving IRM's true markings.

An educated railroader should know that federally regulated railroad operations and track owners would never be authorized to run without an approved reporting mark identification, perhaps whether visible on equipment or not. Discussion is always welcomed. TimberWolf Railz (talk) 12:22, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

You might want to provide a reliable source for that actually being a reporting mark. The FRA's "Railroad Codes" are not reporting marks - look at CSX. The image just shows that the car has "IRYM" on the side, not that it actually has a reporting mark. [1] is not a reliable source. --NE2 16:24, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Evening NE2, reliable sources were already provided, but you appear to have the idea taken out of context just a bit and have reverted the article for a 5th time in a refusal of reaching a consensus, which was only my simple goal with this topic. This includes the removal of the railroad's logo without explanation as to why it's not relevant to this article. The idea that identification marks on the side of rail car's are false according to your theory is extremely bizarre, which conflicts with its said definition below:

Railroad Marked Equipment
Railroad marked equipment is all equipment that bears a reporting mark that has

been assigned by the AAR to a railroad. All railcars are railroad marked

equipment

You're also implying that the FRA is considered an unreliable resource with the simple statement that one marking is not accurate, if this was the case, then probably nothing would be considered reliable and this system should be abolished from Wikipedia in its entirety. I'm rather sure CSX for instance, is an alias marking, perhaps a liability to prevent frequent internal confusion between the company's markings and name; railroad corporations don't necessarily have to use one mark. (Cass I's have several in fact.) But, lets just say the two listings are different, the bottom point is that it's still an identification mark that’s used in both federal sources and railroad equipment; therefore its marks are more than suitable for use inside an encyclopedic article, regardless of what database it comes from. If it must, the reporting mark parameter should be changed to reflect this. TimberWolf Railz (talk) 09:56, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Please show me the reliable source that states that IRYM is a reporting mark. --NE2 19:31, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what was with this type of response, but you can read the message above since I've already noted the source regarding IRYM as an identification mark, as opposed to an UMLER reporting mark. Please see Talk:Reporting mark and review the proposal to create a plausible solution, I've already reflected this in the article's header. TimberWolf Railz (talk) 10:30, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Attempting to inject a little levity to diffuse a difficult situation here. The label at the front of this paragraph in an image of the sticker placed on automobiles registered in The Principality of Liechtenstein (German: Fürstentum Liechtenstein). It is official, sourced to the United Nations per the List of international vehicle registration codes article. Now, if I were driving around and saw one of those on the back of a Fiat, I might think the owner has property in Florida or some such interest in the state, but the UN tells me I'm not right, especially if I see it on the Autobahn or somewhere else in the EU. But here in the U.S., people place these little oval stickers on their cars in advertisement of some affinity they feel for some place, be it "CR" for the Conch Republic, "OBX" for the Outer Banks or "MV" for Martha's Vineyard. My point is, the different stickers mean different things in different contexts. From the list article, a USA sticker has no meaning in the United States but is "Correctly used by U.S.-registered vehicles abroad. Today, U.S.-owned vehicles registered in Europe use the license plate code of the country in which they are located." Not too confusing. What about IRYM in this case? Confusing, but can be identified for what it is: not officially a properly sourced reporting mark according to the criteria in the article linked in the {{Infobox rail}} within the {{Infobox SG rail}} wrapper. It is only informally a "reporting mark" and fails the criteria listed in the reporting mark article. The three references given are not sourced to the Association of American Railroads. #1, Appendix A of the PDF from the FRA, doesn't source the AAR and only states the list is of "Railroad Codes". #2, a photo of a flatbed car with a stenciled "IRYM" painted on it, is hopelessly lacking in anything other than an assumption made through the eyes of the beholder, unacceptable as original reasearch. #3, the list from a rail enthusiasts club, has the disclaimer that states "This file contains AAR assigned reporting marks that have been compiled from several sources. A limited number of common railroad abbreviations are also included. The list includes all active AAR reporting marks as of the mid-2008 plus many historical marks which are no longer in use." The page is not a reliable source for official information from the AAR, it just makes the claim that some of the marks come from the AAR, and it is self published by the club, a very weak source. TimberWolf, the sources just aren't strong enough to argue that NE2 is asserting ownership over the article in defiance of consensus. You are right about where the consensus is established, at the infobox talk page where the "Reporting mark" article is linked within the template. Making accusations against good faith and reverts here at this article have no bearing on that consensus, so until it can be proven that the AAR calls IRYM a true reporting mark, stating that information without official confirmation is what is against consensus in my view. Until then, IRYM has no more meaning than the little oval stickers that people put on their cars in the U.S. Sswonk (talk) 20:22, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Sswonk, thanks a bunch for your good inquiry. I fully understand what is being said here and this was never an argument of mine in the first place, it only started when I simply performed basic good faith maintenance tasks to this article and others with the hopes of solving the marking issue at the same time, especially considering IRYM is federally recognized and used on its equipment, thus its use is warranted in some form or another. But instead, NE2 (to my utter surprise) wrongfully perceived this as a series of attacks and has assumed very little good faith in almost every revert and discussion he's taken place in so far, despite my attempts to keep things reasonable. Indeed I acknowledge the point in which NE2 makes about the difference between the uses of an UMLER mark and a federal code; thus this is why I started discussing the feasibility of an entirely new separate unrelated parameter at Talk:Reporting mark for railroads such as the IRM that do not have UMLER marks, though so far NE2 has not yet recognized this proposal.

My goal on Wikipedia is to improve and expand upon it, and to find suitable workarounds to ideas that may come into conflict; I'll always be welcome to comments from other outside editors regarding this. TimberWolf Railz (talk) 10:30, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

What is "IRYM" federally recognized as? Reporting marks allow unique identification of rail equipment and lookup of physical characteristics. But what use is "IRYM"? Is it used as anything more than a convenient abbreviation? --NE2 11:58, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

In an (probably futile) attempt at settling this, I have created 2 new templates, {{infobox rail museum}}, and {{infobox SG rail museum}}, based on {{infobox rail}}, and {{infobox SG rail}}, respectively. These new templates differ from the originals in the substitution of the new parameter FRA code for the old, disputed (in the case of this article) parameter Marks. I have substituted the new templates for the old in this article, thereby removing the disputed phrase "reporting marks". The FRA code has been referenced to death already, so hopefully this will leave NOTHING TO ARGUE ABOUT ANYMORE!!! WuhWuzDat 14:53, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

You didn't answer the question - what does an "FRA code" mean? --NE2 20:03, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

As a general courtesy note, further discussion relating to this disputed topic has taken place at Wikipedia:Content noticeboard. TimberWolf Railz (talk) 11:24, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Certification

The Volunteer response team has received certification from the IRM that "IRYM" is/was their proper code, OTRS ticket number 2009103010041944. Take what you need from that and run with it where you chose. Keegan (talk) 04:26, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I have asked Keegan for clarification, as the use of "Code" above seems ambiguous to the question at hand. WuhWuzDat 05:29, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Replied to the query on my talk page, but I'll put it here that the IRM called it their "reporting mark". I have no idea what this dispute is about, but I'm checking over the recent railroad arguments and it is starting to give me flashbacks to this nightmare. Keegan (talk) 05:49, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Physical Plant

About:

   The Illinois Railway Museum has the most extensive physical plant of any rail museum
   in North America. The main campus is located at 42°13′40.0″N 88°31′38.08″W.

Longitude and latitude are great to know. But since we are told about how extensive the physical plant is -- bigger than any other rail museum in North America! -- wouldn't it be useful for the readers to know just *how big* it is -- in acres, square miles, whatever? Just some precise indication of the size!

Toddcs (talk) 15:00, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

More than 80 acres according to the guidebook published by Kalmbach in 2009. I've updated the text and added the ref. Slambo (Speak) 16:30, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Also, I just found a reference that more than doubles the 2009 acreage, so I've added that and the ref too. Slambo (Speak) 16:36, 28 February 2018 (UTC)