Talk:London cable car

Gondola or Aerial Tramway?

I don't think there's any clarity whether this is technically a proposal for a Gondola lift or an Aerial tramway. The British English term cable car covers both, but the TfL info published to date does not appear to specify. Can anyone confirm either way? Otherwise I think the article should reflect the uncertainty.

Also, the project does not appear to have an official name. The current article title (Royal Docks and Greenwich Peninsula Cable Car) is the closest to official descriptions but if a snappier name is adopted by TfL feel free to move the article. Cnbrb (talk) 17:38, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
It not possible for an aerial tramway to "provide a crossing every 30 seconds" over a distance of more than 1000 meters. So it must become a gondola.--MrEnglish (talk) 21:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

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Some changes reverted

With apologies if it's a bad call, I have just reverted some uncited changes by 94.174.130.175. You can see them here. I was concerned by the strange levels of precision in the changes to numbers and by the oddness of the 5m extension story and its wording. If this editor - who doesn't really have a track record that I can use for reassurance - really has access to this information then they need to give us a good, and verifiable, source - please see WP:RS and WP:V for example. In any case I think it needs discussing here - for example I can't imagine when precision like .723 of a metre is ever going to be appropriate here (that last digit is 3 *millimetres*, right?); the 5m paragraph would certainly need a citation and rewriting into better English; and the accidental trashing of the "opening" bit in the template though easily done is unfortunate and doesn't inspire confidence. If 94.174.130.175 is a serious editor and really has good sources for these changes and reasonable arguments for their inclusion, I hope they will come back and participate on this Talk page. Thanks and best wishes DBaK (talk) 17:27, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Current Construction Status

Similarly "Current Construction Status" has been updated without references and seems generally light on sources. It's nice to have it in but isn't a bit of a hostage to fortune if it doesn't tell us where all the data is coming from? Again, maybe this is good-quality information from people who really know - but even so, it needs a verifiable reference for the rest of us who would like to check! :) Thanks and best wishes DBaK (talk) 17:36, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Branding

I added a bit about the branding of the Emirates Air Line - it's possibly an interesting aspect of the system because of its semi-autonomous status in relation to the TfL network. Curiously they don't seem to have decided upon a corporate colour yet - on the tube map the line appears in #E41F3A, but on the Emirates website they use the ever so slightly darker #D9002A. Very subtle difference, but worth mentioning if anyone wants to be precise. Cnbrb (talk) 10:27, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

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The result of the move request was: article not moved Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{WrestleMania XXVIII} _{The Undertaker 20–0} 17:15, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

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Emirates Air Line (cable car) → Emirates Air Line – The company is call "Emirates" and the cable car is call "Emirates Air Line". There is no need to disambiguate the page Emirates Air Line between the two. To help potential readers landing at the wrong page, a hatnote such as already exist at EmiratesEmirates (airline) will be sufficient. Relisted: Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{WrestleMania XXVIII} _{The Undertaker 20–0} 06:24, 6 July 2012 (UTC) KTC (talk) 19:56, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

• This seems reasonable to me, if hatnotes are provided. The titles are different (although there's still some potential for readers to arrive at the wrong one, due to the similarities, so hatnotes are essential) so I think " (cable car)" is not needed as a disambiguator. bobrayner (talk) 14:01, 29 June 2012 (UTC) Struck out !vote - I find the opposition below to be quite persuasive. bobrayner (talk) 14:34, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose – part of the point of the title is to tell the reader what the topic of an article is when he gets to a page. Emirates (airline) does that for the airline, but Emirates Air Line would not do so well for the cable car. Leave the current title. Dicklyon (talk) 19:58, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

  But that's not what it's for at all. The (...) is used to disambiguate between two or more articles that has the same name when there is no primary topic. See WP:PRECISE. The only reason this article isn't at Emirates Air Line is because when it was created, the Emirates name wasn't known, and by the time it was it couldn't be moved by non-admin due to page history. You can actually see in the page history that an article was created at Emirates Air Line covering the cable car coverting from the previous redirect. That was then change to the current disambiguation page when the creator realised there was already an existing article. KTC (talk) 09:11, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - I have a sliiiiiiight preference for leaving in the (cable car) bit as I think it is an immediate and accessible aid to clarity in a slightly silly, sponsorship-created mess. Having said that, it doesn't really matter that much as it's only ever going to be one or two clicks away ... linky linkoids, hypertext, an ting, are all the rage with Wretched Young People™ and the so-called Internet™ nowadays I understand. So I am unlikely to pick up the pitchfork over this one. Best wishes DBaK (talk) 08:56, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - the disambiguating "(cable car)" is doing no harm whatsoever and anyone out of touch with London will thank en.wp for leaving it it. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:57, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose – The proposed change of title would be misleading / confusing to readers. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:30, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

  I can see this won't pass which is fair enough, but to call it "misleading"? That's the official name, since when has using a subject actual name become misleading? KTC (talk) 00:10, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

  Comment - Quite. Can we agree on "potentially confusing" or "not as nice as bunny-wunnies" perhaps? But I agree that "misleading" sounds like the runup to a fist fight. (I will bring beer.) DBaK (talk) 21:53, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose "Emirates Air Line" should redirect to Emirates (airline). -- 70.49.127.65 (talk) 04:10, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

  Comment - gosh, I honestly don't think it should, no. Chalk and cheese, and pulling the rug right out from the sponsor's slightly silly punningness. I really think that Emirates Air Space Line in whatever form should get you here, not to the actual airline with planes and stuff, because I don't think that the Word Space Word usage is at all common when people mean the Wordword version. If you see what I mean. :) Thanks and best wishes DBaK (talk) 21:53, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah I think you're right; "Emirates Air Line" probably shouldn't redirect to the airline's page (instead it should go to the disambiguation page), but "Emirates Airline" should. —Compdude¹²³ 00:37, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose – I think that if someone was to type in "Emirates Air Line" into the search bar, it would be far more likely that they're searching for the airline article rather than the cable car article. A change would be misleading and would confuse people. —Compdude¹²³ 00:37, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Generic name better than corporate branding

Please move this article: it is ludicrous for Wikipedia to call this thing "Emirates Air Line". That name is the result of a sponsorship arrangement in which the operators of the cable car refer to it by a contrived name in return for money from the sponsor. A new sponsor might be found in the future and a new name then used by the operator, with all mention of Emirates being erased from history in Orwellian fashion. We are not bound by such arrangements and should just call it the Thames Cable Car. By way of comparison, we don't refer to St James' Park as the Sports Direct Arena, though we do (and should) mention this name in the article. Wikipedia has no obligation to provide free advertising to Emirates by behaving as if we are bound by the contract that exists between them and the operators, and it is not a service to our readers to file our articles under contrived commercial names. Credulity (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

And yet right next to it we have "The O2". The bottom line is that the cable car acquired the full official name even before it opened, and is likely to remain as such for quite some time to come. We can't ignore than and use an unofficial generic name, just because you or anyone else objects to the official one. Nick Cooper (talk) 13:05, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Well that's another good example of a misnamed article. That building is the Millennium Dome, was constructed as such, has been known as such for years, and then someone paid for it to be named after them and the likes of Wikipedia are for some reason dancing to their tune and providing free advertising without getting any of the sponsorship money. These contrived names are the result of private commercial relationships between two parties which do not bind users of the English language as a whole. Perhaps I am in a minority on this, but I can't believe everyone is happy dancing to the tune of sponsors, or that the average person in the street goes to great lengths to ensure the names they use for public landmarks conform to whatever the latest sponsorship deal dictates ("We went to London and visited the 'GlaxoSmithKline Coca-Cola CathedralARENA @St Paul's^TM' and it was great!"). I know this is turning into a general complaint about Wikipedia's naming conventions, and if I had the stamina I would raise it on the policy pages, but for now I'd just like to register my support for a move to the most straightforward descriptive name, which by my reckoning would be something like "Thames cable car" or "Thames Cable Car". Credulity (talk) 15:22, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Yet we also have the example of Tower 42, which went the opposite way in losing its corporate branding, although many people still refer to it by its original name. It's very probable that the Emirates name will similarly "stick" to the cable car, even when the sponsorship come to an end. Nick Cooper (talk) 12:55, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Tower 42 is a poor analogy because it actually housed NatWest from the beginning, rather than just being sponsored by them. It was perfectly logical for everyone to refer to it by the name of the company that occupied it. Credulity (talk) 22:26, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

For the benefit of future readers, the operating principle is Wikipedia:Article titles#Common names. We don't given special preference to official names, whether they have sponsor names in them or not. But we also don't avoid official names just because they have sponsor names in them. If the official name (with or without sponsor names) is the common name then we use that, if it's not then we don't. In cases where it's borderline what is the common name, we may have to consider other factors and so in that case it's possible we will decide to avoid a name likely to change such as one that's part of a sponsorship deal. But in cases where it's not and one name is clearly preferred, it makes no sense to give the article title a weird name which the vast majority of people don't use and instead refer to it by a consistent different name. (WP:Engvar and other issues can make things confusing but I doubt it's an issue here although in any case this article will follow British English usage.) There are some specific issues like those relating to capitalisation and use of the trademark symbol (see [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks]) and titles (see e.g. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty_and_nobility) for example) which provide very limited exceptions in certain cases, notably including one example mentioned above (although I'm unconvinced the use of the trademark symbol is ever actually part of a common name anyway). I do not personally know what the common name here, but if you have good evidence the common name is not Emirates Air Line, you're welcome to open a WP:RM presenting this evidence. To be clear, this RM should be based on the principles of common name, if you make a big deal over other issues (like your personal disilike or sponsorship names or believe people shouldn't use them in everyday English even if they often do) but don't present compelling evidence Emirates Air Line is not the common name, and no one else does, then the RM is liable to fail. There's zero point complaining about our common name policy here. You will achieve nothing. Try WP:VPP or the policy talk page. Nil Einne (talk) 00:43, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

speed

The infobox gives a speed of 6m/s but a pdf from the operators website mentions a journey time of five minutes during peak hours and a slower ten minutes ride at other times, neither would result in 6m/s. --89.204.154.84 (talk) 01:02, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

I would say that 6 m/s is a maximum cable speed, and is reduced outside of peak times. Since the length is 1100 metres, that works out at a nett transit time of 183 seconds (say three minutes), so if we allow one minute for boarding and a further minute for alighting, that would give a total time of five minutes. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:45, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Request reverting move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Number 57 11:39, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

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Emirates Air Line (gondola lift) → Emirates Air Line (cable car) – Should the article be moved back from Emirates Air Line (gondola lift) → Emirates Air Line (cable car). It was moved with no discussion, and being a UK-based system would always be referred to as a cable car rather than a gondola lift.   JaJaWa |talk  22:34, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support move as this would be the local language term. - WPGA2345 - ☛ 06:58, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support (I'd also support just Emirates Air Line). This is never referred to as anything other than a cable car, e..g http://www.tfl.gov.uk/modes/emirates-air-line/ describes it as "London's only cable car". Thryduulf (talk) 11:20, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

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So...was it or wasn't it?

It says:

  "In May 2012, TfL said that the cable car would be running by the summer of 2012, and that while there were originally no plans to have it open before the 2012 Olympic Games, there would be plans in place in case it was opened in time.[19] The public opening took place at noon on 28 June 2012."

I am going to assume that is trying to say that it was, in fact, opened in time for the Olympics, but since I'm not sure if they Olympic games typically open before or after June 28th, I am forced to guess. A simple "it was opened June 28th, 2012, in time to be in service during the Olympic Games" would clear things up greatly for people like me who don't keep track of that sort of thing..45Colt 04:22, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Criticisms section

This section states:

"The cable car's location has also caused controversy, with advocates of walking and cycling favouring a Sustrans-sponsored plan for a walking and cycling bridge east of Tower Bridge between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf.[37]"

The cited article does not criticise the cable car's location. It proposes a link between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf. The inclusion of the reference as a criticism appears to be a backdoor way of promoting the "Sustrans" scheme mentioned on the Emirates Air Line Wikipedia entry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7F:BE0F:1800:D931:DDFF:49F4:A823 (talk) 18:44, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 5 December 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved to the proposed title at this time, and no consensus to move to any particular other title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 06:49, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

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Emirates Air Line (cable car) → Emirates Air Line – The article Emirates Air Line already redirects here, meaning there is no need for the disambiguation in the title. If some searches for "Emirates Air Line" with that specific capitalization, they most likely are referring to the cable car and not the airline, but to be safe, I added a hatnote to this article. With the hatnote, there is now no need for the disambiguation in the title at all, because as soon as readers start reading the article, they'll realize they're at the wrong place if they were looking for the airline. This doesn't really matter anyways because Emirates Air Line already redirects here, so readers will end up here regardless if the title is changed. – BrandonXLF (talk) 05:30, 5 December 2019 (UTC)—Relisted. – Ammarpad (talk) 07:15, 14 December 2019 (UTC)—Relisting. Dekimasuよ! 07:00, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose there's a good reason why (cable car) is required here. In ictu oculi (talk) 19:18, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

• @In ictu oculi: And what is that reason? – BrandonXLF (talk) 19:56, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Emirates Airline In ictu oculi (talk) 09:17, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

In ictu oculi, I don't think someone is going to type Emirates Air Line when they meant to type Emirates Airline. That doesn't really matter anyway because Emirates Air Line already redirects here.– BrandonXLF (talk) 17:50, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I do. I think they could easily do so. But that's not the only way articles get found or misfound. Move to Thames cable car would be good. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:51, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

• Support obviously. The names are different enough, and similar redirects don't exist -could it be that someone saw the name "Emirates Air Line" without knowing what it was, recognised "Emirates" and assumed it referred to the airline, and created a redirect? Probably better not to mislead readers. Most titles with "Air line" are air-line railroads. Peter James (talk) 17:02, 17 December 2019 (UTC) Apparently a coincidence as the redirect already existed before the name referred to anything. Peter James (talk) 17:10, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. A review of the sources favours Thames cable car. "Cable car" is an important part of the title, obviously, and this original well recognized name achieves that without parentheses. "Emirates Air Line" acquiesce to commercial pressures, amounts to promotion of the sponsor. The branding for this financial failure is unlikely to persist. If "Emirates Air Line" seems commonplace, it is because it is favoured in promotion, but it is not favoured in quality sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:29, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
• Pinging Peter James and BrandonXLF on the new proposal of Thames cable car. Dekimasuよ! 07:00, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
  • No objection, just that this is the primary topic for "Emirates Air Line". Peter James (talk) 12:45, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Neutral. It seems like "Emirates Air Line" is used more often, but "Thames cable car" seems like a better title. There are good arguments for keeping the name and renaming to "Thames cable car".– BrandonXLF (talk) 15:48, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose renaming. It is called Emirates Air Line whether you like it or not, and the parenthetical (cable car) describes what it is, as well as avoiding search box confusion with an airline with a very similar name. If the sponsorship deal ends, article can be renamed at that point. Thames cable car comes up frequently in Google search results but mostly as a description, NOT a common name, at least in my opinion. I suppose it could eventually become a common name, but I don't think it is at this point. Currently, it's just a string of words used to refer to a cable car that crosses the River Thames. Dubmill (talk) 13:23, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Too much potential for confusion. Oppose any sort of renaming either._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 18:03, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Search engines show that this is clearly the primary topic for "Emirates Air Line" - after an advert for Emirates Airline, almost all results are for the cable car. It's called "Emirates Air Line", not "Emirates Air Line (cable car)", and we don't add parenthetical descriptions to article titles as short descriptions, or to avoid confusion with different names that it may be a misspelling of - we add hatnotes for that, and each can have a hatnote linking to the other. If this stays at the current title, Wikipedia:Article titles and Wikipedia:Disambiguation should be demoted to essay status. Peter James (talk) 18:59, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
  • @Zxcvbnm: - At Talk:Narcotic (patience) you propose a move because different capitalisation is enough to distinguish, but here there is different capitalisation and different spelling. Peter James (talk) 19:06, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

• This is not the same situation as Friendly fire vs Friendly Fire. A typical person would assume that the article was about the air carrier if its title was Emirates Air Line. I do however support making a disambiguation page there rather than just redirecting it to the air carrier like it is now._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 19:46, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

• And I just noticed it used to be a disambiguation page before it was redirected without discussion, probably prompting this whole mess. I put it back the way it was._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 19:52, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

• Article titles are there for people searching for or linking to articles, not for guessing what the article is about based on its title. It's reasonable to expect titles to be in title case, but not for words to be split into parts just because those parts are also words. Peter James (talk) 23:01, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

• Sorry, but the fact that "Emirates Air Line" was conceived as an obvious pun on "airline", in order to get people to say the name of the airline, puts it over the edge into "needs disambiguation" for me. And "Thames cable car" is not how it's referred to in sources._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 19:07, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

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Branding after 2022?

If the Emirates contract runs for ten years it will expire in June 2022. Have there been any announcements if the branding will be extended or a search for a new sponsorship? --92.200.139.105 (talk) 14:50, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Still looking for a new sponsor according to a piece on BBC London news earlier this week. Mr Larrington (talk) 12:29, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Diamond Geezer reports that based on signage changes it will be simply called "London Cable Car", which fortunately already redirects here. We should wait for an official announcement before moving the page though. the wub "?!" 09:52, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

This page on the TfL web site makes it clear that the name going forward (at least if-and-until a new sponsor is found) will be "London Cable Car", and TfL is already using that name on signage at tube stations as these are changed. No doubt it will take time to complete the transition, but now seemed as good a time as any to reflect it into WP. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 09:21, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 26 October 2022

London Cable Car → IFS Cloud Cable Car – rebrand has now been completed Buttons0603 (talk) 19:15, 22 October 2022 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). Steel1943 (talk) 02:22, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

This doesn't seem Uncontroversial to me. For one thing, WP:NAMECHANGES advises us to look at reliable sources and determine what the updated WP:COMMONNAME is in reliable sources, after the official change of name took place. Secondly, we often avoid sponsorship names, at least when it comes to stadia, since these are often transient and subject to frequent change when new deals emerge. The key question either way is what is common in sources.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:43, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

I've been on it several times, and I don't think I've heard anyone ever call it anything other than "the Emirates cable car" or "the O2 cable car". Given that it's no longer sponsored by Emirates, I think "London Cable Car" (although I would prefer "London cable car") is a reasonably solid choice of title. I would hold fire with the IFS thing for a while. Dr. Vogel (talk) 13:06, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Your opinion on what people call it is WP:OR and should not be taken into account here. The cable car has literally been renamed, I don't see why this has been contested. Buttons0603 (talk) 21:04, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

@Buttons0603, Amakuru, and DrVogel: Ping participants to inform them the discussion has moved here. Steel1943 (talk) 02:24, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

• Move to London cable car. As I said above, WP:NAMECHANGES should be followed and I see mo evidence that usage in sources has stopped calling it the London cable car yet, which is what it's been since it stopped being the Emirates Air Line. That said, the sources don't treat it as a proper name, so "London cable car".[1][2].  — Amakuru (talk) 07:15, 26 October 2022 (UTC)