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Pacific Surfliner template

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Loading Gauge

I have added lgauge to the Infobox rail line "lgauge=UIC GB+"

WikiProject Trains

See High Speed 1 for an example. --Kitchen Knife (talk) 20:02, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Coordinates of UK stations

I am importing the railway stations in the UK into nl:wp (dutch wikipedia). We've tried to harvest the lat/lon coordinates from templates. Is there a list of coordinates of railway stations available? EdBever (talk) 16:43, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

If a station has a Grid Reference formatted with {{oscoor}}, clicking on the linked grid reference will give you the lat/long coordinates. See 2010 Little Cornard derailment for an example. Mjroots (talk) 19:01, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't think that a list is available, otherwise we would have imported it. Railway station articles have their coordinates in either of two places: (a) in the infobox as a |latitude= |longitude= pair; (b) near the bottom of the article in a {{coord}} template.

You may have noticed that on many station articles, the coordinates are given to high precision, which suggests that somebody has obtained the coordinates using either a GPS system or used an interactive map with coordinates readout, and has entered the results directly into Wikipedia without understanding them. What I mean by "not understanding them" is that many coordinates seem to be accurate to five or six places of decimals; this is clearly overprecise since this gives an accuracy of less than one metre, when pretty much all railway stations are over 5m wide and over 50m long. High-precision figures can usually be safely rounded to three (four at the most) places of decimals.

Case in point: my local station has coordinates given as 51.61197°N 1.24348°W / 51.61197; -1.24348. A little playing about with an interactive map shows that the western end of the station platforms is at 51.61171°N 1.24490°W / 51.61171; -1.24490 and the eastern end is at 51.61056°N 1.24029°W / 51.61056; -1.24029. To me, 51.612°N 1.243°W / 51.612; -1.243 is accurate enough for most purposes. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Personally I disagree that 3dp is enough - I'd prefer to have the arrow actual on the station, that usually requires 4 dp.Sf5xeplus (talk) 06:18, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks for your answers. We have harvested all coords from the latitude/longitude parameters in the infobox, but we only had about 40% of all articles. I have since found an alternative source that fits our needs. EdBever (talk) 18:15, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

You'll probably find that most of the other 60% have a {{coord}} somewhere, for instance Radley railway station which has

{{coord|51.686|N|1.240|W|type:landmark_region:GB|display=title}}

near the bottom (in the "External links" section). --Redrose64 (talk) 19:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Infobox width

The infobox trains, and infobox locomotive default width was recently (may) reset to 229, when it had previous been 300px as suggested at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(infoboxes)#Design_and_usage. I changed it back.

There is now a discussion at Template_talk:Infobox_train#Image_size - though perhaps that should be carried out somewhere more central like Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(infoboxes). Personally I think 300px may be a little large, but 229px is far too small.

Please make suggestions at the relevant talk page.Sf5xeplus (talk) 06:15, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

East Coast

Just suggested a move at East Coast Trains. See Talk:East Coast (train operating company). Simply south (talk) 21:44, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Article titles: debate on South African Railways Class NG G13

I'd like some group input on this subject, or at least some guidelines on how the Group interpret WP:TITLE when applying the rules to the naming convention of locomotive related articles. The debate on the articles talkpage as follows:

We have yet another shift/change of article name, now to the "claimed" official South African Railways Class NG G13. Yet on searching Google the results show that the official title is South African Railways Class NG/G13. Before anyone comes along and moves this article again - we presently have six redirects which don't work thanks to the current move - can we have some debate on what the article title should be? According to guide WP:TITLE, we don't need to name the article after the official name, but can use most popular searched for. I am also concious in this debate of other editors who have pan-wiki projects to sort locomotive articles on national basis: hence the previous inclusion of South African Railways in the title by one editor, over what seems the official SAR nomenclature for designation of locomotives. Personally, I have no fore thoughts, but would like to stop this continual "change the title" game and reach a thought through conclusion. Rgds, --Trident13 (talk) 13:16, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to see some consistency across nations and companies, where similar names for the "class 12" and the "class 13" would be useful. However I can't see a great benefit to imposing this sort of thing internationally (or even across pre-1923 England), and there's obvious scope for trouble if that were attempted.

I think that what we need most at this time is a list of known railways and favoured formats for each (where such is known) as a sub-page under the project, which can then also act as a place to hang lists of references for when there is some clear advice as to which format is favoured. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:34, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

There is a technical problem in using a slash. South African Railways Class NG/G13 is considered to be a sub-page of South African Railways Class NG. This is why ship articles are listed as MV foo etc and not M/V foo, which would be a sub-page of M. Mjroots (talk) 03:54, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Such problems aren't immediately obvious on the article page, but do become apparent on the associated talk page. For (admittedly non-railway) example, see Not / But (which looks fine), and then the associated Talk:Not / But (which at upper left has a link back to Talk:Not, which is the talk page of a completely unrelated article). --Redrose64 (talk) 10:10, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Pittsburgh Light Rail stations

Why are so many Pittsburgh Light Rail station articles being tagged with Project rapid transit parameters when they should get the Project streetcars parameters? ----DanTD (talk) 05:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Vancouver SkyTrain station renaming

After my recent renaming spree of DART Light Rail stations, and Trinity Railway Express stations, I think the same thing should happen to ****(Vancouver SkyTrain station), such as King George (Vancouver SkyTrain station). Honestly, I just looked at the list of recent changes, and when I saw it, I thought of King Street (WMATA station). Then I realized I thought of the wrong name, but renaming them is still a good idea. ----DanTD (talk) 00:29, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

One other H10-44

There is also a Milwaukee Road H10-44 in excellent cosmetic condition at the Brodhead, Wisconsin Museum. It sports number 781 and was built in 1950. I have no indication of operational condition but it sits on an isolated track with Milwaukee Road Caboose 01900.

Separate articles for historical and current stations and lines?

With the current revitalization of rail transport in the NYC metro area, many formerly used lines are restoring passenger service. One such line receiving recent attention on Wikipedia is the Lackawanna Cut-Off, from Scranton, PA through New Jersey to NYC. With the newly coming service, I have 2 questions regarding appropriate placement of content.

First, should there be a separate article for the new service (to be provided by New Jersey Transit) be created - leaving the current article, Lackawanna Cut-Off as a historical artice; or should information about the new service be incorporated in to the existing article. I prefer having just 1 article, as the proposed line completely encompasses the historical line, and all of the historical contents of the article could be indented under a "History" heading.

My second question is regarding articles for stations. Many historical stations are now privately-owned and have commercial uses; however new stations are being proposed/built in the immediate vicinity of the old buildings. For example, the former station in Scranton is now the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel, and the proposed new station is a few blocks from the old. Do there need to be separate articles for Scranton (NJT station) and Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel? If this distance would warrant separate articles, what if the new station was less than a block from the old? Or what if the new station was in the same place as the old, but did not utilize the old station building? Or if the old station has been demolished and a new station is built on the old site. I ask all these possibilities because all are occurring on varying passenger rail restoration projects in the NYC area. --Scott Alter (talk) 00:39, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I have no expertise in this topic at all, but just as a reader who might come to it to get informed, here are my thoughts:

It's already a lengthy (though very well-written and well-sourced) article. Personally, I would rather see a separate article created on the new service - because in the course of time, no doubt that will grow into a lengthy article all by itself. I notice that separate articles have already been created for the other rail and light rail lines that NJT operates, so why not do the same for the new line when it gets cranked up?

As to the various stations and structures, I think it would depend on how notable each one is in its own right, and how much there is to be said about each one. As a reader, if I wanted to something about a particular building I wouldn't want to have to wade through a long article about other stuff just to learn about that one particular place; the beauty of wikilinks is, we can make it easy for readers to jump from one article to another closely related one, without making them climb a mountain of words and pictures to get to where they want to go, right?

In the case of a building that once was a railroad station and is now occupied by a totally different kind of business, again how notable is/was each one, and how much is there really to say about each? And what name would a reader typically be typing in the search box to find an article about each one? If Bloomingdale's turned Grand Central into a branch department store tomorrow, I'd still expect to see a separate article on the building's extensive history as a railroad terminal. In the case of a small suburban or rural station, it might be better to leave past and present uses combined in one article - depends.

Since we don't have to worry about "killing trees" to make new articles, I think reader-friendliness should be a focus of your attention here, if you see what I mean. Just my 2c. Textorus (talk) 12:55, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Separate articles, with a linked mention or a "See also" link are the way to go, especially for well documented articles like Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel. Perhaps both the historic station and the new station can be in the same article, especially if the old one is demolished and replaced. Getting photos and information about the old station before demolition is a worthy goal. There may be small stations in small towns where combination is more appropriate than in larger places. --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:21, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Cool "front door" - WikiProject Arkansas

Howdy guys, it's always been a puzzlement to me why there doesn't seem to be as much activity on the Trains WikiProject as there is on some others, when I know there are thousands of railfans out there. I thought as one means of maybe encouraging a little more participation and interaction, we might consider imitating the very neat, easy-to-read way the Arkansas folks have got their front page set up: check it out. Just a thought. Textorus (talk) 12:20, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Railway stations

I mentioned this to User:Markussep who is diligentally working through creating articles on French railway stations. Shouldn't it be Castres Railway Station rather than Gare de Castres per WP:ENGLISH? Gare isn't actually the name of the building, its just the French word for railway station isn't it? I propose that they are renamed to ..... Railway Station. Any thoughts? Dr. Blofeld 16:11, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd say "Castres railway station"; as you say, "Gare" is just the French for "station". I'd make exceptions for those stations where the foreign-language word for "station" is part of the name in common English use (Gare du Nord, Berlin Hauptbahnhof, maybe Praha hlavní nádraží, etc). – iridescent 19:06, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

English title with redirect from the French title would seem to be a reasonable solution, with some exceptions as noted above. Mjroots (talk) 19:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I see there was some discussion about naming conventions for stations: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (stations), but it seems inactive at the moment. I continued using "Gare de X" titles because most of the existing articles had that, I assumed that was the consensus. Obviously I don't think "Gare de X" is bad, I wouldn't have used it then. "X railway station" or "X station" makes sense to me too. Markussep ^Talk 21:37, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

WP Trains in the Signpost

"WikiProject Report" would like to focus on WikiProject Trains for a Signpost article to be published this month. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 18:54, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Narrow gauge categories

Currently narrow gauge railways are categorised by imperial units e.g. the Category:Two foot gauge railways "...contains articles about narrow gauge railways with a track gauge between 1 ft 10 3⁄4 in (578 mm) and 2 ft (610 mm)." This is very confusing for the many lines around the world that are measured primarily in mm. For example, there are dozens of 600mm gauge lines that, under the present system, should be categorised as "Two foot gauge", but this is not obvious when creating an article, so the vast majority go uncategorised by gauge. It is also not clear why this type of category is useful: if we are looking for all 600 mm lines; it is not clear from the category which they are. Also if we start adding all the 600 mm etc lines to the category, it will eventually become very large and unwieldy - the 2' category already has over a 100 articles and this would more than double if we start adding all 600 mm lines. I would therefore like to propose the categorisation of mm-gauge lines by size (600, 750, 900, etc - noting that a metre gauge category already exists). Whether we keep the present imperial unit categories as they are (with a range of gauges) or split them into separate imperial sizes (2', 2'6", etc) is a separate debate. I appreciate this will result in a number of additional categories, but it will aid clarity and keep category sizes both meaningful and manageable. --Bermicourt (talk) 12:10, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK, the alleged "1 ft 11+1⁄2 in" and "1 ft 11+5⁄8 in" railways in Britain were, in fact, all 600 mm - an early engineer having borrowed European designs for his line, and the rest simply copied that line. Metric units were routinely converted to imperial by some engineers right down to the 1970s. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:23, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

The creation of mm-gauge categories is a good idea. Countries whose railways used metric measurements should be categorised in metric (except standard gauge, of course). Countries whose railways used imperial measurements shoud be categorised in imperial. Mjroots (talk) 20:04, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Unless there is general consensus against this, I will crack on and begin creating the new categories. I will only create those where they predominate in countries using metric and were clearly designed in metric units from the outset, starting with the 600, 750 and 900 mm categories mentioned above. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:39, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I am against this change. The so-called 600mm in Britain comes from the time when wheels were double flanged and the gauge was measured between the centre of the rail. This is especially true with the North Wales lines. I do not believe putting 2 foot gauge lines into 600mm is a good idea. With this I am with Mjroots --Stewart ^{(talk | edits)} 06:59, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

But the North Wales lines would remain firmly in the Two foot gauge railways category, as the UK used Imperial measurements. On the other hand, the Chemins de Fer du Calvados in France was built to 60 cm (or 600 mm) gauge, and should therefore be categorised in a metric category. I've made a clarification to Category:Two foot six inch gauge railways, other Imperial gauge categories will need similarly clarifying. Mjroots (talk) 07:18, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Wrong the north Wales lines were not 2' they were 1'11.5" (597mm) gauge, so you will need another category.... --Michael Johnson (talk) 07:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

From the lede of Category:Two foot gauge railways - This category contains articles about narrow gauge railways with a track gauge between 1 ft 10 3⁄4 in (578 mm) and 2 ft (610 mm). Therefore we don't need a new category for 1' 11½" gauge railways, such as the Festiniog. Mjroots (talk) 07:31, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

You want to abandon the principle of grouping gauges for metric lines but not for imperial lines? That strikes me as totally inconsistent. What about the many lines built in Australia to metric gauges but in an imperial country? Are we to see two railways of precisely the same gauge in two different gauges because of the historical measurements that existed in each country? What about railways that were built to the Swedish measurement system? Are we to have another group of categories for them? --Michael Johnson (talk) 07:40, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I did not say that I wanted to abandon the principle of grouping gauges for metric lines. Three Swedish Feet is as near as dammit 891 mm. A railway built to that gauge could be listed as a 900 mm gauge railway. There may be some justification in merging the 750 and 760 mm gauge railway categories, but that is another discussion. Mjroots (talk) 07:45, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

If it is justified to bring together railways that are 891mm and 900mm, why not railways that are 760mm and 762mm gauge? --Michael Johnson (talk) 07:47, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

So I see it is here that there the "consensus" to overturn practice of 4 years standing. The reason the "grouping" of close gauges was adopted is that there is almost no engineering difference between, say, a 750mm, 760mm and 762mm (2'6") gauge railways. In fact the equipment as far as gauge goes is normally interchangeable. The idea was to allow comparison between like, so that the curious reader could compare the different approaches taken towards the same engineering problems. I mean trying to split 760mm and 762mm gauges into different camps strikes me as just silly. In practical terms there was no difference. If you must go ahead with these "micro-categories" please leave the broad categories in place. --Michael Johnson (talk) 07:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

760mm is a metric railway. 762 mm is a metric conversion of 2' 6". Mjroots (talk) 07:32, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Please provide a reliable source that there is something intrinsic in a "metric" railway. --Michael Johnson (talk) 07:34, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I see no consensus here - two editors in favour, two against, and one making a comment on fact. Please desist in trying to ramrod these changes through. --Michael Johnson (talk) 07:42, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

EMD SD40-2 loco article merge

A thread has been raised at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Locomotives task force#SD40-2 Merge, a talk page which doesn't seem to have much activity, probably few watchers. Could any GM/EMD specialists please take a look? --Redrose64 (talk) 17:39, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

EMD FP7 images

I guess it's EMD day at TWP ;). I've raised a question about images at Talk:EMD FP7; it's something I'd rather not do off my own bat. Comments appreciated. Mackensen (talk) 18:08, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:S-rail/lines

I have proposed the icons be removed from this template per WP:ICONDECORATION . Please discuss Gnevin (talk) 11:11, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Anyone care if I remove these icons? Gnevin (talk) 22:18, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you should. If you're wondering why I haven't replied to this, it's because I can't find the discussion you were talking about. ----DanTD (talk) 22:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

There was an edit request at Template_talk:S-rail/lines which lead to this discussion. Why do you oppose Gnevin (talk) 23:49, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The logos help to make the infoboxes unique, and a little more pleasing to the eye. ----DanTD (talk) 01:14, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Marshall (Amtrak station) & T&P Depot revisited

This issue has been on and off my mind for the past three years, but I still think that there should be a merger between the Marshall (Amtrak station) and T&P Depot articles. More specifically, I think the T&P Depot should be a chapter of the Marshall Amtrak station article. Let's face it; they even have the same address. ----DanTD (talk) 12:13, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

UPDATE I just tried it with this edit. Reverse it if you must, but let me know of your opinion of it. ----DanTD (talk) 14:56, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. The same station, completely. I say merge away. Though, the name should likely not be under Marshall (Amtrak station), as it has a proper name. The Amtrak station name can be a redirect. 15:14, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I almost got ready to do it, but there are some conflicting coordinates involving both articles. ----DanTD (talk) 18:10, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I personally agree that the merge should go in the opposite direction, especially considering the relative impermanence of Amtrak stops. But shouldn't "T&P Depot' (a) be spelled out, and (b) be disambiguated according to place? I find it hard to believe that there is only one surviving Texas & Pacific station. Mangoe (talk) 18:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I suppose the person who wrote the article must not count the station in Fort Worth. Unfortunatley, he left along time ago. ----DanTD (talk) 18:24, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

UPDATE: I just found three other Texas and Pacific Railroad Depots, and added the one in Marshall. Maybe there are more, I don't know. You'd have to ask an expert about this. RI-Bill, if you're reading this, I'm looking in your direction. ----DanTD (talk) 18:41, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

UPDATE #2: DONE. But before I merged them, I found that the coordinates given for the station in the Amtrak article were way off, and the one for the T&P article were right on target. ----DanTD (talk) 19:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)