Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains

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Contents


[edit] NRHP Combo Infoboxes

I have noticed a slight problem with the {{Infobox nrhp}} combo infoboxes. When the NRHP infobox is added to the main infobox, it causes a few things to be excluded. One of which is the services. The services info is usually found on the bottom of most infoboxes however on some articles, this is still found in it's own box on the bottom of the page. If you try moving it to an infobox with NRHP info added to it, nothing will happen. If you try adding a style to the infobox, it will also be excluded. An example is found on the Selma-Smithfield (Amtrak station) article. Does anybody have any ideas on how to fix this infobox glitch? Murjax (talk) 00:31, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Fixed. With that scheme services needs its own template {{Infobox Station Services}}. Mackensen (talk) 10:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Not really. The NRHP section in Selma-Smithfield station went off-center. Plus, I just tried something like this for Farmingdale (LIRR station), and it didn't help. ----DanTD (talk) 13:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Well, the centering issue comes from the fact that the NRHP template has a default image width of 235, while Station has 300. If you specify an image width of 300 for NRHP the centering issue mostly goes away. The ultimate solution might be a wrapper template for NHRP; I'm not sure why it doesn't center. Mackensen (talk) 13:54, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
        • Well, in any case Farmingdale's services include "Full Service Ticket Machine, Daily Ticket Machine, Pedestrian Tunnel," but things like that don't show up with combined railroad-NRHP infoboxes either. Incidentally, there's a discussion on the NRHP board regarding historic railroad station infoboxes right now. ----DanTD (talk) 14:08, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
          • You have to put any text you want to go with services underneath the infobox station services template. I did Farmingdale (LIRR station). Murjax (talk) 15:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Updates coming to TrainsWikiProject banner

I finally managed to scrape some time together this week to start on updates to the {{TrainsWikiProject}} template. The bugs noted on the template's talk page are getting addressed, but more importantly, I'm working on collapsible sections for associated projects/task forces as well as for tasks that need to be done. The idea behind the collapsible sections is to keep the banner from taking up too much space when there are multiple associated projects/forces/tasks on a page; I used {{WikiProject China}} and {{WP Australia}} as models for this. The needed tasks section is not yet implemented in the test database, but I'm planning for it to work similar to the associated project/force section (you can use the UK parameters to try this out). My work in progress (which doesn't have all of the associated project/force parameters and almost none of the required task parameters yet) is at User:Slambo/TWP test 1. Praise/gripes/comments? AdThanksVance. Slambo (Speak) 14:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Good work - always nice to see a well-documented template too.
Zzrbiker (talk) 11:57, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notability guidelines?

I may very well be missing something obvious or have bad search skills, but is there any general guideline on what makes a class of locomotive, an engineer or a particular locomotive notable? I'm not sure when it's appropriate to start a new article. --Tombomp (talk) 19:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Some of this is discussed in WP:TWP/MOS, but mostly we go by the main WP:N criterion of multiple independent sources. Slambo (Speak) 19:45, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject:Chicago Area Public Transportation

I finally submitted a suggestion for a proposed Chicago Area Public Transportation WikiProject to the project council. Discuss the issue on this page. ----DanTD (talk) 23:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of NZ railfan jargon

I've tagged this as needing references improving. The UK list has been completely reworked, and the US one is about to be culled of unreferenced material. Therefore the NZ article should be treated in the same way. Time should be allowed for references to be provided, and unreference entries culled and archived after sufficient time has been given to provide references. Mjroots (talk) 13:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

As one of the main editors of the page, I'd say that this is probably going to be a little more difficult than the US and UK lists. Since New Zealand's such a small and out-of-the-way place, there isn't a huge wealth of literature on its railways. I can probably hunt down references for most of these, but some will be challenging. I particularly am not sure what to do with the more recent terms, as the vast majority of references I can access are too old - for example, the livery nicknamed "corn cob" is a 2000s development, while most of my Kiwi railway books were printed in the 1990s or earlier. In any case, I can vouch for pretty much everything on the list, and many of the terms are in my vocabulary, so hopefully some references can be found. I'll work on this over the current week. - Axver (talk) 15:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
That is why the entries that are removed from the article will go to a holding page. When a ref is found, it allows the info to be easily re-added by copy & paste, rather than having to hunt through the history. Don't panic about doing it all in a week, the UK list was allowed a month before the big cull. Are there magazines in NZ for railway enthusiasts that can be used as a ref? Mjroots (talk) 04:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, sounds good. Would a good plan be to move all unreferenced entries to a holding page at the end of June? I'd have no objections to that timeframe. There are magazines on New Zealand's railways, but I personally don't have access to them as I live in Australia nowadays and I've never been able to find them in a library that's easily accessible for me. Hopefully some of the other editors active in the NZR WikiProject can help out there; I'll go and ask them. - Axver (talk) 11:41, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
End of June sounds like a reasonable timeframe to me. Thanks for helping out here. Slambo (Speak) 13:41, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Changes to the assessment scheme proposed

For those who don't monitor the assessment discussions, there is a proposal to modify the current article assessment scheme. The options currently being vetted for change are:

  1. no changes
  2. move A class below GA class
  3. add a new C class between Start and B classes
  4. combine A and GA classes into GA/A class
  5. replace Start class with C class

Other discussions elsewhere on that talk page include a proposal to rename GA class as B+ class. The discussion linked here will close on the evening of May 25/26. Slambo (Speak) 16:10, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Great, we haven't even got around to completing the assessment of our articles, and someone goes and changes the rules!! I hope some clever person will get a "bot" to implement any required changes. Olana North (talk) 21:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The two least disruptive options (no changes or add a new C class between start and B) have the most support. In the first case, we won't need to do anything, for the second, we add a category and take a second look at the articles already in start and B classes. Slambo (Speak) 13:44, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The conclusions have been issued from the discussion referenced here. Right now, things stay the same, but there is growing consensus to add a C class article quality level. Slambo (Speak) 14:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help: Move New Page to GrandLuxeRail ???

Hi there,

I made a new page for GrandLuxe Rail Journeys, a train which used to be American Orient Express. I'm not advertising them and if you read the copy, it is certainly objective - neither flattering nor flaming. It's a real train with strong history and I'm surprised there isn't already a page for it.

I was told it was being deleted for the very strange reason that it was a redirect for an implausable type. (Hu???)

Per suggestion by RHaworth (below)I am asking someone on this project to move it to GrandLuxe Rail Journeys.

--User3232 (talk) 16:57, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ========from RHaworth===================

Since you have no contributions history, there is an inevitable suspicion that you are advertising GrandLuxe Rail. But reading your article, I have to admit that it is not seriously spammy. What I suggest you do is:

  • create the article at user:User3232/sandbox. Wikify it properly - there is masses of scope for links out to the various railroads and coachbuilders
  • leave a request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains for someone to move it to GrandLuxe Rail Journeys.

That will give it a far greater chance of surviving. (And if no-one is willing to move it, we will know it is spam!) -- RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 20:25, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Seaholme railway station, Melbourne

Article has been AfD'd. Mjroots (talk) 04:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] MLW locomotives

Tagged article List of MLW diesel locomotives for WikiProject Trains Sv1xv (talk) 06:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reminder call for collaboration

It's been a while since I mentioned this here, but at the NMRA national convention in Anaheim this coming July, I'll be presenting a clinic on the state of the Trains WikiProject since the last national convention last summer in Detroit (where I presented an introductory clinic on this WikiProject). In keeping with the wiki spirit, please take a moment to stop in at my clinic notes page and add anything that you think needs to be discussed in such a clinic.

I'm not currently planning to attend the convention next year in Connecticut (so if another editor wants to take on that clinic, I can forward any materials that are needed), but as a member of the Midwest Region's Board of Directors, I will be at the 2010 convention in Milwaukee, and I was already directly asked to present a few clinics there by the current Region president.

AdThanksVance. Slambo (Speak) 18:13, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion: Move "Wikiproject Trains" to "Wikiproject Rail Transport"

The name of this project is confusing since it obviously covers more than just the railed vehicles, which are a only small subset of railway systems, both economically and in terms of number of articles. It should correctly be named "Wikiproject Rail Transport", so that contributors who write articles on high speed rail lines, train companies, fare systems, train stations, etc. won't shy away from adding their articles here. --Cambrasa confab 10:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems unnecessary and a massive updating project to boot. Mangoe (talk) 10:59, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Let's see, I'd class myself as one interested in trains and locomotives rather than lines, companies, fare systems and stations. Despite this, I've written one article about a railway executive, one article about a speed recording device, greatly expanded two articles about railway companies, and written another article about token exchange apparatus, during which time I've only written ten articles on locomotives (my main interest) and I've only written one article about an actual train (as per the name of the project). I would have written these articles regardless of what the project was called, and to be honest I would have written the articles even if there was no Trains/Rail Transport project. I also note that the numbers of articles on railway stations seem to vastly outnumber the number of articles on railway locomotives, so I don't know that others are that discouraged by the project name.
Oh well, that's my €0.02 anyway...
Zzrbiker (talk) 12:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Strong Oppose The justification is not strong enough, and it creates unnecessary work when they are other more important things to do e.g. article assessment, bringing top/high proirity articles upto GA/FA status. When these are done, then perhaps this could be considerd. Olana North (talk) 08:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Weak Support "Rail Transport" is a more accurate term, though "Trains" is more familiar and casual. I assume User:Cambrasa is volunteering to do the work. Otherwise... --Thetrick (talk) 17:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Oppose: although "Rail Transport" is a more accurate term, "Trains" is a reasonable enough name by itself. Plus it would be a lot of work to change everything related to this project, which is already well-known among Wikipedians with its current title. --RFBailey (talk) 23:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. As RFB says it's already known by this title; also, WP:RAIL is occupied by WikiProject UK Railways who are unlikely to see any reason to move, leading to more confusion. (Before anyone asks, WP:UKR is already occupied by those pesky Ukrainians...) — iridescent 23:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GO Rail (Estonia)

I've just created an article for this company, which runs sleeper trains between Estonia and Russia. I'm quite a new member, and this is my biggest contribution so far, so if anyone wants to have a look and maybe improve it please do!!

Don't ask me why I chose this subject... I've been to Estonia last month and was browsing just now, bored on a quiet day at work, and this redlink grabbed me. Not in any way a train expert. I can't read Estonian either, so I'm sure someone that can would be able to add more, but I hope it's useful so far. I'm posting this to WP:Estonia too. — FIRE!in a crowded theatre... 16:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Mexico mystery rail with trail

Rails with trails includes a map from a reliable source, showing 2 rails with trails in New Mexico. One is the Santa Fe Rail Trail along the Santa Fe Southern Railway, but I cannot identify the other. Based on the relative positions of the dots on that map, the mystery railroad is either somewhere east of Taos, or somewhere west of Albuquerque. Help? Please respond on Talk:Rails with trails. Thanks! --Una Smith (talk) 20:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Collapsible Station Infobox

Agr brought up an interesting issue with the South Station infobox. It's too long. Now long infoboxes exist on many other articles including Pennsylvania Station (New York) and Union Station (Los Angeles). Infoboxes are an inportant part of railway station articles, but there should be an option available to collapse them. I haven't been able to figure out how to do it, so any help will be appreciated. Murjax (talk) 18:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Well, the problem (as it were) is the services: one solution is to move them back out of the infobox to the bottom of the article. The other is making the whole section collapsible. I'll think on it. Mackensen (talk) 16:31, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
    • I've always been convinced that long ones like New York's Penn Station, Union Station in LA & Chicago, and places like that really ought to have the routeboxes left out of the infoboxes and placed on the bottom of the pages, and I even think that should apply to shorter ones that have other infoboxes combined(i.e.; Railroad/NRHP). ----DanTD (talk) 19:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
      • I have to disagree with you there DanTD. If you have the services box on the bottom of the page on an article such as New York Penn Station, a reader would have to scroll all the way down just to see it. Is possible to make certain parts of the infobox, like the services, collapsible? Murjax (talk) 19:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
        • Maybe. I've switched the infobox over to using {{Infobox}} as a precursor and to make the template easier to work with. Mackensen (talk) 20:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
        • Yes, it's possible. See a working example at User:Mackensen/ff. Mackensen (talk) 20:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
          • Well I tried adding the option to collapse the infobox, but it's not appearing as an option in any of the station articles. Murjax (talk) 16:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox needed templates

Does anybody know where I can find a tag for articles that need infoboxes? Because I wanted to add one to Mt. Washington (Baltimore Light Rail station). ----DanTD (talk) 20:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I've seen similar params on some other WikiProject banners. Since I'm currently reworking our banner, I could easily add it to the update (but I don't think I'll finish the update this weekend judging by the amount of time I've actually had available to work on it in the last couple weeks). Slambo (Speak) 20:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Good, because I also tried to rename Hamburg Street Light Rail Stop into Hamburg Street (Baltimore Light Rail station), then I found out it was already redirected to Baltimore Light Rail, which I fixed. I wonder how many more of these pages are misdirected to the main BLR article. ----DanTD (talk) 23:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Notability (Places and transportation)

Just a note about the ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Notability (Places and transportation) which through the backdoor involves the notability of stations. Agathoclea (talk) 08:25, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:WP Trains fair use on TFD today

Please join the discussion. Slambo (Speak) 13:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

update - Since the only comment left in this discussion was a delete vote, it is likely that this template will be deleted. There are many images that use this template and that will need to be updated to keep them in compliance with current fair use policies. If we don't make the updates, the images themselves could be in danger of deletion. Slambo (Speak) 10:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't have the time to get involved with this, but is there scope for replacing the content of the template with words to the effect of "FUR information is in the process of being updated"? Obviously you'd need to set a time limit for this to be acceptable. Just a thought...
EdJogg (talk) 13:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
You could generally use WP:FURME to tag them as historic images, however, I'll note that a bot run by another user has been going through and tagging these for deletion as being non-compliant, so time is NOT on your side, regardless of the TfD. MBisanz talk 07:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I've updated all of the places this template was used to now include a valid fair use rationale. In the process, I found a couple instances of unauthorized use (fair use images used where they shouldn't be), and a couple that should be easily replaceable or that don't fit as neatly with the article text as we may have thought. Slambo (Speak) 23:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Cool, thanks for helping out :) MBisanz talk 07:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Templates with red links/2008-Jan-Railroads

Hi, Wikipedia:Templates with red links/2008-Jan-Railroads should be associated with this project. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:24, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Good Article

The article Everard Calthrop was recently elevated to Good Article status. How can it be added to the list on this page? --Michael Johnson (talk) 22:30, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

like this. Slambo (Speak) 10:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed move of First Transcontinental Railroad

Another editor has proposed moving First Transcontinental Railroad to First United States trancontinental railroad. Please join the discussion. Slambo (Speak) 11:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The discussion has closed with consensus against a move. Slambo (Speak) 18:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More Infobox screw-ups; East Hampton (LIRR station)

The LIRR style tag for East Hampton (LIRR station) decided all of the sudden to relocate "East" over "Hampton" and folded up the blue underline that Long Island Rail Road stations have had for nearly half a century. ----DanTD (talk) 22:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, now there are similar problems with Oyster Bay (LIRR station) and Sea Cliff (LIRR station); The titles have moved to the left sides and the blue underlines had disappeared completley. Who keeps screwing these up? ----DanTD (talk) 23:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
And it looks like you can include Greenport (LIRR station) and Farmingdale (LIRR station) as well. So far, this only seems to be affecting LIRR stations on the National Register of Historic Places. I'm going to have to check some Metro-North stations for this problem too. ----DanTD (talk) 23:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Hang on, I know why and I'll fix it. Unforeseen side-effect of the changes to {{Infobox Station}}. Mackensen (talk) 23:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Who else screws them up ;)? All for a good cause though. When I simplified Infobox Station I had to change the style handler; I forgot that the component variant of Infobox Station (needed for NRHP), also relies on styling but wasn't getting moved over yet. It should be fixed now. Mackensen (talk) 23:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, they all seem to be in halfway decent shape, so thanks a lot. ----DanTD (talk) 00:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The New Haven Line is facing this problem now

With all my talk of checking Metro-North stations, now I find the New Haven Line is facing the same problems. So are the Pascack Valley Line and Port Jervis Line. ----DanTD (talk) 22:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

  • I looked at a few random articles and didn't see any problems. Could you post an example? Mackensen (talk) 23:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comments sought on page move proposal

There currently is a discussion underway on Talk:Railroad about whether the Railroad disambiguation page should be moved and redirected to a primary topic. It would be helpful to have more editors review the page and express their views. --Russ (talk) 21:07, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Railroad now redirects to Rail transport, and the talk page redirects similarly. I see no trace of any discussion at Talk:Rail transport about Railroad as a dab page or a primary topic; did Talk:Railroad's contents get lost with the change to a redirect? If so, that needs to be remedied immediately. --Tkynerd (talk) 17:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
The page move discussion is here. The content of Railroad was moved to Railroad (disambiguation), while the target of the redirect was changed so that Railroad redirects to Rail transport. (Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger.) --RFBailey (talk) 18:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks...but unfortunately, the move discussion has already been closed. :( Oh well. I personally am inclined to agree with the move, so I'm OK with the outcome, anyway. :) --Tkynerd (talk) 00:15, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I've just had a look at the edit history for railway, which is also a redirect to rail transport. Back in April it had exactly the same content that Railroad (disambiguation) now has, except that the latter uses 'railroad' for its headings. I am sure that railway/railroad were BOTH set as redirects to rail transport to avoid the UK/US terminology issues, and recreating DAB pages just re-introduces these issues -- there isn't a 'nice' way of integrating the two terms.

Is the new page really a disambiguation page? To me it looks like just a list of links, and rather incomplete, without any further explanation. Looking at the 'See also' section on Rail transport, it would be better to link to List of rail transport topics, within which there could be a new section listing the different types of railways (sorry, railroads). Then the hat note could be:

'Railway' and 'railroad' redirect here. For specific types, see List of rail transport topics

That list page needs further work, but is sorely underused at present.

EdJogg (talk) 12:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Move of Passenger car to Passenger rail car

A relatively new editor has moved the article Passenger car to Passenger rail car and made the original location a disambiguation page. While I can understand the reasoning for such a move, it seems to me that a better destination for the article about railroad rolling stock would be Passenger car (rail) (such as we have for Coach (rail) and Stock car (rail)). Comments? Slambo (Speak) 11:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. "Rail car" is a term used to describe a self-propelled carriage (eg: Railcar, DRC railcar) in some countries, so "Passenger rail car" could create confusion. Zzrbiker (talk) 11:50, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Agree with the move and dab (when I hear "passenger car," I think first of an automobile unless I'm already talking about trains), but Passenger car (rail) is clearly better. --Tkynerd (talk) 17:53, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I've made the move to the properly disambigged name and fixed several links to the new location. Any additional help on updating links would be appreciated. Slambo (Speak) 20:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Mainspace is done. I love Wikipedia Cleaner. :) --Tkynerd (talk) 02:56, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Way cool, thanks. I've gotta try out these scripts some time. Slambo (Speak) 11:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I've finished the updates to the Portal:Trains subpages, and updated a few user sandbox pages as well. Most of the remaining links are in talk archives. Slambo (Speak) 14:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I do lots of other dab work, and I don't generally touch links on talk pages at all -- partly because I don't think it's as important, and partly because I don't like editing other people's comments. If you ask nicely I might do it :), but I'd kind of rather not. I will, though, also add this page to my list of adopted pages and keep an eye on it regularly. --Tkynerd (talk) 17:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:First Great Western color on TFD

Another editor nominated Template:First Great Western color today as unused. I looked around, but didn't see any mention of this on the various s-rail and s-line template documentation pages. If this is still needed, please join the discussion. Slambo (Speak) 12:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)