Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Canadian stations)
 | This guideline documents an English Wikipedia naming convention. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page. |
This is a standard naming convention for transit, transport, and train stations in Canada. It is related to naming conventions for stations in other countries, including Wikipedia:Naming conventions (stations in Poland), Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations), and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (US stations).
This page was created following a February–March 2016 discussion about Canadian railway station article naming at Talk:Hinton station (Alberta). It is intended to bring Canadian stations into a generally standard format that reflects common use in Canada and local communities. It eliminates variances in station titles among different systems, which previously had distinct unwritten conventions. It also eliminates some features of some systems' previous conventions, notably preemptive disambiguation and the use of "railway station" in titles.
Naming
Generally, Canadian stations should take the form of "[NAME] station", e.g. Burrard station or Carling station, followed by parenthetical disambiguation if required. The word "station" should generally be lower case, per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization), unless it is part of a proper name where sources consistently capitalise (e.g. Montreal Central Station). If the station has a common name that doesn't include the term "station", always default to the common name per the WP:COMMONNAME policy.
Disambiguation
If a station's name is ambiguous, disambiguate it according to the disambiguation policy and guideline. Use natural disambiguation where appropriate. Otherwise add a distinguishing term in parentheses. The following options are appropriate depending on the circumstance:
- Province (e.g. Hinton station (Alberta)): This option is appropriate for stations served by intercity rail (Via Rail, Rocky Mountaineer, Royal Canadian Pacific, Amtrak, etc.), especially where the station shares the name of its city.
- City (e.g. University station (Edmonton)): This option is appropriate for larger cities, and local transit systems that are located entirely within a recognizable city, for example Calgary's CTrain, the Edmonton LRT, and Ottawa's O-Train. The city may also be appropriate when a station serves multiple systems (e.g. Waterfront station (Vancouver)), and/or there are multiple stations of the same name in one province (e.g. University station (Edmonton) and University station (Calgary)).
- System (e.g. Union station (TTC)). This is especially helpful if there is more than one station of the same name in the same locale (e.g. Ahuntsic station (AMT) and Ahuntsic station (Via Rail), both in Montreal's Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough). It is also a good option if the system is more recognizable for readers than the city, as when a major city's railway system serves outlying communities, such as greater Montreal's Metro, REM, and RTM systems, and Vancouver's SkyTrain and West Coast Express. For example, Vancouver's SkyTrain is more recognizable than the suburban city of Burnaby in distinguishing Edmonds station (SkyTrain).