Talk:Transcontinental railroad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Trains, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to rail transport on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. See also: WikiProject Trains to do list |
 |
This article lacks sufficient references and/or adequate inline citations. |
| Start | This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale. (assessment comments) |
| High | This article has been rated as high-importance within the Trains WikiProject. |
SURELY....there is a date when the Canadian transcontinental railroad was finished and available for use...it stands now, as some time between 1881 and 1885--not good enough for an encyclopedia. And how about a separate entry for the United States, instead of merely a photo caption giving us May 10, 1869? HomeBuilding 207.178.98.59 (talk) 13:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
What is the name of Canada's transcontinental railway? Do we have an article on it? Wondering simply, -- Infrogmation 16:48, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)
First came the Canadian Pacific Second came the Canadian National Tabletop 10:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Are there any trans-South America or trans-Africa railroads? Rmhermen 16:14, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)
- I remember there was a British plan to build a trans-African railway, but little of it was actually built. Anyone know more? Warofdreams 16:17, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
-
- That was a plan of Cecil Rhodes to build a "Cape to Cairo" railroad which would have run from Johannesburg to Cairo. Mr Rhodes was heavily involved in exploiting the natural resources of southern Africa and wanted a quicker and easier way to get his product to European markets rather than sailing around the continent. I don't think much of the planned route got built outside of Zimbabwe (which was then called Rhodesia). slambo 15:45, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
[edit] San Diego and Arizona Railway (SD&A)
Recently, an anon editor posting from IP address 86.10.51.14 began routinely removing the following passage:
- *John D. Spreckels completed his privately-funded San Diego and Arizona Railway in 1919, thereby creating a direct link (via connection with the Southern Pacific lines) between San Diego and the Eastern United States.
After this removal was reverted several times The Proffesor left a message on my talk page regarding these previous edits. In the interim, The Proffesor has entered into a cycle of reverts over this issue with several other editors; his last edit began with
- Some consider the San Diego and Arizona Railway transcontinental...
which was reverted (properly, in my opinion) by Mdhennessey on the basis of Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words. I have since left a response on The Proffesor's talk page citing several sources that support designating the SD&A as a transcontinental railroad. Just minutes ago I reverted this same edit by The Proffesor and am asking that further discussion take place here prior to any further edits regarding this issue.
The last thing I want to see is an edit war erupt over this; any input or guidance from "outside" editors will, I am sure, be appreciated by all involved. I'd even support protecting the page, if necessary.--Lord Kinbote 06:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- I've taken some time to consider the issue before commenting here (partly to see if anyone else spoke up first). It seems to me that SD&A qualifies as a transcontinental as much as California Southern Railroad does. Both railroads were built to form connections between a longer system and the Pacific coast at San Diego, but neither of the shorter railroads got past the California-Arizona border. The other railroads on the US list here all directly connected points near or east of the Mississippi River to the Pacific and are more intuitively transcontinental; if nothing else, they all crossed the Rocky Mountains on their own rails. So it comes down to a question of qualifications. If we are going to include railroads that were built and intended to form parts of transcontinental connections, then we also need to include companies such as California Southern Railroad, Atlantic and Pacific Railroad and other subsidiary and separate companies. I'm more inclined to limit the list to companies that connected the longer distances with their own rails. However, I also think that mention should be made of these smaller companies that were intended to form parts of larger transcontinental systems; we just need to specify that these smaller railroads weren't by themselves transcontinental railroads. Slambo (Speak) 13:04, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Two "First Transcontinental Railroads"
How is it possible that the Panama Railroad is listed as the first transcontinental railroad, but the article First Transcontinental Railroad describes the whole history of the U.S. Railroad?
I suggest that the U.S. Railroad should be moved to an article entitled Second Transcontinental Railroad and that the First transcontinental railroad article redirects to the history of the Panama Railroad.
--WikiDrive 02:12, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
- This was discussed over a year ago and closed with no consensus for a move. The comments are in the archive. Slambo (Speak) 14:36, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Panama Railroad as a "Transcontinental" Railroad
The Panama Railroad as used in "transcontinental" travel between New York and San Francisco before 1869 was actually only a very small portion (between Aspinwall and Panama City) of the entire ticketed passage which was offered by the North American Steamship Company prior to the completion of the Pacific Railroad with the vast majority of the trip being made over water by steamer. I see that the contention that the Panama Railroad is a "transcontinental" railroad is derived from an entry to that effect originally made by Infrogmation on February 2, 2004, in the article Transcontinental Railroad and on December 27, 2004, by RJII (since permanently banned from editing for abuse), but neither of these contentions (or the current portion of the article still claiming that the Panama Railroad is a "transcontinental railroad") cite any references to support it. When opened on January 28, 1855, the railroad was actually referred to as the "Inter-Oceanic" railroad. Using this logic, a railroad running from Miami, FL, on the Atlantic Ocean to Tampa, FL, on the Gulf of Mexico could also be described as a "transcontinental railroad" as well which would, I think, be misleading. (Centpacrr (talk) 21:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC))
