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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by JYolkowski (talk | contribs) at 22:57, 26 June 2005 (→Maps: reply). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Discussion archives
2004

Templates for common references

I have created a number of templates for common references:

  • {{MR diesel cyclopedia}} (Hayden, Bob, ed. (1980). Model Railroader Cyclopedia-Volume 2: Diesel Locomotives. Kalmbach Books. ISBN 0-89024-547-9.)
  • {{Pinkepank diesel spotters guide 2}} (Pinkepank, Jerry A. (1973). The Second Diesel Spotter's Guide. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Kalmbach Publishing. ISBN 978-0-89024-026-7.)
  • {{Marre-diesel-50}} (Marre, Louis A. (1995). Diesel Locomotives: The First 50 Years: A Guide to Diesels Built Before 1972. Railroad Reference Series. Waukesha, Wisconsin: Kalmbach Publishing. ISBN 978-0-89024-258-2.)

Makes it easier to reference the book right each time.

Will add more, will refer to them here. —Morven 21:00, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Here's one for a reference that I've been using extensively...

  • {{White - History of the American locomotive}} (White, John H. Jr. (1968). A history of the American locomotive; its development: 1830–1880. New York, NY: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-23818-0.)

slambo 16:27, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Industrial railway

I have created this article, industrial railway. It is fairly basic at the moment and could probably do with some additions, just wondering if anyone could add to it. G-Man 20:00, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I took a look, and it's a good start. Now let's expand it. I've added mention of the railway at the Coors plant in Colorado as another example. Also, I've added a todolist to the talk page where we can add further suggestions for improvement. slambo 15:05, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

Class 1/2/3 vs. Class I/II/III

I've noticed that in some North American railway articles/templates we use the terms Class 1 railroad, Class 2 railroad, and Class 3 railroad, while in others we use Class I railroad, Class II railroad, and Class III railroad. I think we should pick either numbers or Roman numerals and use that in all articles, rather than having a mixture. My personal preference would be to use Class I/II/III since that's what the AAR uses, although I've seen Class 1/2/3 used enough that it's likely a valid alternative. I'd like to see what other people think. Comments? JYolkowski 02:57, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have no strong preference for either format, but standardization would seem to be a Good Thing (tm). As mentioned above, the AAR uses Roman numerals, but many of the state DOT agencies (among other official agencies) use numbers. I've been using numbers just because it's easier to type. However, since it's the AAR's classification scheme, I would vote for using Roman numerals here as well. slambo 14:08, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
Since there were no objections I'm going to start changing 1/2/3 to I/II/III as I get around to it. JYolkowski 23:36, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I think I've cleaned up everything now, two months later (-: JYolkowski 02:18, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Template list

You may have noticed User:Slambo/Train project templates showing up in a few categories today. Well, I got tired of searching for all of the template definitions that we have created for use in railroad related articles, so I made a list of them. Just building a list wouldn't show me what I wanted, so I added examples and parameters to the page and noted which categories each template will add an article to. I'm looking around to find out what other templates we're using and eventually plan to move this list out of my userspace into something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Templates. If you know of one or more that aren't in the list, please add them. slambo 17:30, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Oops, didn't mention it here, but the template list is now at Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Article templates. slambo 11:53, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

Another resource for Texas research

I just read about the Texas Transportation Archive. From the project's About page:

"The Texas Transportation Archive, or the “TTA”, was born out of a desire to make available several large collections of photographs and manuscript material that chronicle the long and colorful history of transportation in Texas. These collections have heretofore been held privately, but are now offered here in a digital form that hopefully is easily accessible to any age group and at all computer skill levels. We have spent many years in the field doing research and collecting primary and secondary materials useful to the student of transportation history."

So, all you Texas researchers, you've got a whole lot more information to read and thousands more photos to view now. slambo 19:14, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)

A newbie speaks

I'm willing to help in any way I can, but have thus far limited my attempts to editing out and clarifying some entries in the Steam Locomotive Teminology page. I'm still a bit awed by Wiki: and am not sure that I'm up to major editing on a page; that said, I'm willing to serve as a resource to help others. What qualifications I have are this: I've been involved in model railroading for about 45 years, on and off, and am conversant and knowledgeable in much of the major and minor arcana thereof. I've also been a licensed steam locomotive engineer, and spent 5 years working at an American railroad museum, hence have some familiarity with aspects of rail preservation, as well. Feel free to contact me at philjern [at] gmail.com with any questions.

LIRR a Class I?

See Talk:Class I railroad. --SPUI (talk) 23:24, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Second level topics

Comment moved here from the main project page:

How about adding "Signaling" (Signalling in U.K.) as a secondary-level topic? TimeriderTech 20:36, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Wouldn't that be covered under "Operations"? JYolkowski 22:19, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I guess I got thrown by the U.K. definition of "Operations". In the U.S., the "Operations" department only operates the trains, and signaling is considered a separate department. Most U.S. railroads are divided into three major pieces: Operations, Track, and C&S (Communications and Signaling). TimeriderTech 04:30, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Merging streetcar/tram and subway/metro?

See Talk:Metro. --SPUI (talk) 13:57, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There's now some discussion about whether there should be a split between streetcars and higher-speed light rail. Both sides of the argument are at Talk:Streetcar#Streetcar vs. Light Rail; it would be nice to get more opinions. --SPUI (talk) 17:40, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wrong use of "and" when "&" is usually correct

One person stated that "and" should be used instead of "&" on all railroads. Problem is, the vast majority of railroads (at least in the U.S.) actually used "&", therefore using "and" is outright wrong. This also directly contradicts the statement that a railroad's commonly-used name should be used as the article title, not to mention that it should it at least be correct and accurate. Look at White Pass & Yukon Route for example — you can see right on the company's own logo that it is "&" not "and", yet the article is redirected to "and". People keep moving correct "&" articles to incorrect "and" titles.   –radiojon 20:18, 2005 May 4 (UTC)

I dispute that "and" is wrong. They may render it "&" on their rolling stock, but I'll bet you anything that all legal incorporation paperwork says "and". We don't use "&" because it is not the usual wikipedia convention to put abbreviations in titles, and that is all that the ampersand really is. Besides, it is very useful to have a consistent convention. You'll live. 20:36, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
Furthermore, read Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Be careful with special characters, where we are informed not to use '&' in article names. While it does not appear to actually cause a technical problem, best to confine its use to redirect pages. —Morven 20:40, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
Using "and" isn't wrong just as much as using "&" isn't wrong. My point was that as a group, Wikipedia editors have come to the conclusion that we should use "and" in article titles. Within the article text, "&" is perfectly fine, but remember to use the pipe in links to the articles or create redirects that use the "&" character. For a counter-example, look at Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway, Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad, Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad and a number of others that follow the article naming convention that was agreed upon. slambo 20:45, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

A related convention is not using the serial comma in railway names, everyone seems ok with that.... Fawcett5 21:06, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's now May 8, and I see more support for the use of "and" in the article title than I do for "&". In the spirit of finding concensus, I'll wait one more day before I move the page back to use "and" in the title. If there is anyone else who thinks it should be "&" in the title, now's the time to speak up. slambo 15:48, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

Now it's May 9, and hearing more support for "and" than for "&", I'm moving the page back to its original name. slambo 17:54, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

"and" also seems preferable to me, unless for some reason the original charter or incorporation documents use "&". --SPUI (talk) 08:21, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oldest railroads in North America

I've created this article, partly to dispel the myth of the Granite Railroad being the first (and have corrected the mentions of that). I haven't yet gone through and added all the railroads listed in the references; if anyone wants to jump in that would be great, especially if someone can determine whether any before the Granite Railroad evolved into common carriers with continuous operation. --SPUI (talk) 08:21, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiportal

How about a Wikiportal for Trains? -- Fingers-of-Pyrex 01:37, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

Cool idea, assuming that enough people are interested in it to update it regularly. JYolkowski // talk 02:08, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
In the spirit of being bold, I've started the portal page (I'm building the stubs behind the redlinks now). I would be willing to keep it updated. slambo 13:27, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, Slambo. -- Fingers-of-Pyrex 13:39, 2005 May 16 (UTC)
Okay, there's a start. Comments? Edits? slambo 16:09, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

Here is a link to the portal. Already looking good! Fawcett5 18:26, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Trains Wikiportal is live. I've set up initial processes to update the Featured article (Archive, Candidates), Featured picture (Archive, Candidates) and Did you know (Archive, Candidates) sections similar to the overall processes for these articles on the Main page, and I've added a couple of items for each of the three candidate pages to start things off. The other sections on the portal are pretty straightforward. I took the links from the project hierarchy box (as shown on the project page) for the links in the Where to start section. The only other section that I think we might want to add would be a "Today in rail transport history" section similar to the Selected anniversaries section on the main page. I haven't started that yet, but I wonder if there are any other ideas for sections that we might want to add to the portal or existing sections that we might want to change? slambo 14:34, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

Infobox - what years to use?

It's not usually obvious what years to use for the infobox. Yeah, if we had a separate page for each company, we could go from incorporation to death. But we don't (we often merge predecessors). Thus there really is no consistency between articles.

Here are the possibilities for the from date:

  1. Incorporation of the article title company
  2. Incorporation of the earliest predecessor (not counting turnpike companies and the like)
  3. Opening of the earliest predecessor

And for the end date, we have:

  1. Change of name or dissolution of the article title company
  2. End of operation on any lines (or present)
  3. Taken over by a larger company

As well as various options if the article title was not the last company covered in the article.

It seems that there are so many different possibilities that the dates are almost useless. See Talk:New York City Subway for one example. Can anyone convince me that there is a way to make it consistent, or just add to this discussion? --SPUI (talk) 18:06, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried to stick to company creation and dissolution as the dates in an infobox. For example, on Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, the start date is 1859, the year that the company was first chartered (simply changing names, like ATSF did in 1863, does not imply a new company to me), and the end date is 1995 when the ATSF merged with BN to form BNSF, even though SFP actually owned the company for the last decade or so of the company's life. slambo 18:54, May 17, 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately we're not going to have an article on every company. For instance, the Erie Railway and Erie Railroad (and the other names) are all in the same article, and for many a bunch of the predecessors are included. --SPUI (talk) 22:21, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

User:APC is becoming a problem.

He is continuing to upload images without attribution and include them on train pages. Repeated asking for this practice to cease does not appear to be helping. Be on your guard for this. —Morven 21:13, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

Make that, IS a problem. I just reviewed a bunch of contributions and put one on wp:cp, but there are a bunch more that are not just unverified but definite copyvios that I don't have time to deal with right now. If he's been repeatedly warned, then I suggest a 24 hr block for reflection. Fawcett5 22:21, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
If he's keeping it up and ignoring queries, probably the best thing to do is to list his images for deletion. I think I'll put the other five in the BNSF article on WP:CP as well. The Russian one should be fine since it was likely published in the Soviet Union long enough ago (see User:Quadell/copyright). I believe that the 2-8-6-0 one was taken by Paul Eilenburger a sufficient time after 1923 that it might possibly be a problem. I'll list that one on WP:PUI. That should probably cover his railway-related contributions. JYolkowski // talk 01:29, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed today that User:EASports has uploaded several BNSF photos (some of which are the same as the ones previously in the article), and tagged them as {{PermissionAndFairUse}}. While I'll trust him about the permission part, does anyone think any of these images would actually qualify as fair use? If not, then the licence boils down to {{Permission}}, which are deletable now. JYolkowski // talk 23:29, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I saw the images, but didn't really notice if they were the same as the originals. I'm sure I've got other photos of Heritage I and II that I took in my portfolio (just need to scan them), but I haven't seen any of the new Power Bar logo units yet. If I can find suitable replacements from my own photography, I'll upload them. slambo 00:20, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
It occurred to me to look on commons:, and I found Image:BNSF 7663.jpg, Image:BNSF C44-9W 5518.jpg and Image:BNSF GP60B 346.jpg. Those might also come in handy; I'll have a look later. JYolkowski // talk 01:42, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Proposed guidelines on articles about steam railroad companies

I have been writing articles about railroad companies recently, and have come up with a set of guidelines. I'd like comments. --SPUI (talk) 10:22, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Assumptions

First, a couple assumptions I hope we can agree on:

  1. We should have a station listing for every line that has existed - thus every station that has existed should be listed on at least one article. (Whether there should be an article on each station is not something I will go into here.)
  2. We should mention every railroad that began construction.
  3. We should not have a separate article on every reorganization of a company.

I propose the following:

Level of detail

There is a rough hierarchy of companies and lines.

Branch line articles obviously include information only on the branch and its immediate surroundings.

Trunk line articles include a station listing of the original main line(s). Included is a list of branches, with general information, usually rounded to the nearest year. Full detail is provided for the main line.

System articles, when they evolved from an original line(s), include information on that line similar to a trunk line article. Otherwise, lines and systems that were taken over are described in general terms, without listing all branches.

An interesting problem arises when a modern-day line does not follow the same path as the original company. For instance, the Fairmount Line is most but not all of the old Midland Railroad, and the rest of the Midland is now the Franklin Line. Here, the history could be in the one article while the station listing is in the one about the modern line.

Naming conventions

Each company should be at its last name before it was merged into a larger system. Disambiguation should have the state name in parentheses, not "of State" appended, unless the latter was the common or official name.

Infobox years

As the infobox says "years of operation", the opening year of the first section of original main line should be used. In cases like the Old Colony Railroad, the Boston and Providence Railroad opened before it, but was not leased until later - the B&P's date is not used. The end date is the last time trains ran over the main line. If there is ambiguity, a history section can be linked to, like on New York City Subway.

For a merged system, use the date of merger if there was no original main line.

Comments

Any comments? --SPUI (talk) 10:22, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In general, this sounds like a good guideline. I would add a list of company officers to the information that should be in the article. As a minimum, I think the names of the presidents and/or CEOs and their years in office (like we have on Southern Pacific Railroad or on Pennsylvania Railroad) should be included. For short lists where we don't have articles on the individual people yet (like on Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad), we can include a little more biographical information.

Also, a system map should be included on railroad articles. A reader living in Frankfurt or Perth (any of them) might not know where Rochelle, Illinois, is and might not even know where Illinois is within the United States (assuming that the reader knows that Illinois is a US state in the first place). Ideally, the maps would show how the railroad relates to the surrounding political divisions (like on Canadian Pacific Railway or on Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad). Where the system isn't big enough to cross many borders, an inset style map (like on Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railroad) should be used.

We've discussed article naming elsewhere, more than once. I'm more in favor of using shorter common names for article titles, but as redirects are cheap, I'm not going to stick on this point.

I've been meaning to put together a WikiProject Trains style guide for some time that would include guidelines on what information should be listed in railroad-related articles. Looks like we've got a start at such a guide here, providing there's enough consensus... slambo 10:57, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Trains Collaboration of the Week/Month

We're all adding and editing trains articles on our own, but it seems to me that we might have a better chance at building up feature-quality articles if we do a collaboration of the week like other WikiProjects do. Several of us are helping out on Indian Railways right now which is the current India Collaboration of the Week. How much support is there among us on WikiProject Trains to do a Trains Collaboration of the Week? slambo 14:05, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

I'd support it if enough other people are interested. JYolkowski // talk 23:48, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Maps

I'd like some comments on the maps I've made for New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines. These are meant to be general locator maps rather than detailed system maps, which would ideally go in the history section. --SPUI (talk) 23:42, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

They look pretty good. The only suggestion I have would be to use smaller dots for the cities. JYolkowski // talk 22:57, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Arrangements between railroads

If anyone could help expand this article, that would be great. --SPUI (talk) 22:49, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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