Talk:Medway Branch

Citation style

@Mackensen: I know you prefer Harvard style referencing, but I don't think this is a good place for it. This is never going to be a particularly lengthy article, and it's not going to have a lot of the repeat citations where that style makes things simpler. Right now, five of the six sources only appear once, and there's a repeat page number only once, so the Notes list duplicates the References list. Using {{rp}} to handle the Karr page numbers seems like a cleaner way for this article.

Side note: Once I add a bit more (one of my books gives an exact opening date) I'd like to nominate it for GA. There's no length requirement provided it's sufficiently broad in its coverage, and I think getting this tiny, short-lived branchline to GA would be entertaining. Any objection? Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:39, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

No objection (on either matter). One thing I was looking for and couldn't find was the gauge used by the Norfolk County Railroad at the time of construction. Mackensen (talk) 22:24, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

@Mackensen: Sounds good, thanks. References are converted, and I'll expand it a bit soon. This related expansion is all your fault, too ;) It would have to be the same gauge as the Boston and Providence Railroad, since through trains were run. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:04, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I am hoping to start an article on the Norfolk County Railroad by this weekend. It's second in line for my projects after the Providence and Springfield Railroad. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 13:30, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

@Trainsandotherthings: The P&S looks great, and looking forward to seeing the Norfolk County article. BTW, I hope I didn't step on your toes creating Southbridge Branch (New England) - I intended to stub it out using my Shoreliner copy, and then it got away from me. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:57, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Not a problem, I didn't have access to that Shoreliner issue anyhow. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 12:44, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I finally got around to starting the Norfolk County Railroad article, though it's just using Karr right now and needs expansion still. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:31, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Medway Branch/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Golden (talk · contribs) 20:15, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I'll be reviewing this article over the next few days. — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 20:15, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Lead

• It from North Wrentham - Are we missing a word here?
  •  Done
• now Norfolk - Is "North Wrentham" the old name of Norfolk or is it a settlement that was absorbed by Norfolk? If it's the latter, I suggest amending to "now part of"
  • The former. I've adjusted a later sentence to clarify, and also expanded Norfolk, Massachusetts#History because the former name wasn't mentioned there.
• The 3.6-mile (5.8 km) line - This is our first time seeing this number. Is this referring to the Medway Branch? If so, it'd be a good idea to clarify the length of Medway Branch earlier in the lead.
  • There's not a good place to put it earlier, so I've edited the sentence for calrity.

Route

• From North Wrentham station - Can we get a brief description of the location of this station in relation to the Medway Branch?
  • I've not sure what to add - to my mind, this paragraph clearly places the station at the end of the branch, as does the route diagram in the infobox. What else would you recommend?

History

• Factory Village (Medway Village) - Can we get "now", "part of" or anything similar here before "Medway Village"?
  •  Done
• I'm not sure what the purpose of bolding "Medway Branch Railroad" here is. Could you explain it?
  •  Done - moved bolding to the lede where it should be.
• was just the seventh rail line - "Just" doesn't seem necessary here.
  • The earliness of the abandonment is arguably the most noteworthy thing about this obscure little line - that source lists over 400 abandonents in New England, few of which occurred prior to 1900. I'm open if you have suggestions for different wording.

References

• Spotchecked refs #2, 5, 10, 17, 21
• When I attempted to open reference #3, I received an error message. I recommend adding archive links for sources from websites.
  • That's very strange - I have no issue opening it on mobile Chrome or desktop Firefox. All outlinks are saved on archive.org, so the bot will add them if they go dead.
• Can we add links to the specific pages mentioned in sources like reference #10, where there are four different pages available for viewing?
  •  Done All sources now have relevant pages listed, and {{rp}} used when specific pages (rather than the whole page range) is being cited.

General comments

• Earwig shows no copyvio
• Images are relevant and free.
• This is a concise yet informative article about a topic, railroads, that I previously knew nothing about. I will be happy to approve it once the concerns mentioned above are addressed. — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 15:53, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
  • @Golden: Thanks for the detailed review! I've replied to your comments above. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:19, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

    Thank you for the changes, Pi.1415926535. I'm ready to pass but I'll wait until BlueMoonset's point below has also been appropriately addressed. — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 18:40, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Comment by non-reviewer

I removed a problematic statement at the end of the History section a few days ago, which was restored with a tiny change ("purchased" became "planned to purchase") a few minutes later: The corporate entity outlasted the railroad line by over a century: in 1968, the town planned to purchase a parcel "supposedly owned by the Medway Branch Railroad" when constructing a town dump. The problem is both the claim that "The corporate entity outlasted the railroad line by over a century" and, to a lesser extent, the newly inserted word "planned": while the town may only have been able to trace the ownership to the Medway Branch Railroad and couldn't figure out anything past that (and they wouldn't need to do so if they took the property by eminent domain), just because the town can't figure out who owns the parcel after all the purchases and bankruptcies and mergers in the late 19th century and into the 20th century doesn't mean that the corporate entity still existed in 1968: to say so in Wikipedia's voice is clearly a violation of the GA criteria, and as long as this information remains, should prevent the article from being listed. You'd need to check to see whether the corporate entity is still registered as a corporation in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and there's no source given for that. We don't have a good idea of the town's plans, per se: they certainly considered purchasing the parcel, but the warrant article was withdrawn before the 1968 Town Meeting, and without further information about this beyond the annual reports of 1967 and 1968, it feels sketchy. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:04, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: I have further edited the sentence to remove the assumption that the corporate entity still existed and replace "planned" with "proposed". Hopefully that satisfies your objections. Given that eminent domain requires compensation to the property owner - and thus knowing who the property owner is, and that this is official legal wording from the town. I think the mere mention of the railroad as the supposed owner is worth including. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:19, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Pi.1415926535, the problem is that the updated text is still making assumptions that don't prove out. In this case, "when constructing a town dump" is dubious because Norfolk already had a town dump. The problem here (see page 13 of the 1967 annual report given as the source) was explained that "part of the Town Dump" turned out to be on property not owned by Norfolk. The Warrant for the 1968 Town Meeting, Article 31 on pp. 135&136, is looking for "approximately 180,000 square feet supposedly owned by Medway Branch Railroad". However, per the 1968 report, the dump expansion was complicated by the town not owning as much land as it thought. (These two explanations a year apart don't quite jibe with each other.) Article 31 was indefinitely postponed at the 1968 town meeting, and for the 1969 Warrant, a new Article 5 was looking for "approximately 218,300 square feet owned by Grace Harvey and the heirs or devisees of Robert Murphy" (no idea whether this is a different parcel altogether or they'd done a better survey and title search in the interim); see p. 128 of the 1968 annual report. It was this parcel that the 1969 Town Meeting authorized buying for $1,500, per the 1969 annual report, p. 120. All this to say we don't know enough to say anything definitive beyond the fact that the railroad was mentioned on the Warrant for the 1968 Town Meeting, and the article was withdrawn. I imagine there were newspaper stories at the time about the town that didn't own some of its own dump... BlueMoonset (talk) 01:59, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: I see. Would you be okay with The town proposed to purchase a parcel "supposedly owned by the Medway Branch Railroad" in 1968 – over a century after the line was abandoned.? That sidesteps the issue of intent entirely. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 05:34, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Pi.1415926535, I've done a revision of the sentence that I think better reflects the information in the annual reports: I do prefer "acquire" over "purchase", since that's what the article says, with "purchase" one of a few mentioned methods. Absent further research, I thought a few words noting that the acquisition was not made is in order (with sourcing), assuming it is still worth including the original sentence (and ultimately non-event). BlueMoonset (talk) 16:30, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Lightburst talk 14:36, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that the 1864 abandonment of the Medway Branch was just the seventh railroad abandonment in New England? Source: Karr, Ronald Dale (2010). Lost Railroads of New England (3rd ed.). Pepperell, Massachusetts: Branch Line Press. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-942147-11-7.
  • ALT1: ... that the Medway Branch was made redundant just nine years after its opening by the construction of the Charles River Railroad? Source: Karr, Ronald Dale (2017). The Rail Lines of Southern New England: A Handbook of Railroad History (2nd ed.). Pepperell, Massachusetts: Branch Line Press. ISBN 978-0-942147-12-4.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Jorge Medina

Improved to Good Article status by Pi.1415926535 (talk). Self-nominated at 04:43, 12 August 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Medway Branch; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: I was the GA reviewer for this article, which passed the criteria two days ago. The article is adequately sourced and meets all the other requirements. I find the ALT1 hook more interesting than the first one. — Golden ^talk 11:57, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

@Golden: My apologies Golden but if you were the GA reviewer WP:DYKSG#H2 applies. Lightburst (talk) 15:18, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

@Lightburst: That's a shame. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. Is there anything I should do to avoid causing problems for another reviewer? — Golden ^talk 15:22, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I will place this red x @Golden:. Thank you for your work and dedication. I am sure another reviewer will be a long and you have given them a starting place. Lightburst (talk) 15:46, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

ALT1 is interesting for me. I am reviewing. The route map in the infobox is a little confusing with the top horizontal rail line and pointer arrows. Reactions? e.g. was it worthwhile? Should we add "cost almost a million dollars in today's money" to hook? Possible to add more info on current status e.g. is cycle path possible? ecology? Chidgk1 (talk) 09:51, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

@Chidgk1: Unfortunately, there's nothing I came across in my research that would allow any of the additions you suggest. I prefer shorter hooks and would not recommend including the cost in the hook. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 06:32, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

@Pi.1415926535: OK I understand there is no further info and accept your point about the hook, but is it possible to have a simple and clear map for those of us who have never been to the USA and have no idea where these places are? I mean the map based on openstreetmap is OK as far as it goes but does not show how the branch connected or was superseded. When I look at [[1]] it just tells me the red arrows are "pointer arrows" which is not very helpful. Chidgk1 (talk) 07:26, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

@Chidgk1: There's not yet a general solution on how to show lines in context. I've been working on some technical ideas for doing so, but it's months or years away from being ready. Because this line was so short-lived, it never appeared on any system maps that could be included in the article; the map in source 3 is the only map I know that shows the branch whatsoever. With regards to the RDT (the diagramatic map in the infobox), the red pointer simply indicates that "Medway" refers to the station dot it points to.

I would like to gently remind you that this is a DYK nomination, which has specific criteria that are listed at the top of the page when editing. You're welcome to add other feedback on the talk page of the article. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 18:00, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

I am sorry I simply cannot understand from the RDT and text how this line fitted in to the network and was superseded. Perhaps it would be best for another reviewer to take over as this is just too frustrating for me. Chidgk1 (talk) 18:14, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

@Pi.1415926535: Ah in the RDT I see now the two "Medway" dots are two stations with the same name. So the horizontal pink line at the top must be the one from the rival company. I am guessing the diagram might be at a very specific time after the rival line was built but before this one was closed? If so it might help to have an RDT before and after that one with dates underneath to show the evolution of the network. And perhaps the company name could be put in brackets after "Medway"? Chidgk1 (talk) 15:45, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

@Pi.1415926535: Also why the circle meaning "station out of use line in use"? Is that because after the station closed that section of line going right was still used for storing or passing trains?

@Chidgk1: I'm sorry but these questions do not pertain to the DYK criteria. As you have excused yourself from reviewing this nomination, I recommend, as Pi.1415926535 previously suggested, that you address these concerns on the article's talk page. This will streamline the review process for future reviewers in a nomination that has become disorganised, for which I am partly responsible. — Golden ^talk 16:10, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

• New reviewer needed per above comment. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:02, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

New enough, long enough. ALT1 short enough, sourced, and I would say more interesting than ALT0; assuming good faith on online reference. No neutrality problems found, no copyright problems found, no maintenance templates found. QPQ done and every paragraph has a cite. Good to go.--Launchballer 11:43, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Route map

In the RDT I see now the two "Medway" dots are two stations with the same name. So the horizontal pink line at the top must be the one from the rival company. I am guessing the diagram might be at a very specific time after the rival line was built but before this one was closed? If so it might help to have an RDT before and after that one with dates underneath to show the evolution of the network. And perhaps the company name could be put in brackets after "Medway"? Also why the circle meaning "station out of use line in use"? Is that because after the station closed that section of line going right was still used for storing or passing trains? Chidgk1 (talk) 07:47, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Any present day advantages?

It looks nice in the pic. In UK many disused railway lines have been converted into cycle paths. I wonder if that is also true in the USA and whether anyone has suggested that or walking for this line? Also are there any environmental advantages of the disused line? Perhaps someone local might be able to add more info to the article. Chidgk1 (talk) 07:54, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Was it worth it?

I wonder whether the financial backers and/or local people considered the nine years of use worthwhile for the money spent? If not did no one foresee the rival line? Chidgk1 (talk) 07:57, 25 August 2023 (UTC)