Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2008, 3

Category:Metre_gauge_railways

There seems to be a bit of duplication between articles in this category. I've flagged one pair, but haven't got time to do the others now. Mjroots (talk) 07:55, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Done some more, but I'm not sure if EuskoTran and EuskoTren should be merged or not. Mjroots (talk) 14:19, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Missing articles

Rail transport in Armenia, Rail transport in Austria, Rail transport in Azerbaijan, Rail transport in Belarus, Rail transport in Bulgaria, Rail transport in Croatia, Rail transport in Cyprus, Rail transport in the Czech Republic, Rail transport in Georgia, Rail transport in Greece, Rail transport in Hungary, Rail transport in Finland, Rail transport in Kazakhstan, Rail transport in Luxembourg, Rail transport in the Republic of Macedonia, Rail transport in Malta, Rail transport in Moldova, Rail transport in Montenegro, Rail transport in Romania, Rail transport in Russia, Rail transport in San Marino, Rail transport in Serbia, Rail transport in Slovenia, Rail transport in Turkey, Rail transport in Ukraine. Most are redirects. --Hartz (talk) 14:07, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

There are many more listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Todo/Write, both in the "Rail transport in country" section and others. Additionally, the list articles at the top of the page also have a lot of red links themselves. Slambo (Speak) 15:51, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Date linking for autoformatting is now deprecated

Since a mass-removal of date links appeared on my watchlist today, I thought it would be good to mention here that linking dates simply to get the autoformatting has now been deprecated. See MOS:UNLINKDATES for details and links to the relevant (lengthy) discussions. What that means for us is that we need to be consistent in date formats within article texts, and don't be surprised when articles pop up on your watchlists simply to remove the date links (note that the dates themselves are left in the articles). There is already discussion happening on how to get the autoformatting to work without using links. Slambo (Speak) 22:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Manchester and Bolton Railway

Hi there. Is anyone here expert enough to create this article? It would help for the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal which is currently at FAC. I'd have a go myself but am pretty ignorant of railway matters. There is a fair amount of information in the article above to get anyone going, and it is linked in some of the pages of the railways which it was absorbed by. Parrot of Doom (talk) 12:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I started it, feel free to add anything relevant :) Parrot of Doom (talk) 00:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Yet another SEPTA screw-up

The line template for the SEPTA Route 100 broke apart within the infobox, so I had to take it out. How did it get this way, and how can it be fixed? ----DanTD (talk) 16:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, it's not just SEPTA. It's MBTA's commuter rail articles too. The worst damage has been done out of the Providence/Stoughton Line and Framingham/Worcester Line----DanTD (talk) 20:54, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

It appears there has been a major revision to {{Infobox rail line}}. I'd contemplated same months ago but had teething problems. I'm having a word with the perp editor. Mackensen (talk) 22:34, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Tentatively it appears the problem is solved and the line templates can go back where they were. Mackensen (talk) 22:43, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's fine for the Norristown High-Speed Line but not for MBTA. In addition, when I added a new line template to the Long Island Rail Road's Long Beach Branch yesterday, it was breaking up from the start. Today it's even worse. ----DanTD (talk) 22:51, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a width issue; that happens with those style templates. Can you list all the broken ones? Mackensen (talk) 23:13, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I think I've fixed all the MBTA templates plus the Long Beach Branch, but the amount of text you're trying to include there will cause width issues. Mackensen (talk) 23:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Fixed most MBTA route maps in infobox that using the WP:Route diagram template‎. If you encounter the same problem in other infobox, change the map syntax format like this as Providence/Stoughton Line:

map = {{{!}}{{Railway line header1}}{{BS-table2}}{{YOUR ROUTE TEMPLATE}}
{{!}}}

-- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 23:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I hope I don't run into similar problimes. ----DanTD (talk) 01:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Code simplified like this:

map = {{infobox rdt|YOUR ROUTE TEMPLATE}}

-- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 08:24, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Need Trains Project input on Cfr discussion

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 August 31#Category:Former Southern Pacific stations in Oregon. Thanks! Katr67 (talk) 16:48, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

John Bull (locomotive) FAR

John Bull (locomotive) has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Halgin (talk) 00:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The main concern noted is a lack of footnotes. The article was promoted to FA status before footnoting was required and a list of references at the end was sufficient. I've been meaning to get back to this article to add footnotes (like I did with Pioneer Zephyr) for some time. Looks like it's time to get back to it now. Slambo (Speak) 11:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I've added footnotes to the article and added several new references that I didn't have before to the article. Further feedback on the review page would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Slambo (Speak) 22:36, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Resolved

The review closed today to reaffirm the article as featured quality. Slambo (Speak) 11:08, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Another editor suggested that this article be used as the entry for "Today's Featured Article" on the Main Page on September 15. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests#September 15. Slambo (Speak) 19:37, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

All the comments on the suggestion to feature this article on Monday are in support, so it looks likely to appear on the Main page then. I will not be able to monitor the article for the whole day as I will be in school and at work on Monday, so any additional eyes from this WikiProject to help "whack-a-mole" would be greatly appreciated. Slambo (Speak) 10:59, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I can help revert vandalsim if someone wants me too, though I'll have class at different times during the day. ^-talk- the_ed17 ^-contribs- 13:06, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I've put it on my watchlist too, though I'll be at work so cannot guarantee instant response...
EdJogg (talk) 16:33, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Trains portal content selection

I received a question on my talk page today where I think the answer would benefit the project as a whole, so I am answering it here. The question was...

I've just noticed that an article I wrote (Hellingly Hospital Railway) was one of your selected articles – just out of interest, how was it selected, as I've never seen it discussed anywhere (and as one of the most obscure articles out there, it's barely linked-to anywhere on the 'pedia). I'm just curious as to how and where it came to notice... – iridescent 21:14, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The content displayed in the Selected article and Selected picture sections of Portal:Trains are usually selected by me early on Monday mornings (United States central time zone). Although both sections have associated candidate pages (Selected article candidates and Selected picture candidates), participation in the selections has usually been nonexistent. When there are no candidates listed for a given week, I look through the content and make a selection myself. I try to avoid highlighting my own contributions in these sections more than once every few months to give everyone a fair shake at having their contributions shown.

For the Selected article section, I normally start with Featured and Good articles and then move to B-Class articles if there isn't a suitable candidate. The criteria I use are that the article needs at least one image that can be used in a thumbnail, it needs a sufficient amount of text with which to form an abstract (usually this is the lead section of the article), it needs to be referenced and it cannot have any maintenance banners within it (although an occasional [citation needed] can be overlooked). The only other consideration that I make is that I try to avoid using articles about subjects from one country or region after each other; for example, if the article selected one week describes a UK subject, the next week I try to avoid another UK subject.

For the Selected picture, I look for images that are well exposed, well composed, sufficiently large in output resolution and licensed under a suitably free license; the image should also be aesthetically pleasing (yes, this is very subjective) or show a subject that is technically interesting or historically significant. Like the selection for the article, I try to avoid using images from one region twice in a row.

There are also a similar candidates and archive pages for the intro image (candidates, archive) and the Did you know (candidates, archive) and news (candidates, archived into the timeline pages) sections. Occasionally, another editor will update the news section and one other editor has been helping with numerous Did you know suggestions, but participation in these selections as a whole is also very slim. Slambo (Speak) 11:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

And kudos to Slambo for managing to run this thing day in day out, over some years. Without this project the rail articles would be a lot less consistent, probably a lot lower in quality, and without the project and portal to act as a focal point, the rail article editors would have less of a sense of the project they're building. I encourage others to nominate articles, pictures, news or facts for the portal - a broader range of views and input on the portal page will only help make this project stronger. - Zzrbiker (talk) 16:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, extreme kudos, and thanks for the explanation... Don't know if it's already been considered, but it might be an idea to set up a single central page for all the selection processes similar to WP:LT's Portal:London Transport/Vote; this makes it easier for people to nominate articles and images for consideration, and for others to pass comment on them. – iridescent 18:39, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, thanks; I'm glad my work is appreciated. B-) As a side note, I started the portal on May 16, 2005, based on a suggestion on this talk page. I've enjoyed keeping the portal up to date and the task has introduced me to a much wider array of information than I might have otherwise seen.

Putting all of the candidates onto one page hasn't been discussed for the trains portal, nor has it been suggested yet. On one hand, it centralizes the discussion pages for all of the content. However, as the trains portal cycles the selected article and picture on a weekly basis, the did you know section daily, the intro image monthly and the news section when there's news (although it's not updated as often because this section takes a little more work than the others), it seems like a bit much to keep track of in one place. With separate candidate pages for all of the periodically changing content, it's easy to skim the appropriate candidate page in one browser tab (especially when there haven't been any suggestions) and make the update in a second browser tab. Slambo (Speak) 19:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Input needed on locomotive articles

Since I'm not an expert in the area, can someone else look at Template:SPSRYLocomotives and determine whether those are all worthy of separate articles? --NE2 01:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Categorization

Is there any objection to me using AWB to creat subcategories of Category:Categories named after railway companies, in particular Category:Categories named after North American Class I railroads, to remove the categories from Category:Former Class I railroads in the United States? --NE2 09:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Rail transport

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

UK Railways : Article Assessment

I am pleased to announce that the UK Railways Project has successfully given all of its articles an initial assessment of their importance. The work can now focus on getting those articles identified as "Top" and "High" importance improved. Olana North (talk) 11:12, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Names for rail line and station articles - additions in brackets - need for dabs/hatnotes/redirects?

Hallo, While stub-sorting for WP:WSS I came across Parc (AMT), and was concerned that there wasn't a link to it from the station name plain, Parc (a dab page). The editor who'd created the page didn't seem to think a dab link (or redirect if the name wasn't already in use) was necessary, for this and many other stations. Looking further, it seems that every line and station on AMT has "(AMT)" in its article title, though it isn't needed for disambiguation (eg Blainville-Saint-Jérôme Line (AMT), with no redirect from Blainville-Saint-Jérôme Line). In contrast, the lines in Category:London Underground lines don't have disambiguators except for Circle line (London Underground).

Is there a general policy about this? I can't see anything at WP:NAME to make rail lines and stations a special case, so I would think that (a) rail line names in brackets are only needed when the line or station name is already in use in Wikipedia for another article (but looking at Paris example, perhaps there is a general policy for railways to add these as standard in every case?), and (b) (much more important) in every case where something is added in brackets there should be a dab page, hatnote, or redirect to help the reader who searches for "Foo" or "Foo line" to find it.

Looking at another example, Paris Métro, it looks as if every station has an addition in brackets, but there is a link to Argentine (Paris Métro) from Argentine via the Argentina (disambiguation) page, and redirect from Charles de Gaulle - Étoile and Charles de Gaulle - Étoile (Paris Métro) to the article at Charles de Gaulle - Étoile (Paris Métro and RER) as I'd expect. London Underground stations have names like Embankment tube station, linked from the dab page at Embankment. PamD (talk) 07:27, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

A request to review and assess a railway suspension bridge

Hi, could the project take a look at Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge and assess its importance to the project? The bridge is pretty significant to North American railways as it was:

• the first railway suspension bridge,
• the intersection of three heavy traffic railways: New York Central Railroad's Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad, the New York and Erie Rail Road's Canandaigua and Niagara Falls Railroad, and the Great Western Railway,
• one of the busiest railway border crossings between Canada and the United States.

Please leave your comments at Wikipedia:Peer review/Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge/archive1. Thank you. Jappalang (talk) 01:05, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Category renaming discussion

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 September 22#Category:Intermodal transportation authorities --NE2 09:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

IATA code for Philadelphia Airport Station?

I'm currently working on an article for the Philadelphia International Airport Terminals (SEPTA station), which is separate from the article for Philadelphia International Airport, and I'm stuck. I was looking to see if there was a separate IATA code for this station, as there is for many major railroad stations whether they connect to airports or not. I looked on their offical website, and it didn't give me any codes whatsoever. Does anybody know how I can get around this problem? ----DanTD (talk) 02:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if there is one; 30th Street Station is ZFV though. --NE2 04:03, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I just did it without the code. But I would like to find out how to make the new article the preceding station at Eastwick (SEPTA station), rather than the article on the airport itself. ----DanTD (talk) 18:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Cincinnatian needs additional routebox

I've been doing a little work on the Cincinnatian article. It needs a routebox for the second (Detroit-Cincinnati) route. I don't have the timetable information available, unfortunately. Mangoe (talk) 21:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Positive Train Control

Is "Positive Train Control" just an North-American term form Train protection system? In that case, we have a redundancy. In the other case, the PTC article must get a lot clearer (what are the specifics of PTC with the area of TPS?). --Pjacobi (talk) 10:40, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

It may be. I haven't seen it listed in references about other countries' systems. PTC is in the news now in the aftermath of the Chatsworth collision last Friday. I read somewhere (might have been the Trains newswire) that a representative from California is working on a bill to require PTC system installations. It will be interesting to see where this goes since the FRA has been recommending PTC for at least 15 years. Slambo (Speak) 19:03, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Exactly because it is in the news, we should have a good article. And the important first step into this direction, is to unearth whether it's a synonym for train protection system.

BTW, from googling around and trying to read what is at my hands, it seems to me, that first (test) implementations -- and calls for a wider deployment -- did start in the 1920s, both at the Reichsbahn and in the US (and most likely also in the UK and in France). But whereas in Europe TPS coverage increased steadily since then (interrupted by WW2) and is now the rule, in the US nothing much happened. This isn't meant as US-bashing, just as an observation and as a corollary of the general divergence between US and Europe reagrding the role and the handling of railroads.

--Pjacobi (talk) 19:49, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The train protection system article is general in nature and doesn't deal with any specific system. It seems to me that Positive Train Control may be synonymous with Automatic Train Protection, in which case there is duplication. –Signalhead ^< T > 19:58, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly, November (yeah, they're over a month ahead) 2008 Trains has a blurb about PTC on page 29. --NE2 22:39, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

How to fix or report an error in a route box?

The LIRR Far Rockaway Branch article has an error: Cedarhurst station is listed (in a box at the right of the page) with the wrong mileage (21.9 instead of 20.9) but it's not obvious how to fix this (or even who to report the error to if I can't fix it myself). Tom239 (talk) 03:49, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Hit "edit this page" on the article and scroll to the bottom, where it says "Pages transcluded onto the current version of this page". You'll see (among many others) Template:Far Rockaway Branch, which you can edit. --NE2 04:01, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

You beat me to this one, NE2. ----DanTD (talk) 04:03, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Since Tom didn't get to it, I fixed the error. --NE2 07:03, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the info and for fixing the error. Does such a change take time to propagate to the pages that it's included in? I see the correct mileage if I look at the template page that NE2 edited, but at the moment the old incorrect value is still on the Far Rockaway branch page. Tom239 (talk) 02:40, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Strange - it should have updated by now. Anyway, a null edit fixed it. --NE2 07:36, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

St Pancras station

There has been much discussion over the past few months, this perhaps being one of the longest discussions ever on a name of a railway article, over whther St Pancras railway station should be named differently. There is now currently a move request in progress to determine this.

Btw, the discussion has occurred before the rest of the station opened refurbished and rebranded. See Talk:St Pancras railway station. Nearly 2 years!!! Simply south (talk) 20:08, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

To note, future discussions on the name should be discussed at Talk:St Pancras railway station/Naming. Simply south (talk) 17:16, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge FAC

Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge has been nominated for FA. Please take a look and comment at its FAC. Thank you. Jappalang (talk) 00:06, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Image needs replacement

Hello all...

An image used in the British Rail Class 507 article, specifically Image:507026 Centralb.jpg and also Image:507033 HamiltonSquare.jpg, has a little bit of a licensing issue. The image was uploaded back when the rules around image uploading were less restrictive. It is presumed that the uploader was willing to license the picture under the GFDL license but was not clear in that regard. As such, the image, while not at risk of deletion, is likely not clearly licensed to allow for free use in any future use of this article. If anyone has an image that can replace this, or can go take one and upload it, it would be best.

• And also Image:508136 Nameplate.jpg on British Rail Class 508

You have your mission, take your camera and start clicking.--Jordan 1972 (talk) 00:43, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I suppose if I were in the UK or going there, I might. Instead, is there a possibility of simply adding a fair-use tag to them? ----DanTD (talk) 01:17, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I've copied your request to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways, where you will hopefully get a response.
EdJogg (talk) 14:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I dropped this notice here because the article talk pages show that the articles in question are part of this particular WikiProject. In regards to adding a fair use tag, there really is no need. As I stated the images are not up for deletion and are not deletable simply due to the licensing issues. Where there might be some issues is if the articles were chosen to be used in a free release, these images would likely not be able to be used. The same non-use of the images would occur if they were tagged with a non-free license (ie fair use). It is simply a notice of an issue that could be fixed.--Jordan 1972 (talk) 01:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

SEPTA screw-ups continue

I was looking through the SEPTA R5 station articles, and found that somebody converted a lot of the previous & next stations into redlinks for Route 102 trolley stops. I had to redirect them to the appropriate articles, and I can't find a way to get rid of the phony articles. ----DanTD (talk) 17:29, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Can you give an example of a "phony article"? --NE2 17:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Gladly; Haverford (SEPTA Route 102 station), Bryn Mawr (SEPTA Route 102 station),Rosemont (SEPTA Route 102 station), and Radnor (SEPTA Route 102 station). These were originally regional rail station articles that somebody converted into redlinks. I've been doing my share of work on the SEPTA Routes 101 and 102 trolley stops latley, and I don't know of any evidence of stops along the Route 102 line with the same names as those RR stations. Route 100, yes, but not Route 102. ----DanTD (talk) 18:41, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, OK. There was a problem with Template:SEPTA stations; it's probably fixed now. After checking that these have no incoming links, you should be able to tag them {{db-typo}}. --NE2 18:54, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but Springfield Road (SEPTA station) has a Route 101 station and a Route 102 station. It doesn't have a Route 100 or a Regional Railroad station. ----DanTD (talk) 19:03, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Oops. I think I fixed it now. --NE2 19:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch. It makes me want to consider adding the previous and next stations for Springfield Road (SEPTA Route 101 station). ----DanTD (talk) 19:24, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Not working for SEPTA Route 101

Unfortunatley, I just did start a sandbox for User:DanTD/Sandbox/Saxer Avenue(SEPTA Route 101 station), and instead of Springfield Road (SEPTA Route 101 station) being the next stop, it has mysteriously gone to the non-existant Springfield Road (SEPTA Route 100 station). ----DanTD (talk) 16:30, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Oops. --NE2 22:08, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Coordinates for linear features

I have started a page, to give guidance on adding coordinates to articles about linear features such as railways, roads and rivers. I intend to use it to document current practise, and develop polices for future use. Please feel free to add to it, or to discuss the matter on its talk page. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:22, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Color bars; How can they be made?

I think I may've just accidentally created a color bar for the Baltimore Metro Subway. If not, then please let me know who did. Either way, I still would like to deliberatley make some color bars for the Green Mountain Railroad. Some stations up there need them. ----DanTD (talk) 01:37, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

This kind of colored route map by wikisyntax (probably invented by RU Wikipedians) has no project page to guide the usage. All you can do is to learn from the existing map and copy the syntax to your page/template. There's another option: WP:ROUTE which simplify most processes to help editor to create their route diagram with comparatively lesser trouble, but the downside is the usage of color is pre-defined so that means you can't use the exact color for the line in its rail system in exchange for better presentation such as transfer, tunnel, bridge and junction which is "not so capable" for RU route map. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 01:51, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

1913 electric railway maps

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/mcgraw_electric.html --NE2 15:00, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Featured article review of Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railway

Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railway has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Tom B (talk) 14:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I've got this one covered. --NE2 23:55, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

William Nelson Page FAR

William Nelson Page has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:57, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposed change of primary U.S. classification

The Class II and III definitions are rarely used, and it is impossible to know for sure which companies qualify. On the other hand, the Association of American Railroads uses a "regional railroad" definition of 350 miles of track or $40 million operating revenue, and does publish a full list of these (although not all smaller railroads are included in the smaller classes). Other bodies, including the Federal Railroad Administration, have picked up on this definition. I propose replacing Template:US class II and Template:US class III with similar templates for regional, local, and switching and terminal railroads. It might also make sense to merge the Class I/II/III articles into one article on classification of railroads in the U.S. --NE2 22:35, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm actually thinking it's not worth it to have templates or categories at all for sub-regional railroads. These are not the defining characteristic that being Class I or even regional is, and there may be cases that the AAR has not classified where it is not clear if it is line-haul or switching/terminal. Since nobody has objected, I'm going to do the first phase now: replacing Class II with regional. --NE2 01:06, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I have nominated the Class II and III categories and templates for deletion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 October 15#Class II and III railroad categories and Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Class II and III railroad templates. --NE2 03:08, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Texas Railroad Museum

Stub article has been AfD'd for third time. This and previous Afd follow almost immediately after previous AfD. Mjroots (talk) 18:20, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Isn't there another article that it can be redirected to, until somebody can expand it? ----DanTD (talk) 19:04, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Should we deprecate {{Todo, trains}}?

I've been thinking for a while now that with the {{TrainsWikiProject}} banner on more and more pages, we don't need to include links specific to this project in the todo template. The main {{todo}} template has more functionality, and the only link on {{todo, trains}} other than links that are repeated there is a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Todo and categorization into Category:To do, trains. It seems more efficient to integrate the category into the project banner by making the unref, imageneeded or mapneeded categories child categories of it; other relevant pages can be manually added to the category. The 220 transclusions of {{todo, trains}} can be easily changed to {{todo}}, even by a bot. Any objections? Slambo (Speak) 23:37, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I made the update to the three categories, adding Category:To do, trains as a parent category of Unreferenced rail transport articles, Rail transport articles needing images and Trains project articles needing maps. Unless there are any objections, the next step is to change the transclusions. Slambo (Speak) 18:01, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

There might be a few articles that should be removed from that category. I've recently been struggling to fix Morton (SEPTA station) so that it wouldn't have all those tags on it, and this includes adding some sources. Either way, I don't like the way depreciating the To-do list sounds. ----DanTD (talk) 18:10, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not our todolist page that would be deprecated, but the template, {{todo, trains}}. Slambo (Speak) 18:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Morton (SEPTA station) doesn't currently transclude that template, so that page would be unaffected by this change too. Slambo (Speak) 18:27, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, now that I have a better idea of what you're talking about, I'm not sure it's that good of an idea. I can see some justification if an article just needs maps, or photos, or something like that, but some of these templates are pretty specific, like Talk:Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, for example. ----DanTD (talk) 02:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

We would definitely keep the todolists that have been created and maintained already. The {{Todo, trains}} was originally created as a fork of {{todo}}, deprecating the former and using the latter instead would not remove the lists from the talk pages as both templates use the same subpage strategy to store the data. To show what I mean, I created a sample revision there showing what it would look like after deprecation. The main difference is that the todolist box doesn't have the train icon or the link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Todo (which is on the {{TrainsWikiProject}} banner already).

This template was considered for deletion in December 2005 because it was a template fork (and I argued at that time for the template's preservation); it was kept at that time primarily because of the categorization, a task that is now handled by the project banner. An alternative would be to have {{todo, trains}} transclude {{todo}} and add Category:To do, trains, but that adds to the maintenance as we would have to duplicate all of the parameter names and pass them through to the transclusion (which means we would have to monitor {{todo}} more closely for changes to the parameter list). Right now there is very little consistency in the usage of {{todo, trains}} versus {{todo}}. I don't think we should replace {{todo}} on pages related to rail transport because those pages are also within the scope of other WikiProjects; it seems to me that the WikiProject applicability is better handled by the project banners and not the todo template. Pages that we still want to list in Category:To do, trains can be manually added to the category. Slambo (Speak) 17:59, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Anyone else have any opinions on this proposal? Slambo (Speak) 18:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

No other opinions after a month? Slambo (Speak) 20:59, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Otto Perry images: possible problem

Many of the images in Category:Otto Perry images fail our fair use criteria; see related discussion at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions#Otto Perry images. Someone better-versed than me in what's unique about locomotives should look through them. --NE2 05:40, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

These precede the current state of our fair use policies. A quick examination shows that some of them depict irreplaceable things in ways crucial to our articles, while others are in use in ways that aren't as defensible. An example of the latter, in my view, is the use of many of the images to depict named passenger trains. The trains are not distinctive enough to actually be even recognizable from other passenger trains of the same railroad; I feel little useful information is conveyed thereby. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 15:59, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

How about Image:Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern 17.jpg in Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railway? Does it show something unique to the CL&N, or is it just a typical 4-4-0? (I'm working on rescuing this old FA - currently waiting on interlibrary loan - and want to be sure all the images are fine.) --NE2 18:40, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how many other people have been doing it, but I've been adding fair-use tags to as many of them as I can. Once Lordkinbote left Wikpedia, I've tried to save most of the Otto Perry images, not to mention other railroad-related images he posted... unless somebody adds a duplicate to the commons. ----DanTD (talk) 20:30, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

In that case, I doubt we can easily obtain a freely licensed photo of a CL&N locomotive, so I think it can be justified. I think we'd have a still better case if we talked more about the road's locomotive fleet in the article? Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 16:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

But is the CL&N locomotive distinctive, or is it a standard type that we have free photos of? --NE2 20:45, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

More and more, I'm becoming convinced this is either a severe glitch or deliberate sabotage. I'd like to think it's the former of the two. I just tried to put another fair-use rationale tag on another Perry image to restore it to the article on the USS Memphis (CL-13), only to find a warning claiming the article doesn't exist!! Something's not right about this. ----DanTD (talk) 20:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Try reading the error message the template gives you: "Check capitalization. Enter only the exact title of a single article with no [[link brackets]] or other formatting. It is also possible the indicated article was deleted." But on that image you're essentially lying when you say that no free image is available that image shouldn't be used, since we have one... --NE2 20:46, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Does calling an editor "lying" improve the quality of your argument? Pyrotec (talk) 21:16, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

What else would you call claiming that no free image exists when one does? Well, OK, it could have been a mistake. --NE2 21:55, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

It was the brackets. Maybe the other image is free, but I don't see any for this one. In any case, I'll remove that part. ----DanTD (talk) 21:20, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I realize this isn't really the place for such a discussion, since it's about a ship, but where does Image:OP-20783.jpg have a replaceable image? ----DanTD (talk) 20:41, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Right in the infobox on USS Memphis (CL-13)... --NE2 00:16, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, you mean that one of the ship in Kiel, Germany? That's not really the same image, though. I think my mistake was tagging it for fair-use and not putting it back in the article right away. As for Image:Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern 17.jpg, I hope you're not suggesting that we use random generic 4-4-0's as substitutes. ----DanTD (talk) 01:43, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course it's not the same image, but it is the same ship, and adequately shows what the USS Memphis looks like. --NE2 02:29, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

What template?

What template should be used s-rail or the original kind (I don't know the name) s-rail is good but its harder to put service patterns in, which sometimes is required to give an accurate portrayal of services. Mark999 13:49, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Additions about on-street running

There is a user adding info about on-street running to various settlement and railroad company articles. Though I'm sure some railfans find this interesting, I'm not sure if it necessarily belongs in articles about individual locations. What do you folks think? Katr67 (talk) 14:53, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

There is also a category to go with it: Category:On-street running. Katr67 (talk) 14:55, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if you're aware of this, but there have been some on-street railways in Brooklyn, New York; Most notably the South Brooklyn Railway, the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, New York Cross Harbor Railroad, and lines like that. In western Philadelphia and the suburbs, there are segments of the Media-Sharon Hill Trolley Lines and SEPTA Subway-Surface Trolley Lines that run on the streets. I personally remember sections of Amtrak's Silver Service that run on the street in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and somewhere in southern Virginia. ----DanTD (talk) 02:02, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Streetcars are a different thing - those are supposed to be on the street. As for freight, I was always fond of Manhattan's Tenth Avenue. I think street running is certainly notable enough for a mention in the article about the rail line. If there's an article about the street or area it's in, like Jack London Square, that's probably a good place to also mention it. It probably doesn't belong in the main article about the town though. --NE2 03:03, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Have you ever heard of the book Brooklyn Waterfront Railways, by Jay Bendersky? When I lived on Long Island, I was able to get an interlibrary loan of that book. I guarantee you'll find plenty of info and images of on-street railroad lines. Sadly, an ILL of this book isn't available in the Sunshine State. ----DanTD (talk) 03:26, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

More on-street rails in Philadelphia

I just saw some on-street rails on Front Street (Philadelphia) using GoogleMaps Street View program, while I was checking out the Market-Frankford Line. I don't know if it was for a former trolley, or some local waterfront freight railroad system. ----DanTD (talk) 15:16, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about Front Street, but Columbus Boulevard has remnants of the Philadelphia Belt Line Railroad. --NE2 22:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Street trackage in Philadelphia was very extensive. There were tracks in Delaware Avenue, now Columbus Boulevard from Pattison north to Orthodox St. (!), and on Vandalia and Swanson from Oregon north to Delaware Ave. (This was a mixture of PRR, B&O, Reading, and Philadelphia Belt Line.) There was trackage in Reed St. as well, and a PRR line down Washington Avenue that once ran west across the city to Grays Ferry Ave., and on that street to the Schuylkill. The Reading had street track down Noble and then Willow St. from the City Branch to the Delaware waterfront, and trackage along Canal Street from Delaware Ave. to Laurel St. There was also a Reading spurs along York St. running north a few blocks from the intersection with Girard Ave., and a track branched off from the Willow St. line, worked its way up 2nd St. and then American St., and became the Bethlehem Branch. The PRR had tracks in Lehigh Avenue from about Aramingo north to Trenton Ave., and south from its line to Kensington along Westmoreland and Tioga to Delaware Avenue. Choess (talk) 15:28, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Even earlier, there were tracks on Market Street: [1] I think Broad Street had some too in those days. Streetcar tracks were everywhere too: commons:1911 maps of streetcars in Philadelphia --NE2 01:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

The Broad Street Subway must've served as a replacement for the on-street line there. As for the line on Market Street, given the date of the opening of the Market-Frankford Line, it would appear that both systems were in competition with each other, and MFL won. ----DanTD (talk) 02:52, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I think they were primarily freight lines, built by the city. Some history can be found at [2]. --NE2 03:18, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this was the "City Railroad," removed in the late 1860s, long before the BSS was built. Choess (talk) 03:31, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Guidance on railroads that were only chartered

I'm wondering whether articles like Atlantic and Gulf Railroad and Steamboat Company should exist. I am only talking about the "lowest of the low" - this company was incorporated by the legislature, but does not appear to have done anything else, and simply passed out of existence quietly without becoming part of another company. I have not been able to find any mentions in any other sources, such as local histories; literally the only reference is the state law that incorporated it. --NE2 05:18, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Update: there seems to have been an AFD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Key of the Gulf Railroad, but it included some companies that did become something bigger. Would there be any objection to me

(a) redirecting them to list of defunct Florida railroads and

(b) removing them from the list if there is no evidence of anything beyond the incorporation

? --NE2 05:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that's probably below the threshold. For my part, I only listed things at List of Michigan railroads if the company actually built something, bought something, or was consolidated by another company. If the company was targeted at the same right of way as a later company I might redirect it there. Mackensen (talk) 11:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly what I did at list of Utah railroads :) If I knew of any, I'd also include companies that did nothing but had an effect on other companies or the region, such as if it was chartered as a move in an ongoing dispute or if it was part of some sort of fraudulent scheme for selling land. --NE2 11:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Having been the voice of deletionism in the original merger discussion, I'm still inclined to get rid of these or at most sequester them into a list of failed projects. I've reread a group of them, and they are misleading; I don't think the casual reader would necessarily understand that (for example) Key of the Gulf Railroad was not a defunct operating railroad, but one which never really got started. I'm also thinking that the format of list of defunct Florida railroads is confusing; if nothing else, it would be helpful to organize it by fate (say, "merger to X", "abandoned","not built", etc.). Mangoe (talk) 14:55, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

If these articles are going to be deleted, the info should be transferred to the list somehow. ----DanTD (talk) 19:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if that makes sense; these are companies that were simply chartered. There are an unknown number of these, and it would probably require looking through state records to find those chartered under the general incorporation act, and even records of other states to find those chartered out-of-state. The owner of UtahRails.net has done that for Utah, but he's not even sure it's complete. (I admit when I made lists like List of turnpikes in Connecticut I included all unbuilt companies, but there I actually had all the information, since turnpikes were usually chartered well before general incorporation laws.) --NE2 09:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually there may be a single source for Florida if someone can find it. From "A Short History of Florida Railroads": "In 1939, after many months of research, Florida's railroad commission determined that 564 companies had been chartered in the state since railroading began in the 1830s. Of that number, 251 lines had actually been built..." Presumably that railroad commission report still exists somewhere. --NE2 09:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest that a separate "list of unbuilt STATE railroads" (as opposed to defunct railroads) would be a good idea, with a paragraph or so for each railroad outlining the charter rights and date and maybe the incorporators. On the other hand, railroads that did construction/grading (even if never finished) should probably still be eligible for separate articles (e.g., Path Valley Railroad). Choess (talk) 01:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

So are there any objections to redirecting, part (a) of my above plan, including the removal of Category:Defunct Florida railroads? I could redirect to either List of defunct Florida railroads or List of railroads incorporated in Florida; I'm thinking the latter might be better. --NE2 09:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I object to the removal of Category:Defunct Florida railroads, because there are articles that are long enough to use such a category. Plus, it sets a precedent for the removal of similar categories from other states. But if you're going to redirect any of them, List of railroads incorporated in Florida would seem more acceptable.... unless that article grows too long. ----DanTD (talk) 12:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, no no no. I'm talking about removing that category only from companies that were chartered with nothing else being done. --NE2 13:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I'll do the redirecting to List of railroads incorporated in Florida soon. —NE2 10:07, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Google searching tip

If you haven't noticed this, it's really useful: "rochester and OR & lake ontario belt" searches for either form of the and/&. --NE2 16:07, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Railway stations without geographical coordinates

I've used CatScan to generate a list of U.S. railway stations that lack geographical coordinates.

Lists for other countries can be generated similarly to the above, by changing the category entries in the search form in the obvious way.

For example:

• Railway stations in Australia missing geographic coordinates
• Railway stations in Australia missing geographic coordinates
• Railway stations in France missing geographic coordinates
• Railway stations in Germany missing geographic coordinates

The articles are all marked with {{coord missing}} tags, which need to be replaced with {{coord}} tags that contain the location's latitude/longitude coordinates; or you might be able to add coordinates to an existing infobox, where appropriate. You can find out how to do this, and how to format {{coord}} tags, at the Wikipedia:Geocoding how-to for WikiProject members. -- The Anome (talk) 01:30, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

ČD Class 471

This article has been AfD'd. I don't know much about Czech railways but it would seem to be notable enough to me. Mjroots (talk) 15:33, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree. See my comments on the AfD discussion page. The article needs developing but is one of many that is a work in progress as part of this excellent Wiki Trains project. Bermicourt (talk) 22:39, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Move Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft to Deutsche Reichsbahn

I would like to propose retitling the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft article to just "Deutsche Reichsbahn". The logic is that the "Deutsche Reichsbahn" was the overarching name for the German national railways from its inception in 1920 through to 1949, when it was effectively split into the "Deutsche Bundesbahn" and a successor administration with the same name in East Germany. The "Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft" was simply the organisational construct through which the Deutsche Reichsbahn was run from 1924 to 1937. Once taken over and repainted, the vehicles carried the name "Deutsche Reichsbahn" or "DR" throughout. So it is quite normal to refer to these railways simply as the "Deutsche Reichsbahn" for the entire period to 1949 without any confusion as it was to all intents and purposes the same administration under the same government. It would also simplify the vast majority of the links which currently have to say [[Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft|Deutsche Reichsbahn]]. Finally it also conforms to German Wikipedia practice. In a sense the DRG was just one part of the DR's history, so it should be a section in the article, but not, IMHO, the title. This is a copy of the proposal on the article's discussion page as I wasn't sure if it would be spotted by everyone there Bermicourt (talk) 22:23, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

An unusual vehicle

Commons:Image:Travel to Monte Cristo, Washington 1916.jpg

I found this unusual vehicle in a 1916 magazine from which I was scanning and uploading images. I'm not sure I've categorized it correctly (help would be welcome) and I wouldn't be surprised if there was an article I'm not aware of for which it would be a fine illustration. Have at it! - Jmabel | Talk 02:38, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Railcar, but it's already overloaded with images. --NE2 13:25, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

It looks like a tourist bus that had railroad wheel replacing rubber-strip tires. Could this be added to a commons gallery for the Railcar article? ----DanTD (talk) 22:44, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Feel more than free. I'd just be happy to whatever extent people can clarify the description and categorization on the image page on Commons. - Jmabel | Talk 21:45, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Any New York Central fans here?

I'd appreciate checking over Image:New York Central Railroad system map (1918).svg to ensure that I didn't make any mistakes. Thank you. --NE2 13:24, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Indian Railways at FAR

Indian Railways has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured quality. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:01, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

The review so far notes a lack of inline citations, but it is otherwise worthy. Any volunteers to take this on? Slambo (Speak) 17:36, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Locomotive article up for deletion

The article for the shunting locomotive LMS Sentinel 7164 has been nominated for deletion. The discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LMS Sentinel 7164.

NOTE: I did not initiate this deletion discussion but am listing here as the article falls into the scope of this project. --Oakshade (talk) 02:17, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

VIA Rail infoboxes

I'm sure each of you is aware of the fact that Amtrak infoboxes, as well as Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North, New Jersey Transit and a few others have their own style parameters. Well, you can thank Secondarywaltz for creating a new one for VIA Rail station infoboxes. I encourage everybody to spread them around, especially Canadians Wikipedians. ----DanTD (talk) 06:24, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:RAIL

Why doesn't WP:RAIL redirect here? 76.66.198.46 (talk) 06:04, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Because WP:UKT got there first! Mjroots (talk) 07:03, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense. Shouldn't this WP have it? (discuss it with the UK group). There isn't even a pointer to this WP 76.66.193.170 (talk) 07:17, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. --NE2 07:23, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

See below and WT:RAIL. Simply south (talk) 20:47, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

List of rail accidents (2000–present)

This article is generally poorly referenced, with some trivial accidents included. I've proposed a course of action to improve the article on the talk page. Mjroots (talk) 07:02, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Article ideas

I have noticed we don't really have any articles about railway workshops or locomotive depots

Motive power depot has a British perspective stub, Bahnbetriebswerk is about German and Austrian railways but has some good stuff, as does Bahnbetriebswerk (steam locomotives). Ausbesserungswerk is another foreign translated one, Roundhouse is a small article.

Does anyone have some good books or magazine articles to put something 'general' together on the topic? Wongm (talk) 11:38, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I can't think of any books, but there are articles on such places. I've written at least two of them; Hillside Facility (LIRR station) and Elmwood Carhouse (SEPTA station), and I've been calling for Highbridge (Metro-North station) for a while. Plus, there has always been the Category:New York City Subway yards and shops. ----DanTD (talk) 00:37, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Rail transport in Germany task force - status table

Can anyone produce a colour-coded table showing the status (class/importance, etc) of articles in the Rail transport in Germany task force area on that task force's page? Just like the main one on the overall project page. Thanks. Bermicourt (talk) 11:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

The necessary Categories have been created here - Category:Rail transport in Germany articles by importance and Category:Rail transport in Germany articles by quality and the Wikipedea 1.0 bot will update these every three days are so; and that will copy across into Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Rail transport in Germany task force#Article status overview. However, these Categories are currently empty and will remain so until the Template:TrainsWikiProject is updated - I've asked that it be done. After the template has been updated, all WPTrains class assessments for articles flagged as "Rail transport in Germany" should automatically copy across and they will appear in the relevant Category:Rail transport in Germany articles by quality; however you will manually need to add the importance-class to each article's talkpage.Pyrotec (talk) 07:44, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

The {{TrainsWikiProject}} template is now updated. The class categories will begin populating as soon as the cache server gets through to it in the job queue. The new param for importance is DE-importance. Slambo (Speak) 01:45, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Great, thanks very much.Pyrotec (talk) 08:13, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, guys, great work. Just one question: does that mean that articles have two importance ratings - one overall railway importance rating and one German railway importance rating? I can see there is a subtle difference, but do we really need that? That said, I've always felt we could do with one more importance category anyway, but that's a separate issue. Bermicourt (talk) 08:23, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

It'll work in the same way as for UK articles, where we can distinguish between UK importance and global importance. For example, the main railway company articles (GWR/LMS/LNER/SR/British Rail) are unquestionably 'Top' importance for the UK, but only 'High' on a global scale. (Globally, articles such as 'Train' and 'Rail transport' are Top). In practice, most of them will be low+low or mid+low!

Presumably we would not normally expect to have a 'DE' rating and a 'UK' rating, although there may well be cases where this applies, so it shouldn't be prohibited.

EdJogg (talk) 11:30, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

How often does the table update? I've done a lot of ratings in the last week or so and they don't seem to have been added. Bermicourt (talk) 08:35, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

That information is already present in your WP files; here - Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Rail transport in Germany articles by quality log . Pyrotec (talk) 20:21, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but what I mean is: how often does the table here - Rail transport in DE article status overview - on the project page update? Bermicourt (talk) 20:41, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations, Germany, on getting your own edition of WikiProject: Trains. You should add some German Funicular Railroads to the project while your at it. ----DanTD (talk) 01:19, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:RAIL

As Mjroots has noted, NE2 redirected WP:RAIL to here instead of WikiProject UK Railways, this should not be the case as it has always historically been UK Railway's redirect and it's main one. (Or capitalised version anyway). See Wikipedia:List_of_shortcuts/Project_shortcuts#Topic-oriented_WikiProjects. Simply south (talk) 19:39, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Additional discussion is already ongoing on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways. I will put my comments there. Slambo (Speak) 20:42, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Silly... --NE2 00:43, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

A lack of communication is not silly. Participants of the UK Railways WikiProject are not obligated to read the Trains WikiProject's talk page; and participants of the Trains WikiProject are not obligated to read the UK Railways WikiProject's talk page. However, when a change made by one project affects another project's work, a dialogue needs to be opened with participants of both projects and followed through to ensure full cooperation between the two projects. Please join the discussion there. Slambo (Speak) 11:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I have more useful things to do, like filling out TPS reports --NE2 13:44, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I have raised the matter at WP:RFD - see Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2008 November 21 —  Tivedshambo  _(t/c) 19:03, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Virginia Central Railroad vs. Virginia Central Railway

Over on the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad article, there are a lot of redlinks, at least two of which I've fixed. But I'm wondering about one for the Virginia Central Railway: Is it really just the same company as the Virginia Central Railroad, or do they just have names that sound similar? ----DanTD (talk) 01:35, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

See Virginia Central Railroad#Other uses of the Virginia Central name (which should really be separate articles). --NE2 01:43, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, I missed that part. ----DanTD (talk) 01:57, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

AT & SF Locomotive 3759

This locomotive is on the National Register of Historic Places. I think this article should be moved to Santa Fe 3759 to match the Trains WikiProject manual of style - no ampersands and the most common name and operating number. I've also posted this at the WP:NRHP page. Einbierbitte (talk) 22:25, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I have moved it. Mangoe (talk) 14:46, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Category renaming discussion

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 November 24#Category:Terminal railroads --NE2 23:23, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Siemens Venturio

This article has wrong information, Venturio is a concept train and has nothing to do with what is mentioned in the article. Need help in fixing it, thanx. --STTW (talk) 17:57, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

The content of the article can be divided into new articles on DBAG Class 411, 415 and 605. This would solve the problem, hopefully. --STTW (talk) 21:24, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Kashmir Railway

I've added this page to WikiProject:Trains, as it needs updation and review, both of which it hasn't been getting frequently enough. Please visit the page and assess it. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 14:09, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Use of maps as sources

There is a discussion started at WT:OR that has basically requested that wikipedia have a guideline for the use of maps as sources. There is a discussion there, as well as a proposed policy.Dave (talk) 22:34, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Southport

Manchester-Southport Line
to Preston Meols Cop Ash Street Butts Lane Halt Southport Central Southport Chapel Street St Luke's Manchester-Southport Line Southport Lord Street Kew Gardens Birkdale Palace Heathey Lane Halt Ainsdale Beach Ainsdale Southport & Cheshire Lines Extension Railway Shirdley Hill New Cut Lane Halt Liverpool, Crosby and Southport Railway Halsall Woodvale Plex Moss Lane Mossbridge Barton Liverpool, Southport and Preston Junction Railway Altcar and Hillhouse Lydiate Sefton and Maghull Northern Line to Ormskirk Old Roan Aintree (CLC) Aintree(2)L&Y North Mersey Branch Ford Aintree Racecourse Fazakerley Aintree(1) L&Y Orrell Park Northern Line to Liverpool

Map of Southport Area [3]

It's been sat on a sub page for a while. I think I made it to see what the relationship between the lines involved was. Britmax (talk) 16:26, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

BS icon deletion discussions

Two BS icons are being discussed for deletion.

Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Image:BSicon tKRZo.svg and Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Image:BSicon tBRÜCKE.svg. Mjroots (talk) 09:05, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Fairfield/Vacaville

Progressive railroading has an article about Fairfield, California getting another station on the Capitol Corridor. Generally speaking I trust the source, but I can't find a second source to corroborate. Any else have anything on this? Mackensen (talk) 01:31, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's the press release. --NE2 01:48, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Excellent; thanks! Mackensen (talk) 02:04, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

New train article draft

A contest at DYK lead to the beginning of User talk:Suntag/Train melody by several editors. At the moment, the article is more about Japan train melodies. If you know of reliable source material for this topic, please add to User talk:Suntag/Train melody. On the article being moved to article namespace, contributors may receive a DYK article creation credit once the article appears on the Main Page. Thanks. -- Suntag ☼ 19:35, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

As a side note to other editors, I was personally asked to take a look at this earlier this week. The main question asked of me was of the proposed article's title; I don't know of another more appropriate title right now. I made a quick skim of the article, but haven't had a chance to do much more than that yet. Slambo (Speak) 12:02, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

NTSB official site down this weekend.

The NTSB sent a note out on their regular announcement email list that the official NTSB website (http://www.ntsb.gov), which we link to for citations in several articles that discuss railway accidents, will be offline for at least 18 hours this weekend. The email notes that there is electrical work going on in the building where the web server is located. The site is expected to be back online late Saturday December 6. So, if you notice anyone removing NTSB website links as dead links over the next 24 hours, please restore them as it is likely that the information will again be available later. Slambo (Speak) 18:39, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Holding company templates

I've created {{RailAmerica}} as an example--do others think it would be worthwhile to create and maintain these sorts of templates? Mackensen (talk) 03:28, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure - these companies don't usually have much in common, and there are categories already. --NE2 03:29, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it does encourage serendipity, but that might not be a justification. I know I'm more likely to follow a link in a template than click on a category (and, the template could auto-categorize). Mackensen (talk) 03:36, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

London, Midland and Scottish Railway

I have been doing quite a lot of editing on the article for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway recently and have added a discussion to the talk page here for other editors to comment before I continue. Your contributions would be welcome. :o) ColourSarge (talk) 11:42, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Should locomotive rosters be included?

The book I'm using to expand Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railway has a locomotive roster. Is this something that should be placed in the article in any form, or is it too much detail? --NE2 07:00, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

How many pages of times and departure points does it run to? Would a picture of it be suitable for Commons? Does it have basic stuff like how many miles are run in each diagram or is it purely technical? Railwayfan2005 (talk) 17:58, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd tend to defer to the size of the roster. If there are only a few locomotives, then it wouldn't be out of the question to include it (like we have on Mount Washington Cog Railway, for example). If there are more than 15 locomotives, perhaps a summary of the roster showing the number of each class of locomotive (like was recently added to Union Pacific Railroad) with a pointer to the book for more detailed information would be better. Slambo (Speak) 18:33, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

How does Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railway#Equipment look? That's a full list of narrow-gauge locomotives. Should I include the cylinders, drive (?), and engine weight? --NE2 21:58, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm adding them, since it's easier to remove them later than to add them after the book is returned. --NE2 07:25, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Columns 3&4 could be merged, column 9 info could be given in column 10. Should make a better table to the eye as column 10 should be wider with the changes suggested. Mjroots (talk) 08:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Mjroots that Col.9 should be merged into Col.10, but not sure I follow the logic of merging 3 & 4....perhaps 2 & 3 could merge instead (builder and contruction number?) :o) ColourSarge (talk) 09:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Anniversary pages proposed for deletion

Another editor has started Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/July 29 in rail transport. The discussion is tending toward deletion of the entire series of DAY in rail transport articles. Please comment there. Slambo (Speak) 17:10, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I've commented about the way a whole load of other articles were added to the AfD three days after the AfD process started. That can't be right, can it? (I may be wrong, but it doesn't seem right to me) Mjroots (talk) 18:16, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

The discussion was tending in that direction before I commented there on the 27th, so I'm not surprised to see them all listed (even though I disagree with the deletion nomination).

As I use the data on those article pages on the portal, I've been thinking of alternatives to hold the data on portal archive subpages so I don't have to go hunting for them when I need to rotate events in the anniversaries section. What I may end up doing is putting the data on the appropriate anniversary subpage and wrapping everything except what I want to appear on the portal in <noinclude> tags and putting the image inside an <includeonly> block. Other editors who have entered delete votes agree with moving the data to portal subpages. Slambo (Speak) 21:13, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Content reorganization?

The AFD closed as no consensus last night. There is a DRV discussion now about the closure that so far is tending toward endorsement (and I thank the DRV opener for notifying me of that discussion too). The AFD closing admin noted "The weight of community opinion in this debate is substantially against this structure." and suggested further discussion here.

I created the set of articles described in the discussion first as a way to sort and organize events that could appear in the anniversary section of Portal:Trains. The data was gleaned initially from various internet resources by doing a search for "MONTH DAY in railway history" and added to the portal's specific anniversary subpage (for example, Portal:Trains/Anniversaries/January 1) first. I initially used these subpages as the starting point for the main articles, but after creating a few of the articles, decided that it would be better not to create future articles until there were more than four events listed on the specific day. That decision is why about a third of the days of the year don't have anniversary pages in article space yet. The portal subpages are limited to four events, and if the main day's article exists, then the More... link appears on the portal that day at the bottom of the portal anniversaries section. The section link to Archive contains links to all of the portal subpages.

After I requested time in the AFD to copy relevant information to appropriate portal talk pages, several other editors (on both sides of the keep/delete opinions) agreed with this proposal. I mentioned above one possible way that the information could be retained in the portal and I plan to work up a prototype of this strategy with one of the more populated dates soon.

So, the question here is not whether the data on these pages has value, but how best to store the data. Several editors agreed that the YEAR in rail transport series is valuable but questioned the organization by anniversary day in addition to that series. I do have further thoughts on this, but I'm out of time to add them right now (I will be back this afternoon to discuss this further). Since this series is so far the only series on en.wikipedia (there are now translations of these and other events on fr and ru) related to a specific area of study, we get to be the test case. Slambo (Speak) 12:31, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

This is slightly off-topic, but as one of those who voted for deletion (and agreed that moving to another namespace is fine), I would like to excuse for the inevitable subtext of the deletion discussion: "that crazy WikiProject X can't be trusted to interpret the notability guideline reasonably; they have a clear conflict of interest!" I know this situation from the other side (for X = Mathematics), and I know it's hard to stay calm in such a situation – as you all did, more or less (more so than mathematicians in the same situation, I believe). The discussion that is happening here is yet another example showing that this kind of suspiciousness is normally misguided. I think Mangojuice got this right, and I think the flexibility of an open-ended discussion among subject experts who have been reminded that these pages don't work well as articles is exactly what is needed here. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I am an active member of this project, and I support moving to portal space. --NE2 22:07, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not an active member of this project, or indeed a member at all – although I hope I've written enough rail articles to qualify – but I'd go with the "portal space" move; it avoids going through this drama every time someone "random page"-s onto one of them, and preserves the use of the pages. – iridescent 22:14, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Selected Anniversaries

January 1

Milwaukee Road locomotives in 1979

• 1902 – The Swiss Federal Railways is formed through the merger and nationalization of several smaller railroads.
• 1932 – William Stanier succeeds Ernest Lemon as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.
• 1945 – The national railway operator in the Republic of Ireland, Great Southern Railways, with responsibility for the southern part of the Irish railway network is merged into a new national transport operator, Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ).
• 1948 – The "Big Four" British railway companies became nationalized into British Railways, a company that once operated the national rail system rail transport in Great Britain.
• 1986 – The Soo Line fully absorbs the Milwaukee Road (pictured) after attempting to operate it as a subsidiary railroad.

I mentioned using <noinclude> and <includeonly> blocks as an option to hold the data in portal space and show only the selected items on the portal front page. Well, to the right, you can see an example using the January 1 anniversary subpage for a test. The box here is how it would look on the portal. The More... link will take you to the portal subpage where all of the data is displayed.

There are a couple of points that could be improved. First, I don't like the amount of whitespace at the bottom and that the More... link is now on a separate line from the Archive link. In the current setup, the More... link is printed by the call to {{Box-footer}}, where an #ifexist call fits neatly within it. Moving the data to the portal page destroys the ability to use #ifexist as a condition to print this link (however, if the complete list is on its own portalspace subpage, perhaps something like Portal:Trains/Anniversaries/January 1/More, the #ifexist solution would still work). Second, on the anniversary page itself (Portal:Trains/Anniversaries/January 1 in this case), the items to be displayed are almost lost within the large number of other events, and the placement of the noinclude statements is a little tricky to get only one line break between the events that get displayed on the portal. If the events displayed are all copied to the includeonly section, then the data is on the page twice and editors updating the information might miss one or the other locations to keep everything consistent; but as the data currently is in two locations (the portalspace subpage and the articlespace page), this is less of an issue. Finally, and this is a minor change, once the data is moved to the portal pages, the navigation template at the top of the subpage needs to be updated to reflect the contents' new locations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slambo (talk • contribs)

Is the whitespace better now? Oops - I just realized why you separated it - hmmm. I'll think about it. One possibility woul;d be a template that basically returns whether there's more or not using #switch, but that would need to be updated if one is expanded. --NE2 21:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that looks better now. But I'm leaning more towards putting the full list on its own subpage now to keep things simple. Doing that, we only have to do page moves from (to continue with this example) January 1 in rail transport to Portal:Trains/Anniversaries/January 1/More; this would also preserve the editing history of the full list. Slambo (Speak) 21:37, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

It's been seven days since the last comment on this issue. So, unless there are any objections, I'm planning to start moving the content this afternoon to the /More locations as described here. As the categories are emptied, I will delete them. Slambo (Speak) 13:48, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I just moved the first three month's worth of pages to portal space. My shoulder is bothering me this morning, which prevents me from spending a long time going through these pages all at once. So are there any volunteers who want to help out with moving a batch of pages and then deleting the cross-namespace redirects? The pages that are yet to be moved are all linked at the top of Category:Anniversaries in rail transport. The process is as follows:

1. Move MONTH DAY in rail transport to Portal:Trains/Anniversaries/MONTH DAY/More (and ensure that the box is checked to move the associated talk page. For the move reason, I've been putting:

   Result of AFD and further discussion at WT:TWP

2. Check for Talk:MONTH DAY in rail transport/todo and move it to Portal talk:Trains/Anniversaries/MONTH DAY/More/todo as needed (there shouldn't be any todolists on these articles, so this move will likely not be needed)
3. Check for mainspace links to MONTH DAY in rail transport and remove them from articles (usually this will just affect articles in the YEAR in rail transport series; links from other MONTH DAY in rail transport articles are usually through the navbox that will be updated after the moves are all completed)
4. Delete the redirect and associated talk page redirect at MONTH DAY in rail transport per CSD:R2; non-admins can tag the redirect pages with {{db-r2}} and an admin monitoring the speedy deletion category will delete it.

AdThanksVance. Slambo (Speak) 14:59, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

"List of Locomotives" vs. "Stock List"

Tony May (talk · contribs) is changing this heading for various UK steam loco class pages, describing it as formatting. I don't think this is appropriate - I don't think Stock List is an appropriately jargon neutral term for a wikipedia article, as its meaning is currently undefined either directly in an article, or indirectly in the Project MOS. He has tried to justify this elsewhere as being more 'professional', and describes locomotives 'taken into stock' by a specific company, yet we have many locomotive class pages for locomotives that were delivered to different companies either at the same time or across the timeline of production. I think this is just unneccessarily confusing to the non-technical reader, as the article or the list itself usually makes clear which loco was delivered where/used by who. "List of XYZ" is just a standard, non ambigous term used everywhere in articles.

This issue arises because I was looking into his edit pattern, due to an ongoing dispute at LNER Peppercorn Class A1, where he wants to exclude the new A1 60163 Tornado from the "List of Locomotives" because it "never entered BR stock". That is a special case though, and I think the general point also needs addressing.

Opinions? MickMacNee (talk) 01:42, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

We should first decide on the scope of the section, and then the title should follow from there. I'm not familiar with locomotives or British railways, but it appears to me that LNER Peppercorn Class A1 60163 Tornado is not strictly a Peppercorn A1, but is closely related, and should be included in the table with a note. As for the title, why are there two - "Names of Peppercorn A1 locomotives" and "British Railways stock list"? Per WP:MOSHEAD, the first is too wordy ("Section names should not explicitly refer to the subject of the article, or to higher-level headings, unless doing so is shorter or clearer.") The second seems too jargony, and "List" seems too short. It seems that "List of locomotives" or "Locomotives produced" might work.

I agree that "Stock List" is not a term I have heard used in the context of British railways before, and seems inappropriate. User NE2 seems to make a sensible suggestion in "List of locomotives", and if I may add an alternative, how about "List of locomotives in class". ColourSarge (talk) 07:26, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Sound like a load of Listcruft to me. Editors preparing lists of the type dicussed above, please ensure you avoid making them Listcruft Bhtpbank (talk) 07:45, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Steam locomotives are generally studied enough to make a list like this useful and not "listcurft" or whatever term is in vogue. --NE2 07:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

The requirements for WP:Notability apply to lists as much as any other article. There are some steam loco classes that were numerically large. Are you certain that each individual loco is notable? Bhtpbank (talk) 08:01, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Not everything must be notable to be in a list. --NE2 08:07, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with NE2 that we should use "List of locomotives", since the phrase is jargon-free. It is also country-neutral and language-neutral, so its doesn't matter whether the article is on American, Australian, British or Canadian locomotives, nor if an editor writes in American, Australian, British or Canadian English. (Taking 4 countries and 4 locales of English as an example.) Iain Bell (talk) 12:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

"List of locomotives" sounds fine to me. The term 'stock list' is known in the UK -- heritage railways often publish a book with this title describing their rolling stock. However, the term 'stock' has other uses: (live)stock in N America, a base for soup (UK)(!), etc, so the language-neutral alternative is much better.

In this particular case only one title -- "List of locomotives" -- is needed, the secondary title is redundant. All members of the class were named, so a separate list of names is not needed, and 'names' need not appear in the title.

EdJogg (talk) 13:46, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, per the emerging consensus, I have changed it on the A1 article [4]. MickMacNee (talk) 17:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I would consider any move to revert the changes a little premature given that; a) this discussion was only started in the early hours of this morning and has therefore not run for even 24 hours at this point (all interested editors must be given a fair opportunity to contribute); b) an emerging consensus is not the same as an actual consensus, particularly in respect to point a) above; c) presuming that a consensus presents itself in due course, all affected articles should adhere to the consensus, not just the one that sparked the debate. We may find that waiting a little longer will either reinforce any emerging consensus or equally could allow a persuasive counter-argument to be presented. :o) ColourSarge (talk) 17:25, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I think 4 independant immediate affirmative opinions is enough to go on as an initial indication, versus one very suspicious new editor who immediately came to the page with edit summaries like this is how it should be, "get used to it". MickMacNee (talk) 22:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

IMVHO, Stock list is more appropriate as it involves the locomotives being taken into stock, or withdrawn from stock, as appropriate. "Stock" is a word that is really used, and is important. Stock was split into "capital stock" and "departmental stock". "List of locomotives" in this case is a poor choice because it is ambiguous with regards to Tornado which clearly was never taken into BR stock. I also disagree with it being language neutral as it is sufficiently obvious what it is and isn't. Tony May (talk) 19:22, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

If your requirement for being called a stock list is to identify delivery date, withdrawal date, and customer, then quite clearly Tornado can be listed with the rest by just adding a customer column. And as pointed out, 'stock list' is a common term also meaning a current list of assets, so in these cases it is conflicting. Stock list is not as obvious a term as you think, especially if considered from the point of view of a layman reader, or even the experienced reader who knows that there are class pages out there listing locos that were delivered to different customers. Are you actually intending to separate all class lists by receiver? MickMacNee (talk) 22:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

(To answer your last question first, classes are listed separately if they belonged to different companies (rather than successors, hence they are different classes of the same type, e.g. British Rail Class 77, NS 1500 Class. If locomotives are again of the same type, but belong to different companies (rather than one company and its natural successor), then they two are listed differently, e.g. EMD Series 66 with Britain - British Rail Class 66, Norway - CD66 Tony May (talk) 23:54, 12 December 2008 (UTC))

"Stock list" is entirely appropriate. Stock is very common terminology and I am completely stunned by your apparent ignorance of it. Try a Google search for some related terms, and you will find various websites and many published books. I also can provide references to such books, the most obvious being "LMS 150" by Pat Whitehouse and David St John Thomas which includes ("Locomotive stock as of 31 December 1947") on page 60 or thereabouts (similar books exist for the other three big four companies). If necessary, I could probably provide you with references to dozens of books that use the word "stock".

Furthermore, I do not understand the point about being "in stock" ambiguously referring to those currently existing (as of 2008). They clearly were existing, in stock, at those particular historical points in time, and this is a simple observation. Where appropriate, sentences should therefore use the past tense of course, and there should be no confusion.

Also, being in stock is a bit more complicated than simply "existing". This is why it is better to use more accurate terminology. The use of jargon is necessary because these are technical articles and is far better than use of incorrect, confusing or non-common language. In this case, this jargon is standard terminology, widely known, and unambiguous, and can be understood by anyone.

As a further explanation there is capital stock and departmental stock. Where locomotives existed in both, (often they were transferred to departmental stock after withdrawal from capital stock), this can be a problem with listing them together. As a further example; Bullied's Leader locomotives were never taken into capital stock, despite 2 being completed, 1 steamed and others in various states of completeness. Another example is the 46202 Princess Anne rebuild, which after the Harrow & Wealstone smash remained for a few years in capital stock despite being stored at Crewe while they worked out what to do with her, before she was withdrawn and scrapped.

Stock represents the railway company's investments, and locomotives and other vehicles are expensive, so from a financial point this is obviously important - the railway companies had to try to keep track of their investments in order to pay their shareholders.

In conclusion, again, this is a question of professionalism. Whereas I am following professional railway historians and authors, MacNee seems to be trying to make this up as his goes along in a rather amateurish manner. MacNee's attempt to unnecessarily lump Tornado with the Peppercorn A1s simply because it is of the same type (though not historically of the same class) is disingenuous and fails to match any published source, which includes Tornado's owners! Tony May (talk) 23:54, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I didn't really need to check, because given your previous pattern of argument I knew would have already done it at some point, but as it turns out, guess who recently removed 46202 from a list of locomotives? you. In every discussion you are brazenly citing every so called wikipedia precedent back to an edit you yourself made.

I know what a stock list is thank you very much (rather, I know what context you want to apply it in), I still refute your idea that it is necessary. And I am not pissing around on here in an amateurish way (does this insult apply to all above also?). What I am not here doing is writing wikipedia according to how historical books present information, without regard to either readers, or other editors. You have a serious problem understanding that Wikipedia is not a history book, and that it is not your personal project. Wikipedia decides how to arrange its own content. Perhaps the other project members will be interested to find out what else you have been changing on a personal whim, inserting your instructional comments, ignoring others when challenged.

You mentioned "Locomotive stock as of 31 December 1947", illustrating stock lists are a snapshot in time, and then you say that these lists are not stock lists in moments of time. So which supposed professional standard are you following? As for British Rail Class 66, did you look at the page before mentioning it? It lists locomotives delivered to different companies. British Rail did not 'take them into stock', it didn't exist. It is not a stock list in any way shape or form as you define it, as some sort of company accounting list. What company book values have to do with how Wikipedia lists locomotives is beyond me. Are we somehow affecting the LNER's next tax return by fiddling with their 'stock list' on wikipedia? Why are you mentioning departmental locos? I see no indication in any of these lists of transitions between the two. You are inventing a requirement for Stock Lists where no such requirement existed before you started editing, turning a general encyclopoedic work into a specialist railway history site. To use a more appropriate example where the same class of locomotives actually get delivered in the same country, I would like to know what the 'stock list' for say the LMS Stanier Class 8F page would be. I may not be claiming to be a professional railway historian, but even I know that the GWR was not a successor company to the LMS, and the same for the LNER. So what happens there then? Is it the case that we are to have stock lists on the company class pages and a list of locomotives on the 8F page? Or are you now going to split the 8F page into different company class articles? Or rename the 8F page? Same for the EMD series 66. There is nothing to stop Wikipedia creating a list of locomotives for that page, your requirement for stock delineation is the least of the considerations. It is not barred by the existence of the class pages, which actually exist not just because the locos were 'taken into stock' by different companies, but the fact that there are notable modifications between each class, making them genuinely different to each other.

"The use of jargon is necessary because these are technical articles and is far better than use of incorrect, confusing or non-common language." - you need to read Wikipedia policies, if you did you would actually be aware of things like WP:JARGON that contradict the opinions on how wikipedia should be that you regularly come out with. You are totally wrong about it being disengenuous to list Tornado with the other A1s. I challenge you to find a single person on here that thinks that the list of locomotives here in any way shape or form suggests that Tornado was a BR engine? You are seeing a problem where there is none, and you won't accept a majority of people telling you this. The absurdity of your last point about the trust source where you end with a "!" has been addressed continually. You are either ignoring it, or you just really can't understand such a basic point as when they state they are listing the original 49, they are going to list the original 49. They aren't going to add the locomotive that the whole rest of their entire site is about to make it clear it is the same as the rest. Expecting them to do so is just purposely obtuse.

And for the last time, stop refactoring your posts long after you originally made them. Keep to the conventionally accepted method of discussion. I am not going to change this reply now to suit the subsequent changes you made to your original post 40 minutes after you first posted it. Suffice to say, your additional claim of 'stock' being "terminology, widely known, and unambiguous, and can be understood by anyone", given the replies above, this is patently false, unless we are truly to believe your assertion that we're all ignorant. So who, when you make these statements, do you actually mean by "anyone"? What is non-common about "List of"? Seriously? You obviously have a real issue with appreciating articles from a non railfan perspective. (Again, something you were told a long time ago by others) MickMacNee (talk) 01:57, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I put this question to the other project members in the interest of general content standards. Does a user whose last 1000 edits were exclusively to locomotive articles sound like somebody who would be likely to have a good grasp of what general readers may or may not consider confusing jargon in railway articles? Normally I would just assume good faith and say yes, but when considered in combination with the arrogant talk page comments and general ignoring of others, I don't think so at all. MickMacNee (talk) 02:17, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Mick, the LMS Class 8F needs to be sorted out. Unfortunately I am otherwise distracted. I was planning on LNER Class O6 (most of which were eventually loaned to the LMS and taken into LMS stock), WD Stanier Class 8F, in addition to the FS Class 737 and TCDD 45151 Class already existing. Regarding 46202, I can again cite professional references to support that such as LMS Pacifics by Pat Rowledge. Have you actually read any railway books? Would a person with 13 blocks for incivility and 3RR violations be capable of negotiating with people as opposed to imposing his will on others because he says it's right? If we can't have "stock list", then we'll have to have "list of BR locomotives instead", won't we? The point about treating the original class A1s and Tornado differently still stands. Tony May (talk) 09:22, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, by whatever name you call it, it is a still stock list. This is because the build date is the date it was introduced into stock and the withdrawal date the date it was withdrawn from stock. In the context, the use is unavoidable and it is better to be explicit than get it wrong. Tony May (talk) 09:26, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Lets be clear, by "the LMS Class 8F needs to be sorted out", means, you have yet to edit to your preferred style. And, if somebody added a list of locomotives to that article, what are you going to do about it? Remove it because Wikipedia doesn't match the books? This is patent nonsense, you are merely showing time and again you have no clue how wikipedia works, or what it even is. As for 46202, again, lets be clear, does your source specifically state that it was in a class of its own (I have no issue with reflecting that), or is it merely not listed in the table? Not listing it in a table is not the definitive way to define a class, this is purely your idea. What have the practices of a book got to do with other editors ability to decide if other approaches such as annotaion and linking do not make clear the difference? We are not here to slavishly replicate book formats. Period. This is a wiki, it is a hundred times more flexible and adaptible than a paper book ever could be. And I have told you many times now that I am well aware of why you consider it a stock list. I am not opposing you out of ignorance, or any other patronising insult you want to throw, I am disputing the need to do it at all. The same applies if you instead want to add BR to the section title. As you point out, call it what you like, it will still have a build date column, and a withdrawal date column. So what's the issue with adding the build date and withdrawal date of Tornado? (apart from the afformentioned obsession with books). Justifying not doing this relies on you getting others to answer the question I posed above, is the article currently deceitfull? And I, unlike you, am willing to support consensus on that either way. As it currently stands, you don't have it. MickMacNee (talk) 15:41, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

The 8F gets very complicated, please let us continue this discussion at talk:LMS Stanier Class 8F if you wish. I will come to it in due course - it may take me several months. If you want to list all 852 8Fs with all their numbers then please go ahead. The transfers between LMS and WD stock, and eventual users gets very complicated. Copying out the numbers will give you a headache. I will of course be working off the references such as Engines of the LMS Built 1923-51 by Rowledge, and others. The problem with Tornado is, as I have already explained at length, that the build date is the date taken into stock, the withdrawal date is the date withdrawn from stock. Tornado has achieved neither. Add to that to lump them is achronistic, unprofessional, potentially original research, and completely innappropriate. Tony May (talk) 16:08, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

You have so far failed to get anybody to agree with your last sentence, as it is purely your opinion. A stock list requires a withdrawal date (other than 'none yet')? That makes no sense at all. You are elsewhere talking about references for stock lists at specific points of time, now you are talking about them as historical records. Which is it?. You can't even decide on what your professional definition of a stock list even is, yet you claim it is umabigously obvious what it is to any casual reader. Build date is the date taken into stock? That's unambiguous is it? Who tests the locomotives then? Who commissions them? At what point in time in its life cycle is it 'built' per that table? Do they literally ram home the last rivet and then sign it over? How many miles are on a built locomotive before this 'build date' occurs? As said on my talk page, if all 8F's were listed on that article, is it a stock list? Is List of Locomotives a deceptive title to apply? If we apply a customer/owner column with 'into/out of' dates to it to make it a stock list, why can't we then do that on the Peppercorn A1 page? For these 8F's, how are you going to list 'build date' when some entries for 'into/out of stock' aren't being built, but are being transferred between non successor companies?

But anyway, if you want to apply this standard, I am quite sure that the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust Ltd. will soon, if they haven't already, "take Tornado into stock" from the Darlington Locomotive Construction Co. Ltd.. Or do you think that Tornado is just bashed around the mainline for free by sole traders? If you email the Trust, I am sure they will supply you with the contractually correct 'build date' as you seem to want to define it (which is not defined on the page, but whatever). Per WP:JARGON, if you assert this is what it is, get it properly defined for the reader. But before you do that, you need to get consensus for even applying the term 'stock list' on this or any other page, because, as demonstrated by the replies when I opened this section as an issue, you don't currently have it.

As said repeatedly, I will support whatever consensus is built here or elsewhere if your true aim is making Wikipedia clearer without violationg WP:JARGON or asserting that Wikipedia has to slavishly replicate paper works (ignoring the unique nature of a wiki) before it will be 'right'. However, if your current method is your way of improving the clarity and professionalism of Wikipeda, by making edits across a number of articles just by wandering around editing to your preferred style, insisting you are right and ignoring others, without consensus or reference to an agreed project MOS approach, then that is what I would call 'amateurish', the same accusation you level at me for 'ignorantly' adding Tornado to a 'List of (Peppercorn A1) Locomotives'. Your approach has the direct consequence that your edits are currently fair game for reversion as not having consensus. MickMacNee (talk) 18:23, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

If you try editing a railway-related article to get it to Good or Featured status you have to be able to think as someone who knows nothing about railways. You cannot assume your reader will understand wheel arrangement notations, what the boiler components are, etc. Simple language is needed, explaining terms as you go, although where a wikilink is available you're lucky, and you can use that. (Actually, that is how a number of term-related pages have come about, so you don't have to explain them every time you use the term!) It is actually very difficult for a rail enthusiast to do this -- by which I mean you have to really think about every phrase used.

So, here, what we present the reader with is a table containing details of locomotives. Such things are known as tables, or else as lists. The list contains details of locomotives, so to the average reader what you have is a "List of locomotives". I'm sorry, but I would have said that's a "no-brainer".

For "Stock List" you need to define what "Stock" is -- remember the reader's first language may not be English. So you need to enter [[Rolling stock|Stock]] List as the heading...BUT, WP:MOS discourages the use of wikilinks in headings. Problem. So now you end up with a heading something like "Locomotive details" and a redundant "Stock list" caption underneath.

Further, it would seem that the advocates of "Stock List" are wanting to relate locos to their asset-status. I would say that such information is transient and unencyclopaedic.

The BR Class 66 is an interesting example. There were discussions about what to call the various article/s, and whether it was really appropriate to list each separately, considering they are all essentially the same type of vehicle and there is considerable overlap between the pages.

EdJogg (talk) 02:48, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Can you please look over Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railway#Equipment and see if it's clear? Thank you. --NE2 03:25, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I have never seen the word "equipment" used in this context. Tony May (talk) 09:22, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Now you have It does seem to accurately describe what the section covers. I wasn't asking about the section title though. --NE2 09:26, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed I have. do you have any references, especially in a British context, where that is used or is it your original research? Tony May (talk) 10:05, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Why in a British context? This is a U.S. railroad. The main source certainly uses it. National Railway Equipment Company uses it in their title. --NE2 11:44, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

A casual perusal of George Hilton's American Narrow Gauges also reveals multiple uses of the term. Note that in the U.S. the distinction is usually made between the engines used to pull the trains ("locomotives" or "motive power") and the cars being pulled ("rolling stock"); "equipment" is used to cover both terms. Choess (talk) 15:24, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Ed. I understand the point, but I still believe it is not ambiguous. Tony May (talk) 09:22, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

LNER Peppercorn Class A1

Project members may be interested in a discussion taking place here about whether or not to consider 60163 Tornado as a member of the original class, or a replica. Comment from interested editors is welcomed as this has been referred to RFC but so far without comment from other editors. Please respond on the article talk page. ColourSarge (talk) 08:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Issues raised at WP:AN/I Mjroots (talk) 08:51, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Polish version of Riverhead (LIRR station)

I recently tried to add a Polish translation tag to Riverhead (LIRR station), but it didn't work out. Can somebody fix it, and/or tell me how to do the same? ----DanTD (talk) 18:16, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

There is a Polish Wikipedia link, but apparently no Polish language article. Mjroots (talk) 15:37, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I know. I was hoping that by adding the Polish language tag, I'd get a Polish version of the article. Instead, I got an error message. ----DanTD (talk) 17:12, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Interwikilinks are for linking to articles on the same subject in different languages. They don't provide translations. Mjroots (talk) 20:40, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, but I still want to make a Polish version of the article. ----DanTD (talk) 14:59, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If you know Polish, go for it. If you don't...guess? --NE2 15:07, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't, but I did find a better translation website than Babelfish that helped, and I tried to scan the text from it, but no such luck. The reason I'm so interested in a Polish version, is because the station is close to a large ethnically-Polish section of Riverhead. ----DanTD (talk) 18:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion

Modeling 2' gauge railroads --NE2 15:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Template - Railway stations opened in 1803 (etc)

Recently some new templates such as {{Railway stations opened in 1803}} have been created and are being added to articles (as a replacement for adding Category:Railway stations opened in 1803). I question the use of these templates as they are adding, in my opinion, unnecessary clutter to articles. The navigation features provided by this template are already one click away in the category Category:Railway stations opened in 1803. What do others think? --Dr Greg (talk) 13:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

As the initiator of this I do concede that there is clutter, although it is at the bottom of the article and have been thinking of how to reduce it. One suggestion is to put openings to the left and closing to the right, however this is using existing standard templates.

However, as regards being one-click away. Lots of items only one-click away (for example via the side menu) are then providing a link forward, which is what this is doing. My main aim was find an easy way to add the link to the commons category and make the items in the category header more visible. Once an item is two clicks (or more) away readers lose interest, this make the commons category and the adjancent categories (and years) truly only one-click away.

I do welcome a debate on this and I whilst acknowledge what has been produced so far is not perfect, I do believe it has merits and can be improved upon. I especially thank Dr Greg for initating the debate. I am attempting to improve the functionality and usability of the railway staiton (past, present and future) articles, by providng in the article additional links (especially if they can be combined together in a template). --Stewart ^{(talk | edits)} 13:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

It seems that these do introduce needless clutter on the articles. (Aside: are we sure that the station was original from the Surrey Iron Railway?) There's also not usually any relation between stations opened the same year, unless they're on the same line, in which case there should aleady be a link to the line. --NE2 15:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The same argument could be made to remove the station opening/closing categories all together. However, one modification I would suggest is the removal of the date category box from the template (and also from the category pages) leaving the Commons Category box.

As regards the links to other stations on the line, the historical line article (look at the way the Scottish Historical Railway articles - Aberdeen Railway as an example) have developed. The Historic route box provides the relevant link to the line, and the Original Railway in the infobox. --Stewart ^{(talk | edits)} 19:56, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, no. The categories are just a few words, hardly needless clutter. --NE2 21:08, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry - but you did write "There's also not usually any relation between stations opened the same year,". As well as removing the clutter, your argument also identifies that the opening/closing year categories do not have any relevance and can be dispensed with at the same time. --Stewart ^{(talk | edits)} 21:33, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I think there's enough commonality to keep the categories, but not more than that. --NE2 21:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the year 1803, for example, is a useful example as it is quite early in the history of railways, so let look 100 years later, i.e. Category:Railway stations opened in 1903. That year, and three years either side of it, already appear in the Ballachulish Ferry railway station as a template. I'm not sure what relevance a one-click link in the Ballachullish Ferry station article to Fort Washington (SEPTA station) adds? The only connection is that they opened the same year. By all means keep the categories; and don't throw away the dates from the Info boxes, but why the templates?Pyrotec (talk) 22:23, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I am persuaded that the categories (adjacent years) boxes add no value and removed that box from all the templates, leaving the commons cat box. Looking as Lugton High as an example is does look somewhat better. --Stewart ^{(talk | edits)} 22:46, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

It's still silly - there should be one Commons link at most, to a category or gallery for the station, and then that would be categorized in the year categories (as well as others such as stations in [country]). --NE2 00:46, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Dr Greg, this is a wholly unnecessary addition to railway station articles. Just looking at the Lugton High example, there are now 4 extra boxes at the end of the page, each leading to categories in which there are no photographs of the station in question. It also raises a question of how station images are to be catalogued on the Commons; in the case of Lugton is the same image to be reproduced four times to correspond with its matching categories? The existing approach of categorising images by reference to area is far more logical and accessible for a person looking for an image, who may not know when the station in question closed. If these Commons links must be included, then let them appear in the existing year categories for stations and not on the station pages themselves. Lamberhurst (talk) 20:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey ho - an idea that did not work.....

But please note that those of you have argued against it have included in the arguement that categorising stations by years is not a good idea (one idea is that by line is better). So not only did you argue against my experiment, but you have also argued against the status quo of adding categories by year, and adding dated commons categories references on the category page.

I am disappointed that Dr Greg did not come back into the discussion after starting it.

As far as I am concern the subject is NOW CLOSED, and I will tidy up behind myself in the next day or so. --Stewart ^{(talk | edits)} 23:23, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I have been watching this discussion, but I didn't make any further comment because I had nothing substantial to add. I had already expressed my dislike for the template and I wanted to see if others agreed with me. For what it's worth, I don't see much merit in the categories, but they do no harm so I'm happy for them to stay, with the links to other years and Commons within the category page. But I don't like having these links in the articles themselves. --Dr Greg (talk) 12:53, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The categories may be useful for someone wanting examples of stations that just opened, or a handful roughly distributed through the two centuries of railroading. I think this applies more to the subcategories of Category:Railway companies by year of establishment (especially the first decade or two - yes, it's currently U.S.-centric, since that's what I know), but I can see the use of the categories. The only issue I can see is that it can be very hard or impossible to find when a station opened, if it did not open as an original station on the line. --NE2 15:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

In Britain we are lucky to have the book:

Butt, R. V. J. (October 1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199. OL 11956311M.

which dates openings, closings and renamings of every station up till 1995! --Dr Greg (talk) 17:27, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. What does it say about Mitcham railway station? --NE2 19:05, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

You want All of it? - "MITCHAM LB&SC 123 TQ 26 OP22 October 1855 (Wbldon&Cdon)." A boring station (sorry about), many stations seem to be opened and closed and renamed several times, but not this one.Pyrotec (talk) 19:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

As I suspected, it in fact did not open in 1803. --NE2 21:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Removing "The next station is..."

This is a current discussion on WT:VANCOUVER about removing the heading, "The next station is..." on articles. I don't know how many articles have this heading, but OlEnglish decided to remove the headings on SkyTrain (Vancouver) stations. Any thoughts and comments would be appreciated. Thanks and cheers. -- _{signed by} SRE.K.Annoyomous.L.24 _{spell my name backwards on} 06:04, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Seems like a valid change - be bold. --NE2 19:46, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Are there official websites for each station, as there are with most railroad systems? An external links chapter could be used as an adequate replacement. ----DanTD (talk) 20:16, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Replacement for what? There's no set number of sections. --NE2 20:23, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

A replacement for the "The next station is..." heading, what else? And even if no such links exist, a lot of these station articles should be renamed, i.e.; Broadway Station to either Broadway Station (TransLink) or Broadway Station (Vancouver Skylink). ----DanTD (talk) 21:00, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Why do we need a replacement? --NE2 21:04, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm just making a suggestion. Besides, I thought it was standard procedure with station articles. ----DanTD (talk) 21:17, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I was asking if we should REMOVE the heading, not to replace it. Also, to DanTD, the official names of the stations all end with Station, and most stations around the world don't have "Station" in their official names. And no, there are no official websites for each station, but there are sources for all of them. -- _{signed by} SRE.K.Annoyomous.L.24 _{spell my name backwards on} 23:10, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, but just so you know, I have no problem with you removing that headings. ----DanTD (talk) 02:38, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

If no one opposes by 00:0, 26 December 2008 (UTC), then I'll just go right ahead and remove the headings. -- _{signed by} SRE.K.Annoyomous.L.24 _{spell my name backwards on} 02:43, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

They seem unnecessary to me, too. I've done umpteen bazillion succession boxes for British officials, etc., which have the same general formatting as the station boxes, and no one's felt any great need for a header over them. Choess (talk) 03:49, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll just wait just in case if someone does oppose for some mysterious reason. -- _{signed by} SRE.K.Annoyomous.L.24 _{spell my name backwards on} 03:58, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. -- _{signed by} SRE.K.Annoyomous.L.24 _{spell my name backwards on} 07:13, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed project scope

I have proposed a more detailed scope for this project at WP:RR#SCOPE. Thoughts and opinions welcome.

(For context: we previously had no scope other than "trains, railways, and railroads.")

AGK 22:31, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I would also appreciate a ratification of the newly-added project goals and the other matter recently added to the top of the page. AGK 23:28, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I've read over your changes, and they seem good and sensible to me. Choess (talk) 03:13, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

A few problems with these changes; One of which I've noticed is that the Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Recent changes is missing. ----DanTD (talk) 23:42, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

No mention of trams? They run on rails so should be included. Mjroots (talk) 17:35, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Apparenly AGK thinks that they don't exist. ----DanTD (talk) 20:22, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Also i think that the US rail transport should be split into its own sub-project. Simply south not SS, sorry 17:44, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Why? There might be a case for North America, but the U.S. rail system connects to other countries'. --NE2 19:47, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Where did I say that, Dan? AGK 22:18, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

"Convert taskforce list into a table and add a shortcut—WP:RR#TF. Kill "Trams task force"; appears to not exist." ----DanTD (talk) 02:29, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

He appears to be correct; it doesn't appear that the "Trams task force" was ever organized. Plus that seems to fall under the remit of Wikipedia:WikiProject Streetcars. Work on tram/streetcar articles might be better coordinated through that project than a taskforce here. Choess (talk) 03:48, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, that's not such a bad idea. I'm not saying I can do it all, but to anybody who can, I'm all for it. ----DanTD (talk) 04:11, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Choess has said precisely what I was going to; the project didn't seem to exist. :) AGK 22:56, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed change to Template:Reporting mark

I propose to change this from "AAR reporting mark" to simply "reporting mark", since the latter is more commonly used, and there's no potential for confusion. Are there any objections? --NE2 23:25, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. I also fixed the problem of "reporting marks" being used even when there is one, in a rather silly but effective way. If it doesn't work after hitting edit and saving (with no changes), make a redirect from the reporting mark (like LLPX) and try again. --NE2 01:34, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Hellingly Hospital Railway

Crossposted from WT:UKRAIL, should anyone think this seems a bit familiar…
I've opened a peer review on Hellingly Hospital Railway – if anyone has any comments and/or suggestions, do feel free! Although it's short, and on a very obscure topic, I think this is actually quite a good article in striking the balance between "what would the general reader want to know?" and "don't oversimplify to the point of putting off people with specialist knowledge". Any comments welcome… – iridescent 20:53, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

EWS >> DB schenker

Is anyone planning or already have plans for the change of identity of EWS.?

Should the EWS page have its 'is' changed to 'was'. Does anyone know if the EWS brand will effectively cease to exist after 1 Jan ? Thanks (and happy new year) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.88.238 (talk) 12:26, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Baltimore Light Rail template change

I noticed that the new templates have been created for Baltimore Light Rail station articles. It appears that whoever did it just wanted to change the names of the templates because nothing else is changed except for the colors on the rail color box templates. Either they are now white or they have disappeared (something which has occurred before). Is there more to this template change or are we just faced with the same problem we had months ago? Murjax (talk) 18:58, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

On the surface, I don't see any changes whatsoever. It's only when I look at the differences between revisions that I see a difference, and while I'm not a fan of using MTA Maryland in every color bar, I like the idea of specific names for all lines. ----DanTD (talk) 05:10, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

German TWP Revisited

I say that Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Rail transport in Germany task force should actually be a Child wikiproject, rather than a task force within TWP itself, like that of Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Railways, Wikipedia:WikiProject NZR, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains in Japan. ----DanTD (talk) 04:46, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I would agree mightily there. You might also want to put the suggestion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. Simply south not SS, sorry 16:37, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I just did it. Although I suspect I should've added more detail, like I did when I proposed the Wikipedia:Wikiproject Chicago Area Public Transit. Then again, that was rejected. ----DanTD (talk) 20:34, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Tramway redirects

A few tramway list redirects are up for deletion. Comments welcme at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 January 3#Tramway list redirects. Simply south not SS, sorry 16:35, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Introduce a little energy?

I do not attempt, in making this comment, to wade in and attempt to force change in this project; I have been an active contributor to Railway-related articles—but not to this project, despite being a registered member—and simply strive to put this impressively active project to good use.

I've been tidying up the project page by removing clutter, updating the prose, restructuring, and rewriting as otherwise necessary; I would invite other editors to review my changes and build on them as necessary.

I suspect I may not be going far enough, however. Using the exceptionally successful WikiProject Military history as a model to emulate, we may wish to look into selecting a few active contributors as co-ordinators to guide the authoring of en:wiki's railway articles in tandem with a structured WikiProject; would some co-ordinators be an idea this project's members would consider?

I will present specifics if my proposal is not immediately shot down as absurd. :-)

AGK 21:24, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

So... What do folks think about appointing some co-ordinators to lead this project? One of the regulars around here might would be a good choice?

Are you looking more for task force leads (which seems a logical place to start with coordinators)? Right now I do the majority of the editing on Portal:Trains, and nobody has disputed my use of "Trains portal lead editor" to describe my role there. Slambo (Speak) 11:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

British Rail Class 09 tractive effort

I've been trying to add the data for continuous tractive effort for a variety of locomotives...

On this page http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/British-Rail-Class-09 it gives 8,800 lbf at 11.6 mph, the speed information is not present on wikipedia - but isn't this page just a mirror of the wikipedia site??

Anyone know what's going on here? Obviously I can't use a mirror of wikipedia as a reference for wikipedia.. Has anyone got a reliable reference for this figure. Thanks. (Data for other locos also appreciated if it can be referenced...) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.85.58 (talk) 17:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

What you need is an Ian Allan ABC or similar, as these have such details in them. Mjroots (talk) 06:15, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - just the excuse I needed to buy those books... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carrolljon (talk • contribs) 20:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Amtrak derailment... in Buffalo Grove, Illinois?

I just learned of a derailment of an Amtrak train in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. I was close to adding this event to the Buffalo Grove (Metra) article, but I paused for a moment, because I didn't think Metra shared the North Central Service line with Amtrak. I see, of course that the article says it's a freight train, but my local news outlet said it was Amtrak train. What gives? ----DanTD (talk) 03:34, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Your local news sucks, or you misheard "Antioch" --NE2 04:51, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Probably the first. They once referred to a pro-wrestling accident in Nassau Coliseum as being in New York City. ----DanTD (talk) 04:58, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Partial transcriptions of ICC valuations: better in user or Wikipedia space?

For a while I have been partially transcribing the ICC valuation reports, mainly the corporate history and development of fixed physical property (see Beech Creek Railroad for an example of the latter), at User:NE2/valuations and subpages. They are useful not only as sources, but also for "what links here" to find what happened to a former company. Would it be a good idea to move the pages to Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/valuations and subpages? --NE2 03:21, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

New rail succession template

I'm announcing that I've just created the Category:Illinois and Indiana rail succession templates category. I'd like to be able to move the succession templates for Newark City Subway and Hudson-Bergen Light Rail as subcategories for the Category:New Jersey Transit succession templates, but the site isn't letting me do it. ----DanTD (talk) 19:23, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

• UPDATE: I also made another for Florida, and Texas is next. I've even moved a few of them to appropriate state rail template categories. Just out of curiosity, why are there UK succession templates categorized as US succession templates? ----DanTD (talk) 15:57, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, how did West Palm Beach (Tri-Rail station) get moved to this category, and why can't I find it there so I can remove it?

Now the South Shore Line and Buffalo Metro Rail stations are having this trouble too. Yet the ones I moved to California aren't, and neither are the Jacksonville Skyway ones. I'm putting off Texas until I know it won't screw things up. ----DanTD (talk) 16:37, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

You don't want to be "moving" the category, you want to recategorize it. I think I've done what you want. Choess (talk) 20:59, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

AAARGHHHH!!!

How the hell are all these stations getting succession template categories that I can't find when I try to remove them?!?! ----DanTD (talk) 19:13, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Evidently you need to use "s-rail-next" instead of "s-rail" for the second line, or such was my inference based on Sacramento Valley Rail Station. This is probably documented in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign reading "Beware of the Leopard". Choess (talk) 20:51, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

That didn't work on any of the Buffalo Metro Rail stations. I haven't even tried to use your solution for the South Shore Line stations. ----DanTD (talk) 21:08, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

I seem to have fixed those by fixing the "...left" and "...right" templates for the line: the category wasn't wrapped in a noinclude element. I'll take a look at South Shore. Choess (talk) 21:54, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

South Shore looks fine to me. You may have to clear cache to get the template changes to take, though. Choess (talk) 21:58, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

I had them both with and withouth the "noinclude" elements and there was no difference. And it's still broken. ----DanTD (talk) 22:02, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Noinclude worked for the Buffalo line for me. I think you may have the old versions cached in your browser. Close down your browser, open a fresh window, go to Tools:Clear Private Data and check "Cache" only (Firefox), and try opening the pages again. Choess (talk) 22:05, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, so far it seems to be working. I used Wikipedia's standard purge technique(?action=purge). ----DanTD (talk) 22:12, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Something else I noticed

I see you must've also got rid of the British rail succession templates, but I noticed before that there were 21 subcategories, and now there are only 19. What happened to the other two? ----DanTD (talk) 22:52, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Never mind. I found the answers. ----DanTD (talk) 23:31, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Texas Template is here

I finally added the one for Category:Texas rail succession templates. Can I be assured this won't screw anything up? ----DanTD (talk) 06:07, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, can somebody take this category away from Houston Intermodal Transit Center? ----DanTD (talk) 04:03, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Shazam. When you're adding template-specific categories to templates, make sure they're inside the noinclude element. Choess (talk) 04:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

The category is gone, but the station is still showing up there... and yes I did purge it. I'm not sure I want to make new templates again. ----DanTD (talk) 04:49, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

According to this, sometimes you have to make an edit to get the category page to update. I did that and it works fine now. Choess (talk) 14:14, 20 January 2009 (UTC)