Talk:Northern Branch Corridor Project

Merge proposal

• Oppose - the Conrail article is about the existing freight line and its history, while the NJT article is about the proposed passenger service. They're definitely related, but not enough the same to be on one page. oknazevad (talk) 03:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - Little crossover between the freight and proposed passenger service. Alansohn (talk) 03:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

DMU gone

This article will need a bit of an overhaul. It was announced July 18th that DMUs are no longer an option and that electrically-powered light rail will be utilized.Rhvanwinkle (talk) 16:58, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for Northern Branch articles

I would like to propose moving this article to Northern Branch (NJ Transit), and Northern Branch (Conrail) to Northern Branch. I would like to include information regarding the history of the line somewhere, yet neither of the current two articles are framed for this information and I do not think a third short/not comprehensive article about the same line would be good. After the proposed moves, the article at Northern Branch would be expanded to include historical aspects of the line, current uses, proposals, and contain the currently unused {{Erie Railroad-Northern Branch}}. While the article about the proposed expansion of the HBLR deserves its own article now, I envision most of this being incorporated into Hudson–Bergen Light Rail once the line is completed, as this will be an expansion of the existing system and not a branch. The current popular use of "Northern Branch" may be the HBLR expansion project, but the name and rails come from the original Erie line - and the content at Northern Branch should reflect that. --Scott Alter (talk) 18:49, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I think the history should go in the Conrail article, as those current operations represent the direct, uninterupted (if dramatically reduced) operations of freight dating back to the Erie days. I do agree that this article should be at Northern Branch (NJ Transit) (or (New Jersey Transit)). But the undisambiguated title should be a disambiguation page, as the term "Northern Branch" has potentially many more uses that could be added to such a page. oknazevad (talk) 22:53, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't have strong opinions on the exact names of these articles, but here are some more things to consider. First, there doesn't appear to be consensus for how to disambiguate NJT line articles. For example, there are River Line (New Jersey Transit) and Main Line (NJ Transit). Rather than using NJT as disambiguating words, other possible names for the article include "Northern Branch Corridor Project" (NJT's term for the project, and probably the most appropriate article name), "Northern Branch HBLR extension/project/proposal," or use "HBLR" in the disambiguating words. Second, I don't think that the current freight operations article should use the disambiguating word, Conrail. Now, Conrail is just a historical owner of the entire line...although they still own a few miles at the southern end, most of the line is owned by CSX. Third, at the current time, Northern Branch does not need to be a disambiguation page. Disambiguation is only needed when there are multiple articles regarding a common term when one is not the primary meaning. I'm not arguing that this Northern Branch is the primary meaning, but there are no other articles called Northern Branch to disambiguate. If a new article about a different Northern Branch is created, we can then deal with disambiguation. And if the Conrail article is moved directly to Northern Branch, we don't need to worry about the inaccurate disambiguating word, "Conrail." --Scott Alter (talk) 20:24, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, thinking on it, I believe you're right about the disambiguators, if only because the modern freight operations are in fact two separate things, the part still owned by CSAO, which has been upgraded and serves as the primary access, via Marion Junction, to the River Subdivision (and is in practice an extension of it), and the independant portion now outright owned by CSX that is the lightly used freight line referee to in te text at this article. Covering all that as one article ghat also contains the history of the line makes a good deal of sense, and, as you noted, with the decision to make the NJ Transit project an extension of the HBLR, this article wil likely be merged into that article eventually. oknazevad (talk) 23:10, 6 June 2010 (UTC)