Template talk:Haverhill Line

Inclusion of river crossings and highways

User:Beland and I seem to disagree on whether to include highway crossings in this template, so I thought I'd open discussion with them and anyone else who's watching. I understand that the indications may prove useful to some, but I think that's overwhelmed by them cluttering up the template. The Haverhill Line has seven current crossings (and one additional including Plaistow); that's over half as many as there are stops on the line. The templates should indicate things relevant to the history and operations of the line; except for a few specific cases where a highway has occupied the right of way (significantly the Worcester Line and 90 inside 128, and the Old Colony Mainline and I-93; less significantly pieces in Somerville and Providence), highway crossings are merely bridges without much real impact on the line.

The templates for all MBTA CR lines should be consistent, and extending this to other lines would be highly problematic. The Providence Line crosses interstate highways nine times and non-interstate freeways six times for a total of fifteen crossings; that's more than there are stations on the line! All lines except the Fairmount - especially the Worcester and Old Colony Lines - would be substantially extended in this manner.

The primary purpose of these RDTs is to show significant features; things like highway crossings should be left for maps (which I plan to make when I again have reliable GIS access) or templates that show all physical features of the line (which may be relevant for discussion centered on the physical aspects of the line, rather than operational history).

Rivers are a similarly thorny issue, especially since rivers are a continuous spectrum of size without even distinctions like "grade-separated freeway" or "interstate highway". I propose, then, that these RDTs show, for each line, the following:

• All stations, including those closed since the MBTA was created in August 1964, and stations which are official future projects like Wachusett and South Coast Rail
• A limited number of seriously (governmentally?) proposed stations - Plaistow, South Salem, Kingston (RI) - and branches (Peabody)
• Rapid transit lines that cross or share the right of way
• River crossings that with their own articles (Charles River Bridge, Canton Viaduct), that impact operations (the Eastern Route drawbridges, the Merrimack River bridges in Haverhill and Newburyport, the Edward Dana Bridge), or with additional substantial historical significance (probably just Bussey Bridge)
• Highway crossings that substantially impact operations (namely, the Worcester and Old Colony sections where the shared highway limits the number of tracks and thus service levels currently available)

Thanks, Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:17, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

I would certainly feel a lot better about leaving highways off if there were physical maps in addition to these logical ones. It's hard to find such maps anywhere online for the Commuter Rail. We do use highways like 128 and 495 as major landmarks for distance from Boston and for park and ride planning, so those seem worthwhile. Random crossings of 93 not so much. I like the idea of including important bridges; for example, I was updating the list of crossings on Mystic River and was having trouble figuring out which lines branch before they hit it. That's a major landmark; random stream crossings there are too many - Wikipedia is not an atlas.

Probably the most vexing problems we have right now are that sometimes North Station is at the top and sometimes it's at the bottom, and some major features are missing. -- Beland (talk) 00:17, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

I'll have more thoughts on highways etc later, but for now I can take care of the basic inconsistencies. The Newburyport/Rockport Line is the only one not north-up, so I'll fix that right now, and add some missing former stations. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:53, 19 July 2014 (UTC)