Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (stations)

See also: Wikiproject NZR/Manual of Style

some issues

The station naming convention seems like a good idea, but it wouldn't work for some systems where there are multiple stations with the identical name on different lines, which may or may not be at the same physical location. Strangest example (perhaps) is on the B train in New York City, where the train stops at two different stations, both signed "Seventh Avenue". One is on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn and the other at 53rd Street in Manhattan. There are no fewer than four 125th Street stations, three on the IRT Division, one on the IND Division. You also have a number of transfer station where the station has a different name on different lines. Same deal in Chicago, which has very long avenues. Cecropia 01:59, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the input; since my experience is limited to the Washington Metro and the London Tube, I didn't know about such issues with New York's. In which case, it would seem that mentioning more defining information is appropriate; for the above, you would get "Seventh Avenue (New York Subway, Brooklyn)" and "Seventh Avenue (New York Subway, Manhattan)" and disambiguate further as needed, maybe even mentinoning the intersection. A disambiguation page could exist at "Seventh Avenue (New York Subway)".

Okay, after reading the rest of your post, I'm growing to hate New York. ;) In which case, it would seem the best way to do it is go to the least ambiguous fashion necessary, that is:

Metro Center (Washington Metro station)
Pulaski (Chicago Metro station, Blue Line) (aside: should this be Chicago L, not Metro? Guess I should find the page on that... not my choice to make, that's a different convention altogether)
Pulaski (Chicago Metro station, Green Line)
Pulaski (Chicago Metro station, Orange Line)
7th Ave (New York Metro station, B and E Lines) OR 7th Ave (New York Metro station, Manhattan) OR 7th Ave (New York Metro station, at Flatbush Ave)
7th Ave (New York Metro station, B and Q Lines) OR 7th Ave (New York Metro station, Brooklyn) OR 7th Ave (New York Metro station, at 53rd St)

Personally, I prefer the first format - better to describe them by lines, I think. I must again reiterate my distaste for New York's system, it looks absolutely horrid to navigate, yet millions manage. ;)

As for the Chicago example of having the SAME station having a DIFFERENT name on different lines, can you give an example, since I'm not familiar with their system?

I also need to point out that I think this should be a format for other forms of transportation too, including passenger (and possibly cargo? is that logical?) rail, ferries and perhaps bus, if not local then perhaps national/Greyhound. --Golbez 03:34, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

To answer the easiest part first, "Chicago L" or "CTA" are the most common usages. Only some more recent systems in the U.S. use "Metro."

The least ambiguous way to describe New York stations would be by station name, system, traditional division, tradtional line name"

Seventh Avenue (New York subway, IND 53rd Street Line)
Seventh Avenue (New York subway, BMT Brighton Beach Line)

and

Broadway Junction (New York subway, IND Fulton Street Line)
Broadway Junction (New York subway, BMT Canarsie Line)
Broadway Junction (New York subway, BMT Jamaica Line)

Of course, even that doesn't explain that the first two are nowhere near each other, but the last three are at the same location (three different physical structures).

Seventh Avenue (New York subway, IND 53rd Street Line, at 53rd Street, Manhattan)
Seventh Avenue (New York subway, BMT Brighton Beach Line, at Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn)

and

Broadway Junction (New York subway, IND Fulton Street Line, at Broadway and Fulton Streets, Brooklyn)
Broadway Junction (New York subway, BMT Canarsie Line, at Broadway and Fulton Streets, Brooklyn)
Broadway Junction (New York subway, BMT Jamaica Line, at Broadway and Fulton Streets, Brooklyn)

Mind you, there's also a Broadway and Fulton Street in Manhattan, and a subway station nearby. Confused? Sorry, but NYC is complex and I could entertain (or annoy) you with lots more examples and anomolies. Cecropia 03:56, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I'm banning New York from this project. ;) Let's see here... I think the best solution would be to go with the most ambiguous title that still maintains unique names. In other words, so long as the first listings of 7th Ave and Broadway Jct give unique results, I don't think we need any more unique stuff in the name. --Golbez 05:02, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

---

D'oh... this page is typoed. It's supposed to be "Naming conventions (stations)". Worth changing? --Golbez 05:30, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If you like, it's free! :) Cecropia 06:33, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Already existing conventions

Wikipedia:WikiProject_London have defined this for London stations etc. The format we use is 'X tube station', 'X DLR station', 'X railway station' or 'X station' if the station is an interchange between networks. I don't think there will be any enthusiam at all for us to change to a verboser format. Morwen 08:02, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)

Oy, now ya tell me. ;) OK, let's see... Well, really, the only difference is the parentheses. I figured that since the words "tube station" aren't in the actual name, they should be separated, but that's a minor issue.

OKAY then, we get back to the original issue. Let each line dictate the necessary amount of disambiguation (Which would seem to be a much larger problem for New York and Chicago than for London) and have the line outside parentheses, but the disambiguation inside. Using the above examples:

Seventh Avenue New York subway station (IND 53rd Street Line)
Seventh Avenue New York subway station (BMT Brighton Beach Line)
Metro Center Washington Metro station
Charing Cross tube station

See, this lets the London stations stay as-is. Fortunately, "tube" is pretty unique, and I don't think any other system uses that. DLR is unique as well. Metro, unfortunately, isn't, so the city must be there. There may be a problem with "railway station" but we'll get into that as more railways are added. I suppose we should work on the Railway naming conventions, though that wouldn't seem to be such a major problem...mentioned.

Any comment on this from the non-Tube folks? ---Golbez 08:22, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Please tell the other city wikiprojects as well. Wikiproject London people have only found out about this via word of mouth. Your proposals will affect all city wikiprojects. Secretlondon 18:46, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I didn't know the projects like London handled this, though I suppose it makes sense. After all, there will be very few systems outside of major cities, and those cities might have things like this. And remember, they are merely my proposals; I'm hardly the final arbiter of this. I just stumbled across it...

Since such systems are city-dependent -- except for regional/national lines -- perhaps we should leave municipal rail up to one useful format per city. Not every city will have the same disambiguation requirements. As for regional lines, we'll figure that out when we get to it.

I guess that could render this convention pretty defunct. Do you still think there's a use for the Wikipedia:WikiProject Stations? --Golbez 19:21, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Can we agree that the name must include the name of the system? "tube" is unique enough, but that's rare. --Golbez 19:23, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ya know, now I'm not even sure of that one, having browsed the pedia some more, that seems stupid, doesn't it. There's "Lawrence of Arabia (film)" but "Bridge over the River Kwai". Why does one have (film) but not the other? Because the other doesn't need it.

I guess what I'm getting at here, we don't need a naming convention, do we. "Metro Center" is sufficient, "Charing Cross tube station" is sufficient, and if we need more detail, we'll use it. All I did was follow a link to an empty page and start work, but if others agree, perhaps we should pack this up and go home.--Golbez 20:09, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Shall we abandon this convention then? If no one objects, I'll just put that on the main page and be done with it. --Golbez 22:36, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Eureka

I think I've got a compromise, after looking at the stations for Paris Metro.

There should be a page for the station name only; example: "Metro Center". If this is not possible, add a link to the page.
There should be a page with the system name if necessary; example: "Rockville (Washington Metro)"
Parentheses, no parentheses, don't care, let God sort them out. The London group is just doing with "tube station", the Paris stations include "(Paris Metro)". Since both already have a large number of pages, it would be cumbersome to rename now. I suppose it's up to each city, if a city project exists, and if not, one may in the future, and renaming is always possible.

So, this lets London stay the same, AND lets Paris stay the same, and still provides enough disambiguation. The only difference is, there are some tube pages (like Rayners Lane tube station) that have no generic counterpart (i.e. there is no Rayners Lane). This is easily repaired with a redirect, though. The question is, in a case like this, which should redirect to which - the "with tube station" to the regular, or the regular to the "with tube station"?

Eithr way, congratulations me. You've come back to right where we started. If I owned this site, I'd nuke this page, but let it remain as a testament to my lack of vision. :P --Golbez 08:21, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ambiguous system names

What should be done for stations that are on multiple systems, or not on any current system? I'm thinking of stuff like Amtrak stations that are also used by commuter lines. --SPUI 08:58, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In that case, I guess the best way would be to not include a parenthetical system name, or if necessary, pick the most prominent system. --Golbez 15:41, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

Disambiguation

There are 3 Wilmington stations which Amtrak passes thru if you include Wilmington MA (on the Downeaster route. KevinCuddeback 03:11, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The station is primarily Amtrak. Why did you change its name to Septa? It should be changed back.

Amtrak also stops in Wilmington, North Carolina. SEPTA only stops at one Wilmington. --SPUI (talk) 04:27, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

According to the Amtrak National Timetable, and supported by the Wilmington, North Carolina article linked to above, the only Amtrak presence in Wilmington, NC is a Thruway motorcoach connection. I support renaming this back to (Amtrak station). Amtrak should be given precedence at its stations (this includes Metropark, Princeton Junction, Newark Airport, and Route 128, and I'll be moving those in the next day or so unless I hear a reason to dispute this.) --CComMack 06:15, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How about the fact that the bulk of service at Metropark, Princeton Junction, and Newark International Airport are by NJ Transit trains? (I don't know Route 128, but I think its in Connecticut and a Metro-North New Haven line thing). And if you're going to nail down Amtrak as the train line that is given precedence and lorded over all others, I suppose I should let you pre-empt the article-to-come dealing with the New Brunswick Station (NJ) after all, Amtrak stops there 12 times a day and deserves precedence over NJ Transit's almost 100 stops (which is—for your edification—roughly the same number for Metropark and Princeton Junction which were built with NJT funds and USDOT grants, not by Amtrak funds). Last I rode the Clocker between NYC and Philly and back I don't recall stopping at the airport, just at Newark Penn (only most Regional trains stop there, and an occasional Keystone...the Metroliner, Acela, Silver Meteor, Three Rivers, Vermonter, Carolinian, Palmetto, most Keystone, and Silver Star trains don't). —ExplorerCDT 07:25, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

- I suggest the simple convention that if more than one train service shares tracks (not the station, so PATH and the city subway don't count at Newark Penn Station), and there's no common name that's not just [City] Station, the most local service should be used. Slight problems occur with stuff like Trenton which both SEPTA and NJ Transit serve; those may have to be arbitrary (probably NJ Transit in this case because it's in NJ). This keeps us from having to move pages whenever Amtrak starts or stops using a station, which may start happening fairly frequently if service cuts are made; on the other hand standard commuter services seem harder to get rid of. Obviously City (Amtrak station) would redirect. --SPUI (talk) 07:40, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This seems like a confusing policy. As you point out, multiple commuter agencies create several places where there is no single name that your suggestion resolves to (in addition to Trenton, you have clear problems at Stamford and Bridgeport, and the same situation exists at Washington, 30th St Philadelphia, Penn Station New York, and both New Haven stations.) Giving Amtrak precedence has the decided advantage of being perfectly consistent if it is consistently applied.

Amtrak is the national system, and has the widest recognizability. I think these should be given significant weight, but this is in fact a wider issue with ramifications on a ddozen articles. I suggest moving the discussion to more appropriate ground; perhaps revive Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (stations)? --CComMack 08:16, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Union Station (Washington), 30th Street Station, New York Penn Station, Union Station (New Haven), etc all stay where they are because they have special names. I'd somewhat but not completely arbitrarily assign the MN/SLE conflicts to Metro-North; they are the more established system and the less likely of the two to go under. Yeah, I'd also recommend moving this to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (stations). As a data point, for the New York City Subway the standard has become Name (Division Line station), for instance 125th Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line station). This however is a somewhat special case, as many stations share names. --SPUI (talk) 08:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I know that none of the existing articles should be touched, and fully agree that Stamford and Bridgeport are MTA/MNR/MNCR more than they are SLE, on grounds of service territory. I'm just saying that your proposed convention doesn't/wouldn't cover them. And there's still Trenton to deal with. I just don't want arbitrariness where it isn't neccessary.

I'm also familiar with the NYC subway convention, but doubt there's a way to apply the convention here. Although it makes dealing with defunct stations/railroads much easier (for instance, Philadelphia Broad Street Station (PRR).) --CComMack 08:41, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

SPUI reason above is specificaly why we Should Not add or have services put to the names of stations. The whole what if situation, what if the local service is dropd and Amtrak contunes to serve, not likely to happen but it could. And what would happen if the said station were to have service droped all together, would we call it XXX Station (no service). And where does this lead us with historic stations that are not useed for rail serivce no more, the (no service) tag their as well?. --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 08:03, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Agree, Boothy, that system names should be omitted except when truly necessary for disambig purposes. I, however, dislike the "City Rail Station" construction. I would much prefer "City station" to be the default. "Wilmington station" should be enough to uniquely identify the subject of this article. --CComMack 08:16, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We'd call it [[[XXX (last operator station)]]. --SPUI (talk) 08:25, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[[User:CComMack|CComMack] I concur with you idea on the "City station" idea, the only reason i add rail to it is as a point of clairty, some cities have a xxx station as a district in them, but i'll sgree that that should be used in situations which warrent it. After looking at many of the British Rail articles, i.e Liverpool Street station (where like in many rail stations in the UK multiple service are present), or Connolly Station in Ireland, the city station thing would be better. The only addation i could see to the "City station" would be the addation of a state in the cases of multipile cities sharing the same name and have a rail station, not rail service as some cities have "service" via throughway bus, in the "City station (State)" format. Or in with cities sharing common station name, i.e. Union Station, we use the "Station name (City)" format. --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 08:36, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

New proposal

After some discussion in Talk:Wilmington (SEPTA station) and other places, I'd like to throw up the following set of guidelines for discussion and revision. Bold indicates article name, italic indicates optional disambiguation. Guidelines are listed in rough order of precedence.

Major named stations

Articles on major stations should simply be Name (city). This includes all stations named Union Station. Current examples include Pennsylvania Station (New York), South Station (Boston), Union Station (Chicago), 30th Street Station (Philadelphia), Pennsylvania Station (Newark).

Local rapid transit stations

Articles on metro, subway, and other rapid transit stations should be naed according to the guidelines established by the relevant competent (city) WikiProject or talk page consensus.

"Station" or "Terminal" in the name

"Station" should only be capitalized if it is part of the station's proper name. Stations with "Terminal" as part of their name can omit "station" if it is called for in a guideline.

Currently operating stations

Articles on stations should be of the form Name, State station. Disambiguation should be enough to distinguish it from other currently operating stations; disambig from defunct stations is unneccessary. Examples include Back Bay Station, Route 128 Station, Wilmington station (no active collisions), Trenton Rail Station, Ardmore, Oklahoma station (resolves collision with Ardmore, Pennsylvania station), Newark, Delaware station (disambig from Newark Penn Station et. al.).

Defunct stations

Articles on defunct stations should be of the form Name, State station (system), where system is the most prominent owner or tenant; abbreviations/AAR reporting marks are usually appropriate, e.g. PRR, SAL, UP, MBTA, NJT, Amtrak. Examples include Manayunk station (PRR), Philadelphia Broad Street Station (apologies for my limited knowledge of defunct stations; this is the guideline I feel least strongly about and would encourage its revision.)

--CComMack 22:20, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

New proposal 2

This page has been dormant for the last six months, while repeated move/edit wars over station article naming have broken out. I think it's time we at least try to establish a convention here, before there is more confusion and unpleasantness.

My latest thought on the matter is to have a three-layered convention.

Firstly, rapid transit is again excluded.

Secondly, stations with no name other than a city should be of the form City, State station (system) where system is an optional disambig for he most prominent owner or tenant's AAR marks. For example, White Plains, New York station or Manayunk, Pennsylvania station (PRR).

Thirdly, stations with a name should be of the form Name, City or Name, City, State (subject to consensus). For example, South Station, Boston or South Station, Boston, Massachusetts

Mainly I'm posting this proposal to spark discussion, but I really think we should move on this.

I close with the following note: Wikipedia is written for the ease of its readers, not its editors. Please keep this in mind in these discussions.

--CComMack 20:34, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is still no reason not to put station in the parentheses. Most links will be from railroad-related articles, where the word station is not needed. The pipe trick is a good thing. --SPUI (talk) 22:28, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really convinced that that's true (the word station being unnecessary in context). Also, the Brits seem to have gotten along just fine without the pipe trick. --CComMack 19:52, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Okay after some thought and looking around it's time to comment. Every scheme I've seen so far has merit, and it's hard to say which should be the One True Way (tm). To summarize, the formats that I've seen include (numbered for clarity in the discussion only):

1) City (disambig) railway station

such as Crews Hill railway station and Brampton (Suffolk) railway station

2) Station Name (City)

like Union Station (Los Angeles) or Union Station (Denver)

3) Station Name (System Station)

like Aldershot (GO Station) (although I don't agree with capitalizing "Station" in this instance)

4) Station Name

like Lougheed Town Centre Station

5) City, State/Province railway station

like Kingston, Ontario railway station, very similar to format 1

(probably others that I haven't noticed yet)

The question then is which shall we standardize on? From an editor's standpoint, I'm inclined to use either format 2 or 3 because I don't have to type the link text to use the pipe trick. However, format number 1 seems the most prevalent with 680 articles listed in Category:UK railway station stubs alone. Just due to the huge number of articles using format 1 so far when compared to the other formats, I'm more inclined to suggest that we adopt that naming convention as the standard for station articles. However, growing up in LA, I've always known the city's main station as "Union Station" and not "Los Angeles Union Station"; now that I live close enough to visit Chicago regularly, I hear Chicago's Union Station referred to more often as "Union Station" more often than "Chicago Union Station". So for North American station articles, it seems to make more sense to follow format 2, deferring to format 3 when there are more than one of "X Station" in a city, or format 4 if there's only one of a specific station name.

I guess at this point I'd say to continue with format 1 for British (and now I see some Australian station articles are following this format too) stations, and formats 2, 3 and 4 for North American stations as noted above. slambo 20:32, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

UK stations

As there still appears to be discussion in various places about the aprorpiate name of UK railway stations outside London I've set up Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations). Thryduulf 13:39, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

French Stations

The french stations could be STATION NAME (REGION) for regional stations and STATION NAME (TGV LIGNE) for TGV trainsChris5897 10:40, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

French railway station are, within the bound of French grammar, named "Gare de <Name>". Variants, due to grammar, are "Gare du <Name>" and "Gare d'<Name>". This has linked all rail stations under a unifying naming convention since 2005, regardless of traffic affectation. Offical station names (without prefix) can be found in the UIC directory: [1]. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 11:22, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In practice this convention does not appear universally respected. See Category:Paris RER stations. But even leaving aside WP:PRECISION, how did the convention arise? "Gare de" is French. Excepting a handful of Parisian landmark stations, English speakers do not use it and, crucially, cannot even be assumed to know its meaning. Rollo (talk) 22:22, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalisation of french railway stations

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2010, 2 § Capitalisation of french railway stations

I'm fairly certain that there is already consensus to use lower case in railway station in titles, but am trying to convince User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough at User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough#More (qv) of this. Could you have a look at this - maybe post at the discussion already existing, unless a controversial debate breaks out in which case probably best to continue here. Thanks.Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:29, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes: upper case place name, lower case "railway station", except in those rare cases where the foreign-language name is also the common English-language term—Gare du Nord etc. "Railway station" and not "station" as the default, as we use "railway" to disambiguate railway from subway stations, and only use "station" on its own for multiple-use stations (London Paddington station etc). – iridescent 19:48, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll move the about 20 "X Railway Station"s back to "Gare de X" for now. When all stations have been moved to "X railway station" (or something else, if that's the consensus), I'll modify the templates like {{TER stations}} to reflect the new naming system. Markussep ^Talk 14:38, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Succeeded, except for Aix-en-Provence TGV Railway Station. Markussep ^Talk 14:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The name of any given railway station is a proper noun. French stations contain the French-language Gare de, indicating like in many places that the 'station' or 'railway station' (depending on how one translates "gare") is part of the official name. Thus anglification of Gare de would make "railway station" part of the proper noun and thus capitalized. Arsenikk ^(talk) 15:49, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what you are saying - but "gare de" is not capitalised in French except at the beginning of a sentence.Sf5xeplus (talk) 20:26, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

All railway stations in the UK, Belgium and Luxembourg use the form "X railway station", but I see some other forms as well. So shall we pick "X railway station"? And should this apply to the Paris RER stations as well? Markussep ^Talk 08:52, 20 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since noone has reacted so far: I'm happy with the status quo ("Gare de X"), so we could also leave it as it is. Markussep ^Talk 09:44, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

French stations

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2013 § French stations

I understand that per this discussion, articles on non-metro stations in France have been left at "Gare de X" rather than moved to "X railway station" as was discussed there, and that's what the Manual of Style says to use. I had also thought that stations in the Paris RER that do not have other rail service were to be consistently at "X (Paris RER)". That's what I see in almost all cases at List of stations of the Paris RER. However, someone has just moved two such stations on my watchlist to the "Gare de" form using an argument of consistency. I'm not a member here and don't feel very competent to judge between the two or three options: railway station, Gare de, or differential usage for RER-only, although I can see the editor's point with regards to consistency, particularly since some of the currently RER-only stations are slated to also be served by the Tangentielle Nord. And I'm not sure many English-only readers understand the significance of the word Gare. So I'm putting it to you for discussion so that we can have consistency either by undoing that editor's two article moves and any other anomalous names or by changing what's been done up to now. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:44, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As a personal opinion, the "X (Paris RER)" format seems preferable for RER stations, to state explicitly the difference with a regular train station. Plus Gare de Nation or Nation station just doesn't sound right. As for the "Gare de X" or "X railway station", I don't really have an opinion at the moment. As I understand both, I prefer to let English-only speakers express their opinion. Place Clichy (talk) 03:38, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would undo the editor's two article moves. The articles should be named "X (Paris RER)" except where the station is also a "regular train station", in which case there are two ways of dealing with the issue of naming the article. One is to make "X (Paris RER)" a redirect to the article about the "regular train station". For example, Zoologischer Garten (Berlin U-Bahn) redirects to Berlin Zoologischer Garten railway station. The other way is to keep the article about the urban or suburban station a stand alone article. For example, Centrale (Milan Metro) is a separate article from Milano Centrale railway station. Bahnfrend (talk) 05:52, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Many commuter and rapid transit station articles are named in the form "Name (System)", which argues for keeping the "X (Paris RER)" format. Personally I prefer "Gare de X", but then I don't care for the over-Anglicization of foreign names. Useddenim (talk) 10:55, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Either leaving the move in place or reverting it will of course result in a redirect from the other option. I'm on the fence about leaving French Gare or changing it to English station, but will note that these RER stations are all successors to stops on conventional rail lines, and many are due to become transfer points to the Tangentielle Nord beginning in 2014, so they're not really analogous to either metro or suburban stations attached to mainline stations, but rather are former branch line stations currently used for commuter rail. One of the two articles the editor has moved is a good illustration: Gare d'Épinay-sur-Seine. The Tangentielle Nord line can be clearly seen on the upper level, and I had actually created the article at its current title, but it was rapidly moved to Épinay-sur-Seine (Paris RER)‎ because until that line reopens under its new name, it's served only by the RER. I don't know whether any of this affects the decision - I can see the reason for the (Paris RER) name which you are all tentatively gravitating towards restoring, but the editor who moved it has a consistency point too, and in a year or two it will need to be moved anyway. So it seems opportune to look at the whole issue. Yngvadottir (talk) 11:59, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That raises another point to consider: main-line stations use the form "X railway station", (sub)urban networks "X (System)", and modal interchanges simply "X station" (no railway); so once the Tangentielle Nord opens this all becomes moot. Useddenim (talk) 20:16, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As a native eniglish speaker, I am perfectly happy with the use of Gare. I suspect the correct name for any entry is the actual name. What would you say to a taxi driver to get there.--Robert EA Harvey (talk) 07:24, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I understand Yngvadottir (talk · contribs) noticed a station article name change and I hear some of the comments above. I understand some contributors feel RER station article could be named with the RER station suffix. Regarding this I would like to mention the many station that are operated by both the RATP and SNCF and have both main line, suburban and RER rail services. Since the mass creation for station articles some six years ago the consensus has, for French railway stations, to have them named 'Gare de n'. If some, if not many, stations that carry the RER also serve main line rail services, doesn't it make, to maintain consistency, to have all Berne gauge rail stations named as such? An exception are Metro and some tram stops (I am still reticent to have tram stop article, considering the lack of content in most of them) that cannot, in virtue of gauge and rolling stock used, connect with the national railway, to continue being named 'n (Paris Metro)'.

Example: Gare de Sartrouville, on the Réseau Ouest, has through main line rail services, regional services and the RER A. Surely its current name is the most appropriate, despite RER services stopping there. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 20:11, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It also has non-RER - those have always been Gare de (although in the past, moving them to "station" has been discussed here). The issue with the two you moved is that they both (currently) are only RER. As I say I can see consistency arguments on both sides - and I am not a member of this project, I just occasionally edit a station, rail line, or train article - but we shouldn't compare very different kinds of stations. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:07, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I mentioned that very thing both above and in the message on my page you didn't reply to. What I made a point about was that if stations with both RER and other rail services (bearing in mind RER is a brand name, not a type of transport), why should stations with RER services only bear the RER suffix? What you call RER stations are normal SNCF or RATP rail stations, RER is just a brand name, the stations are not of any other kind. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 22:11, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to make it seem like I'm disrespecting the French language, but not everybody on the English Wikipedia can speak and read French. I think the naming convention proposals may be okay for the French WP:Trains articles, but I can live with having "Name (Paris RER)." or "Name (SNCF)," or "Name (RATP)," etcetera. I never thought of the standard naming conventions as being specifically anglifying the names. -------User:DanTD (talk) 23:35, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Update: We have very few articles on stations of the Vienna U-Bahn; a different editor has just moved the two that are purely U-Bahn stations from Stephansplatz (Vienna U-Bahn) and Pilgramgasse (Vienna U-Bahn) to Stephansplatz Station (Vienna) and Pilgramgasse Station. Same issue as with the RER stations. I'm seeing a preponderance of opinions here for keeping the (system name) article names, but as a non-project member I don't feel I should revert these changes. However, I do think the claim of consistency is weaker in the case of purely metro stations, like these two. (The same editor created Reumannplatz Station today.) Yngvadottir (talk) 21:37, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't only created Reumannplatz Station. I've also created:

And I will also create all the articles about the stations. Reumannplatz Station was the first one of those. When disambiguation is necessary, I'm using (Vienna) instead of (Vienna U-Bahn) because I don't want to have separate articles for the stations that are served by both the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn.

Cheers, Azylber (talk) 23:17, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the work, and I had seen the articles on the lines, and teh footer template. However, your usage on stations conflicts with what this WikiProject has had as a guideline up till now - see discussion above in this section, especially Useddenim's summary. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:13, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Yngvadottir. I have therefore reverted the two moves, and have also moved the new article and changed the navbox default name. All three articles and the navbox now conform with the existing policy, which is used, eg, for 177 articles about Berlin U-Bahn stations. As I have indicated above, where there is a station that is both mainline and U-Bahn, the latter article name can either be a redirect to the mainline station name (as per Berlin) or the name of a standalone article (as per Milan). Bahnfrend (talk) 05:23, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bahnfrend, I have undertaken the task of doing the entire Vienna system myself, and to be honest, I would appreciate it if, for example, you discussed it before reverting.

What is the point in naming an article Reumannplatz (Vienna U-Bahn) when it could be simply Reumannplatz Station? You're making names long and complicated for nothing.

What is the point in using redirects for stations that are served by both the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn? Why can't it just be called XXX Station? Again, in my opinion, this makes things complicated for nothing.

If you can't justify your POV with anything better than "because it was done like this somewhere else" then I think it's polite to discuss before reverting. Azylber (talk) 07:27, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I don't agree. The relevant POV is yours, not mine. The two articles you moved were already named in accordance with a guideline or policy that has already been followed in respect of literally hundreds of articles about U-Bahn or Metro stations in nearby cities in Europe, eg Berlin, Budapest and Milan. Against that background, there was no good reason for you to move them, and that's why I moved them back. Further, the existing articles about surface railway stations in Austria (except the Hauptbahnhöfe) are all named in the format "X railway station" (not "X Station"), as are the articles about surface railway stations in Hungary, Italy and Switzerland, amongst many other countries, so your moves didn't comply with that practice or policy, either. Even if you don't like the existing policies, you should not simply abandon them for that reason. Bahnfrend (talk) 07:54, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You haven't answered my questions. Namely:

What is the point in naming an article Reumannplatz (Vienna U-Bahn) when it could be simply Reumannplatz Station? You're making names long and complicated for nothing.

It is desirable to name all articles about a station on the same rapid transit system in a uniform way that identifies the system. Many rapid transit stations have names that are meaningless or ambiguous to many readers unless they are linked with the name of the city in which they are located. For example, the suburban railway station nearest my own home is named "X Street" which is meaningless and ambiguous unless linked with the name of my city. Reumannplatz is another example that illustrates this point.

But then why XXX (Vienna U-Bahn) instead of XXX Station (Vienna)? Many stations belong to more than one system

What is the point in using redirects for stations that are served by both the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn? Why can't it just be called XXX Station? Again, in my opinion, this makes things complicated for nothing.

Some readers will want to know about the mainline station and will use the search function accordingly. Others will want to read about the rapid transit station. If there's one article that covers both, then it is sensible for Wikipedia to have the other standard form name as a redirect to aid searching.

Those redirects only become necessary because of the problem you're creating by using XXX (Vienna U-Bahn) instead of XXX Station (Vienna). See previous question.

Isn't it also policy to avoid the unnecessary (Vienna U-Bahn) disambiguation part in the name, when the station belongs to only one system?

As indicated above, it is desirable to name all articles about a station on the same rapid transit system in a uniform way that identifies the system. In many, if not most, cases, at least one of the articles will require disambiguation in any event, eg Stadtmitte (Berlin U-Bahn) or Rathaus (Vienna U-Bahn) could be a station in any number of German speaking cities unless disambiguated.

Again, what about stations that belong to more than one system? There are 3 options here: 1) using the dab part only when necessary, 2) using the city as dab, 3) using the city+system as dab. You're selecting option 3, which is the worst option, as explained in the 2 points above.

Cheers, Azylber (talk) 09:11, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See my responses above. Bahnfrend (talk) 09:44, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen your answers. Please look at my comments. Cheers, Azylber (talk) 15:47, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the Vienna U-Bahn stations, are there other types of train stations in Vienna? Maybe this is the reason for the distinction. -------User:DanTD (talk) 16:34, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Azylber, if I understand correctly, the project does it the other way around; see this by Useddenim above:

[M]ain-line stations use the form "X railway station", (sub)urban networks "X (System)", and modal interchanges simply "X station" (no railway)

So it's the multi-system stations that use the simple name Wien Mitte railway station should be just Wien Mitte station, and that goes also for stations that have S-Bahn as well as U-Bahn (or in the French case, RER as well as mainline), but purely U-Bahn, purely RER, or purely S-Bahn should have the disambiguator (I think partly because they generally share a name with a square, street, or other location) and mainline stations have "railway station" (or in France "Gare de"). That seems logical to me; it's just the reverse of what you and Captain scarlet have started implementing. DanTD, as you see from the specifics, yes, Vienna also has S-Bahn and mainline stations, and combinations. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:04, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This sort of thing is explicitly laid down for British stations, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations). In Manchester, for example, we have Manchester Oxford Road railway station, which is heavy-rail alone; Piccadilly Gardens Metrolink station which is light-rail alone; and Manchester Victoria station which is both types, but has redirects from the names matching the conventions for the individual types: Manchester Victoria railway station and Manchester Victoria Metrolink station. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:12, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gare de...

Earlier on this page there was discussion that this convention of naming railway stations in France is supposed to be standard. However, a quick look at Category:Île-de-France railway station stubs and I instantly see several other conventions being used, for example:

Gare de/Gare d'... (ex. Gare de Drancy, Gare d'Angerville)
... railway station (ex. Gargan railway station, Les Coquetiers railway station)
... Station (ex. Issy Station, Saint-Denis Station)
... (Paris RER) (ex. Robinson (Paris RER), Villeneuve-Triage (Paris RER))
... (Paris Métro) (ex. Elysées La Défense (Paris Métro))
... (Paris Métro and RER) (ex. Nation (Paris Métro and RER))
... (SNCF) (ex. Marly-le-Roi (SNCF))

With all this inconsistency for no particular reason, should a naming convention be agreed upon as has happened to the UK, US, and other countries? ««« SOME GADGET GEEK »»» (talk) 19:19, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Translate none; use the French name, which will almost always be "Gare ...". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:50, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree strongly. English speakers cannot even be expected to know how to pronounce "Gare", let alone what it means. No good reason to include foreign common nouns in an English-language article title. Rollo (talk) 11:06, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A whole bunch have been named "X Station", capped thus, which is divergent from all other conventions. If we can actually decide on a convention, it will be easier to respect it, but for now I'm doing some case fixing. Dicklyon (talk) 23:10, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

After fixing the caps on many, my impression is that most French station articles are named pretty much like in the style of WP:USSTATION (this is, with "station", as opposed to UK's "railway station"). Some use untranslated "Gare d...", but most don't. These titles are complicated by the long hyphenated names and the different French conventions about how to use hyphens and dashes; lots of hyphens, spaced hyphens, and spaced en dashes are used where the English conventions per MOS:DASH would be to use an unspaced en dash; in many cases it's hard to tell by looking what the intended structure is, but then clues in the article or in sources help distinguish hyphenated place names from dash-separated name parts. I've fixed what I could in several categories, but it's still a bit of a random mess. A good writeup of a FRSTATION convention might go a long way to helping us converge. Dicklyon (talk) 17:58, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your work.Rollo (talk) 10:58, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

American transportation naming conventions

moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2007, 4#American transportation naming conventions

I'd like to raise the matter of current naming practices for articles on American railway stations. At present we use parenthetical disambiguation by company: [[NAME (SYSTEM station)]] gives Battle Creek (Amtrak station). I find this approach problematic, especially when two or more systems run to the same station, as at La Grange (Amtrak station). La Grange is served by two heavy rail operators, Amtrak and Metra. La Grange (Metra) redirects there. I don't know who owns the station; I doubt it's either of the operators. In addition, we have numerous "Union Station" articles, disambiguated by location: Union Station (Chicago). Finally, we have station articles at their nondeterminate formal names: Kalamazoo Transportation Center and Rome Railroad Station are two examples of this.

I propose that we simplify the naming conventions for all stations served by heavy rail in the United States. Off the top of my head, these would include the following:

I would suggest the following conventions: all stations are identified by their most common name, followed by either "railway station" or "railroad station." In cities or towns with only one station, this would take the form of "Kalamazoo rail(road|way) station." In places with multiple stations, it would take the form "Chicago Union rail(road|way) station" or "Chicago LaSalle Street rail(road|way) station." Formal names for a station would be indicated in the text, but not the article title. Articles which deal with mixed-mode stations (heavy rail & metro), could perhaps drop the road/way part and simply be "X station." Thoughts? Mackensen (talk) 16:02, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of La Grange (Amtrak station), this one is actually one of two Metra Stations in La Grange, Illinois. The one shared between Amtrak & Metra is actually called La Grange Road (Amtrak station), while the other one is called La Grange-Stone Avenue (Metra). This is part of the reason I wrote articles on stations like Route 59 (Metra) in Naperville, Illinois, which doesn't serve Amtrak, unlike Naperville (Amtrak station) which serves both Amtrak & Metra. Also, conisdiering the fact that NICTD's South Shore Line shares some stations with Metra, I'm not so sure how something like this would be handled. In Connecticut, you have stations shared by Amtrak, Metro-North and Shore Line East. Plus, you've also got historic and abandoned stations throughout the country to contend with. ----DanTD (talk) 16:29, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Simple: you'd have articles like Naperville railway station, Route 59 railway station, La Grange Stone Avenue railway station (or just Stone Avenue railway station). Ditto for the Connecticut stations; the goal is to take the operator out of the equation. Mackensen (talk) 16:44, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Using the "Foo railway station" naming style would bring articles about American stations in line with established conventions for British station article names. The best reason that I can see for sticking with the current "Foo (System station)" style is for the pipe trick where we can type [[Foo (System station)|]] and have it autoexpand the link text and display as "Foo". But, this is not a showstopper reason for me to keep this style, and I'm more inclined lately to switch to the British style, except that this could cause issues of ambiguity for a few stations (such as at Aberdeen (Amtrak station) and Aberdeen railway station or Albion (Amtrak station) and Albion railway station). We might want to get the folks at the UK Railways project involved here. Slambo (Speak) 16:40, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I did have the British conventions in mind, yes. There are ways to deal with exceptions: Albion railway station, Michigan, perhaps. Mackensen (talk) 16:44, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to say something else; Long ago, I called for the merger of Seaboard Coastline Railroad Passenger Station in West Palm Beach, Florida into West Palm Beach (Tri-Rail station)(which is also served by Amtrak) simply because they're the same place, and the only thing keeping me from merging the articles myself, is that the name "Seaboard Coastline Railroad Passenger Station" is way too generic. When I saw a similar problem with the station in Deerfield Beach, Florida, I got so frustrated that I created a whole new Deerfield Beach Seaboard Air Line Railway Station article for that one, and redirected three previous versions(Old Seaboard Air Line Railway Station, Deerfield Beach (Tri-Rail station), and Deerfield Beach (Amtrak station)) into it. ----DanTD (talk) 17:01, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Under this system the outcomes would be West Palm Beach railway station and Deerfield Beach railway station. The article would then, in the lead, discuss the historical names and varied roles the station has played. Mackensen (talk) 20:58, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So are there any objections to switching to the "Foo railway station, region" format (where the region part is included as needed for disambiguation) as discussed above? It appears that articles about stations in Australia already follow this format too. I can easily move articles that I run across in Category:Unassessed rail transport articles. I've left a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stations for further input. If there aren't any objections in the next few days, I'd think we could start moving them. Slambo (Speak) 16:11, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I might prefer Foo railroad station instead; that's the more common American usage and that preemptively avoids the British dab problems. Mackensen (talk) 16:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have little personal preference between railway and railroad, but I can see where it could bypass some ambiguosity (is that a word or is it ambiguousness?); I guess I've just gotten more used to seeing railway as I work through the unassessed category with all of the British station articles there. Slambo (Speak) 16:25, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Either or, I guess. So long as we abandon parenthetical dab by system--it breaks in any network of complexity. Mackensen (talk) 16:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My only issue with it is if its proper name includes 'Railroad Station' leave it, or if its proper name includes 'Railway Station', leave it. Otherwise interchanging the two, or using the two together for simple categorization will only confuse matters even more and accomplish nothing. My 2¢ worth.

--DP67 (^talk/_contribs) 20:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think you misapprehend the underlying principle. The goal is to standardize naming, and bring the scattered American stations in line with the rest of the encyclopedia. The "formal name" would not be used as the standard for the article title, unless it fit the naming scheme; so Chicago Union railroad station, but not Kalamazoo Transportation Center. Mackensen (talk) 20:27, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal

As this is a subject that crops up regularly, I propose that this guideline is reintroduced. As as start, here are my suggestions for the standard:

In general, articles about stations should be named title railway station, where title is the name according to the official timetable of the railway concerned, e.g. Jordanhill railway station.
Articles about tram stations, tube stations, etc. should be labelled with the type of transport, e.g. Green Park tube station.
If a station name is used in more than one location, the articles should be disambiguated by adding the country/county/state etc in brackets, and a suitable disambiguation page created, e.g. Millbrook railway station.
For joint tram/tube/metro stations, if a single article covers the full station, the word railway should be dropped from the title, e.g. Sheffield station. However, if the article has been split to cover each type of transport separately, each article should use the convention listed in 1 and 2 above.
Stations is large towns and cities should have the name of the place as part of the article title, e.g. Birmingham Moor Street railway station rather than Moor Street railway station.
Where there is already consensus to apply a different standard to an article name, the existing consensus should take precedent over this guideline, e.g. Birmingham New Street station (not railway station).

Any thoughts? — Tivedshambo _(t/c) 19:05, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the example of multiple stations of the same name, the standard Wikipedia disambiguation style for geographic locations should be used, e.g. Millbrook railway station, Hampshire and Millbrook railway station, Bedfordshire. I'm not convinced that there's a firm consensus that New Street should not have the "railway station" suffix, it seems to have developed as an accident of history. Agree that major cities should be prepended where this is used on the running-in boards - naming conventions being guidelines rather than policy leaves us room to keep London Bridge station, since "London London Bridge" isn't used and looks silly anyway. However, consensus should prevail only on well-justified exceptions - the idea is that an accepted guideline already enjoys consensus and should require significant disagreement to overturn. 217.36.107.9 (talk) 15:45, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Two thoughts: First, the name of a railway station should be the name of the railway station in common usage (perhaps historic, perhaps local current usage). Slavishly following a naming convention that differs is inappropriate. Second, the standard Wikipedia disambiguation style is not clearcut. In United States articles about NRHP-listed buildings and many non-NRHP places, a "Name (City, State)" style has mostly been adopted. That has advantage over the "Name, City" or "Name, City, State" style in that it clearly separates between what is the name of a place, and the wikipedia editors' addition of disambiguation. Many names include commas and can include a city name, so comma-format often doesn't work well. doncram (talk) 16:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Historic or otherwise named stations

Hey, i come here to comment that the application of naming conventions outlined here seem to work badly for buildings that are architecturally or otherwise significant and specifically named stations. Any naming convention for stations needs to explicitly take into account the necessity to use widely known common names for a specific station, and perhaps the appropriateness of using a less-known but somehow-official name such as the NRHP program name for a given historic station.

It's as if this naming convention proposal, as written, might apply okay for the merely directory-type listings. But in the case of significant buildings that are wikipedia-notable on their own, the directory-type listing should be ignored or it should be just a redirect to the name of the main station. Such as Grand Central Station in New York City is a named place, and naming its article "42nd Street (IRT line)" or "New York (Metro-North Station)" or any of numerous other possibilities based on the proposed naming convention is would not be sensible.

For another example, "Waterbury (Metro-North station)" in Waterbury, Connecticut, is not better than "Waterbury Union Station", which seems to be the historic, common name for the place, and which was used in the National Register of Historic Places listing for it. I have put this up for requested move. Also I am working my way through the disambiguation list of Union Station (disambiguation) and renaming many others. I am happy to discuss further here, will give notice elsewhere. doncram (talk) 16:04, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also I disagree with proposal that "Articles on major stations should simply be Name (city)". For example, rather than Name (City) I would prefer Name (City, State) for U.S. places.

Another big comment about naming proposals is that the naming proposal needs to be understood as the not-too-important view of a WikiProject or other special interest group of wikipedia editors, and not applied over the views of other WikiProjects or other groups. For example, I work mostly on U.S. NRHP-listed places, and am clear that it is often not appropriate to force the NRHP program name upon a place which has a different common name currently. In a list of NRHP places, it is okay to use the NRHP names, and to pipelink to actual article names where they differ. And in an NRHP infobox it is appropriate to show the NRHP program name, which may differ from the article name in which it appears. Likewise for these proposals on station names: they seem appropriate for use in lists of stations, but should not be used to override what are common names for specific stations. Common usage should trump any WikiProject's wish for uniformity in naming. doncram (talk) 16:44, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am unsure of your views on the NRHP names regarding the New York City Subway. Would you think, for example, the talked-about station of the moment, currently named "181st Street (IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line)", be renamed "181st Street Subway Station (IRT)"? I can tell you I would not support the move because the non-uniformity sticks out here. The uniformity is essential in this case because we consider the 468 stations to be of equal importance with each other, regardless of any subjective factors, including NRHP listing. Consequently, I feel any change like this must mean names of other articles that are not on the NRHP must change as well. (Even if uniformity is achieved with the NRHP name, I am not ready to override years of precedence. I also have issues regarding names such as 145th Street Subway Station (IRT) which must be disambiguated from 145th Street (IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line) and West 28th Street Subway Station (Dual System IRT) where "West 28th Street" is not used as the station name, it's just "28th Street." ) I understand when deviations from uniformity must occur, but I am unconvinced they should be allowed in this case. I also invite you to look at WP:NC-NYCS and the history behind the creation of that convention. Tinlinkin (talk) 09:07, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've just skimmed wp:NC-NYCS, whose nutshell is that official NYC subway names, as appear on the official NYC subway map, should usually be used as names of NYC subway station articles. I think that has to be qualified by any exceptional station that is actually more commonly known by some other name. In the NYC subways case, mass availability of the map would tend to drive out any other usage, so maybe there are no important exceptions. I do hope the map shows Grand Central Station on it, not 42nd Street.

I don't think the uniformity argument is too important or should overwhelm other considerations. Uniformity sounds like a principle helpful for editors' convenience when generating a bunch of articles originally. Note, in a list of RR #1 stations, the official RR #1 name for a given station can be given (and pipelinked or redirected to a possibly different article name for the station). In a list of RR #2 stations, the RR #2 name can be given. In a list of NRHPs, the NRHP name can be given. The article name can be different. Where/how is inconsistency an issue?

If there is documented and/or widely known common name, hopefully a proper noun, for a given station, it seems broadly consistent with wikipedia naming principles that it should be the name used for the article itself, as opposed to some manufactured name. I do not want to overstate any importance for going with the NRHP name of a place, but the NRHP application form provides for identifying the official and/or common names of a place, by the architectural historian or whoever is writing the NRHP application, at the time of the NRHP application, so they are often the actual common name of a place. And I would tend to defer to that, in absence of other evidence of what is the common name of a place. doncram (talk) 23:53, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience, the NRHP name is often a made-up name; for instance, Chicago and Northwestern Depot (Wilmette, Illinois) - the railroad and common usage was always "North Western", not "Northwestern". As for Grand Central, the subway station is Grand Central – 42nd Street (New York City Subway). The commuter rail station is Grand Central Terminal (not Grand Central Station). --NE2 00:22, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of the problems with the NRHP-named stations are that they're too generic. I know as well as you that the name is "Chicago and North Western" not "Chicago and Northwestern," but that doesn't mean the name "Northwestern" wasn't given to the depot in Wilmette, Illinois as an attempt to distinguish it from other C&NW stations. Clearly that's not enough because other stations with similar names in other parts of the country can be redirected to them so the place name in parentheses are necessary. Louisville and Nashville Depot (Milton, Florida) was originally named Louisville and Nashville Depot, but when it didn't have the place name, it was linked by an NHRP list in Illinois. ----DanTD (talk) 12:56, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can't prove you're wrong because one can't prove a negative, but the idea of "Northwestern" being used incorrectly to distinguish it from others is preposterous. --NE2 13:13, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that way to me too, but it's the only reason I can possibly imagine for the words to be misused. ----DanTD (talk) 13:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

People can and do make mistakes. The name given on the NRHP form is simply one person's guess at what the name should be. Chances are, in these cases, that person is an architect that knows very little about railroads. --NE2 14:29, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If this is the case, it seems to be quite common. I've seen this with other railroads that have stations with similar names like those on the Milwaukee Road, CB&Q, L&N, ACL, SAL, Southern Railroad, and plenty of others. I take it you must've seen my RR station dab pages. ----DanTD (talk) 14:46, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The name "Chicago and Northwestern Depot" for the Wilmette, Illinois station is apparently what appears in the National Register Information System (NRIS). NRIS is generally pretty accurate, but I and others have been documenting many typos in it, many/most apparently introduced at time of central data entry into NRIS. I think it's likely the actual NRHP application for the station would show a different name, given your information that the "Northwestern" word is incorrect usage. I would be surprised if the architectural historian or railroad buff or whoever wrote the application would have been completely mistaken. I'll try to find its application in the Illinois HAARGIS online system. (P.S. Searched, found it entered in state system with "Northwestern" name as in NRIS. No online doc available. --doncram) Or anyone could request a free copy of the NRHP application from the National Register. If there is a data entry error there, then the NRIS should be corrected and the wikipedia article name should be changed. Possibly the article should be changed in name anyhow, if it is well enough documented otherwise that the common name is different. (But then why not get the NRHP application which bears on the question, before doing any renaming.) Anyhow, the NRHP name, as entered in NRIS database or as appears in NRHP application, is not the only/last word on what should be the station name, I agree. doncram (talk) 16:19, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The proposed convention and notability

This proposal hearkens back to the failed attempt I made at getting people to not put in articles for every station stop that has ever been since the dawn of time. Really notable station buildings would generally get identified the way that other notable buildings get identified: by name and place. One can quibble about the name a bit, because people goof up on NHRP submissions and the like, but the convention is obvious and deals with buildings past and present. Likewise, when talking about transit stations, the "stop (system)" convention is in practice the only workable solution, and never mind whether subway stops are all notable.

The real problem, it seems to me, is the same one I saw before: it's easy to make articles for station stops (just dump the schedule data into your article template), and therefore they tend proliferate. So when you look at the all the "platform and a parking lot" MARC stations, do you enter them as "place Station (MARC)" or "MARC Station (place)"? If it were up to me, I'd say "neither"; I'd just put a table of stations in the MARC article and leave it at that, because the only real information is all directory stuff.

When we're talking about buildings, the system qualifier doesn't really work, because buildings exist whether or not they are part of any existing system. They should stick with the "building (place)" convention. Subways are a completely different kettle of fish and should follow their own rules. Articles about other "stations" which aren't about structures shouldn't exist at all. Mangoe (talk) 15:49, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like the best thing would be to redirect the non-notable ones to the article on the community, and cover it briefly there. (Railroad access is almost always a large part of the history of a place, so that shouldn't be a problem.) Then categorize the redirect appropriately in "stations in [place]" and "[railroad] stations" categories. And we're back to naming conventions for the categorized redirect. --NE2 05:32, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I may misunderstand something here, I think that would be a solution, not still a problem. The name of a mere redirect doesn't matter, does it? Actually i don't get what is the usefulness of having categories attached to redirects, ever, though, so I know I am missing perspective. doncram (talk) 16:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the MARC stations as non-notable. A lot of them have greater significance than the articles on them indicate, if you're able and willing to look. As you probably know, I've had to redirect a few historic station articles to existing MARC station articles, and I found info on stations like Odenton (MARC station) that are more than just the platforms and parking lots that they appear to be. Other aspect of these stations can be found on Google Maps, if that site is willing to give close-up views of them. ----DanTD (talk) 12:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate Mangoe's making the distinction between station buildings vs. station stops, and that stops are not necessarily notable, should often just be listed in one list-article about the system. I have no position on MARC train stations' notability in particular. But certainly there are many current and past bus stops/stations and subway stops/stations and train stops that should not be covered in separate wikipedia articles. Also many fire stations and police stations and gas stations and other kinds of stations that don't need articles (is this naming convention itself misnamed, by the way?). doncram (talk) 16:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think even the local station stops should still be kept. There's always room for improvement to them. Looking at the article on Kensington Station(which really should be renamed Kensington (MARC station)), if you didn't read the rest of the article, you might think that too was a mere platform with parking lots. The same thing goes for Medford (LIRR station), which may be a platform on top of an old foundation built into an embankement now, but was nothing like this 50, 60, or 70-odd years ago. There are articles I don't think should be written though, like stops for the SEPTA Route 15 trolley, although the route description should be improved there. I also voted to redirect a series of NYC El station articles back in January 2009, but most users voted to keep them. ----DanTD (talk) 18:02, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The station in Kensington is a notable building in its own right, whether or not trains stop there (and never mind which trains stop there, as it was once a stop on Amtrak's Capitol Limited, not to mention its B&O predecessors). The article is not that great but if one keeps reading one gets to the part about the building. It could be more accurately be named Baltimore and Ohio station (Kensington) or Kensington Station (Baltimore and Ohio) since it was that railroad, after all, who built it. I believe that as far as the NRHP is concerned it is listed as part of the historic district; at the moment the contents of the latter are unavailable due to the restructuring of the NRHP database, so I cannot see exactly how the building is listed.

As far as the Odenton station is concerned, the building is not, as far as I can tell, considered notable of itself. Architecturally there is next to nothing to be said about it. The Medford article illustrates many of my objections, as it contains a lot of the kind of directory information that people should be seeking out the LIRR website for.

I'm inclined, when the article is about the building, to stick to the NHRP convention of "name of station (place)". And I think that should take precedence over a station stop convention,whatever we come up with, because trains do stop running. Mangoe (talk) 04:33, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Odenton may not look like much architecturally, but it does have a history, which I've noted in the reference. As far as Kensington is concerned, it should really be named Kensington (MARC station), and the B&O name should redirect there. As for Medford, you won't find squat about the history of that station on the LIRR website, in fact you won't find that much history of individual LIRR stations at all. ----DanTD (talk) 20:02, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how that would make anything clearer for most stations. If you go to Podunk, Iowa and ask people "what's that building next to the railroad tracks", they'll probably say "the Amtrak station", even if it was built before 1971. In other words, we'd just be changing the naming convention from "name (current system station)" to "current system station (name)". --NE2 05:55, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just spoke to a native Iowan who takes extreme issue: the train station that is NRHP-listed is referred to as "the depot", and there is a 1970's corrugated tin building a few blocks down which is the current Amtrak stop. And, it's not Podunk. That would be 35 miles south. Verbatim, all this. doncram (talk) 07:24, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, maybe in that town, but in Podunk Amtrak never built an Amshack and still uses the old pre-1971 station. --NE2 07:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) Well, I'm looking at perhaps the most extreme case, and I see that we have separate articles for Izaak Walton Inn and Essex (Amtrak station) even though the former is the station building for the latter. Of course, before the latter there was Essex (Great Northern station). And before Kensington (MARC Station) there was Kensington (Amtrak station) and before that, Kensington (Baltimore and Ohio station). And for a while it was just a building.

It is purely incidental that MARC uses the station in Kensington, just as is the case for pretty much all of the older buildings at MARC stops. In a number of cases the building sat there for a while before being used again for ticketing or waiting; I don't think there is a single case where MARC actually owns the building. As the Essex example shows, we could simply maintain separate articles since they are really about two different things. I'm not particularly happy about having to rename the building article every time the state/city renames its commuter services. Mangoe (talk) 00:52, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure you'll have to worry about that, since the internet wasn't around when Kensington was a B&O station, let alone Wikipedia. I also doubt that Wikipedia existed when this was an Amtrak station, from what I've read about the Brunswick Line. As for Essex, if the old GN station is the Izzak Walton Inn, why not redirect that redlink there? ----DanTD (talk) 00:25, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A thought

Having read through the above discussion, it seems to me that the central issue here is between two different naming conventions, the one for historical places, which favors using NRHP-listing names where available, and the one for stations, which disambiguates the often-generically named stations with the current system name, if applicable, unless it's served by multiple carriers.

The issue with the former, to me anyway, are that, as noted above, the NRHP listings aren't always accurate to either the WP:COMMONNAME of the station or its current relevance, as they are, by definition, historical, which may mean their listings reflect former usage, but not current ones.

Which brings me to my second thought, that current usage should take precedence, at least for currently active stations, as the fact that they are train stations is the more defining characteristic of them, compared to any listing they may have on something like the NRHP. While it is excellent for preservationists, both railfan and non-railfan, that so many stations are on the NRHP, the listings are simply secondary to their function as rail stations. Indeed, it's the importance of the places as rail stations that likely heavily contributed to their listing in the first place. oknazevad (talk) 23:10, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PRECISION

copied here from my Talk

Hey, just wanted to let you know I moved Durham–UNH back to Durham-UNH (Amtrak station). Transit system station names are a weird exception to WP:PRECISION. Because station names are usually based on a) a town/city, b) a street, or c) a landmark, they almost always need to be disambiguated. Most systems, including Amtrak, use the parenthetical on all stations to make linking easier; even those like New London Union Station where it's unambiguous have New London (Amtrak station) as a redirect.

Cheers, Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:13, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They aren't an exception to WP:PRECISION. If almost all of them need qualifiers, then almost all of them should get qualifiers. The ones, however few they are, that do not need qualifiers should not get qualifiers. Right, redirects (like the one I left) make the links just as easy. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:42, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but you're simply wrong about that. WP:PRECISION itself says the following: "Exceptions to the precision criterion, validated by consensus, may sometimes result from the application of some other naming criteria. Most of these exceptions are described in specific Wikipedia guidelines, such as Primary topic, Geographic names, or Names of royals and nobles." That's exactly the situation here. Mackensen (talk) 02:01, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pi is right. Without the use of "{Amtrak station)" in the name, it's simply an abbreviation for Durham-University of New Hampshire. -------User:DanTD (talk) 02:51, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What Pi may be right about is that "Durham–UNH" is a poor title for this article. "Durham–UNH (Amtrak station)" is a poorer title. I improved it by removing the useless qualifier (and by making it reachable by wikilinking Durham–UNH. FairFare improved it further by giving it a better natural title "Durham–UNH station". If the "station" is a necessary part of the title (and not simply a disambiguating qualifier), it should be part of the title. If "Amtrak" is also a necessary part of the title, it should be part of the title. (Now that the station has a better name, if Durham–UNH is simply and abbreviation for Durham–University of New Hampshire, Durham–UNH might better be redirected to a different page.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:40, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No you didn't improve it. You just took away part of the name that better describes the subject. Also, simply calling it "Durham–UNH station" wouldn't work, first, because it's an Amtrak station, and second, because Amtrak isn't the only railroad in the country. You may not be aware of this, but MBTA has consider expanding into New Hampshire. -------User:DanTD (talk) 11:37, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I did. The parenthetical qualifier is not part of the name. If it's a necessary part of the title, it should not be in parentheses. If it's not a necessary part of the title (as indicated by the parentheses), it should be dropped if it does not serve to disambiguate the article from the primary topic or the disambiguation page. Please see WP:PRECISION. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:33, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For clarity all stations/railway stations/metro stations/subway stations/tube stations need some disambiguation, even if there is no conflicting article in Wikipedia, because they are always named after their destination, which in real world terms creates a title conflict. Imagine searching for a place that does not have in entry here and finding a station or, as pointed out above, a logical seach that redirects to the station rather than what it is named after. That would just be a stupid renaming. This example is a railway station owned by the University of New Hampshire and used by Amtrak. While I think that station or railway station would suffice, I also think that this evangelical renaming is totally disruptive and contributes nothing - that should be THIS CONTRIBUTES NOTHING to this article, and only antagonises the contributing editors who do the real work of creating and maintaining this series of articles. Two wrongs don't make a right. Ah! now I feel better! FairFare (talk) 18:15, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If it's needed for clarity, it's not disambiguation and should be part of the title. If it's needed for clarify, "station" or "Amtrak station" should exist (without parentheses) at the end of each title for stations or Amtrak stations. Also, you are straying into personal attacks by implying that edits you don't like are the result of evangelism and are done by non-contributing editors. Your feeling better doesn't justify it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:19, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I agree with most of what you say, but it is your approach to this that I find objectionable. If you truly believe in this, you will set out to change the entire Amtrak system, rather than frivolously choosing one. If I had the time, I would take that on. That is what I see as disruptive. My well being and my desire to express how I feel is none of your business, but I wish you well in "your mission, should you decide to accept it" FairFare (talk) 18:59, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:NOTCOMPULSORY. There is no requirement to fix everything before one can fix anything. As I clip through random WP articles, I improve the ones I find. If you feel passionate (or evangelical, or stupid, or whatever), you are welcome to accept the mission you've described. I don't have to fix everything for you, since as you pointed out your well-being is none of my business. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:52, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

JHunterJ, the point we are all trying to make is that the move you made was not an improvement and was in fact the opposite. It was a reasonable mistake to make, but you are trying to defend a move that goes against project consensus. The issue of postfixes has been discussed to death on WP:Trains and every single time the consensus is to keep them. The (Amtrak station) postfix is unambiguous - it identifies any Amtrak station in a way that a shorter name does not. As DanTD pointed out, "Durham-UNH" could just as easily refer to the college. Repetitively citing WP:PRECISION is a poor substitute for considering the opinions of the editors who work with train station articles on a regular basis. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:13, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't go against Wikipedia project consensus, and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS doesn't prevail, although that's a reasonable mistake to make as well. Parenthetical qualifiers are used for disambiguating titles; the local project's use of them instead of better base titling may have caused churn in the past and it's certain to continue to cause churn, since it's counter to the project-wide style. Repeatedly dismissing Wikipedia guidelines is a poor substitute for considering the opinions of the editors who work on Wikipedia. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:53, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You've yet to address the point I made above. Mackensen (talk) 22:22, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Has this ever been discussed more broadly than among the trains project members? -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:49, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You still haven't addressed the point I made above. Consensus is where you find it. I think this has been discussed at least four times over the past six years. I'm going to repeat the portion of WP:PRECISION I quoted above: "Exceptions to the precision criterion, validated by consensus, may sometimes result from the application of some other naming criteria. Most of these exceptions are described in specific Wikipedia guidelines, such as Primary topic, Geographic names, or Names of royals and nobles." I maintain that this is such a situation. You're telling me there are no exceptions to WP:PRECISION. That's clearly not the case. Mackensen (talk) 01:27, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The question is in response to your point above. Consensus is where you find it, and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS doesn't change Wikipedia consensus. Which "specific Wikipedia guidelines" (not Project essays) are you referring to? -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:13, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think we're going in circles here, and I'm not sure why it is that one person gets to demand that everyone else prove they're right. There's no such thing as a consensus of one. Let's break down the statement in WP:PRECISION, making full allowance for the subtleties of the English language:

Exceptions to the precision criterion, validated by consensus, may sometimes result from the application of some other naming criteria. Most of these exceptions are described in specific Wikipedia guidelines, such as Primary topic, Geographic names, or Names of royals and nobles.

may: exceptions are permitted, when backed by consensus
most: not all exceptions are documented by guidelines, although many are

The key here is consensus. What is Wikipedia:Consensus? Well, that's complicated. The policy page is actually silent on how many people you need since consensus is ultimately an iterative and collaborative process, which requires not numbers but discussion. The current naming convention stems from long-standing practice, beginning in probably 2004 or so when station articles began to be created in large numbers. If the convention stems mostly from people involved in WP:TRAINS that's no accident but rather a reflection of interested parties. I was heavily involved in one of the exceptions explicitly noted above, the naming of royals and nobles, and I can tell you that it was a very small group which crafted that guideline. Most people neither knew nor care, yet it has consensus because in the main it is not challenged. You're also wrong to rely on WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, I think: "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." You cannot reasonably describe thousands of articles over half the life of the project as "one place and time." WP:CONSENSUS says something else: "If an article title has been stable for a long time, then the long-standing article title is kept." These article titles are all stable. You're proposing a change, which is fine. You need to get consensus for that change, and baldly asserting that the existing convention is invalid because you don't like it (I sympathize) or because it somehow doesn't have consensus (untrue) isn't the right approach. Mackensen (talk) 12:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not me making demands, it's Wikipedia; you left out the obvious part of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS: "unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope." So, where did WikiProject Trains convince the broader community that this action (using parentheticals as essential parts of the title, instead of disambiguating qualifiers) is right? -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:52, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't leave it out at all. You're demanding a literal test when none is necessary or useful. Consensus is stability (among other things). We don't vote on things, and we don't put every standard or convention up to some site-wide discussion. I would also disagree with your characterization of the convention; it's more preemptive disambiguation than anything else. Mackensen (talk) 13:07, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We're going around in circles because you are not applying that portion of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. And now I've gotten two contradictory explanations: it's a pre-emptive disambiguation (not a necessary part of the name), and we don't do this since we have no crystal ball and don't want to have to move William Shakespeare to William Shakespeare (playwright born 1564) just in case in the future there's another playwright named William Shakespeare; or it's not a disambiguation at all but an essential part of the name as Dan-TD pointed out, and we put the essential parts of the titles in the title without parentheses (like Durham–UNH station or Durham–UNH Amtrak station). It sounds like this discussion has come up before within WP:Trains, and might benefit from discussion in the broader community, to avoid those kinds of problems. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:22, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Parentheticals again

moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2012, 2#Parentheticals again

The issue of (XYZ station) after station names has come up once again. Please see Talk:Durham–UNH. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:56, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. I don't like parentheticals all that much (we really ought to call things X railway station or X train station), but it's still a standard worth following. Mackensen (talk) 02:03, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If anyone's at all curious the old discussion for that is here: ~~Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2007, 4~~#American transportation naming conventions. I really do think it would be a net improvement to go in this direction. This convention would actually be more precise than parentheticals, and would bring the US station articles in line with the rest of the encyclopedia. Mackensen (talk) 02:15, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think it would be an improvement to go in that direction at all. With that system you've got names of railroad stations that look like something altogether different Having said that I remember during one of your past attempts to change the naming conventions, one of the names you suggested for Diridon Station was San José Diridon Station, and I liked that one. -------User:DanTD (talk) 03:03, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dan, for those who weren't around for the previous discussions could you please expand on your argument and explain what those problems would be? I'd like to respond to "you've got names of railroad stations that look like something altogether different" but I'm not sure what you meant by that. Most articles would be named as they are now, save losing the somewhat meaningless parenthetical disambiguation and picking up the far more useful "station" or "railway station" or "railroad station" (I have no opinion on which of the three is superior). I would note the the railway station articles for every other country follow this convention. It makes very little sense to me for the US articles to be named different, and arguably all these articles fall under this WikiProject. I would further note that the existing disambiguation produces odd outcomes when applied to stations with multiple service providers. Mackensen (talk) 04:14, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there's the issue of being mistaken for other objects besides train stations, as well as the issue of being mistaken for other train stations, and even non-train stations. -------User:DanTD (talk) 04:40, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I fail to see how that could happen when the article is named X railway station (for example). Obviously in a city with multiple stations we would disambiguate by company, as we do now. Mackensen (talk) 17:37, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Has anyone looked into what pattern might exist in the NRHP? Mangoe (talk) 17:57, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

NHRP stations generally have special names. Here's a few:

South Station: "South Station Headhouse"
Union Station (New Haven): "New Haven Railroad Station"
New London Union Station: "Union Station"
Pennsylvania Station (Newark): "Pennsylvania Station"
Hartford Union Station: "Hartford Union Station"
Kingston Railroad Station (Rhode Island): "Kingston Railroad Station"
30th Street Station: "Thirtieth Street Station"
Wilmington Station: "Wilmington Amtrak Station"
Newark Rail Station (Delaware): "Newark Passenger Station"
Pennsylvania Station (Baltimore): "Pennsylvania Station"
Union Station (Washington, D.C.): "Washington D.C. Union Station"
Main Street Station (Richmond): "Main Street Station and Trainshed"

So, in general, there's not a lot of a pattern. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 18:20, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know there's no standard applied with NRHP. There's a school of thought that says use whatever NRHP calls them, but that's not backed up by any policy I know of and probably breaks all our naming conventions. That list is a perfect example of why we need a better convention. Here's a sample of what those names would look like (under one possibility):

Note that there would be two examples of geographic disambiguation because of existing articles. In the case of Wilmington I think a good case could be made for the Wilmington in Delaware being the primary topic since Wilmington railway station is disused, but it's easy to disambiguate. Mackensen (talk) 22:21, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All of which look pretty bad, actually. Not just because the strange-to-the-American-ear use of "railway", but because of the imprecise mess of some (Newark? Which Newark?), and the insertion of "railway" (or "railroad") where people never actually say it.

People don't say "Union railroad station", they say "Union Station". And note the capitals; the word "station" is part of the proper nouns that these are, so isolating them renders it a violation of WP:COMMONNAME. Especially for terms such as "Union Station" and "Penn Station" that have been used for multiple major stations, a parenthetical disambiguator by city is the best way to go. But that's for big city stations.

Smaller cities and towns, especially on commuter systems, are usually just known by the town name in common parlance; for those, using the railroad name to disambiguate the station from the town where it's located is easily the best method, and then might as well throw in all stations as a matter of consistency.

Especially when it makes the successor templates work far more smoothly. And that's exactly how we arrived at the current conventions. The only argument against them is that it somehow offend some editors' sense of order to have a project use WP:CONSISTENCY to vary from the general guideline. A sense of top-down order in a crowd-sourced project which has WP:IAR as a pillar. (Note: That's a guideline, as in recommendation.) So I see no real reason to change the current conventions. They work, and that is the most important thing. oknazevad (talk) 01:29, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

PS, not directed at you, Mackensen; you just provided a good jumping off point for my response. I see that you've argued against changing station article titles individually and arbitrarily, even if you aren't convinced that its a good convention. That is admirable; now, where'd I leave that integrity barnstar?

Well, then use "train" or "railroad". Look, here's the thing. We're already violating WP:COMMONNAME all over the place. We capitalize inconsistently. We use proper names in some cases (Kalamazoo Transportation Center) but not others. As one of the authors of {{s-line}} I'm well aware of the succession template issue; frankly I think they would be more efficient with a more standard convention. Some of the station templates have an impressive list of exceptions. Most of your argument would also be a pretty good argument against the world-wide naming convention, but it was adopted for consistency and uniformity. Ultimately we're disambiguating one way or another; the problem is people get all hot and bothered by parenthetical disambiguation. Changing the US articles to match everyone else threads the needle and eliminates that trouble spot. I must also take issue with the notion of what people say as a valid naming convention. We need to name things in a way which makes sense to us and which makes for a well-ordered encyclopedia. Most people are going to say "the train station" without reference to whether it's named after the town or some dead local worthy. Anyway, I'm about done with my yearly spleen-venting. I consider the current convention a disgrace that should never have lasted this long and makes very little sense, all the more so for never having been properly documented. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (stations) was never adopted, after all. Mackensen (talk) 01:41, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I never liked calling Wilmington (SEPTA station) just "Wilmington Station," or Atlantic Terminal (LIRR station) simply "Atlantic Terminal," so there are certainly existing names I don't agree with here. With Newark (Delaware and New Jersey), you've got two stations that were both former Pennsylvania Railroad stations, and Oknazevad already brought the issue of those two stations up. With 30th Street Station, you've also got the issue of the SEPTA MFL/SSTL station that's considered separate. Regarding the NRHP stations, the general consensus I've noticed is that most inactive ones have the old names with qualifiers when needed, which is quite often, and the ones that are active combine the NRHP names with the current naming standards. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 03:09, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Over here across the pond we go by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations) and if somebody moves a page matching this convention to one that doesn't (such as Foo railway station to Foo Station) it pretty quickly gets moved back; if the log entry for the reverting move includes a link to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations), they tend not to do it again. There are a few situations which are not covered, such as the problem of disambiguation when the station names are identical - do we use locality (e.g. Ashton (Devon) railway station) or railway company (e.g. Ammanford (GWR) railway station); should the disambiguator go before the word "railway" (e.g. Ammanford (GWR) railway station), or after the word "station" (e.g. Brentford railway station (GWR))? But by and large it works. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:16, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is no reason why stations (any kind) should get standard parenthesised disambiguators. Having the "XX station" naming is sufficient for probably 95% of all stations. The minority that would be ambiguous even then should get a disambiguator, but there is no reason to give many articles a non-standard name to match the few that need it. The argument that otherwise, the name may refer to something else than a station is not convincing, since that applies to all Wikipedia articles. You are free to start an RfC to disambiguate all Wikipedia articles by default to make them more descriptive, but until you get consensus for that, there is no reason why stations shouldn't follow the standard naming procedures which work fine for most other articles on Wikipedia. E.g. Littleton/Route 495 (MBTA station) should be at either Littleton/Route 495 or Littleton/Route 495 station, and Prides Crossing (MBTA station) should simply be at Prides Crossing station. And if you want clarity: it is not clear that Dune Park (NICTD) is a station either, it's a for most people meaningless disambiguator. Dune Park station works perfectly allright. Fram (talk) 14:36, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"No reason!?!" Your examples are worse than most of what Mackensen is proposing, and your actions with the Sacramento and MAX Light Rail stations are proof of that. "Littleton/Route 495" doesn't even indicate it's a railroad station, and looks more like some state route in a state that doesn't even exist. "Dune Park station" could be any "Dune Park," in any type of station. "Pride's Crossing station?" What the hell is that? It looks like something from the midwest! -------User:DanTD (talk) 14:55, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Woggle looks more like a word game or a racial slur than a piece of clothing to me, but we don't disambiguate that either. Aalstar? Bafra? Linkin Park? Cadbury? If you are not familiar with it, you don't know what many of our articles are about without reading them. So? Our titles are not intended to indicate what kind of subject they are about, but only to give the name of the subject. Any reason why this should be different for train stations? Fram (talk) 15:04, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Because they're clearly for train stations, and specific types of them. Not cities, villages, hamlets, parks, streets, squares, companies, etctetera. -------User:DanTD (talk) 15:20, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the problem is that names of stations are very frequently one of two kinds of synecdoche: either the station is named for the railroad, and the location has to be inferred, or (as is typical with subway stops) the location is the name, and that it is a station has to be inferred. Thus, MARC Station doesn't cut it, and it has to be identified as lying in Laurel, Maryland; conversely, Greenbelt has to be disambiguated from, well, Greenbelt. And then there is Union Station, which as you might have already guessed is a huge disambiguation page.

It seems to me that, somehow, the articles names should always include the word "station", since after all that is what they all are. For American subway/transit systems, there is some sense to always including the system name somehow and redirecting to it with a systemless version of the name for searching sake. For American rail stations, I don't see why we can't use the same convention the Brits are using. If we have to disambiguate multiple unnamed stations in one city, we can use the system code/name as the Brits do as well. Mangoe (talk) 15:46, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

...and obviously all the "Union Stations" must be disambiguated by location; it might make the most sense to do "City Union Station" rather than using parentheses. Mangoe (talk) 15:54, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and no. I'm not sure if all Union Stations are generally known as $CITY Union Station. Some are known only as Union Station. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:31, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One case where parenthetical names are needed occurs when the official name of the town itself has parentheses. This is common practice at least in Germany where e.g. Schönhausen (Elbe) station is the railway station in Schönhausen (Elbe)... --Bermicourt (talk) 20:50, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So I ask the question "Any reason why this should be different for train stations?", and the reply I get is "because they're stations"? Anyone want to provide a better answer? Why are all other articles normally at a non-descriptive title, which gives no indication of what kind of subject the article is about, but is this somehow unacceptable for train stations? Why is a title like Cinder Road acceptable for a band, and Reservation Road acceptable for a movie, but such names would be suddenly unacceptable for a station? Fram (talk) 07:14, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I wouldn't accept it; every time I survey WP:AFD, with its running supply of NN bands, I have to read all the entries just to figure out what-in-the-heck they are. The legalistic obsession with avoiding this sort of qualification is the source of a lot of needless confusion, and I don't see why the rockheadedness of the film and band people should be inflicted on us. Mangoe (talk) 13:29, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

- It's not just the band and film people, and not just about barely notable things; every article, on every topic, uses this system, just like in any other encyclopedia. This is a global consensus, which you are free to try to change it with an RfC or so, but which shouldn't simply be ignored because you don't like it. If you want non band or non-film examples of similar titles as some stations should have: Parc des Princes, Suzuki Boulevard, J Street, DSV Road, Gerard Way... And are you actually complaining that at AfD, you have to actually "read" the entries? What's the problem with that? Fram (talk) 13:47, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It wouldn't make sense to omit "station" because most are named after places and so you would have to disambiguate e.g. "Foo (station)" from "Foo (town)". And they're often called "Foo station" anyway. The convention "Foo railway station" is used to avoid confusion with other types of station e.g. "Foo bus station". That said, I can understand why, for articles on stations in the US and other places that use the term "railroad", people would prefer "Foo railroad station". And that's allowed under Wiki conventions. But elsewhere "railway" is the international English term used e.g. by the International Union of Railways. --Bermicourt (talk) 14:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ys, I have commented in previous discussions and here that I am not opposed to such a convention: while it may not be the official name, it often is in common use to add "station" or a variation thereof to the station name. But above even something like Pride's Crossing station was opposed because "it looks like something from the midwest". Fram (talk) 14:27, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm an Aussie, and to me, Prides Crossing station looks like the name of a cattle station (American English: ranch) in the Outback. That's one of the reasons I prefer Foo railway station for articles about individual railway stations. Bahnfrend (talk) 15:01, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An Australian perspective, and a helpful one at that. The point I was trying to make though is that the name Prides Crossing station doesn't seem like it's anywhere in Massachusetts, let alone a commuter railroad station with the MBTA. -------User:DanTD (talk) 15:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dan, maybe the following further observations would help. If you were to say to me "Prides Crossing station", then, as indicated above, I would have visions of cattle grazing in the Outback. If you were to say "Prides Crossing railway station", I would assume that the station is in a Commonwealth country or the Republic of Ireland. If you were to say "Prides Crossing railroad station", I would assume that it's in the USA, but wouldn't know where. If you were to say "Prides Crossing (MBTA station)", I would probably google or wikipedia search "MBTA", in which case the search would come up with "Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority". I guess that means my line of reasoning supports the current convention for naming articles about US railroad stations, right? Bahnfrend (talk) 04:37, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong. Why do train station article titles need to make it absolutely clear to everyone what the subject is, where it is located, which company is operating it, and so on? That's what the article is for. We don't have "explanatory" article titles for other subjects. And if your title is so explanatory that you first have to search what the abbreviation in the disambiguation stands for, then what is the actuakl use or benefit? You can just read the article to find out what it is about, instead of Wikipedia searching for MBTA first. "Prides Crossing (MBTA Station)" to me sounds like some Transfer station (waste management), not a train station. Anyway, you argue "If you were to say "Prides Crossing railroad station", I would assume that it's in the USA, but wouldn't know where." So what? Why does the article title need to give an obscure reference to the state the station is in? Note that e.g. Haverhill (Amtrak station) also doesn't indicate where in the USA it is, so the system doesn't work anyway. Fram (talk) 07:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Amtrak stations only exist in the USA. The stations they serve in Canada tend to be owned by VIA Rail. So Haverhill (Amtrak station) can't exist anywhere else. A station with a name like "Prides Crossing" makes me think of some station in a field in the midwest, where the cows graze, or used to graze in front of a railroad junction or former railroad junction. -------User:DanTD (talk) 11:43, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So? Bahnfrend argues that "MBTA" has to be added, or else he or she won't know where in the USA the station is located. For Amtrak stations, this doesn't seem to be a problem though. Seems a bit bizarre. That the name of a station makes you think of the midwest, or a Picasso painting, or a film noir, or whatever else you want to see in it, is not a reason to change the name of the article. The same argument applies to every other article on Wikipedia. I wonder whether everybody who passes this station also believes they are in the midwets though: File:MBTApridescrossing6.jpg. It's good enough for the station, but not good enouigh for Wikipedia apprently. I still haven't gotten any explanation why train stations need to be treated differently than all other articles on Wikipedia, apart from the reason that you suddenly get confused when the actual name of a station is used as the title of the article on that station. Fram (talk) 11:59, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would have thought that Haverhill (Amtrak station) should be named Haverhill, Massachusetts (Amtrak station) to match the name of the article about the place where it is located (ie Haverhill, Massachusetts). Bahnfrend (talk) 13:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That would really only work if there were other Haverhill Amtrak stations. This is why we have Ashland, Kentucky (Amtrak station) and Ashland, Virginia (Amtrak station). ---------User:DanTD (talk) 13:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't that be Haverhill, Massachusetts (Amtrak and MBTA station) instead? After all, it is a station for both... Seriously, this is way too detailed. Wikipedia:Article titles is policy: any reason why it can't be followed? Specifically the section "Precision and disambiguation" applies here, with things like "when a more detailed title is necessary to distinguish an article topic from another, use only as much additional detail as necessary."; so if there is only one station article with a particular name, adding "station" (or railroad station or whatever) is sufficient: adding a parenthetical company name is overkill, and so goes against policy. Fram (talk) 14:07, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That is one thing that has been standardized on - when multiple agencies serve a station, the parenthetical is the owner. See Providence (Amtrak station) for another example. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 15:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There happens to be an example Fram is talking about with Ardmore (SEPTA and Amtrak station). Part of the reason for that seems to be the service of both systems, and the other part looks like the dab with Ardmore, Oklahoma (Amtrak station). I once tried to suggest renaming Old Saybrook (Amtrak station) as Old Saybrook (Shore Line East station), but other editors said I should only do it if CDOT owns the station. -------User:DanTD (talk)

Old Saybrook railway station is the obvious solution. And how about Old Town Transit Center (MTS Transit Center)? That is one of the most redundant and silly titles! It is only one transit center, there is no need for disambiguation or clarity and Old Town Transit Center is the common name. Sw2nd (talk) 17:31, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Silly? Because without that parenthical I'd think it dated back to the days of the San Diego Electric Railway or something like that. And I'll stick with the current name for Old Saybrook for the time being. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 01:53, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Who said Old Saybrook was silly? Read it again. Secondarywaltz (talk) 15:09, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I never suggested that anyone said "Old Saybrook" was silly. You suggested that "Old Town Transit Center (MTS Transit Center)" was silly, and I was trying to explain why it isn't. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 20:46, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course "Transit Center (Transit Center)" is silly! If you need some form of disambiguation, that is not it. Just "Old Town Transit Center (MTS)" would have done, or even "Old Town (MTS Transit Center)" if you're attached to that structure . Secondarywaltz (talk) 21:57, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, "MTS" makes a little more sense. Even your second alternative isn't so bad. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 01:15, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This was so obvious to me that I realized I was not explaining myself properly. Thanks. Secondarywaltz (talk) 16:55, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. And while we're at it, I think I like "Old Town (MTS Transit Center)" better. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 21:05, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

... and here there's a whole lot more of them. Secondarywaltz (talk) 21:16, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Penrose railway station

moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2012, 2#Penrose railway station

We have articles at Penrose railway station and Penrose Railway Station currently, each describing different stations. They need to be more clearly named; does this project have a standard convention for disambiguating similarly named stations? - TB (talk) 13:10, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mmm .. a few more like this also:

- TB (talk) 13:26, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I've placed a {{about}} hatnote on those articles, except the last two which were duplicate articles. Edgepedia (talk) 16:33, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To return to the original q: if only there were a standard naming convention, we could avoid lengthy threads like #Parentheticals again above. There are a few conventions on a per-country or per-system scope (e.g. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations)), but no general guideline. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay ta - question answered, there is no convention. That would explain why I failed to find any pattern to follow when trying to fix these. I'll fix any further duplicates I come across per Edgepedia's lead and standardisation can wait for a future date. Cheers. - TB (talk) 18:19, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Station naming convention

Copied from Talk:Edmonton Light Rail Transit#Station naming convention

Talk:Edmonton Light Rail Transit/Station naming convention

Station names being messed up again

moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Archive: 2013#Station names being messed up again

Once again, some editor, and sadly an administrator has decided to trash the naming convention for stations, this time it's the Jacksonville Transportation Authority's JTA Skyway stations. I've tried to explain the reason for the naming convention, but this person refuses to budge. And to make matters worse, the slasher of Sacramento RT and Max Light Rail stations has joined up. -------User:DanTD (talk) 18:57, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This keeps coming up because preemptive parenthetical disambiguation makes no sense and doesn't follow the rest of the encyclopedia's practices. TWP has failed to articulate a reasonable alternative for US articles. The result of course is something worse--naming things "X Station" or "X Railroad Station" or "The Local Worthy Potentate Transportation Center." I've done with this issue, frankly, having repeatedly proposed that US articles follow the rest of the world, only to be shouted down. This project never agreed an actual standard in writing as a policy. Rather, we've let convention continue even though that convention flies in the face of core naming policies. This is a good opportunity to actually discuss and implement that standard. Mackensen (talk) 19:17, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Station naming (again)

moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains

I've had a quick check through the archives, and I've noticed that the subject of station naming has popped up numerous times. I was just wondering whether someone could explain why this WikiProject has been unable to decide on a standard for naming stations. The discrepancy that attracted my attention was the naming of Thai railway station articles (Ayutthaya Station, Yommarat Halt and Hua Lamphong Railway Station). I don't know whether to rename the two articles 'X Railway Station', to bring it line with the rest of Thai stations, to leave them as they are (because there is no standard convention) or to rename all the stations in the region 'X railway station' as is the standard with UK railway stations (which I have previously worked on). Either way, surely it's time that we agreed on a global standard? I can't see a reason why stations should have a different format depending on their country.

Here are another two instances that I noticed while going through the archives: #Penrose railway station, #Station names being messed up again. Jr8825 • Talk 04:34, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The only thing that is clear is that there has never really been a consensus applicable to the whole world. A large part of the reason for this is that (a) the word "station" does not unambiguously refer in all forms of English to a station for rail traffic, and (b) the word "railway" has a different meaning in North America from its meaning in other parts of the English speaking world. In relation to Thailand in particular, I would suggest that you be guided by how the stations are named in the Thai language. For example, if stations are generally named the Thai equivalent of "Foo Railway Station" with the latter two words being part of the Thai equivalent of the station's proper name (assuming that there is such a thing in Thai as a proper name), then naming the articles in that form would seem to be appropriate. Otherwise, the most common formulation appears to be "Foo railway station". While it is desirable that the naming format be uniform at least for a particular country, that is not essential, especially if there is no uniform system of naming the actual stations in that country. Bahnfrend (talk) 05:16, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the response, I've gone ahead and renamed the articles to the format of 'X Railway Station' for consistency with how other Thai railway stations are currently named. I don't speak Thai myself, but I'll see if I can find out how the stations are referred to in Thai. If necessary, I can later move them appropriately. Jr8825 • Talk 14:48, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of a global standard, there has never been a consensus that one is desirable and there may even be consensus that one is not desirable. Each system should have a naming convention that is consistent and within a country they generally shouldn't be too divergent, but beyond that as there is no consistency in the real world there is no benefit to attempting to institute a global standard on Wikipedia. Redirects are a Good Thing though. Thryduulf (talk) 20:08, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Las Vegas (Amtrak station)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)

Does anyone else think that Las Vegas (Amtrak station) is misleading or confusing? I think this may be in compliance with the naming conventions, unless you want to argue that Las Vegas, New Mexico (Amtrak station) is correct. Note that Amtrack does service Las Vegas, Nevada via bus from the nearest rail line with a stop. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:47, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Confusing and misleading, yes. Also unnatural. Why not Las Vegas, New Mexico, Amtrak station; or Las Vegas Amtrak station, New Mexico as some seem to prefer? Dicklyon (talk) 19:11, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest also suggest Las Vegas, New Mexico Amtrak Station.--Labattblueboy (talk) 22:24, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Or perhaps: Amtrack Station (Las Vegas, New Mexico). Blueboar (talk) 01:51, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - No, "Las Vegas" is the name of the station, not a geographical reference, so the naming convention does not apply here. This specific station is also not called "Amtrak Station", so Blueboar's suggestion is not the appropriate title for the article. —sroc 💬 04:53, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it Las Vegas (Amtrak station) but Las Vegas Union Pacific Station? It's called "Las Vegas Amtrak station" in the lead, but is it really just called "Las Vegas station"? I'm also annoyed that the article doesn't use the word "train" once and presumes that the reader—who may not be American(!)—knows that Amtrak (which is not wikilinked either) is a rail operator. —sroc 💬 04:42, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note that "Las Vegas" is the name of the railway station, not a geographical reference, although the two happen to coincide. In any case, there is form for others:

but:

—sroc 💬 04:50, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And most of those use the "natural" (non-parenthetical) form "X Amtrak station" in their leads. Should do that here, too; or just Las Vegas station, since it existed long before Amtrak. Dicklyon (talk) 07:52, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've reviewed Category:Railway stations opened in 1899, Category:GO Transit railway stations, Category:Railway stations in Adelaide, Category:Railway stations in Melbourne, Category:Railway stations in New Zealand, Category:Rail transport stations in London fare zone 1, Category:MTR stations, and found there's a lot of variation between:

Name railway station
Name railway station, City
Name Railway Station
Name Railway Station, City

Name Station
Name Station (City)
Name (Operator station)
Name Operator Station

Name tube station

Pity there's such needless inconsistency, even within each rail network. —sroc 💬 09:45, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the differences may go back to the common name. The question that started this discussion is for a station with the common name of Las Vegas so either 'Las Vegas (disambiguation)' or 'Las Vegas, disambiguation' would be the natural way to disambiguate. There does not appear to be anything at Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Manual of style about this. I'll leave a pointer at the project talk page. But if there is no guidance by the project, then there may well be a lack of standardization. The question then would be, is that good or bad? Vegaswikian (talk) 02:42, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And in many cases the caps come in just because they were capitalized in a title or list somewhere, or because an editor didn't know about our titles being in sentence case, not because they are proper names. Many of those should be fixed. Dicklyon (talk) 03:08, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The United Kingdom ones in those cats should conform to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations); similarly, those in Poland should conform to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (stations in Poland). I am not aware of similar pages for other geographic areas, although there are de facto conventions for some areas or systems (the USA is notoriously inconsistent). The document Wikipedia:Naming conventions (stations), being somewhat less than comprehensive and also being marked {{historical}}, tends to be ignored. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:40, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just from skimming the “Amtrak stations in …” categories (so if anyone’s done more extensive research, take mine with a grain of salt), “[Name] (Amtrak station)” does appear to be a common convention. But since any use of Las Vegas not referring to the one in Nevada is confusing, the title should probably have the state name in it. I vote “Las Vegas, Nevada (Amtrak station)”, per e.g. Washington, Missouri (Amtrak station). However, I would be for an effort to remove parentheses from “(Amtrak station)” in all such names. —Frungi (talk) 05:41, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Except that the one in Nevada is kind of correctly named per your suggestion since it is at Las Vegas Union Pacific Station except for the state. So are you suggesting that be moved to Las Vegas, Nevada Union Pacific Station? I think there would be some opposition to that since it is not the correct name. Now, Las Vegas Union Pacific Station (Nevada) would work if it needs renaming. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:19, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The one in Nevada is the opposite of “not referring to the one in Nevada”.

Sorry if I was confusing; I meant that when “Las Vegas” is used to refer to anything but the primary topic of Las Vegas, Nevada—if it’s used without qualification to refer to Las Vegas, New Mexico—it’s confusing, since “Las Vegas” alone almost invariably refers to the city notorious for gambling. —Frungi (talk) 06:53, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with the simple (and most commonly used form in Wikipedai) Las Vegas railway station? Useddenim (talk) 12:50, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine by me --Redrose64 (talk) 14:04, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To disambiguate from Las Vegas Union Pacific Station, unless either one is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "Las Vegas railway station", shouldn't this be Las Vegas railway station (Amtrak)? —sroc 💬 23:24, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware of any station that uses both “railway station” and a disambiguation “(Amtrak)”. Useddenim (talk) 00:30, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I might be wrong, but surely the U.P. station is no longer in use for railroad purposes? If so, and if the Amtrak station is the only large station in Las Vegas which is both open and named simply Las Vegas, then following the UK lead, the Amtrak station gets the undisambiguated name (Las Vegas railway station), those that are closed get a suitable dab (Las Vegas (Union Pacific) railway station or Las Vegas railway station (Union Pacific), etc.) --Redrose64 (talk) 08:33, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You need to use care with Las Vegas. On the proposed high speed rail service, one company is proposing that the Las Vegas station be located in North Las Vegas, Nevada and another company is planning to locate in Enterprise, Nevada or Paradise, Nevada. All of those places are commonly know as Las Vegas and are not in the city. Even if there is a primary topic, Vegas in Nevada is inherently ambiguous. So for these cases, we would have a station named Las Vegas in Nevada that would not be located in the city of Las Vegas. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:55, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think this discussion is becoming a little esoteric. Following the UK lead, the current Amtrak station should be Las Vegas railway station, the old UP station Las Vegas (Union Pacific), and the proposed suburban station Las Vegas (high speed). (Which, not coincidentally, also follows the de facto standard of having suburban/commuter/rapid transit system stations DAB'd in parentheses.) Useddenim (talk) 12:52, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't that be Las Vegas Union Pacific station and Las Vegas high speed railway station? It's not the city of Las Vegas that's "high speed"! (Or is it?) —sroc 💬 01:21, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After re-checking, it should be Las Vegas (UP) railway station and Las Vegas (high speed). (And the last time I was in Vegas it did strike me as rather "high speed"! Useddenim (talk) 03:33, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Surely you jest. What did you check to get those strange results? Dicklyon (talk) 04:42, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No jest. Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (UK stations), Template:Stnlnk and Template talk:Stnlnk plus some side excursions. Useddenim (talk) 11:55, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And while they may provide some input, the UK guidelines don't apply to the US. In this case, probably for good reason. As to Template:Stnlnk, I'm at a loss to see how that applies to your examples given that there is a see also for Amtrak which shows {{Amtrak|Baltimore}} expands to [[Baltimore (Amtrak station)|Baltimore]]. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:09, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

MUNI Metro, Sacramento RT, and MAX Light Rail

I've already brought up my reasons for keeping the qualifiers attached to the station names of Sacramento RT stations and MAX Light Rail stations. But now I stand by that naming convention even moreso since my recent experience with looking up Muni Metro stations in San Francisco. A recent check of WP:Trains Assessments included "Broad and Plymouth," which I thought was some old railroad in England until I realized it was a MUNI Metro stop. So naturally, I propose adding the name XXXX (MUNI Metro station) to many of these. For those that are owned by other transit agencies (BART, Caltrain, etc.), I'm open for suggestions, although I'm leaning towards using the names of the owners of those. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 16:22, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Train stations & subway stations and precision

The discussions at Wikipedia talk:Article titles are continuing there. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:37, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

LRT stations

Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains#LRT stations.

New Zealand Railway Stations

New Zealand Railway Stations are generally all capitalised eg Wellington Railway Station; except for current Auckland Train Stations which should be all capitalised in the format Avondale Road Train Station (though some are still "Railway Station", and with the exception of Britomart Transport Centre). See Wikiproject NZR/Manual of Style Hugo999 (talk) 10:39, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, that's not how NZ railways station articles are named, even if it is a de jure rule. In practice, about 95% of New Zealand railway stations have generally only the place name capitalised (e.g., Wellington railway station) with the exception of Britomart Transport Centre). Grutness...wha? 02:02, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Naming convention for railway stations in India

As like for railway stations in UK and Poland, is there any naming convention exist for railway stations in India? One common guideline followed was "XXXXX railway station", i.e., Name of the railway station suffixed by "railway station" in lower case. What about junction stations in India? Earlier there was a similar issue raised at India notice board and ended without a clear consensus, which resulted in existence of ambiguity of such pages. Articles on junction stations in India either has "XXXXX railway station" or "XXXXX Junction railway station"? In such cases, while editing or moving difference of opinion erupts between article creators of primary/major contributor of the article, as there exist no specific guideline(s) on relevant project page. How should they be named? If any guideline framed it'll helpful. --βα£α(ᶀᶅᶖᵵᵶ)^(Support) 19:57, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't think so. The Indian stations are kinda messy; some article titles omit any words like "railway" or "station" and so the article title is simply the name of the station - which is probably also the name of the locality. Check out the links in e.g. {{Top 100 booking stations of Indian Railways}} - many go to an article about the station, others to an article on the town. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:17, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I understood the issue. Thats really a one big issue am addressing slowly. IMO, they shouldn't be wikilinked. I faced such issue while creating route template diagrams for Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Though RDT guideline suggests use of wikilinking towns in absence of railway station article, i never attempted so. Also I removed some categories like "Category:Railway stations in Ernakulam district" and similar sub-category from many Town (Geography) articles, most of them from Kerala-related articles so far. Am doing such clean up in the mean time of my edits. But another major issue is use/omission of the word "Junction" for Junction stations. Without any such guidelines for improvement, editing on Indian railway articles is like riding on traffic-less freeway. --βα£α(ᶀᶅᶖᵵᵶ)^(Support) 21:58, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What do the railway timetables call such stations? If it’s “XXX Junction railway station”, then that’s what the article should be named, with a redirect from “XXX railway station”. On the other hand, if the timetables use “XXX railway station” then the redirect should be at “XXX Junction railway station”. (But this is only my 2¢ worth.) Useddenim (talk) 12:59, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

These stations names are written as only the city names outside the railway station and at the platform it is another name like junction. But whatever it is the above user is correct. According to Indian railway official sites for reservation whatever the name is it should be followed that is the only solution. Even I changed many names of pages with this confusion.--Vin09 (talk) 16:55, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My say in the matter is that if Indian railway website & station images show the same name as in Mathura Junction railway station, the article should be Mathura Junction railway station. The problem arises when the Railway website shows one name & images of the station show different versions like Delhi Junction railway station shows up as just Delhi. But i would go for what the website says as that is what is printed on the tickets as well. Superfast1111 (talk) 17:44, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The junction/Junction problem is likeliest in countries where many towns and villages were founded at railway stations after the railway came and so were named after their railway stations. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:22, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so let's prefer this site Indianrail which is the official site and what I want convey is not just one or two, all the station names should be unique so as to wiki link in other pages or remove confusion in naming.--Vin09 (talk) 04:32, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Superfast1111. The official website is probably the most reliable source when it comes to identifying the official name of a railway station. I also agree that "railway station" should then be added - the word "Junction" is ambiguous (it could be a reference to a road junction), and so is the word "station" (which has a variety of meanings, depending in part upon which variety of English one is using). Bahnfrend (talk) 02:22, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My personal opinion is that the naming should just have the name of the station, say Mumbai Central, Coimbatore Junction, Ahmedabad Junction. In cases like Delhi, or New Delhi, we can go for New Delhi (railway station), or Delhi (railway station). --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 13:21, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Or we can use the British railway station naming convention for consistency, e.g. Mumbai Central railway station, Delhi railway station, Ahmedabad Junction railway station, etc. (in essence, what is being used right now). If there are multiple names for a station at a railway junction, and if the railway station came first, it can have "Junction" in the station name, e.g. Ahmedabad Junction railway station; otherwise, it can take the town name, like Ahmedabad railway station. Epicgenius (talk) 14:03, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with Rsrikanth05 on his naming plan. In particular,if you look at Mumbai, then the suburb's are having the same name as the railway station they are served by.

Confusion arises when you encounter articles of Delhi Junction railway station which is what is present on platform & station boards while technically being called Delhi by Indian Railways. If i were to just say Delhi then i will wind up a very long distance from the railway station. It may be called Delhi railway station. Nagpur railway station which is the correct name shows up as Nagpur Junction on the station board but Nagpur on the platform board.

I agree with Epicgenius & let us look at the website of Indian Railways as the final word on what an article should be called as that is what is printed on railway tickets.

Superfast1111 (talk) 10:39, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Superfast1111, I never asked you to agree with my opinion. I was asked to state it, and I stated it. Bombay and Madras stations will not face a problem. you can have Andheri (railway station) as well as Nungambakkam (railway station). The Indian Railways website mentions ONLY the name. In such cases, the format that I posted is pretty much feasible. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 18:41, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I did not mean to offend you but now it is clearer to me what you intended. However i would still prefer Andheri railway station to Andheri (railway station) & would still vote for Epicgenius's proposal. Its just that we agree to disagree, give our proposal's & move on but good to hear from you again.

Superfast1111 (talk) 04:58, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Lucknow Junction railway station

Wikipedia:Lucknow Junction railway station, created on 30 April 2011 by Twesh and moved to the present title. Lucknow Junction railway station, created on 7 June 2014 by Vin09 by move and filled by Twesh. One of the pages can be deleted, since i am apprehensive under which category can one of the pages be deleted. --βα£α(ᶀᶅᶖᵵᵶ) 12:44, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, after long discussions, most of us agreed that Junction name should be placed as the railway websites show, I don't know about which move you were asking, but take appropriate action. So its up to you which page you delete.--Vin09 (talk) 12:48, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Vin09, the issue is not about "Junction", see page histories of relevant pages. Twesh first created the article as Lucknow Junction (LJN), later i placed the suffix "railway station" and moved as Lucknow Junction railway station as it is a railway station article. Then it was moved to Lucknow railway station which was filled by Twesh. Later Twesh moved Lucknow railway station to Wikipedia:Lucknow Junction railway station, which is not a appropriate title as per common naming conventions for a railway station article. Additionally see this Category:Railway stations in Lucknow district. Hence, an appropriate page should be deleted. --βα£α(ᶀᶅᶖᵵᵶ) 13:55, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Balablitz:It's ok. Take an appropriate action. I suggest keep Lucknow Junction railway station and delete wiki one.--Vin09 (talk) 13:58, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ofcourse, though chronologically Twesh's creation should come first, but now page move of that wiki article can't be moved due to title issue. Hence i leave it to any experienced user or a sysop can take necessary action. --βα£α(ᶀᶅᶖᵵᵶ) 14:06, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Balablitz, Twesh, and Vin09: I have merged the page histories at Lucknow Junction railway station. For future ref, please note that Wikipedia: namespace is not for articles (drafts or otherwise).

Also, please do not try to give a page a different title by copying its content and pasting either the same content, or an edited version of it, into another page with a different name. This is known as a "cut-and-paste move", and it is undesirable because it splits the page history, which is legally required for attribution. Normally, you should be able to move an article yourself using the "Move" feature. This both preserves the page history intact and automatically creates a redirect from the old title to the new. If you cannot perform a particular page move yourself this way (e.g. because a page already exists at the target title), please follow the instructions at requested moves to have it moved by someone else. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:24, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Redrose64, thanks for your fruitful actions. --βα£α(ᶀᶅᶖᵵᵶ) 12:00, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese stations

There are following variations in the part of a proper name. Need consistency?

Hyphenated-Capital: Shin-Ōkubo Station, Yoyogi-Kōen Station, Keiō-Katakura Station, Keisei-Hikifune Station
Hyphenated-small: Shin-ōtsuka Station, Shijō-mae Station
Oneword: Shibakōen Station, Tōdaimae Station
Two Words: Keiō Hachiōji Station, Keisei Ueno Station

--Salatonbv (talk) 03:12, 21 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If we follow the spellings of the railway companies, we must change at least the titles with Keisei and Keiō- (see each photo):

--Salatonbv (talk) 03:43, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed some station titles of the Keiō Line according to the company's spellings [11]--Salatonbv (talk) 04:57, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So why is "Station" capitalized in these? We don't do that in other countries, so probably we should not in Japan, no? Dicklyon (talk) 03:22, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh! These Naming SNAFUS Must Stop!

Once again, a rash of "I don't like qualifiers" editors and administrators are destroying the structure of the station articles! ---------User:DanTD (talk) 05:04, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Examples please? -mattbuck (Talk) 08:33, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty much every station in Florida, Georgia (U.S. state), South Carolina, California, Washington Metro, and some others turning up lately. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 13:48, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry Dan, but station articles should fit the general public's expectations, not some difficult to understand (unless it's been explained to you). And article titles are not the place for details that belong in the body. Parentheticals are only for disambiguation where needed, not preemptively. Also, the discussion is at WT:USSTATION. oknazevad (talk) 14:05, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Those aren't "the details that belong in the body." That would be something like an Amtrak station originally being built by Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, or Santa Fe, or Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, or New York Central, or New York, New Haven and Hartford, or something like that. Speaking of which, there used to be a distinction between stations built in cities named "Burlington," and those built by the CB&Q, that were named "Burlington station." This anti-qualifier crusade has screwed that up completely! And I see that North Carolina stations are getting this mistreatment and this crusade is pushing into the New York Metropolitan area! ---------User:DanTD (talk) 18:46, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is just one entrenched editor unhappy with community consensus. Articles are simply being brought in line with standard Wikipedia practice, instead of the idiosyncratic mess it has been for years.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:37, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

More than just "one entrenched editor". USSTATIONS was quietly written and put into place without a number of opposed editors - myself included - even being aware of it, and it's being used for no-discussion moves without consensus. It breaks badly on US systems because station names are repeated across geographic areas (which is very uncommon elsewhere in the world); no amount of unilateral page moves are going to fix the 1800s planners who named everything "Arlington". Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:04, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The previous unwritten conventions were broken and unworkable. WP:USSTATION just brings these articles in line with the rest of the encyclopedia. And yes, moves to appropriate titles and the introduction of real disambiguation (hat notes, dab pages, not just inserting unnecessary parentheses behind every title) will solve the disambiguation issue.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:12, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The only people breaking it and making it unworkable are people like you, and some other administrators I won't mention at the moment (although if they're reading this, they probably know who they are.). ---------User:DanTD (talk) 20:30, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, it was a mess to the point of being nearly indecipherable to anyone outside of the group of editors enforcing the unwritten conventions. It's another example of how a walled garden of interrelated articles can cause long-lasting problems on Wikipedia.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:32, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Cuchullain: If you are going to accuse others of creating an indecipherable mess, don't create one yourself. The article which you moved to Durham railway station (England) has lost virtually all of its inward links, leaving just two which are not redirects, so they do not assist in linking from the old page name. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:43, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Incoming links can be fixed. However, placing on station at an ambiguous title without giving disambiguation to other "Durham railway stations", as it was (and now is again), leaves readers in the lurch.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:14, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Naming conventions (Oceanian stations)

Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Oceanian stations). Based on existing station naming. Useddenim (talk) 04:05, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Renaming to Bangalore City railway station

A discussion has been initiated to rename/move the page. Kindly share your views and inputs.--βα£α(ᶀᶅᶖᵵᵶ) 21:30, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Naming conventions (Canadian stations)

Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Canadian stations) for a discussion regarding "Xxx GO Station"s. AlgaeGraphix (talk) 19:13, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging the usual suspects: Colonies Chris, Dicklyon, Mackensen… AlgaeGraphix (talk) 20:54, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion is at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Canadian_stations)#Go_station_naming. Dicklyon (talk) 03:19, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]