Talk:Nantlle Railway

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Info Boxes

Quite frankly I am not happy about them in general since I fear they raise more problems then they solve and can easily mislead. To the extent that they contain valid information, they usually repeat material already in the article. In other respects they mislead by omitting information or by encouraging a wrong interpretation of the information. In the Nantlle Railway box we find five items:

Locale: Wales Dates: 1828 - 1966? Successor Line: abandoned Track gauge: Headquarters: Penygroes

The accompanying modest article, still described as a stub, is encyclopedic compared with the box. Of the five items only the first is completely accurate. The dates are frankly less than helpful, 1862 would be a more accurate terminal date for the Nantlle Railway. Surely the successor line was the Carnarvonshire Railway et al. The track gauge is only approximately accurate in respect of the original main line when it was being used by horse drawn wagons with double flanged wheels (only until 1866 or 1872, say) and also of the remnant (and most interesting) quarry feeder stub that I wished I had photographed when I visited it in 1958 and which is usually said to have closed in 1963. As for the headquarters, Penygroes is only true until about 1862 (I haven't checked this) the latest known headquarters c1966 shall we say Marylebone Station?

I really do wonder what purpose, other than decoration, the info boxes serve. NoelWalley 15:59, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of the info boxes is to allow a standard way of describing the common features of a subject. Readers can go to a page and quickly compare the "vital statictics" without having to read the whole article. I agree that there is a question of what information to put into the info box, but I think the right approach is to fix the information rather than dismiss the entire notion of info boxes. Gwernol 16:21, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I appeared to be questioning the accuracy of the information, that I was not. In even this short article it is quite clear what is being talked about (i.e. a physical railway that has had five owning railway companies (including one that shared its name) and is now for the most part abandoned). Also, we know that the five owning companies had four different headquarters. It is impossible to see how that or any other info box could accurately epitomise the subject of this article and allow easy and useful comparison. This problem is not unique. To a greater or lesser extent almost all railways have similar circumstances. NoelWalley 17:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again Noel. I think you were correct about the information being incorrect, as you can see I updated it. This simplifies a lot of the discussion, for example since this now just refers to the independent existence of the railway, as you suggested, there is no longer the complexity about the headquarters location. The discussion about info boxes is broader than than just the article: I'd suggest you bring it up at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains since its important. Best, Gwernol 17:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Gwernol, Many thanks, I will think about your suggestion, Regards, NoelWalley 18:11, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]