Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2021

Template:WikiProject Trains cannot be used inside Template:WikiProject banner shell with some parameters

It results in the page landing in Category:Pages where expansion depth is exceeded.

You can see this in this old revision of Talk:Astoria–Ditmars Boulevard station, which was reverted with the this edit. The call to {{WikiProject Trains}} looks like this: {{WikiProject Trains |1= |class=Start |importance=low |NYPT=yes |NYPT-importance=mid |subway=yes |stations=yes}}

Even without the "shell" it has a template expansion depth of 37, which is right up against the limit of 40, as shown in the source-code view of the link to the reverted revision above. Search for Highest expansion depth: to find the parser profiling data. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:06, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

The problem disappears if |NYPT=yes is removed, I suspect that the problem is with {{WPBannerMeta/hooks/cats}}. But I don't see why {{WikiProject banner shell}} needs to be used for just two banners.

BTW Template talk:WikiProject Trains would have been a better venue. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:16, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Naming of stations and Nanjing North

Hi all, there is a new station planned called Nanjing North railway station (source). How shall I go about naming the new article and the existing Nanjing North railway station article? I've had a quick look for other station articles in the same area with the same name, but haven't found any yet. Thanks NemesisAT (talk) 14:10, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

I presume they are two separate stations at separate locations both with the same name. We could disambiguate either by the company that opened the station, or by year of opening. There may be other (better?) methods of disambiguation. Mjroots (talk) 17:44, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

We do know the old station opened in 1914, though as the new station isn't built yet we don't know when that will open. We could say Nanjing North railway station (under construction)? I don't like that name but it could work until the new station is opened. NemesisAT (talk) 21:46, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@NemesisAT:, can you please add the |language= and |trans-title parameters to those reference in the article on the new station and fill them in? Mjroots (talk) 19:05, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Sure no probs, I've just been using the auto-fill and web citation features in the editor up until now which doesn't offer these parameters but I'll try and remember to add them in in the future.NemesisAT (talk) 20:19, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, doing so provides some indication as to the veracity of the reference used. Not that I'm calling those used into the article into question. It also provides a little context. Mjroots (talk) 04:57, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Royal Scot identity swap

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways#Royal Scot identity swap. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:00, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Article in a particularly poor state

• Railway signal

This article about a rather important topic related to railways is full of extraneous details, which in addition to sometimes being repetitive are very sparsely, if at all, sourced. I've rewritten one sub-section so far, but I've had to employ Britannica (usually avoided because we prefer secondary, not tertiary sources) because I could find only few sources which did not appear to fall foul of requirements of self-published. I'll continue this effort, but if anybody has access to proper published sources on the subject their help would be appreciated. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:54, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I've poked at it a little, and added some editorial commentary in HTML comments. I have a copy of Solomon's "Railroad Signaling", which is a good introductory primer and probably about right for a high-level article like this. It might be worth revisiting the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2009, 2 on the scope and organization of signaling articles to figure out what should go there and what into sub-articles. (Apropos of SPS, while we should make an effort to winnow those, I note that the part of Calvert's web page dealing with PRR signaling has been cited in Al Churella's history of the PRR, which is impeccably academic, and would be inclined to leave citations to Calvert in.) Choess (talk) 15:21, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Off the top of my head: Haven't there been several articles about signaling in Model Railroader magazine over the years? AlgaeGraphix (talk) 16:26, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

If you have access to those, and can provide information which would be within the scope of the article (it should be an overview of global signalling history and technology - intricate technical details, and US-centric perspectives (which, as one which I've just corrected, might be wrong in other locations) are out of place), then yes such inclusion would be welcome (although I'm not sure how much we should consider the contributors to a model railway publication reliable sources on the real-life matter - though, yes, the Model Railroader is a better source than a random website by John Doe). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:48, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Template:Yekaterinburg Metro

could someone convert this to the standard routemap format? thank you! Frietjes (talk) 17:47, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

 Done --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:29, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

There is a handful of Templates similar to that one. Nothing of this is documented. Should we convert them all to Routemap? --PhiH (talk) 19:47, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

PhiH, I would say yes. I remember converting a few a while ago. Mackensen (talk) 23:30, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

All converted, and {{Station bullet}} nominated for deletion. ~~

Issues with services

Hello Everyone, as we fill in, repair, and update the gaps in the Greek rail network articles issues have begun to 'pop up', that have to be addressed to make the whole exercises worthwhile... Most notably the services within the text box! I have been having trouble adding 'Express' and 'Regional' services as the coding defaults to 'Intercity', when as you know 'Express', 'Regional' and 'Intercity' use the Athens-Thessaloniki rout. This is an issue that should be addressed ASAP and I'm feeling I'm not qualified to address this overarching issue! Thank you all  The Emperor of Byzantium  (talk) 10:22, 08 February 2021 (UTC)

Need someone who knows Japanese railways for Ekiben Hitoritabi

Ekiben Hitoritabi is in need of someone who knows the Japanese train system to resolve some links to disambiguation pages -- there are currently seven train stations linked to dabs on the page, the most of any current enwiki article apparently. —valereee (talk) 13:54, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll give a try at some deduction (although I have no familiarity with the Japanese system), there's usually not too many options and the correct one should be possible to figure out. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:28, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

AlgaeGraphix and mass moves of Panama metro stations

AlgaeGraphix moved all articles of Panama Metro Line 1 stations from convention Foo (Panama Metro) to Foo station. When I asked them whether they got consensus their answer was [1]. The edit summary says standartization of names, however, I do not believe this standartization can be in any way general - for example both Paris and Moscow use Foo (Paris Metro) scheme, and I do not think moving all stations of these systems to a different convention would be appropriate. I believe when I started to create articles on Panama Metro stations I asked for advise here, and the advise was that it does not matter much as soon as naming within the system is consistent, but Foo (Panama metro) would be fine. Before I start moving all these stations back, I would like to ask again whether this would be a good idea.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:04, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Correction: they were moved from Xxx (Panama Metro) to Xxx metro station for compatibility with the {{metro}} template (which is used on nearly 1,500 pages). A comparison with Paris and Moscow is not really valid, as those cities (along with London and New York) have very large networks that use their own specialized templates. Furthermore, a search of talk pages doesn't show any discussion about station naming for the system. AlgaeGraphix (talk) 17:32, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, YMBLanter, I created the first 11 and looked around and saw that the "Place (metro station)" format was common so used that and you rightly continued with that when you added the rest. Examples: Hallesches Tor (Berlin U-Bahn), Lavapiés (Madrid Metro), Battistini (Rome Metro). They should be moved back to the original article title. Valenciano (talk) 17:37, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Preemptive parenthetical disambiguation is deprecated and discouraged (see WP:PRECISION). WP:USSTATIONS and WP:UKSTATION represent current examples of best practices and these moves are in line with those principles. There was a recent move of all French mainline stations to X station, and also the trams stations in Bordeaux. No one tackled the Parisian metro stations yet but they clearly should be moved as well. Mackensen (talk) 17:48, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

We also moved earlier last year Mexico City, but this was preceded by a RM, and we have now documented consensus. I would prefer to see a RM also in all other cases which require more than a few moves (Panama is about 30 and I would say qualifies). It could be a RM specifically for Panama, or may be it is easier to make a RM for all matro stations in the world. But I am not fine when I suddenly see twenty moves on my watchlist, and when I ask whether there is consensus for the move I get a response "Sorry, I did know I had to ask you".--Ymblanter (talk) 20:22, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: There was no problem when I moved 69 stations in Oslo, nor 41 in Barcelona just four months ago, so I had no reason to expect a problem with 14 (not 20) in Panama.

Pinging editors who also participated in the above-referenced discussion: @Cocu15, Mattbuck, Some Gadget Geek, Tbhotch/EN, and Usernamekiran:. AlgaeGraphix (talk) 21:53, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: Per Mackensen, these moves are common sense, and all the examples listed above will follow in these name changes. We can have more specific discussions per system if stations have the same name: X station (Paris), X station (Berlin), Y station. Cards84664 02:49, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I do not particularly care about the names, but it there is consensus surely it must be documented somewhere? Yes, we have WP:PRECISION, but a direct application would probably require Foo station rather than Foo metro station, and for some stations, such as Besòs Mar station, just Foo, because there are not other objects called Besòs Mar. And everybody has different common sense, I see Moscow metro articles, some of which are on my watchlist, being moved all around on a regular basis. If consensus is not documented but exists may be it should be documented?--Ymblanter (talk) 06:46, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

If there is no further feedback at this stage, I am going to open an RfC.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:13, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Ymblanter, with what scope? The consensus in the past has been that a project-wide naming convention is inappropriate (I can dig up those discussions if you like, most were linked from here at some point). Mackensen (talk) 16:22, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this would be great. If we have consensus at this point, may be we can draft a guideline, and then we do not need any further RFCs like the one I mentioned for Mexico needed.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:30, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Concerning the scope, I am only interested in rapid transit / metro / subway stations.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:31, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Typically naming conventions are country-wide and comprehend both heavy rail and metro, given the substantial overlap. I think you'll find you can't do one without the other. Anyway, I think Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2018#Merging naming conventions for stations is the last time a uniform approach was floated. I proposed a European convention last year but it didn't go anywhere. The most recent discussion targeting a metro system is probably the series of discussions that led to the adoption of USSTATIONS for the New York City Subway: Wikipedia:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/New York City Subway/Station naming convention. The recent discussion of French stations at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/France and French-related articles#Naming of French railway station articles didn't address metro stations because the underlying concern was not WP:PRECISION but rather the use of French-language names (e.g. Gare de) that were not proper names. The uniform consensus was to adopt the "X station" name for heavy rail. When I later proposed to extend this to tram stops no one objected, and this was done in Bordeaux. Mackensen (talk) 16:54, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the links. I agree that all stations used by any rail transport should be considered together. Here are my conclusions.

1. There is no uniform pattern for naming stations, nor any desire or realistic possibility of creating one. Naming can be possibly made uniform for many articles, though there will be always exceptions.
2. We need an information page collecting existing guidelines and practices. If such a page exists, I will appreciate if someone points it out. If not, I can create it myself.
3. The existing guidelines, and certainly the existing practices are at variance with WP:PRECISION (I will elaborate on this in a second). This means that moves which only refer to PRECISION and otherwise do not elaborate the reasons are not appropriate.
4. There is some room for standartizing names, but it should be done for certain groups of stations (within a country, or possibly even within a system), and preferably with RfC. I do not immediately see any consensus for Foo metro station, though indeed it is likely that this (with some variations) would be more acceptable than Foo (city metro).
5. Mass moves in the absence of the explicit community consensus (such as RfC) are not really acceptable. Panama station must be moved back until the time RfC on Panama metro stations, or Panama stations (there are three more railway stations in the country) has been held.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:35, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Now, concerning WP:PRECISION. If I take a random example, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (stations in Poland), and go to List of Warsaw Metro stations. Take Ratusz Arsenał metro station — there is no object such as Ratusz Arsenał, in fact Ratusz means city hall in Polish, and refers to the City Hall of Warsaw, and Arsenał means a different building. Thus, if we literally apply PRECISION, the name of the article must be Ratusz Arsenał. (Note that there are countries — I previously mentioned Russia — where this is a common situation due to the grammar issues. For example, Biryulyovo-Tovarnaya can only refer to the station, unless someone opens a theater or whatever with this name, in which case it would be a derivative from the station). Furthermore, if we take Plac Wilsona metro station — is is named after Wilson Square, for which we do not have an article, and once we have it, I do not know whether it would be Plac Wilsona or Wilson Square — but even if it is Plac Wilsona, PRECISION mandates us to take the next option, which is Plac Wilsona station, since there are, no other stations with this name. This, this guideline is directly at variance with WP:PRECISION (which is a policy and part of WP:MOS). This happens all the time, I have seen a lot of contradictions within WP:MOS people feel very strongly about (I personally usually do not), but if all our guidelines contradict to PRECISION it is probably not such a good idea to use PRECISION as an argument for moving articles.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:50, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

We actually have the article, Wilson Square, and my example is the same as Ratusz Arsena. Well, take another example — Młociny metro station, Młociny exists (even if we do not have an article) and in fact gave its name to the station, Młociny station would be unique.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:55, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Panama metro RfC open: Talk:24 de Diciembre (Panama Metro)#Requested move 24 January 2021--Ymblanter (talk) 12:57, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

This has been closed as move.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:01, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Ymblanter, WP:PRECISION does speak to natural disambiguation (its example is "Bothell, Washington", even though there are no other Bothells). That also goes to consistency between articles (cf WP:CRITERIA). Naturally disambiguating with X station doesn't offend WP:PRECISION in the way that parenthetical disambiguation does. Naming convention discussions often revolve around whether to use X station or X railway station or X metro station, with reference to local usage. Mackensen (talk) 13:10, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I certainly see how the policy can be interpreted this way, but I do not see it explicitly stated there. IMO, an RfC for any group of articles would be preferable. Again, we need an information page on the stations names; I wanted to start it this last weekend but did not managed to come to it.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:04, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

The community guidelines are at WP:CRITERIA, and they include recognisability (the name identifies the concept well) and naturalness (the name is one a user would look for). A user looking for a railway/metro station of any kind is likely to look for the place or station name followed by "station" or more likely "railway station" (which is also the better option since "station" does not identify immediately that it is a railway station). Parentheticals are certainly inappropriate unless disambiguation is required. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:07, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

To be honest, I am getting tired to repeat an obvious point many times. Are you arguing that it would be appropriate to move all articles on Paris Metro stations (several hundreds) from Foo (Paris Metro) to Foo metro station without a prior RfC, just citing WP:MOS?--Ymblanter (talk) 16:28, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Sorry I haven't read the whole discussion. What I am citing is Wikipedia:Article titles; and also my personal expectation, that if I'd looking for a railway/metro station, say, Westminster, I wouldn't look for Westminster (London Underground) or Westminster station (which is also ambiguous per the hatnote) but for Westminster tube station. WP:CRITERIA is a community policy, which has been well tested and which is stronger than a local Wikiproject consensus (WP:LOCALCONSENSUS). Could you point out to me, where in my comment am I arguing this change (no matter the current format being wrong) should be done without any kind of prior discussion [hint: I haven't found it]? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:40, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

No, you do not, but the whole discussion is about an undiscussed move (which since then was rectified). My argument is that the policies do not exactly say what the name should be, they only provide some considerations, and indeed we have many groups of articles whose names do not conform to the policy. It would be good to unify names, but moving without discussion, just citing the policy, is in my opinion not the way forward. You seem to object to this, and this is why I read your comment in the way I read it. If you do not argue for mass undiscussed moves, then I do not disagree with you.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Information on station names

As I promised, I have created this page which is supposed to collect current guidelines / RMs / practices on station names. I added there whatever I knew or could easily find. I will probably continue examining the situation and adding new countries, but if someone knows what the situation is I would certainly welcome any corrections/additions. If appropriate, I will also appreciate if this could be added somewhere as a link, I have no idea what the best place would be.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:31, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

CF Economiques Forestiers des Landes

(Notwithstanding the wrong title, since I can't find any proper source I'm not going to move it yet):

Any body have access to any sources mentioned here? There's a page about the rail line (identified as the "Roquefort-Lencouacq line") here, but this is clearly a blog/WP:SPS so can't cite that... If not: Mackensen; Mjroots anything about this in the Atlas ferroviaire or Tortillards of Artois? The line apparently closed in 1934 (if the site I link is accurate), if that can help. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:18, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: - it's Minor Railways of France you want. Doesn's say anything more than the article already does. I'll add some refs later. Mjroots (talk) 15:26, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

There's an article in the Luxembourgish Wikipedia: Eisebunnsstreck Roquefort - Lencouacq-Jourets. It's too far south to be covered in Atlas ferroviaire; volume will presumably cover southern France but doesn't have a release date. Mackensen (talk) 15:32, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I only understand German (and then quite a bit less than French or English), but AFAICS from a quick glance the Luxembourgish doesn't seem to be saying much more, and it's still unsourced, so no help from that either. Thanks, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:39, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I've bashed it into something resembling a shape. Mjroots (talk) 16:25, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Well done! I've fleshed out the merged Wikidata object. Mackensen (talk) 16:37, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I found this, but also a SPS. Mjroots (talk) 18:02, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Both of the SPS's have interesting pictures [some duplicates, also] which would be PD if the dates they give are correct (1910 picture of Roquefort station, for example). If anybody has access to La Vie du Rail - they're nicely indexed on the first link I give, if anything useful can be found for this or other articles. Otherwise serious historians would look for WP:PRIMARY and contemporary sources (newspapers, et al.); but unless there's something readily available on online databases (I wouldn't know where to look), this is probably not worth exploring any further. I assume "Minor Railways" has some form of bibliography? The kilometric listing of stations on the first site (or at least, the sequential listing, we don't need the exact distances) should also be readily verifiable through maps, either from military WW1 series or whichever other contemporary ones can be found (England has OS, which at the most detailed scale includes relatively detailed track layout and even signal post positions; don't know what the French equivalent is or how much details it goes into). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:18, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Minor Railways of France does have a bibliography, running to several pages. I've added the relevant book to the article as "further reading". Of interest, the SPS that RandomCanadian found is used as a reference on fr-Wiki. I'm not so sure that we can't use an SPS, more of the opinion that SPSs are lower down the pecking order but are useable if one can be confident of the veracity of info provided and there are no better sources available. Mjroots (talk) 06:53, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Featured article review MTR

I have nominated MTR for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. 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 "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. FemkeMilene (talk) 17:26, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

• Is anyone else interested in trying to fix this up? There used to be a large transport community working on articles like this, just not sure if they are still active especially in the current climate. I don't think I can rework on this myself, but if there is a team effort then this is still salvageable. (The first thing that comes to my mind is this article needs a lot of pruning.) - Mailer Diablo 08:51, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

For the Maps Task Force

The Maps Task Force talk page seems quiet so I'm posting this here instead. Courtesy ping Krampyno.

Recently the tram stop intu Trafford Centre tram stop changed names to The Trafford Centre tram stop.

When I moved the page and fixed up the links, I missed one of the map templates, causing some other pages to break. Eventually, someone noticed and reported it. The discussion and fix is at Talk:Manchester Metrolink § Navigation boxes on tram stop articles (permalink).

Could someone familiar with the ins and outs of how the tram/train template system works please make a checklist that ordinary editors can follow when renaming a page that is a tram or train stop, then prominently link it on the relevant WikiProject pages?

Or, if that's not going to happen, have some bot or watchlist watch for page-renames of tram/train stops so someone who knows what should be checked can follow up and finish off any incomplete tasks? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 15:06, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

@Davidwr: you can use the "what links here" feature to check links from redirects. Mjroots (talk) 18:30, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Translation of titles of foreign railway lines

AlgaeGraphix has moved the Chemins de Fer d'Aire à Fruges et de Rimeux-Gournay à Berck to the new title of Aire–Fruges and Rimeux-Gournay–Berck railway claiming WP:UE as a reason.

I strongly object to this move, which should be reverted. The very first line of WP:UE says "The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English-language usage". My contention is that WP:UE is not WP:USETRANSLATEDINTOENGLISH, therefore we don't need to translate the title. This is something which, if allowed to stand, affects many articles on railways in countries which don't use English as an official language. Do we really want to see articles titled Somme Bay Railway, Goes - Borsele Steam Train etc where there is no English title in common use? Mjroots (talk) 05:58, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@AlgaeGraphix and Mjroots:: I've reverted a controversial move that seemingly requires discussion and consensus. thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 06:17, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@AlgaeGraphix: would you be so kind as to restore the original links in other articles please? Mjroots (talk) 06:46, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I've reverted the move of the Tramway à vapeur d'Ardres à Pont d'Ardres article to Ardres–Pont-d'Ardres steam tram for the same reason. Mjroots (talk) 09:46, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Folks, let's dial things down a notch. We translate plenty of such titles into English and have for ages. See for example Martigny–Orsières Railway (Chemin de fer Martigny–Orsières). I note in this case the title of the (featured) article on the French Wikipedia is Ligne d'Aire-sur-la-Lys à Berck-Plage, so our title isn't even correct French. When dealing with articles about lines, such as Ligne X in French or Bahnstrecke Y in German they are generally translated to X railway or X line. Mackensen (talk) 12:39, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@Mackensen: ligne translates as "railway line", Chemin de Fer translates as indicates a "railway company". Therefore our article on the CFARB is at the correct title. The Compagnie du CFARB was a separate undertaking to the Compagnie du CFAC, even though both companies operated services over the same length of track for a few kilometres. Mjroots (talk) 13:16, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

BTW, titles are derived from the Tortillards of Artois book. An English language source which does not translate the name of the railways into English. Mjroots (talk) 13:21, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I'm familiar with the difference. I agree that we generally translate lines and do not necessarily translate company names, and that for the latter it depends on what English-language sources call it. Our article doesn't differentiate strongly between the line and the company, common enough when there's a single line, and that's a difficulty because the concession appears to pass to the Compagnie générale de voies ferrées d'intérêt local from 1919 on. Our article speaks as though the CF du ARB is the correct name for the line and company for the entire period, which appears (?) to be incorrect. Mackensen (talk) 14:25, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

It's not incorrect. History section states that the line was operated from the outset by the Compagnie du CF du ARB, transferring to VFIL in 1919. The CF du ARB refers to the line/system, irrespective of who was the operating company. Mjroots (talk) 14:36, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Our article is about the line, which in French is Ligne d'Aire-sur-la-Lys à Berck-Plage and in English would be Aire-sur-la-Lys–Berck-Plage railway or Aire-sur-la-Lys–Berck-Plage line. I'm deferring to the French Wikipedia on the question of whether Compagnie du CF du ARB became a metonym for the line, and no doubt many sources use it, but there's no obvious reason this far out to commingle the two. Anyway, I'll start a move discussion on the article talk page. Mackensen (talk) 14:50, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Duly opposed at talk page. Mjroots (talk) 15:22, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

The discussion has gone on long enough. Would an uninvovled editor in good standing please close the RM? Mjroots (talk) 13:12, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

The discussion has finally been closed as "No consensus to move". One thing that did come out as part of the discussion is that where English sources use "Chemin(s) de Fer...", the correct French is "Chemin(s) de fer..." Other articles were moved during the discussion according to that rule. The CF du ARB article has now also been moved.

Many articles on French railway lines and systems are at French titles. There are a few that are at translated titles. Do we leave them as they are, or move them to their correct French titles? Mjroots (talk) 18:26, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

French titles aside (not to change the topic, just pointing out), another question is about articles in English which have "Railway" in them - WP:SENTENCECASE is clear that titles should be in sentence case, so unless for cases like Indian Railways or Great Western Railway (where it is a proper capitalised title); that should also be addressed too (I can find artifacts of this occasionally, ex. here - the history shows it was moved a while ago but the person who did it didn't fix it; but I don't know if there's a more efficient way to search for this and especially for articles that haven't been moved to the proper capitalisation). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:56, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, that was moved in error. Yes, downcasing "strike" was appropriate, but "Railway" should have stayed capitalized because it was a strike by the workers of (and against the management of) the Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway (Company), a proper noun. The person who moved it failed to properly parse what part of the name was being used adjectivally and what was a noun. Which is pretty typical for the down casing brigade. oknazevad (talk) 04:06, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Would I need to figure out a template to warn about WP:ASPERSIONS or is the message clear? Anyway since Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway appears to be correct why not move the page correctly for consistency (WP:SOFIXIT)? I was just making a suggestion... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:25, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Template:Naples_Metro/Line_1

Can someone touch this template up a bit? The biggest issue I have is that it uses NavFrame, but even so I am pretty sure that it should take a somewhat different format. --Izno (talk) 23:36, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

@Izno:  Done --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:32, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

China Adjacent Stations formatting

I've raised a question at Module talk:Adjacent stations/China Railway High-speed, editors of Chinese railway articles may be interested. Thanks NemesisAT (talk) 15:14, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

List of rail accidents (2020–present)

There's a major issue with the Contents box (which doubles as a Table of Contents) in the List of rail accidents (2020–present). I've looked at the template that calls the contents box, but can't fathom out why it's displaying 2020 as in the 2010s and isn't displaying 2021. Mjroots (talk) 05:59, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Eureka! fixed it myself . Mjroots (talk) 14:14, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Japan

Can we begin discussion on moving Tokyo Station to Tokyo station (among the rest)? I don't see why this is capitalized. Cards84664 21:05, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles#Train and subway stations says not. It was debated a few years ago and, although I was on your side, consensus was against us. Talk:Akabane-iwabuchi Station#Requested move 14 January 2018 (continued at Talk:Achasan station#Requested move 20 January 2018) is relevant, as is Talk:Tutuban station#Discussion (despite not being in Japan) but I think there was a wider discussion which I can't find. Certes (talk) 00:13, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) At the follow-up RM the consensus was to downcase "station". AlgaeGraphix (talk) 00:21, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

AlgaeGraphix, the Korean stations, yes, but not the Japanese stations. If there was a broad discussion about Japanese stations then I don't recall participating in it. Mackensen (talk) 00:26, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

If there was one, Dicklyon probably participated or even initiated it and may recall the details. Certes (talk) 00:46, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't know of such a discussion. The Japanese station and line editors have generally insisted on keep their caps; the rest of the world, not so much. Dicklyon (talk) 02:43, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Tbh, for me it's a matter of consistency (as someone who just reverted to capital "Station" and "Line" in a few articles). Move 'em all; while we're at it, move the lines too. I'd happily support a RM to decapitalize "Line" and "Station" for Japanese railway articles. As of now, the capital "Station" is in the MOS, and "XYZ Line" seems to be regarded as a proper name (thus capitalized). Last discussion about decapitalizing "Station" was about three years ago, right? As the issue seems to come up once in a while, I'd say having another discussion about it seems the right choice. Nyamo Kurosawa (talk) 09:17, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Map request

The maps task force seems quiet so I will be putting the map request here. I feel like San Francisco cable car system would be improved with a KML file. An existing map can be found here. Thanks! -³²²UbnBr₂ (Talk | Contributions | Actions) 04:48, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

current map

 Working Pi.1415926535 (talk) 05:00, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

 Done Pi.1415926535 (talk) 05:31, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

@Pi.1415926535: Thank you so much! How did you do it in 1/2 hour? Well, I the cable car lines do look pretty straight.-³²²UbnBr₂ (Talk | Contributions | Actions) 05:54, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

I drew them in Google My Maps using the aerial imagery. I am very familiar with the system, which helped me make it quickly (as did its small size). Cheers, Pi.1415926535 (talk) 06:07, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Images in station article

Hollywood/Western station as had an image in the infobox and two additional images of the station in the article for at least five years. They were removed today with a "WP is not a collection of indiscriminate images" edit summary. It is a short article, but I don't think three images is at all excessive. I put them back (the status quo) and was immediately reverted. If anyone else has an opinion and would like to comment... MB 23:15, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. The station isn't just a platform - including an image of three distinct parts of the station (entrance, mezzanine, platform) is not indiscriminate, rather it's properly illustrating a subject which a single image can't do. Besides, including a small gallery makes the article more attractive and interesting. NemesisAT (talk) 23:29, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

I've added a paragraph about the station design with one image and several sources, and cleaned up the rest of the article. Two images are plenty for a two-paragraph article; more can be added if the article is expanded with added cited details about the station layout, history, etc. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:13, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Fraction characters in category names

There are currently 77 categories with precomposed fraction characters (e.g. ½) in their names, the significant majority of them are relevant to this project as subcategories of Category:Track gauges by imperial unit and Category:Locomotives by gauge. There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 March 3#Category:10¼ in gauge railways in England about converting them to e.g. "1/2". Input from project members would be welcome. Thryduulf (talk) 13:47, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Locomotives by gauge categorisation

The Category:Locomotives by gauge category is currently a mess so I have proposed an organisation structure to sort it out at Category talk:Locomotives by gauge but there are still open questions that need answering so please share your thoughts, suggestions and improvements there. Thryduulf (talk) 14:27, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Template for wheel arrangements

Is there a template for entering wheel arrangements (eg 0-6-0PT) that treats them as a single word, and stop line breaks occurring either at the dashes, or between "0" and "PT"? It is mainly a problem in tables, when the browser tries to fit multiple columns in by making them all narrower, and decides that "0-6-<br/>0PT" is acceptable. If there isn't, can one be created? It should be made general enough to cover 4-6-2+2-6-4 Garratts, or A1A-A1A diesels. (And, yes, why don't I do it? I'd love to, and if there isn't any alternative, I may try, but it won't be soon.) --Verbarson (talk) 10:33, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Verbarson, {{Whyte}} gets you at least part of the way there. Mackensen (talk) 11:22, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Mackensen, thanks. I hadn't realised that {{Whyte}} included the nowrap directive. And given that I personally am not into smelly boxes or similar, it is enough to keep me happy. However, looking at a page like Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, where I observed this problem and at one point tried to do something about it, I wonder: with all those Whyte notations, in prose lists and in tables, is it over the top to make them all templates, just to enforce nowrap? Obviously there are many, many duplicates, and normally only the first example of each should be linked to the relevant article. Using the Whyte template would put links on every single one (approx 720). --Verbarson (talk) 13:40, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

@Verbarson: - to avoind links in every occurrence of a wheel arrangement, you need to use a hard hyphen, coded & # 8209 ; without the spaces. Mjroots (talk) 17:47, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Mjroots - I was thinking that a little search-and-replace template might be an easy to achieve this, but a quick look at the template-writing documentation didn't bring up any text replacement facilities. It may need to involve Lua. --Verbarson (talk) 22:19, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

{| class="wikitable" style="white-space: nowrap;". AlgaeGraphix (talk) 23:17, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Would not a nolink parameter to the template not be a better solution than a hard hyphen? Thryduulf (talk) 02:11, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

I have eventually reverted to {{nobr| }} throughout on Locomotives of the Great Western Railway. It is shorter to code than class="wikitable" style="white-space: nowrap;", and if HTML v99 ever introduces a better nowrap function, the template can be updated once. However, I've only done it once per table, only longest Whyte code in each table, because the tables seemed to suffer most in narrow windows (eg mobiles).--Verbarson (talk) 22:02, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

U-Bahn station names

The U-Bahn station articles are something of an outlier in that they still use preemptive parenthetical disambiguation, though with variations:

• Berlin: "X (Berlin U-Bahn)", except for those stations shared with the S-Bahn, which are named "X station" when there isn't a COMMONNAME like Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
• Cologne-Bonn: "X station"; I moved them back in December
• Frankfurt: no individual articles
• Hamburg: "X (Hamburg U-Bahn station)"
• Munich: "X (Munich U-Bahn)"
• Nuremburg: "X (Nuremberg U-Bahn)"

With the exception of Hamburg, "station" appears nowhere in the article title, which feels undesirable. Before doing a requested move I'm curious what others think about a better name. The simplest answer is "X station", which would match what other stations in Germany are named. Another possibility would be "X U-Bahn station", which is similar to the approach of the German Wikipedia, where articles are named "U-Bahnhof X". Still another possibility is "X metro station", which is done in other countries, but (to my ears anyway) sounds strange when discussing an U-Bahn system. Thanks, Mackensen (talk) 02:09, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree that "Xxx metro station is a station on the Yyy U-bahn network" sounds wrong, so the logical choice would be "X station" (similar to many North American transit stations), "X station, Y" (natural disambiguation per WP:MOS) if dab needed. AlgaeGraphix (talk) 04:31, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Three existing Nuremberg U-Bahn stations contain the word "Bahnhof" already - Nordostbahnhof (Nuremberg U-Bahn), Hauptbahnhof (Nuremberg U-Bahn) and Fürth Hauptbahnhof (Nuremberg U-Bahn) Hobbitschuster (talk) 12:45, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Interesting special case. I would say that those stay where they are; they're properly disambiguated and doubling up bahnhof and station is unnecessary. Mackensen (talk) 15:46, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I would say X station with a disambiguation (if needed) X station (Y U-Bahn)--Ymblanter (talk) 12:50, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree with "X station" as well. No need to make it longer if there's not a compelling case to do so. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 17:58, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

As a note I dumped all the station names into a spreadsheet and identified three that were not unique between systems: Hohenzollernplatz station, Rathaus station (already ambiguous), and Uhlandstraße station. Of the remaining, there was only one, Berne station, that would need disambiguation. Mackensen (talk) 22:09, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

2021 Hualien train derailment

Hi guys, I've just started a stub on a recent railway accident in Taiwan. It's still very short and lacking info. All are welcomed to expand it so it might appear in the ITN section. Thanks! --Dora the Axe-plorer (talk) 04:42, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Belgian State Railways Locomotives Template

Can an experienced editor create a template for Belgian State Railways Locomotives? The class numbers range from Belgian State Railways Type 1 through to Belgian State Railways Type 51 with some gaps and a couple of orphans (Belgian State Railways Type 11 and Belgian State Railways Type 20). Thanks. 2A00:23C6:3B82:8500:9D90:4070:8777:F13F (talk) 02:14, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

I put together Template:Steam locomotives of Belgium as a starting point. AlgaeGraphix (talk) 03:55, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks. I'll put it on the pages you have populated the template with. 2A00:23C6:3B82:8500:5453:683C:A6C3:C541 (talk) 11:05, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

List of high-speed railway lines

Please can an expert review the numerous recent IP changes to List of high-speed railway lines? Thanks, Certes (talk) 15:58, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this, I'm certainly not the expert you're looking for, but I've left a comment over on the talk page for that article as I think much of the IP's edits fall outside the intended scope of that article. NemesisAT (talk) 16:19, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Amtrak expansion

We now have a solid primary source regarding Amtrak expansion. How should we cover this, on the main article or with a draft on its own regarding expansion plans? Cards84664 04:34, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Given that there isn't a lot in the way of details - basically just the map - I don't see the need for more than a paragraph or two in the main article yet. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:40, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

We now have some more details on the Front Range Corridor route, including the stations, trip times, and frequency of service.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 20:27, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

List of secondary sources I have found regarding this:

• boston.com
• Delaware Business Now
• Chicago Sun Times
• Citizen-Times
• Vermont Public Radio
• Politico
• Gizmodo
• WFMZ (Local news)
• The Columbus Dispatch
• The Morning Call
• WBAY (Local news)
• Northjersey.com (Originally written by the Trenton Bureau

More to come soon.--Kieran207(talk-Contribs) 02:08, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Farnsworth Avenue Bridge

I just created an article for the Farnsworth Avenue Bridge in New Jersey. There are claims that it was built in 1831, making it possibly the oldest bridge over a railroad in the Western Hemisphere. Any help would be appreciated! Thank you, Thriley (talk) 07:04, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

That claim belongs to the Causey Arch, dating from the 1720s. Mjroots (talk) 15:08, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes: Causey Arch is 1°41' west of Greenwich. "...in the Americas" may be true. Certes (talk) 15:55, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

@Thriley: - please amend the article to remove inexactitudes. Mjroots (talk) 05:43, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Windsor lines

Following the demise of Windsor Lines (Waterloo to Reading, Windsor and Hounslow loop), editors may be interested in a replacement omnibus: Overview of The Windsor Lines. Certes (talk) 11:59, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

I get the distinct impression that it is a collection of copypasted portions from other articles, without attribution (contrary to WP:CWW). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:11, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

There is further analysis at its AfD. Certes (talk) 11:46, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

We have separate articles for each of the routes explained on said page. This is unnecessary forking. Nightfury 12:32, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Requested move discussions: British Rail Class 373, British Rail Class 374

An editor has requested for British Rail Class 373 to be moved to Eurostar e300. Since you had some involvement with British Rail Class 373, you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so).

An editor has requested for British Rail Class 374 to be moved to Eurostar e320. Since you had some involvement with British Rail Class 374, you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:26, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

KML updating

The KML files of the orange and green lines of BART need to be updated. May someone do that please? Thanks! -³²²UbnBr₂ (Talk | Contributions | Actions) 21:13, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

 Working Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:43, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

 Done I cleaned up geography and colors on all the BART KML files. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:09, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Stubs

Following a report at ANI, I've indeffed Vu-0001 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for creating many one line stubs on railway locomotives and (more importantly) refusing to communicate. It's a pity I had to do this as their contribution history show they are able to write decent articles. Are any editors able to expand the stubs? Seem to be mostly Australian and Greek locomotive classes. Mjroots (talk) 09:52, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Taipei Metro#Maokong Gondola

Hello, I decided to link to my comment on the page here as this page should be more heavily watched. Can someone reply on the link to the page on the section above? Thanks. 54nd60x (talk) 09:24, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Deletion discussion notification

Hi all - there are a few discussions that may interest you:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of COTA bus routes
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Transit Authority of River City bus routes
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of RTC Transit routes (2nd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Community Transit bus routes
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Lynx bus routes (Orlando)

Posting here as we are all editors of transit articles, and unfortunately, the bus wikiproject is inactive and does not have the same following to attract attention. ɱ (talk) 14:27, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Railway accidents template redesign proposal

Hello there, how about retouching the 'Railway accidents in xxxx' template from this:

to this:

The latter is arguably:

• more readable, with column layout and vertically-aligned dates.
• with more meaningful entry descriptions, as opposed to just date and place.
• without the cumbersome 'Location and date' header to the left, which is redundant since there is only one section in the template.
• more maintainable, since it is based on a dedicated generic template {{Railway accidents and incidents}} instead of using the raw Navbox template directly. Therefore it's easier to populate and maintain.

This new template is essentially the same as {{Aviation accidents and incidents}} currently in use at the WikiProject Aviation, which I contributed to including by introducing elements from the current Railway accidents template (namely the left/right arrow links at the bottom of the box). I think now the vice-versa would be beneficial too. What do you guys think, yay, nay? --Deeday-UK (talk) 13:15, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not in favour of expanding the descriptions. Date and location works just fine for me. No strong opinion on either method of display, although I would mention that some of the shipwrecks templates display 3 cols instead of two, which means they take up less vertical space. Mjroots (talk) 14:18, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

The proposed format is large and wasteful, with the huge amount of white-space. AlgaeGraphix (talk) 14:54, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

A space argument is commonly made with navboxes (it was made in the {{Authority control}} proposal too, though that proposal still easily passed at VPR) but I've never seen the logic personally. The purpose of a navbox is to help with navigation, not to clob a bunch of links together for the sake of saying we have a navbox. Accordingly, it should be presented in a coherent manner that helps readers navigate articles. I've never used navboxes as a reader of Wikipedia personally. They tend to just be a dump of links that aren't tightly tailored and tend to be hard to parse at a glance. This proposal makes it both more aesthetically pleasing, and easier to parse the data. So I think this is a navigational improvement. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:04, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

@AlgaeGraphix, Mjroots: I'm not sure how it renders on your devices; do you see all the entries in just one column? Assuming you are using a desktop browser with standard text size, enlarging or maximising the browser window should responsively split the content into several columns (up to five that I can see). The overall screen area taken up by the new template is only marginally larger than the old on my screen, and that only benefits legibility. --Deeday-UK (talk) 15:32, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

@Deeday-UK: ‘change the window size to make it display properly’ is not good formatting. I expanded it to fill both my twin 27" displays and it stayed the same. @RandomCanadian: ditto for a single column in a box that stretches across an entire page. AlgaeGraphix (talk) 16:25, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Yup. On my screen the size difference is just 37 pixels (127px -> 164px). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:34, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm seeing 2 cols for the new navbox on my laptop. I do tend to work with the magnification set to 170% or 200%. Makes for nice big text that is easy for my old eyes to read. Mjroots (talk) 16:27, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

@Mjroots: The number of columns is not fixed, it is dependent upon a number of factors, the most significant of which are (i) the parameter |listwidth=25em and (ii) the characteristics of your device's display. Your browser is being instructed to show the list in columnar format, using as many columns as will fit within the available width subject to each column being no less than 25em wide. The 25em is based upon the fonts that are: set by the page's markup; configured in your browser; available on your device. The available width is dependent on a number of factors, including: your device's display; your browser; your zoom level. So whilst you see two columns, others may well see more - or perhaps just one. Personally, I see three columns on a display that is 1280px wide at 100% zoom. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:11, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

@Mjroots and Redrose64: I did a bit of experimenting with window and font sizes, based on the most common desktop window sizes (according to the top hit on Google). I normally browse using Firefox with a window 1366 pixels wide at 100% zoom.

Width (pixels)	Number of columns
	Firefox (100%) & Chromium (100%)	Chromium (80%)	Chromium (150%)	Chromium (200%)	Konqueror (100%)
800	2	2	1	1	1
1024	2	3	1	1	2
1280	3	4	2	1	3
1366	4	5	2	1	3
1440	4	5	2	1	3
1536	4	5	2	1	4
1920	5	7	3	2	5

Thryduulf (talk) 02:35, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

On my Android phone, the navbox is not displayed at all (either old or new version) in the app or in mobile site view. In desktop view I see 1 column. Thryduulf (talk) 02:52, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

As a sitewide standard implementation of the fundamental navbox templates and skins, navboxes are not displayed in mobile view. DMacks (talk) 03:36, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I prefer the proposed format. Whitespace isn't really an issue; and the organisation is clearer and more helpful. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:40, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

This is the new navbox format with just location and country. Mjroots (talk) 16:33, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

• Either version of the new layout is much clearer than the existing so a change has my full support. I have a very slight preference for location and date only, as it will clearer on narrower displays, but do not let this get in the way of a consensus for the first proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 16:55, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

  @AlgaeGraphix, which browser are you using, and has it got Javascript enabled? I tested the template with Chrome, Firefox and Edge, and with all three browsers it is responsive as described. --Deeday-UK (talk) 17:38, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

  @Deeday-UK: Chrome under Mac OS X, with Javascript enabled. AlgaeGraphix (talk) 18:05, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

  Javascript should not come into it: the columns are done using CSS. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:13, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

• I overwhelmingly support the layout of the new template for readability, regardless of size. I do wonder, aren't some of these accidents left out of the new one, like all that took place in Uttar Pradesh, India? Is this intentional? (I suppose the old included incidents without articles? The new seemingly doesn't, which is how navboxes are supposed to operate.) What would the template look like with all the incidents, or for the year with the most accidents? ɱ (talk) 18:03, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that the idea is for accident navboxes to link only to events that have their own article, not to link to list articles (at least that's the usage for aviation accidents). Otherwise, any list article (e.g. List of rail accidents in Uttar Pradesh) could theoretically be included in virtually all 'Railway accidents in xxxx' templates, which would swamp the template with entries linking to the same list articles. --Deeday-UK (talk) 18:46, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Agree that the broad geographical lists are useless in the navbox. However, the list article for the relevant time period (year) could and probably should be included in the navbox. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:14, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

A probably unpopular take: these templates should not exist at all. The articles are very loosely related (unrelated random events that happened to take place in the same year), and they rarely link to each other. Per the guidelines at WP:NAVBOX, such loosely related articles are better served by a category and/or list article, rather than bulky navboxes. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 18:56, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Personally I find a chronological listing of notable rail accidents to be an extremely useful navigation aid on the articles. If the NAVBOX guidelines say otherwise then I suggest we either disregard them or change them as they aren't benefiting the encyclopaedia in at least this instance. Thryduulf (talk) 19:03, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

What Thryduulf said. If the guidelines are saying otherwise, change the guidelines or ignore them. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:14, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

A similar layout is done for shipwrecks (see for example {{1866 shipwrecks}}). There are slight formatting differences among them (train-wrecks vs plane-crashes vs ship-sinkings), such as the arrow character and punctuation and how much of the title is linked. I think it's time to centralize this rather than having so many projects go with their own hand-coded variants. That would also get wider input on the whitespace concern. DMacks (talk) 19:18, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Navboxes by year are common in many topic areas, but thinking about it and what you said I do agree the grouping is a bit arbitrary. They could be grouped in other ways too (eg incidents in the UK, then do what Deeday did above but by month-year rather than day-month). It would be nice if the WMF did some research into the actual usage by readers of navboxes and categories. And if it turns out they are used, if the software allowed doing A/B tests we could also see what groupings are most effective. Without such evidence, their existence is mostly just based off anecdotes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:32, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Per some of the comments above, I added a link to the list of the current year's incidents to the bottom navbar. AlgaeGraphix (talk) 20:02, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I'll go ahead and implement the first version of the new template. Once a new template for a given year is done, the idea is to turn the current template for the same year into a redirect to new one, so that it will not be necessary to update any individual accident article. --Deeday-UK (talk) 13:13, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Moscow Metro expansion

Please can an editor with a clue about the Moscow Metro review recent RDT changes by 108.48.189.192? I'm having difficulty resolving ambiguous links and cannot find sources for some of the additions. Thanks, Certes (talk) 10:08, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I will have a look.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:10, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

The edits look good to me. New stations were opened, and the IP just updated count. (I did not check the total number of stations, but this is a highly visible article, someone will do it).--Ymblanter (talk) 10:14, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Railway modelling: 2 mm scale

Does anybody have issues of British Railway Modelling, Model Railway Journal or Railway Modeller that have features on 2 mm scale? Perhaps you can use those to improve the article 2 mm scale. Even if you can't, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2 mm scale. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:40, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Template talk : Rhymney Railway#Route map

I have been advised to contact you, with regards to the information that I have entered in this section, in the hope that the referred-to line template could include the information contained therein.

Xenophon Philosopher (talk) 18:15, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

@Xenophon Philosopher: When you want other people to look at a discussion on another page, it is essential that you provide a valid link to that discussion. Can we assume that you mean Template talk:Rhymney Railway#Route map? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:52, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Indeed it is. I used the heading of the article/template in question that I did as that was what I read the heading to be. But thanks for seeking this clarification and I have now amended the title of this query and so hope that the information that I provided in my original query will enable the route map to be updated accordingly. Incidentally, I now appear to have a specific Wikipedia problem which you will note here as although I typed the four tildes at the end of this message, my website username has not appeared.

Xenophon Philosopher (talk) 22:48, 10 May 2021 (UTC) 03:38, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

You used five tildes to sign, instead of four. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:55, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Just to let you know that @AlgaeGraphix has now entered Nantwen Colliery Halt onto the route map, so that now only leaves three colliery halts outstanding. Perhaps the person who placed these onto the topography section could now assist. Thank you for pointing out my "five tildes" faux pas.

Xenophon Philosopher (talk) 22:47, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Requesting article review

Hi all! I've been working on improving Draft:Powerscourt siding for a while after it was put into draftspace, and I'd really appreciate if someone could review the article. --LivelyRatification (talk) 03:58, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

There is virtually no chance of most sidings being notable, and quite frankly given the state of all the station articles on the Maffra railway line stub the whole lot could more sensibly be merged into one article. The horse slipping on the way to siding is well .... are you serious? Djm-leighpark (talk) 05:19, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

I wasn't aware about the siding notability, my mistake then. I'm aware that the Maffra line articles do need improvement, I've been working mainly on the Briagolong railway line lately but I'll try to improve those articles. Thanks for your feedback! --LivelyRatification (talk) 05:53, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

@LivelyRatification: - that info could usefully be added to the Maffra railway station article. Mjroots (talk) 18:39, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

I might try that. I haven't really worked on that article since it's mainly unsourced as it stands, but thanks for the suggestion, I'll try adding that. --LivelyRatification (talk) 21:15, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

@LivelyRatification: - I've added an image to the Maffra railway station article. Is the Australian spelling "centre" or "center"? Feel free to correct it if I got it wrong. Mjroots (talk) 19:22, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! It's "centre", so looks good. --LivelyRatification (talk) 21:08, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Train vs aircraft carrier: waiting time

Perhaps an article on the waiting time can be made on this ? See Talk:Vactrain#Conventional_trains_in_evacuated_tunnels --Genetics4good (talk) 14:11, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Recent Wikipedia text formatting issues

In case in the last three days you noticed incorrectly sized or positioned text in articles (e.g. co-ordinates at the top overlapping with infoboxes, categories at the bottom displayed in an unusually large font size etc), it's an issue with the Wikimedia software that has already been reported here. --Deeday-UK (talk) 12:03, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Train crash in Malaysia

A head-on collision has occurred on the Kelana Jaya line in Malaysia, with about 150 people injured. Details sketchy at the moment, but possibly an article worthy event. Mjroots (talk) 16:46, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

The article has been created: 2021 Kelana Jaya LRT collision --PhiH (talk) 19:15, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Chinese article title query

Hi all, would someone with a better grasp of Chinese than me translate this title into English? It is zh:苏南沿江铁路. The best I can come up is the Jiangsu South River Bank railway? Thanks NemesisAT (talk) 23:08, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

In a tangentially-related matter, there are two users with Chinese names who have made edits that are similar to each other, some weeks apart:

• 黃正佑 (talk · contribs) (all edits made on 30 April 2021)
• 正佑黃 (talk · contribs) (all edits made on 1 June 2021)

These two names are made of the same three characters in a different order. Do they have any significant meaning? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:04, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Looks like that's a person's name, "Zhengyou Huang", but with the surname first (as typical for a Chinese name) in the 30 April account, and the forename first in the 1 June account. NemesisAT (talk) 09:09, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Here we go again…

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Calgary Transit bus routes .
Posting here as we are all editors of transit articles, and unfortunately, the bus wikiproject is inactive and does not have the same following to attract attention. AlgaeGraphix (talk) 16:10, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Month-old problematic edits

Hi all - about a month ago, @Kieran207: removed platform layouts on numerous train station articles. They cited a WP:TRAINS consensus, and I asked where that was. Apparently four people supported the removals in 2019, while eight people said not to have a general policy? And the closer took this as a consensus for removal - a clear bad close, even if it's not just a numerical vote. Can we revert these edits and/or re-do the RfC? Clearly this isn't very well settled. ɱ (talk) 00:47, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Ɱ, there was a more thorough discussion in 2020: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2020#Closure of 2019 station layout RFC. Mackensen (talk) 00:50, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. ɱ (talk) 00:53, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Kind-of a shame there isn't more support over these sorts of diagrams. I won't beat a dead horse but if only someone here could find a way to reliably publish information on layouts consistently, we could cite it consistently. I found, taking public transportation locally, regionally, and internationally, that getting to know which platforms take you where and exit where really is useful information not always readily available elsewhere. And it can provide a better overall understanding of the structure and functions beyond what prose can provide. ɱ (talk) 00:57, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Every country and rail operator has their own system and level of detail. For Great Britain it's on the National Rail website, e.g. [2] (click Station Map). A problem is that it changes and, unlike the rail industry, Wikipedia doesn't pay anyone to be responsible for maintaining it. Certes (talk) 01:06, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

• I've looked at the discussion, and since it is from so long ago, vacated the close. It is simply not justifiable to close a discussion with a consensus that states "oppose inclusion" while most editors in there favoured a case-by-case approach. Of course I don't have much of an opinion of the topic, though I do note that coverage is likely not to be of the same extent depending on the country. WP:NOTGUIDE is a concern, but if the information can be reliably sourced... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:24, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Diff. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:24, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
    • The editor at the time was less than a year old, with under 4k edits. Not that surprising, though confusing how they got to that decision. ɱ (talk) 03:25, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
      • @Mgasparin: Courtsey ping. I assume there's no point in explaining it two years after the fact, and the only thing I can point to is WP:SUPERVOTE. Anyways, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:08, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
        • @RandomCanadian and Ɱ:, It would also be helpful to view this if you have not already.--🌀Kieran207-talk🌀 21:16, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian, Ɱ, and Kieran207: Honestly, if this WikiProject wants to overturn my closure, I'm fine with it. I barely remember the RfC or what I wrote in the close. Looking back, I probably shouldn't have closed it. However, the editor who requested the close was fine with what I wrote then, so you should probably ask Davey2010 what he thinks. 2018 was a bit a of a weird time for me here, as I was somewhat new still and didn't understand everything going on. Thanks, hope this helps. Mgasparin (talk) 18:28, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

@Ɱ:, I honestly agree with you. The reason I removed them is because other editors had removed them citing the same consensus. The diagrams are fine additions, but NOTGUIDE may still be an issue. I would be more than happy with a new RfC.--🌀Kieran207-talk🌀 12:19, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

There should be no need for us to create our own station layout diagrams when they are so often available from the railway companies themselves. Until last year, the infobox for every railway station in Great Britain had links to some of the National Rail Enquiries pages for that station. These links included: a page listing upcoming departures with platform numbers; and a page that had information about the station's facilities, including a diagram of the station showing the layout of platforms, entrances, stairways, lifts etc. These external pages still exist, they are maintained by paid employees of the rail industry who have the responsibility for ensuring that the information for 2,500 stations is up to date and accurate. But ProcrastinatingReader (talk · contribs) (somebody with no previous interest in railway stations, and virtually none since) decided that GB railway stations should not have such links. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:08, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Well, first of all, what do those links have to do with this discussion about the station layout diagrams, or the 2019 RfC linked above? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:39, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

We've had these discussions on about a yearly basis since 2014. The general consensus every time has been:

• Simple stations with two or fewer platform faces (ie one side platform, two side platform, or one island platform) generally don't need a diagram, as simple prose is suitable and takes up less space, but diagrams are often useful for stations with more platforms or multiple levels. However, there's no hard-and-fast rule about which ones are okay; it's often a case-by-case decision.
• The amount of detail that can reasonably be provided for a station is related both to the complexity of the station, and the quality of information available. If it can't be reliably cited, it shouldn't be in the article.
• Diagrams (HTML tables or RDTs) should always supplement prose, and never replace it, because diagrams have accessibility issues.

Based on this, I fully support Kieran207's removal of these diagrams; when their edits have crossed my watchlist, it has been for simple stations where a diagram is not needed. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 22:28, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

I have removed a bunch of these diagrams, most of them on simple stations but some were more complex with more than two platforms. Personally, I don't like them. I've never edited them myself and the syntax isn't exactly inviting. I used a screenreader to read the diagram at Caochangmen – Nanjing University of the Arts – Jiangsu Second Normal University station and it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be though I think (if we do keep the diagrams) there ought to be headings (like "Level", "Line", "Direction of travel", etc) to make the contents clearer to screen reader users. I have added some prose to Caochangmen – Nanjing University of the Arts – Jiangsu Second Normal University station, I think my wording is a bit poor but something similar to what I've added could replace the layout diagrams. My vote would be to remove all station layout diagrams (unless the layout is particularly notable or unusual) and replace them with prose. NemesisAT (talk) 15:51, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

I think that if they're significant enough and if there's reliable sources about it, there's nothing that prevents having both the visual diagram (since these are helpful to readers and easy to interpret) and a brief prose summary. Of course, most stations that are of the very simple and common "double track with island/side platforms" design don't need a diagram. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:33, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks to whoever pinged me - In short I still 2 years on see nothing wrong with the RFC closure and I don't see a problem with Kierans removals. I appreciate not everyone's going to agree with the consensus however I ran an RFC and the community spoke ..... I did my part on acquiring a consensus for the removal, the community did their part in determining consensus and the closure evaluated that consensus.....

Consensus can change but in this case I don't see what's different from 2019 that could possibly warrant another RFC. –Davey2010^Talk 19:57, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

It seems to me that the syntax could be considerably simplified with a set of templates similar to the {{S-line}} ones, as they display much of the same information (albeit in a different format). AlgaeGraphix (talk) 23:20, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

For a station such as Fuzhou South railway station, should the station layout be kept or removed? I'm also looking for others' opinions on multiple infoboxes as seen in that article. Personally I really don't like them. They have created a load of whitespace, and its more work to keep them all updated. Changsha South railway station has four (!!) infoboxes. When metro and railway stations share an article, I'd like them to only use one infobox. Thoughts? NemesisAT (talk) 11:03, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

• • @NemesisAT: For that particular station, the layout diagram could be kept. As for the infoboxes, that should probably be discssed on the article's talk page instead of here.--🌀Locomotive207-talk🌀 00:15, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Checking needed

An edit at Newton Highlands station caused a module error so I reverted the edit. However there was also this edit which seemed problematic so I reverted it as well. Someone who understands the topic might like to check other edits which seem to involve unexplained changes. Johnuniq (talk) 04:41, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing those related to the Highland branch, downcasing of branch. Those were not "automated" or "unexplained" edits, just manual typing by me to bring case into agreement with prior consensus. I'm not aware of where the hidden data are that let the magic module know what are known line names and what are not in Lua error in Module:Adjacent_stations at line 236: Unknown line "Highland branch". I would have hoped that if there's an article by that name, it would work, but apparently there's some other database that's out of sync with the article naming. Do you know who hacks this stuff? You maybe? Dicklyon (talk) 04:42, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I posted here because the edits I mentioned (not yours) need checking by someone who understands the topic. I assumed the edits were automated because otherwise you would have noticed the significant errors in the nine articles where I just reverted your change. Johnuniq (talk) 04:57, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Those "big red errors" were all hidden in a collapsed "former services" section of the infobox. Yes, I should check for errors, and I do, but I missed those. So, now I've "unfixed" the ones you found and reverted, to use the obsolete over-capitalized form Highland Branch, until someone can tell us how to fix this correctly. There may be more. It's probably easier to fix the template data than to search up and "unfix" all the ones that provoke the error. Dicklyon (talk) 05:10, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Ah, yes, you refer also to intervening errors inserted by User:RedProofHill123. Don't know what's up there, but I agree with you on reverting, and on the need for someone to check more by that editor. Dicklyon (talk) 05:15, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Well I did notice that the highland branch had the error even before I made the edits so it was not me who caused error text on the historic Highland Branch. RedProofHill123 (talk) 12:18, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

No, that was me. But your edits that he reverted messed up or changed some dates. I think that's what we'd like to see checked. References would help; you got sources? Dicklyon (talk) 17:05, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

The following articles do not appear notable

I was asked to report train-related articles here for comment. I am happy to do so, assuming this project is active enough for useful comments to be generated :) Anyway, I am considering nominating the following articles for deletion, but I'd be of course happier to see them improved instead. Kylpor ejector, Underframe, Dragbox. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:46, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Piotrus, well, at least somewhat active. I think these could be merged into Glossary of rail transport terms. Mackensen (talk) 22:16, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Mackensen, Fine with me, although I do wonder if any glossaries are encyclopedic... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:43, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

NYC car model numbers

I just noticed something odd about NYC car model numbers. It took about 170 years to get from R1 to R46 (which were introduced when I was a kid). Now, roughly 50 years later, we're already up to R211. Why are we burning through model numbers so fast? -- RoySmith (talk) 15:45, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Oh, they're further on than that (see List of New York City Subway R-type contracts) but seem to have skipped a lot of numbers. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:36, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Qishuyan railway station

The article Qishuyan railway station has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Fails WP:GNG there are no claims of notability in the article. The other language article https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%9A%E5%A2%85%E5%A0%B0%E7%AB%99 has several references, but the all seem to be minor mentions and/or primary sources.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeepday (talk • contribs) 16:07, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Nomination of Qishuyan railway station for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Qishuyan railway station is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Qishuyan railway station until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

Jeepday (talk) 12:01, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Infobox units of measure

When quoting train lengths, height and widths, should we be adopting a consistent unit of measure, i.e. all in metres, centimetres or millimetres rather than a mix of more than one. Point in case being this one that quotes the length in metres and the width and height in millimetres. Would have thought using metres across the board to a consistent decimal point level was preferable, i.e [3]. Think quoting the width as 3,034 millimetres is unduly precise, when 3.03 metres would be quite adequate. Thoughts? Jeistyphade (talk) 06:21, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

I'd say we should match the precision in the source unless we have a good reason to do otherwise. Thryduulf (talk) 10:57, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

+1 - what Thryduulf said. WP:V is policy, after all. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:19, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

For rolling stock, I would use the most natural unit prefix for the measurement - 3.034 m is much easier to intuitively understand than 3,034 mm. That's separate from the issue of precision/significant figures, about which I don't have thoughts at the moment. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:32, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

"Natural" is subjective. London Underground trains are measured consistently in millimetres, even when that yields such figures as 133275 mm for the overall length of an 8-car train of 2009 Tube Stock. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:46, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Engineers always talk in millimetres, thus that will be reflected in engineering documentation as in the 2009 Tube Stock document above. But most lay people would not refer to a train as 133275 mm long, but 133.275 m, as is reflected in the London Underground 2009 Stock article where all the measurements are given in metres, albeit with differing decimal points. Jeistyphade (talk) 14:00, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Mass deletion request on Commons

 You are invited to join the discussion at c:Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Logos of rail transport companies of China. Sam Sailor 18:09, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Assessment Backlog

I've made a (small) dent in the assessment backlog, and from what I've seen the vast majority of the articles missing assessments are stubs or at best starts, and almost all are low importance. Is there a way we can automate assessments for these, say by having all articles with a total word count below a certain number automatically being classified as stubs?

Additionally, for going through the backlog manually, are there certain kinds of articles that should be prioritized for assessment? There's over 8,000 articles missing importance assessments, and over 2,000 missing quality assessments. Is one more important than the other? Assuming 1 minute per assessment (rather generous) it would still take close to 200 hours to go through all of the assessments manually. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:21, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Coaster

Would some other editors be willing to watchlist Coaster (commuter rail)? I'm having a hard time convincing several editors not to add trivia, personal observations, etc. Thanks, Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:51, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

I will watchlist the article. You could also consider getting the page protected. The GP9 article had some similar issues and is currently protected from edits by users not autoconfirmed. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:39, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

References which may fall under WP:FANSITE or WP:SELFPUBLISH

I have over the past few days looked over and tried to make improvements to a lot of the GE and EMD diesel locomotives articles, and I have noticed an alarming number of these articles list references and/or external links that in my view are not acceptable for Wikipedia per WP:FANSITE and WP:SELFPUBLISH. Some examples include utahrails.net, trainweb.org, and alaskarails.org. Do we have a general policy on if these sources are considered acceptable, and if not, should we as a WikiProject decide on one?

I'm debating having a request for comment for this, but for now I'm just going to create this new section and see what other editors have to say on the subject. There are a lot of articles that a change in allowing these sources would affect, so I want to solicit other editors' views before potentially removing them. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:21, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Trainsandotherthings, this was discussed in some depth last year (I can dig up the specific discussions later). In general, linking out to such pages is fine (as an external link), but using them as a reference would require a more in-depth evaluation as to whether the author of the page is a recognized expert. Mackensen (talk) 19:39, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Mackensen If you have a chance to find that discussion, I believe it would be helpful for my understanding. My post here was prompted by this disagreement [4] on the page for the EMD GP9, where two editors were in dispute about what sources are acceptable on Wikipedia. By the way they were talking, it seems clear to me this is a long running dispute. Perhaps it would be a good idea for the WikiProject to evaluate if specific authors can be considered recognized experts and therefore reliable sources? This information could be included in the article maintenance section of the WikiProject. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:58, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Discussions from 2020 on these questions (mostly involving myself and Graywalls, though others participated):

• Wikipedia:External_links/Noticeboard/Archive_23#railfan.net personal websites
• Wikipedia:External_links/Noticeboard/Archive_22#trainweb.org based rail fanning sites used on train related pages
• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_279#http://www.thedieselshop.us/ as used in ALCO PA
• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_305#american-rails.com
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains/Archive:_2020#"original owners" section in train articles

I don't know that much came of these discussions, aside from reaffirming that linking out to railfanning sites doesn't offend WP:ELNO. Mackensen (talk) 22:50, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing those discussions. As you said, it was primarily just you and Graywalls discussing. It seems clear to me there is no consensus towards removing these kinds of sources, though more reliable and verifiable sources such as books and museums are preferable. As such, I won't be removing them unless an article can be sufficiently cited without any of them. The real question left in my mind is what to do when these kinds of sources are listed as general references without any inline citations. Cleaning up all the references on all the locomotive articles would probably take months, but we have to start somewhere. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:33, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Proposed merger of EMD GP39 and EMD GP39DC

I have proposed that the article EMD GP39DC be merged into EMD GP39. I'd appreciate some feedback on the proposed merger at Talk:EMD GP39. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:56, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Milavče train collision

ČD Class 844

DB Class 223

Assistance required in identifying the classes of train involved in the Milavče train collision please (photos in quoted sources). Mjroots (talk) 11:56, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

According to the Czech language article, one of the trains was a ČD Class 844 RegioShark (example pictured). Can anyone confirm? Mjroots (talk) 18:47, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Now confirmed. Mjroots (talk) 19:09, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Forum gossip is that the other train was a DB Class 223 (example pictured). Again, confirmation required. Mjroots (talk) 18:51, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

The Czech source (my post timed 19:09) identifies the operator of one of the trains as Die Länderbahn, which operates Eurorunner locomotives. (example pictured). Mjroots (talk) 19:33, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

As luck would have it, that is the actual locomotive involved. Now if someone can code {{Infobox public transit accident}} to accept two images, then we can add that imag to the article.Mjroots (talk) 19:08, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

844 009 & 223 066

Starter for ten? - {{Photomontage}} - This may have been tried and not working? Djm-leighpark (talk) 20:53, 5 August 2021 (UTC) Djm-leighpark (talk)

Oh this was already sorted at the article using {{Multiple images}}... I assume sorted. Djm-leighpark (talk) 01:34, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

@Djm-leighpark: 844 009 is not confirmed as the unit involved. I chose that image for quality reasons, as I did for 223 066. When we know the identity of the DMU involved, we can consider a change of image. Mjroots (talk) 11:46, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Now confirmed at 844 006. Mjroots (talk) 13:12, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Question out of curiosity: where does the DB in "DB Class 223" come from? I've never heard someone referring to them as DB Class 223, mostly just "Baureihe 223" (Class 223) or "ER20". Btw, the ČD Class 844 is part of the Pesa Link family, so I changed the redirect target. Nyamo Kurosawa (talk) 16:12, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

@Nyamo Kurosawa: Modern UK trains are housed at titles beginning with "British Rail Class" because it was British Rail that introduced TOPS, which is still in use today. I applied a similar reasoning to the Class 223 as I presumed it was numbered within DB's numbering system. If there is a better link, please feel free to change it. Mjroots (talk) 05:45, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the explanation. I've removed the "DB" from the link and piped it to Eurorunner. Nyamo Kurosawa (talk) 10:20, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Mumbai Rajdhani Express

Hi all, I have been back and forth with LeoFrank at Mumbai Rajdhani Express for a while now and they haven't responded to my message at Talk:Mumbai Rajdhani Express so I thought I'd bring this article to the attention of the project so others can share their thoughts if they like. Since November 2018 they have been removing content from this page, citing WP:NOTTRAVEL or claiming it is unencyclopedic. They have also claimed the content they are removing is sourced by blogs or at other times, user-generated content. Yes, some sources may be user-generated, but I'm fairly certain India Times and official Indian government websites are not. Now apparently, it's all unencyclopedic and with a vague personal attack in the latest summary I decided to seek others opinions. I'm not claiming all content added to this article should be kept, but I'm just uncomfortable with the mass-content removal going on here and think at least some of it is valuable and encyclopedic. Thank you NemesisAT (talk) 17:29, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

I took a quick look at the edit history, and while I think some of what you added may not be encyclopedic, that's not an excuse for the other editor being rude to you and refusing to discuss on the talk page. Wikipedia policy says that when there's an edit dispute, it should be discussed on the talk page, not just through edit summaries. At this point what's going on could be considered edit warring, see WP:AVOIDEDITWAR. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 18:41, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your response, and I admit I should have refrained from editing and written this post earlier. NemesisAT (talk) 18:51, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Hitachi Rail Italy/Archive 1#Requested move 12 August 2021

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Hitachi Rail Italy/Archive 1#Requested move 12 August 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 14:06, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Railway Preservation Society of Ireland

The Railway Preservation Society of Ireland article has recently been gutted. As I understand the situation, the main issue was serious BLP violations, with COI editing and PRIMARY also of concern. I fully support the gutting of the article, but also support its reconstruction. As I said at the talk page, there should be plenty of independent sources to enable a decent article to be written. Mjroots (talk) 05:01, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

If there are any uninvolved admins about who would care to head over to WP:AN/I#Disruption at RPSI, Part 2 it woud be appreciated. Mjroots (talk) 18:45, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Proposed merger of GE C36-7 and China Railways ND5

An editor has proposed to merge China Railways ND5 into GE C36-7. The editor forgot to add the templates to the articles for the proposed merger, and while I've done so now so they will show up in article alerts tomorrow, I'd like to invite other editors to comment on the proposed merger [5]. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:33, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

SMH Rail Sdn Bhd, Malaysia

Does anybody have any independent third-party reliable sources for this company that Fzlmhd2016 (talk · contribs) is insistent be included in List of locomotive builders? We don't have an article, so it's a redlink, so per WP:WTAF it shouldn't be added to a list yet. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:49, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Here's International Railway Journal: [6]. There's a flurry of similar new stories, most (all?) of which are derived from the same press release. The company does seem to exist, but I don't know that there's enough at this time to write an article. Mackensen (talk) 10:49, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Original owners tables in locomotive articles

I'd like to get some feedback on if these large tables of locomotive production, for example, EMD GP9#Original buyers are encyclopedic. There has been disagreement on talk pages and elsewhere as to if these tables are valid additions to articles, or are unencyclopedic and make articles unreadable (the giant table in the GP9 article, for example). I am considering an RFC, but if we can come to a consensus here instead I would prefer that. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:28, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

They can be encyclopedic and belong in articles, but they need to be streamlined and trimmed of cruft. Mackensen's table at EMD F40PH#Original owners (which passed GA review) is a great example of how to do it right for a locomotive with numerous original owners. Railroad, model, quantity, and fleet numbers only - no trivia, properly sourced, and images to the side. I would propose that as the standard design for rolling stock articles. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 17:25, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

There are a few issues here. First, it is possible to source the information in a reliable way. Examples of reliable sources that collate and print locomotive rosters for North American railroads include Railroad History and various publications from Kalmbach. It's not the case that this is a fringe hobby confined to fan websites. Second, the "Notes" column often found in these tables (for example in the GP9 article) is almost always a dumping ground for detailed information which, even if accurate and reliable, takes us beyond a summary of the information. Third, there is a variance between what's printed in reliable sources and what fan sources have deduced from primary sources and their own investigation. Without wishing to cast aspersions on the latter, Wikipedia has always preferred verifiability to truth, and a reliable secondary source always takes precedence over a self-published source. An implication of summary-style writing is that Wikipedia may gloss over the details from time to time, and that's going to be true here as much as anywhere. Mackensen (talk) 18:18, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to establish some sort of general guidelines for these tables across trains articles, even if it's just a non-binding suggestion. Some editors have been insistent on preventing any changes to the giant tables [7] and adding in self-published, non-published, or primary sources as the only references. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:22, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Erie and Ontario railway?

Hi, I was wondering if anyone around here could help me find more information about an Erie and Ontario Railway (specifically the one mentioned here [8]). Do we already have an article about this or would I need to add it to Wikipedia:Requested Articles? Clovermoss (talk) 01:23, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Hey Clovermoss, I found a few sources online from a brief google search just now [9] [10], and there are a bunch more of results from contemporary newspapers that have been digitized. I can see about writing an article on the company tomorrow, as we do not have one on Wikipedia currently. I've been working on adding missing railroads to Wikipedia recently so this fits in perfectly. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:30, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Trainsandotherthings. I know almost nothing about railroads and I was nervous I could be confusing one railway for another one. I look forward to reading the article whenever it's written. Again, thank you. Clovermoss (talk) 02:05, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Clovermoss It's not a huge article, but Erie and Ontario Railway now exists, and includes the image you posted. You are of course welcome to add to it. Thank you for suggesting it! Trainsandotherthings (talk) 11:31, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Is this a reliable source?--Ymblanter (talk) 18:08, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Ymblanter I've never heard of Niagara Now. The more reliable local newspaper for Niagara Falls, Ontario, is the Niagara Falls Review. Clovermoss (talk) 18:12, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I will see if I can find more reliable sources, I wanted to get the article typed up before I went to work this morning. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:42, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Links to stations or towns in lead of railway line articles?

Is there a convention as to whether towns mentioned in the lead of an article on a railway line should link to the town or to the station? I see that East Lancashire line "runs between Preston..." which was originally a link to Preston, Lancashire but since at least 2008 has linked to Preston railway station. Other links are consistent, all from placenames to stations. Is the reader of the article more likely to want to know about the town or the station? I tried to find a comparable featured article, and note that City and South London Railway goes from the City of London ... was extended to Morden... etc, in its lead.

I wondered whether there is an MOS, guideline or model for railway line articles which has anything to say on this? (Pinging @DragonofBatley: for info, as it's an article he has edited recently, though these links are long-established). PamD 08:54, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

@PamD: I only added Nelson primarily because it is the main centre of Pendle borough like Accrington is for Hyburn and Burnley Blackburn and Preston are major towns and cities of Lancs. In regards to the actual stations and towns/cities. Its more informative to add notable towns and cities to a lead. In the case of East Lancashire Line. It's an awkward affair given the line is both a branch line to Colne and closed to Skipton in 1970.

But if it helps I would revisit the lead and just link Preston, Blackburn, Accrington, Burnley, Nelson and Colne. As Burnley has two stations on the line at Manchester Road and Barracks. But then maybe just say Burnley and part of Pendle in Lancashire.

Gives both towns a mention then or just link Hydburn and Pendle as the lines run through these anyway. I think big centres like Nelson should be in the lead as it is informative or maybe split the lead between the main line from Preston to Leeds and Burnley to Colne.

As the line has two separate lines from Burnley Manchester Road station. It be more formative to split the two lines as one goes to Colne and the other to Leeds and Bradford among other destinations.

So maybe a two lead could go "Preston to Leeds via Blackburn Accrington and Burnley. Another part of the line runs along part of the former Leeds and Bradford Extension Railway to Colne via Nelson."

There's one lead idea? @PamD: as that would give the main through route and the branch part to Colne both a mention?

Hope this helps DragonofBatley (talk) 09:46, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

@DragonofBatley: (But you may already be away on your break...) Thanks for replying, but I wasn't querying anything about your contribution or the choice of which towns to mention in the lead. My question, which I thought I'd phrased quite clearly, was whether the town names in the lead should link to the town articles or the station articles - ie Preston or Preston. My feeling, which I'm happy to see that Trainsandotherthings agrees with, below, is that it's more useful to link to the town, rather than the station, in the lead (and also that to name the town and link to the station is misleading, something of an MOS:EASTEREGG, in that the reader doesn't get what they might expect). The style of links I'm unhappy about date back to about 2008, so way before your involvement in the article. I wasn't questioning whether Nelson should be mentioned in the lead, but whether it should be Nelson or Nelson (and the others similarly): you sensibly kept consistent with the other links in the lead. I think they may be consistently less than ideal. But thanks for your input anyway, and enjoy your break. PamD 15:41, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

• To respond to your initial question, there is no guideline or consensus on this question to my knowledge. My personal preference would be to link to the town in the lead and the specific railroad stations in the infobox, unless it's a particularly significant railway station (for example, Grand Central Terminal) or the town has multiple railroad stations and it would be helpful to specify (again, Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station are both in New York City). Trainsandotherthings (talk) 12:51, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Recent Changes

I have been using Special:Recentchangeslinked/Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Recent changes to attempt to patrol new changes to articles within WP Trains, but I noticed that many articles were not showing up under recent changes. It turns out that the list Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Recent changes has not been updated at all since 2012. Is there a way we can get a bot to update this? The page says it is designed to be updated weekly by a bot but that is not happening. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:41, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

That page is transcluded from a number of subpages, such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Recent changes/A, which AFAIK were never bot-updated - it was a manual job by Slambo (talk · contribs). Perhaps they are too busy for that - I notice that Template:Trains portal/Did you know, which used to be updated daily, is now averaging roughly two updates per week. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:29, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

The list was made back when there were far fewer railroad-related articles. I created and maintained it for a while and have completely forgotten about it. If I remember correctly, I think it started from my personal article watchlist. With the number of articles we have now, it is most assuredly not feasible to manually keep the list current. I don't know enough about scripting to set up a bot to maintain it instead, but would welcome any volunteers who want to take it on. Perhaps keying off the presence of {{WikiProject Trains}} on an article's talk page would be a helpful starting point.

Regarding the portal updates I've been making since its launch in 2005 (16 years of daily updates!!!), a bunch of personal things have come up for me this year taking away from my editing time (family medical issues, home repair problems, computer problems [including a complete crash for a system that could not be replaced for a few months due to pandemic-related production shortages], work travel and production struggles, my son's wedding and getting to know a whole new section of family, shared home office space, family finance issues, etc.). I'm trying to rearrange a few things to get back to it as I do enjoy helping to keep the information up to date. My goal is to get back to regular daily editing time, it's just been very difficult to spare extra time this year. Slambo (Speak) 17:22, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Railroads in New England draft

I am working on a draft (User:Trainsandotherthings/Draft:Railroads_in_New_England) of an article I hope will eventually contain a thorough history of railroads in New England. At the moment however, it is not ready for article space because it has some major holes in the timeline (chiefly in the 1800s) and needs many more citations. Any contributions other editors are able to make would be greatly appreciated. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:25, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

FAR notice

I have nominated Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railway for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. 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 "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Hog Farm _Talk 04:27, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Nuremberg U-Bahn articles language issues

I have been trying to make the clunky (machine?-) translations from German to English in articles on the Nuremberg U-Bahn (particularly U1 (Nuremberg U-Bahn) and Nuremberg U-Bahn itself) more readable, but it's still a long ways to go and I may not be the most suitable for the job, because I myself am a German native speaker who only learned English later. Could some of y'all try and help out, please? Hobbitschuster (talk) 08:40, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

RM: AVE Class 100 → Renfe Class 100 (and two similar)

An editor has requested for AVE Class 100 to be moved to Renfe Class 100. Since you had some involvement with AVE Class 100, you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so).

An editor has requested for AVE Class 102 to be moved to Renfe Class 102. Since you had some involvement with AVE Class 102, you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so).

An editor has requested for AVE Class 103 to be moved to Renfe Class 103. Since you had some involvement with AVE Class 103, you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so).

Havelock Jones (talk) 13:20, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Line vs line

I remember at some point there was a mass change of Foo Line to Foo line. Did we have an RfC leading to this change? Thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:56, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

There were some per-country discussions including WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive_138#RfC: Russian metro line article titles and WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive 139#RfC on naming of Chinese railway line articles but they were inconclusive and I don't recall a global one. Some titles, notably in Japan, still contain Line in title case. Russia was decided at RM rather than RfC: Talk:Kalininsko–Solntsevskaya line#Requested move 11 December 2017. Certes (talk) 20:26, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. The reason I am asking is this, it is about Malaysia.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:45, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

If there ever was such an RfC, Dicklyon is the editor most likely to know where to find it. Certes (talk) 23:03, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

There were lots of discussions years ago; I don't recall whether they included an RFC per se. Dicklyon (talk) 04:22, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

• As far as I remember WP:SENTENCECASE is the fundamental principle behind this. So "line" unless there's convincing evidence the capitalised version is more common. Given that even the Piccadilly line is uncapitalised (as it is on the TfL website; [11]); I think there's a convincing claim here for consistency that it should be always lower case. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:28, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
  • One city's use should not be applied to the entire world. The case-by-case approach is far better, as it doesn't override local usage. SounderBruce 23:35, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
    • That is why I did say " unless there's convincing evidence the capitalised version is more common" RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:12, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
      • Per MOS:CAPS, the threshold is higher than just "more common". Please read it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:23, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
• As an addendum, I do not believe line should be lowercase when it's part of the name of a railroad company, such as Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. And the other Atlantic Coast Line is also capitalized, despite what has been said above. If we are deciding on a consensus here, a number of page moves will need to be done. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:22, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Agreed. When part of a company name, it will be capped (obviously). As for the Par to Newquay line, I find that it's "now marketed as the 'Atlantic Coast Line'." Is that a good reason to cap "Line" there? Maybe better to just call it the Par–Newquay line as some sources do. Dicklyon (talk) 04:23, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
• Thanks again, we processed the request.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:12, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Copyvios removed on two articles

Yesterday, I had to remove major instances of copyright violations on Pan Am Railways and Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. This has left major holes in the articles, and I could use help putting them back together properly. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:17, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Locomotive rosters of historic railways

The now abandoned town of Pino Grande, California, is best remembered as the home of the Michigan-California Lumber Company, which operated one of the last forest railways in the Sierra Nevada. An experienced editor has deleted the roster of Shay locomotives used by the company, allegedly "removing superfluous info". I would value a discussion about locomotive rosters on that talk page (or elsewhere, as appropriate). Thewellman (talk) 23:47, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

The article is about the town, not the railroad. If you want to document the railroad, you can create a new article for it. But the article for the town of Pino Grande should not have a giant list of locomotives on it, that is just completely out of scope. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:50, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I hear you, but Pino Grande was functionally a company town built around the sawmill served by the railroad. When the railroad was abandoned, the town disappeared, and the forest has reclaimed the site. The article about the town is scarcely more than a single paragraph, and a separate article about the railroad would leave the town article a stub. Thewellman (talk) 00:06, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

That's irrelevant to the question at hand, which is "should there be a railroad roster on an article about a municipality", and the answer to which is "hell no". There are only three scenarios:

• The town is notable, but the railroad/lumber company is not: The railroad details on the town article should be limited to a paragraph or two, and should certainly not have a roster. This seems unlikely given that there's an entire book about the railroad
• The railroad/lumber company is notable, but the town is not: The article title should be the railroad name, and details about the town should be limited. Properly cited summaries of rolling stock and operations are appropriate on the railroad article.
• The railroad/lumber company and the town are both notable: Both should have articles, with no more than a paragraph or two about the other. Properly cited summaries of rolling stock and operations are appropriate on the railroad article.

In any case, the table in the previous revision had far too much detail even for a railroad article - manufacturer serial numbers and the like are simply irrelevant for an encyclopedia. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:07, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Yep, the purpose of an encyclopedia is to be a summary, and possibly provide guidance for those seeking additional sources. There's no reason to give a full table of every locomotive operated by a railway, see WP:NOTDATABASE (summarising by listing the different types and how many of each, or something like that, might be an option: of course, if the company only operated one type of locomotives, then it should simply be mentioned textually somewhere, no need for a table). On the other hand, this has led me to notice that Shay locomotive is in need of somebody with time and good sources... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:25, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

There are plenty of heritage railway articles with locomotive/rolling stock tables, it certainly isn't outside the scope of Wikipedia to list such information. NemesisAT (talk) 11:32, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

The article is not about the railway, it is about a town. Therefore, it is absolutely outside the scope of the article in question. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 14:58, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

New York City Subway

There is currently a discussion underway to change the article name from New York City Subway to New York City subway. Cards84664 12:58, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Question about 1,200 untranscluded subpages of Template:S-line

Please see this discussion thread about 1,200 untranscluded subpages of {{S-line}} and respond there if you have thoughts. That page has only 32 watchers, so I am posting a notice here in the hope that at least some of this page's 437 watchers are active. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:04, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Now posted at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2021 October 15#Template:S-line/ARZC left/main and 1,132 other untranscluded subpages of Template:S-line. I don't know of a reasonable way to notify the editors of these 1,133 nominated templates. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:51, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Track (rail transport)

There is currently an informal discussion concerning the article title at Talk:Track (rail transport)#Name consideration to those interested. -- Otr500 (talk) 06:17, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Türkmendemirýollary#Requested move 2 October 2021

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Türkmendemirýollary#Requested move 2 October 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. VR _talk 03:14, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Aldridge to Brownhills Branch

I was just garnering my interest into some of the old railway around Midlands and noticed this article. This article seems to lack any real notability or sources/expansion. Maybe this article would be better merged into either the Sutton Park Line or Wolverhampton and Walsall Railway due to it being merely a small branch line which did not have a long life span. Thoughts? DragonofBatley (talk) 11:54, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

From a quick glace, I concur that the article is not notable and lacks sourcing. I'm not an expert on UK railways, so I can't definitively say sources don't exist, but in its current state I'd say it should be merged into one of the articles you mentioned. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 12:37, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Merging into the Chasewater Railway article would be better. Mjroots (talk) 12:43, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Train rewrite

I am launching an effort to improve what may be the single most important article of this Wikiproject: Train itself. I'd appreciate feedback and suggestions at Talk:Train#Article rewrite, or just feel free to make improvements of course. Thanks! Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:39, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

CfD

I've nominated the Category:Railway accidents involving a disregarded signal for renaming. Discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 November 2#Category:Railway accidents involving a disregarded signal. Mjroots (talk) 18:32, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:New York City Subway#Requested move 14 October 2021

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:New York City Subway#Requested move 14 October 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:04, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

James Kitson (businessman)

Hi all. Just over from the Cricket Project. The above chap played first-class cricket but was also a notable railway industrialist, so I'm just leaving him here if anyone wishes to expand his article. Cheers, StickyWicket (talk) 21:25, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Passenger train created

I have BOLDly split content from Train to the page Passenger train, to be analogous with Rail freight transport. I'm looking for contributors to help clean up and expand the new article, particularly to provide a more international perspective. Thanks! Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:25, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Should we deprecate or slim down locomotive production rosters?

This morning (morning on the U.S. east coast, anyhow), I talked with User:Mackensen about bad additions to the locomotive roster on EMD GP38-2 at that article's talk page. We both weighed in that we are leaning towards supporting the deprecation of "original owners"/"original buyers" sections on locomotive articles, as they end up attracting lots of unsourced or incorrect information, along with excessive detail. Take a look at this extreme example of how much of a problem they can become, which I took a sledgehammer to a month ago. There's a few options we can choose from, as a WikiProject:

No change: Do not make any changes to how we handle locomotive production rosters.

Keep rosters, but slim them down to only the essentials: the railroads that bought them, which models they bought, if applicable, the number each bought, and their road numbers, and nothing else (basically, no more "notes" sections). This is how the roster on EMD F40PH, a good article (both in that it passed GA and it is a well written article in general) is set up.

Deprecate rosters entirely: Remove them from all articles on locomotive models, and include mention of significant buyers in the prose instead of in tables.

I'm posing the question here to get input from other editors because I don't want to go around deleting or slimming down all the rosters without discussing, though if it were up to me I'd prefer the second or third option, as opposed to maintaining the status quo. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 04:34, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I think B, slim them down. The format at the F40PH article looks good, provides enough info without having too much, and already is recognized as a GA. The only thing I might remove is the road numbers; seems sacrilegious to some, but Wikipedia is not a trainspotters guide. oknazevad (talk) 10:33, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I would also be in favor of B; I would note that aircraft articles also list buyers and quantity, though not (I don't think) hull numbers. I experimented a little with removing the road numbers on F40PH and if you do, the table is small enough that you could surround it with additional prose. Might create the opportunity for an "Operators" section, which could supplement "History." Mackensen (talk) 12:57, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Routemap template icon for a station serving both long distance and suburban trains

Hello good folks at WikiProject Trains,

I mostly create & update RouteMap templates for Indian Railways .

I am in a certain dilemma for which I require your help. There are some stations which serve both suburban and long distance trains in India. Some suburban sections, like the Howrah–Bardhaman main line for example, are an integral part of long distance lines (in this case the Howrah–Delhi main line).

For those stations do we use the icon (which is used for suburban stations) or do we use the icon (normal long distance trains) or do we use them both (like done here for Sealdah.)?

If not any of them do we have any icon that provides both these functionalities ?

Regards, GoldenDragon2293Return (talk) 07:50, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Adjacent stations position: Infobox or bottom of article?

Hi all, I've been a bit frustrated lately with edits like this one moving the adjacent stations boxes from the bottom of the article to the infobox. I prefer them to be above the navboxes as there's more space and so the contents is less crushed. It works much better for stations on multiple lines especially, IMO. Is there a general preference among editors? NemesisAT (talk) 22:49, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to ping @Jjpachano:. Rather than argue about it I thought it would be better to see what other editors think. NemesisAT (talk) 22:50, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Guangzhou South railway station is a good example of how cluttered these boxes can look when squished into the infobox. It also makes the infobox much longer than the article itself, creating a lot of extra whitespace. NemesisAT (talk) 22:52, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I tend to prefer in the infobox to the bottom of the article, but I think both are valid choices. Collapsing may be a good idea when the infobox is significantly longer than the article. Mackensen (talk) 23:00, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I much prefer them at the end of the article, both because of the space available and to avoid making the infobox excessively long. Thryduulf (talk) 23:34, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

If there are only two adjacent stations, I find the infobox position more informative, especially for the metro systems. However, if there are two or more two lines, and thus more than two adjacent stations, putting all of them to infobox becomes inconvenient, and they should stay below.--Ymblanter (talk) 23:39, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

If there are a lot of services no matter which way you look at it, I prefer to collapse them in the infobox so neither space becomes cluttered with tables. Cards84664 14:55, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

I also prefer the infobox because I think that's where information about which lines a station is on belongs. I do agree that for stations with a half-dozen or more services, it can make the infobox look rather long and silly. BLAIXX 15:19, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Comment something to consider is WP:COLLAPSE, which discourages having content collapsed by default (though with some exceptions). I'm not a fan of collapsed content personally and feel the line information is important enough that it should not be collapsed by default. NemesisAT (talk) 17:03, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

I prefer infobox, as on mobile the examples Nemesis gave have the adjacent stations template being grouped in the References section, which provides a confusing experience. Jumpytoo Talk 00:26, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

So with the split opinions here, should we just leave it up to the article creator? Or perhaps create a guideline that suggests stations on more than X lines should have the boxes at the bottom of the article? NemesisAT (talk) 13:21, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

It should certainly be standardized by country (or occasionally by system) for reader convenience. For countries or systems with established positions, such as US or UK, there's no reason to move it. (Given that the services should be properly discussed in the prose, collapsing them in the infobox is not a big issue.) For countries/systems without an established system, there should be a centralized discussion here to set it. China seems to be an interesting edge case, as you pointed out earlier in the discussion - many lines have rather long names that makes them unwieldy in the infobox. For the record, I prefer infobox to bottom in most cases. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 18:20, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

It mainly comes down to who's editing the article. Infobox station added a services parameter in 2007, while Infobox GB station remained independent until 2020 when it was merged into Infobox station. As it currently stands, common practice is to place in the infobox and collapse in the infobox when the services get too bulky. Examples outside the UK include Gare du Nord and Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. (edit conflict) I agree with Pi, it would be easier to establish a consistent preference per country where one is not already clear. Cards84664 19:02, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Guadalajara light rail system

I'm not familiar with notability/sourcing requirements for light rail station entries, but I was surprised to see red links for most of Guadalajara light rail system. There are articles for a couple of stations but none of the others. Do any project members have a sense of whether or not there should be standalone articles for these stations? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 03:16, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

It looks like the stations are vastly closer to standard metro stations than to street-level tram stops. I would suspect that plenty of sourcing to establish notability (and built halfway decent articles) is available. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 05:18, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Broken templates

Could someone familiar with the usual rail templates please have a look at Mettupalayam railway station? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:14, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

• @WhatamIdoing: Done; someone added half a template for some reason. Mackensen (talk) 01:22, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks. I appreciate it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:37, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Schmollensee station

Could someone familiar with rail station notability guidelines and citation have a look at this article, please? I noticed that it didn't appear at all in one of the citations on the page (since removed). I managed to confirm that a station exists with this name and you can buy tickets to it on the DB website, but even DB doesn't appear to have any information on it at all so I'm not sure where any of this is coming from.

Also, the way I read the notability guidelines, this doesn't pass them at all. But that surely can't be true in practice, since I've seen so many of these rail station stubs. Would anyone here be able to explain? Thank you! -- asilvering (talk) 18:25, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

The line and the station are operated by the Usedomer Bäderbahn (UBB). Although it is a subsidiary of the Deutsche Bahn that means that for example it isn't listed at bahnhof.de.

I personally don't think that it makes sense to create these pages if there is only some basic data and information that applies to any station on the whole line but it's common practice to keep these articles as described at WP:RAILOUTCOMES. --PhiH (talk) 18:54, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Lists are indeed much much better but I am afraid currently it would be impossible to redirect this article to a list.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:26, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

For better or for worse, in general train station articles are kept as long as there is some verifiable evidence they exist or once existed. I have some doubts about this policy myself, but trying to get it changed is not something I have the energy for at this time. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:31, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Paris Metro conduction

{{Infobox Paris Metro line}} is a wrapper for {{Infobox rail line}}. It has a parameter conducting_system which displays as Conduction system and relates to how the line is operated.

None of the definitions at Conductor#Transport related covers this use. Would calling it driving_system and displaying Driving system be better or is a conductor on the Metro different from a driver? --Cavrdg (talk) 07:32, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I think that it's a misunderstanding. In French, Conducteur means "train driver", not "conductor". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:16, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

ZSSK Railway Station

Hi everyone,

in Slovakia for the main purpose - try to manage the actual information about the company and upgrade the data, which can help the customers and the habitant as well for the projects or for their own knowledge. I had tried to change and update the newest data and information about the ZSSK profile in the English version. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDelezni%C4%8Dn%C3%A1_spolo%C4%8Dnos%C5%A5_Slovensko I had tried to give after every paragraph citation with the source. I found out that you recommend "Avoid embedded links". Unfortunately, mandatory of our sources are web links. Do you mind giving me advice and showing examples of how to make it correctly? Or to push it somehow? Cause this article is quite old and has not been updated for a years. Adrianamala (talk) 10:25, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi Adriana, the problem with the recent attempts to rewrite this article is that they have been done by someone from inside the company and in a promotional tone. The online references were added correctly (although you should at least fill in the "title" and "website name" fields of the cite-web template when adding online references, not just the URL). However the references were all pages on the ŽSSK website and Wikipedia articles should be written based on reliable, third-party sources, not primary sources. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 10:39, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

To whoever tried to put a "notability" tag on the article, there are plenty of sources available here and here and here (in Czech) and behind the "railway gazette" paywall, and there will surely be even more available in Slovak. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 10:48, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Nomination of many unused color/lines/style train templates for deletion

This is a friendly note to say that I have nominated a group of 60+ unused train templates for deletion. My understanding is that these templates have been replaced as part of a project to migrate uses of these individual templates to use {{Adjacent stations}} instead. If there are any templates on the list that I have nominated in error because of my lack of understanding, please post a note at that discussion, and I will modify the nomination accordingly. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:43, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Rint

 Blue Line  {{rint|chennai|blue}} how do I create this? I wanted to create rail interchange template for other systems. Footy2000 (talk) 09:50, 18 December 2021 (UTC) Footy2000 (talk) 09:55, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

@Footy2000: What you should do is amend Template:Rail-interchange/sandbox, set up appropriate tests at Template:Rail-interchange/testcases (in accordance with WP:TESTCASES), and oce these prove satisfactory, post a protected edit request at Template talk:Rail-interchange. Instructions should be shown if you go to Template:Rail-interchange and click the "View source" tab. These instructions conclude with a button Submit an edit request. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:13, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm confused please elaborate. Footy2000 (talk) 14:41, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Have you read the directions that I linked to? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:50, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Duplication?

Can anyone explain why there are both Category:High-speed rail in X and Category:High-speed railway lines in X for many countries? Useddenim (talk) 21:50, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

High-speed rail in X should be for general articles (such as historical development) and types of train, High-speed railway lines in X should contain only lines, and should itself be a subcat of High-speed rail in X. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:08, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Australian subcategory in Category:Stub/start-Class rail transport articles

Hi all, I have a specific interest in Australian railways but I lack knowledge of railways in other countries and I was just wondering if we would be able to get an Australian subcategory under Category:Stub-Class rail transport articles? and Category:Start-Class rail transport articles The majority of Australian railway-related articles I have seen are either start or stub class and I would love to help improve them! I'm new to this WikiProject and being a participant in WikiProjects in general so I am not sure whether this was the appropriate place to request a subcategory, or whether I am meant to just create one or what the correct procedure is. Thanks in advance! BakuFromAus (talk) 13:26, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree, this would be very helpful. -- ThylacineHunter (talk) 07:55, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Template:Amtrak Southwest Chief

The Route Diagram Template for Amtrak's Southwest Chief was vandalized by a robot by including the now-cancelled reroute of the train through Amarillo, TX in the template. I'm running into problems undoing the vandalism myself, so can someone else do it for me. That would be appreciated. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wof2500 (talk • contribs) 19:03, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

The "vandalism" was caused by 123.1.58.135, not the bot. His edit has now been fixed. Useddenim (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Railway Preservation Society of Ireland

I have raised a concern regarding editing on at editing of the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland article, to which I am too involved, at the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways#Railway Preservation Society of Ireland. Neutrals are welcome to assist at that article or that discussion. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 23:26, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Cedar Hill Yard FAC, call for comments

Hi all, I'm looking for more reviewers for my FAC, Cedar Hill Yard. The review is located at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cedar Hill Yard/archive1. Thanks in advance. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:04, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

User:Александр Мотин has requested removal of a CBAN

Александр Мотин has requested his CBAN be lifted. The discussion is at WP:AN#Александр Мотин unban request. Members of this WP may remember that this editor was involved in moving numerous Russian railway line articles. Mjroots (talk) 18:06, 29 December 2021 (UTC)