Talk:Littleton/Route 495 station

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Littleton/Route 495 (MBTA station)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mattbuck (talk · contribs) 11:39, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I'll be reviewing this, I expect it to take a few days. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:39, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

On hold - the article needs a fair amount of reworking, but I think most of the information is there. Some references need improvement. I think the article should probably be split in two - Littleton/495 and the original Littleton. Even with these faults, this is an extensive and interesting article. If I lived in the area, I would be tempted to go and visit. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:10, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, no copyvios, spelling and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

General comments

• The article title is "Littleton/Route 495 (MBTA station)". Why the brackets?

• That's the standard style for US stations (subject to debate, but move discussions are at the project and not article level right now). Lacking a consensus at that level to change, the parenthetical style is the best practice at this time.

  OK then, I figured as much but thought it best to ask. -mattbuck (Talk) 17:04, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

• The new station is 1.6 miles away from the original one. Why is it in the same article?
• Ditto the entire "Other Littleton stations" section, though some of this could conceivably be used at the start of the section for some background, but it makes no sense at the end.
• The structure of the article is not great. I'd start with a description of the station as-is, then current services, then move on to history and any future info. Add an "incidents" section if there's anything particularly noteworthy (derailments, murders, etc). See articles such as Stapleton Road railway station for example.
• Can you say anything more about the station's future?
• Please add {{convert}} for all measurements in imperial.
• Your reference 1 [1] has information over several years - this would be useful in the article to show how the station usage has changed.
• In the description, an idea of the railway's alignment would be useful, eg north-west/south-east. Is the line straight or curved at this point?
• There are a few points where paragraphs end without a reference. I'm assuming this is because the reference used is the next one listed, but putting in the reference at the end of the paragraphs would be helpful.
• A brief explanation of where the Fitchburg Line runs from/to would be useful.
• Is there a more overview-style photo available of the current station?

I wish I had the ability to take a good aerial photo, but sadly no. File:Platform looking southeast, Littleton station.JPG exists but it's not as visually interesting as the current infobox image.

Section-by-section

Lead

• Add comma after I-495.
• Is "West Littleton" a place in its own right? If so, wikilink it if possible. If not, and it is simply the west part of Littleton, it should be "west Littleton".

• It's a defined village that appears on maps, but does not have an article (The West Littleton article is on your side of the pond).

  Ok then, though it might be worth redlinking if you think there's enough to warrant an article in future. -mattbuck (Talk) 16:31, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

• "About 16 months" is a bit weasely, just say 16 months, or omit that part of the sentence altogether.

Littleton Depot

• It's probably worth saying where the Fitchburg Railroad ran between at the time. Cambridge was one end, where was the other?
• I'm a little confused as to what happened in 1879. If I read it right, the station building was moved to another location and used for housing, and a depot built on the site. Was there still a passenger station? As for "a few feet to the east", I think it's probably best to just omit that, given the scale we're talking it's the same site.
• Is there any information on what service level the station had?
• Needs a comma after "shipped from several locations"

•  Done

• Sentence about the mail could be reworded for clarity, it seems to slightly imply the its refers to the mail rather than the railway.
• Depot Square I assume is the name of the road? Just "in the area surrounding the depot" might be better.
• Is a steel railway something different from what was there before? I'm unfamiliar with the term.

• Street railways were a peculiarity of the US, largely the northeast, between the 1890s and the 1930s. They were interurban or commuter-based trolley lines that were literally constructed on or aside rural dirt roads. I've wikilinked it.

  I somehow managed to read it as "steel" rather than "street". That explains it. Still, the link to street railway helps non-US people so that's good! -mattbuck (Talk) 16:31, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

• "The B&M" is referred to in the paragraph before it is explained. You should use "Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M)" in the first instance, then B&M thereafter.

•  Done

• MBTA is referred to several times, but never in the full form.

•  Done

• The service being cut back doesn't immediately tell me there was no service at Littleton. The explanation would be better here than in the next sentence.
• No wikilink for Ayer?

•  Done

• The sentence beginning "The B&M began to sharply cut back passenger " has the same ref as the one after it - the first reference can be removed.

Littleton/Route 495

• You use MBTA as an acronym but write out Boston and Maine. Please be consistent.

•  Done

• Duplication of ref [5] without any intervening references.

•  Done - different page numbers thus different refs

New station

• I'm not convinced a new section is necessary for this. Or at least the previous section seems rather short.
• Various tense issues throughout the section. The rebuild is in the past, it should generally be in the past perfect tense.
• Why was the station modified - too many passengers?
• As part of a $75 million is contradicted by ref 11 which says $159mil.

•  Done

• Ref 13 says "The MBTA is restoring a second track between Acton and Ayer, making the entire Fitchburg line double-track, except at the Waltham station. The double tracking requires new stations in South Acton and Littleton." This is useful background information for this section.
  • In fact this reference has generally good background info for the new station.
• What does "outbound" mean in this context? I assume away from Boston, but it's not clear. A compass direction would be easier.
• I don't like the wording of "speedy, fully handicapped accessible boarding". I think perhaps it should just say "high level platform, allowing easier boarding, especially for the handicapped."
• Bridges are, by definition, overhead.

•  Done

• You say the original 1980 platform was demolished post-construction; this implies that the new platform was not in quite the same place. That could do with clarification.
• Bidding for the new construction opened on 18 August 2011, with the bidding period lasting until September 20. - You have two different date formats here. As a British person I prefer "DD MMMM YYYY", but in the rest of the article you've been using "MMMM DD, YYYY". This sentence should probably be changed to "Bidding for the construction was from 18 August to 20 September 2011".
• "Mid-summer", not "midsummer".

•  Done

• "The pedestrian bridge was lifted" needs an "into place".

•  Done

• Do you have an exact date for the ceremonial opening? (Ref 11 should help)
• Citation for the confusion please, otherwise it's just common sense, otherwise known as opinion.
• The last paragraph is a bit confusing as to whether it's about Littleton or South Acton. In fact this section should not be in a "history" heading at all, but under "future".

•  Done

• The images section should probably just be made into a sectioned gallery.

Other Littleton Stations

• I don't see any reason for bold here.
• What does the dotted line on the map represent?

•  Done - it's the town line (post-1890 borders, which is referenced in the text.

References

• Wikilink the USGS, Boston Globe, Uni of NH, any other sources with articles. Also wikilink second instances of stuff in references. As references can crop up anywhere, especially as tooltips, it makes sense to link them all.
• Reference error in ref 13.

•  Done

• Reference 5 has over 300 pages - could you add page reference numbers please? I can't really say whether what this references is justified without them.

•  Done

• The shuttle bus noted in ref 11 seems something worth mentioning.

Discussion

I think some of your points are due to differences in the prevailing style between US and UK stations, which themselves are often based on very different styles of railway operations, so I'm not sure if they're appropriate or necessary to change. Other former stations in the same town are frequently included in the same article because there's not enough information available for a separate article, or because their histories are so linked, hence why I've included them here rather than separately. Service levels in the US are much less regular than in the UK; it's not possible to talk about half-hourly service or whatnot because the current schedule is very irregular and changes frequently. So when I have more time later this week we'll need to talk through them more in depth. I've got some progress done on a lot of the more obvious points, which I've noted above. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 16:11, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

@Pi.1415926535: this is the first US railway article I've read, so I hope you'll pardon my ignorance on some things. I'm sure that many UK articles contain oddities that would be similarly incomprehensible to someone outside the country!

Regarding service levels (first off, ugh, the website uses a 12hr clock), while I can see that a "trains per hour" stat isn't relevant, but a "trains per day" would be useful. Looking at that timetable, something along the lines of {{as of}} Littleton/Route 495 has a service level of 17 trains per day both to and from Boston North. Most trains from Boston continue to Fitchburg, however some terminate at Littleton. Certain services stop at Littleton by request only. Trains do not always call at every station. It's better to have some information on this stuff than none. A bonus would be to add what type of trains are usually used. There may not be enough information to have a services heading, but the information needs to be in there somewhere.

Re general structure, there's certainly enough information there to have Littleton Depot as its own article, however if you think it's suitably intertwined then I'm not particularly against keeping it here, as /495 is at least the replacement station for it, so one could claim a continued history. (I wrote an article at Filton Abbey Wood which effectively merged three stations, and I did get a bit of a question about that, even though they were pretty close together.) However I do not think that the "other Littleton stations" section has any place in this article, beyond a very brief summary. This information can be merged into the article Littleton, Massachusetts. I would also take a description of the station as-is and put it in its own section at the start of the article (add service information there too). While chronological order makes a sort of sense, it does rather bury the information about the current station, which is most likely what people come to the article to find out about. It's certainly confusing when the article starts with information about an entirely different station.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts. -mattbuck (Talk) 17:04, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@Pi.1415926535:, -mattbuck (Talk) 21:28, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Given there has been no significant movement in a month, I am failing this. -mattbuck (Talk) 06:45, 26 October 2015 (UTC)