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rail transport on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can visit the
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discussion. See also:
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United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions.
It doesn't make sense to duplicate information on two different pages with slightly different names. Besides creating some confusion.
Solar Apex (
talk) 18:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)reply
Disagree On the one hand, I agree that the pages are quite confusing in their current state as Stub or Start Class articles. I've been doing a bit of research in this area over the last several days, and it has taken a while for me to understand the gyrations of ownership which the early railroads underwent. On Cape Cod alone, the list of companies involved in railroads goes a little like this:
In 1871, the Cape Cod Railroad bought the
Plymouth and Vineyard Sound Railroad, which had been incorporated in 1861 as the Vineyard Sound Railroad Company to build a line from Buzzards Bay to Woods Hole. However, the line to Woods Hole was not completed until after the next merger...
In July 1872, the Cape Cod Railroad was merged with
Old Colony and Newport Railway to form the
Old Colony Railroad. The Cape Cod routes became known as the "Cape Cod Division" of the Old Colony Railroad.
Old Colony's massive system was essentially acquired (by 99-year lease) by the
New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (NYNH&H) in 1893. Chatham Railroad remained independent until it too was leased to NYNH&H in 1905.
NYNH&H's financial troubles caused them to bankrupt in 1935, to terminate passenger service to Provincetown in 1938, and to terminate all passenger service to Cape Cod by 1959. The lines thus became freight-only.
NYNH&H was absorbed by
Penn Central in 1969 (871 days later, Penn Central themselves went bankrupt.)
Massachusetts leased some of the lines to
Bay Colony Railroad starting in 1982.
Since 2008, the
Massachusetts Coastal Railroad has taken over operation of the state-owned freight lines on Cape Cod from the Bay Colony Railroad. Mass Coastal is the sister organization to the
Cape Cod Central Railroad, as both are wholly-owned subsidiaries of
Cape Rail Inc..
In 2012, Cape Rail Inc. was purchased by
Iowa Pacific Holdings, although it continues to operate as a separate company.
Note, however, that the present-day
Cape Cod Central Railroad, the subject of this merger proposal, is merely the
namesake of the
Cape Cod Central Railroad (1861–1868). Aside from the name, they share nothing in common – they are different companies from different eras, and they don't even share a single bit of track in common! The two pages that are the subject of this merge proposal would be the last two that I would choose to merge if I were forced to pick two out of the entire list above.
And before anyone instead suggests merging
Cape Cod Railroad with
Cape Cod Central Railroad (1861–1868), I would have to ask why we wouldn't just merge the pages of all of the dozen or so aforementioned companies together? Simply put, Because they are (or were) different companies, each with their own histories; we need not merge their articles any more than we would do away with the pages for
Standard Oil and
Humble Oil (who combined to form
Exxon), or Exxon itself, who together with
Mobil became
ExxonMobil.
I would agree that many of the RR pages need to be tightened up, in that they all seem to "leak" their individual histories into each other's pages, making it difficult to connect all of the dots into the list I created above. Groll†ech (
talk) 02:18, 9 May 2012 (UTC)reply
Here's another suggestion that I think has some merit. The name of the article should be changed to "Cape Cod Railroads" (plural) and this article would become THE article for all things related to railroads on Cape Cod. Also, a new article would then be created for the former "Cape Cod Railroad" that would only cover this one topic.
FFM784 (
talk) 20:48, 22 September 2014 (UTC)reply
Acquisitions and trackage
It's a bit unclear which pieces of track were constructed by which company, when. A chart or map would be helpful. --
Beland (
talk) 00:58, 11 July 2013 (UTC)reply
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 and the
Trains Portal.TrainsWikipedia:WikiProject TrainsTemplate:WikiProject Trainsrail transport articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the
United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions.
It doesn't make sense to duplicate information on two different pages with slightly different names. Besides creating some confusion.
Solar Apex (
talk) 18:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)reply
Disagree On the one hand, I agree that the pages are quite confusing in their current state as Stub or Start Class articles. I've been doing a bit of research in this area over the last several days, and it has taken a while for me to understand the gyrations of ownership which the early railroads underwent. On Cape Cod alone, the list of companies involved in railroads goes a little like this:
In 1871, the Cape Cod Railroad bought the
Plymouth and Vineyard Sound Railroad, which had been incorporated in 1861 as the Vineyard Sound Railroad Company to build a line from Buzzards Bay to Woods Hole. However, the line to Woods Hole was not completed until after the next merger...
In July 1872, the Cape Cod Railroad was merged with
Old Colony and Newport Railway to form the
Old Colony Railroad. The Cape Cod routes became known as the "Cape Cod Division" of the Old Colony Railroad.
Old Colony's massive system was essentially acquired (by 99-year lease) by the
New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (NYNH&H) in 1893. Chatham Railroad remained independent until it too was leased to NYNH&H in 1905.
NYNH&H's financial troubles caused them to bankrupt in 1935, to terminate passenger service to Provincetown in 1938, and to terminate all passenger service to Cape Cod by 1959. The lines thus became freight-only.
NYNH&H was absorbed by
Penn Central in 1969 (871 days later, Penn Central themselves went bankrupt.)
Massachusetts leased some of the lines to
Bay Colony Railroad starting in 1982.
Since 2008, the
Massachusetts Coastal Railroad has taken over operation of the state-owned freight lines on Cape Cod from the Bay Colony Railroad. Mass Coastal is the sister organization to the
Cape Cod Central Railroad, as both are wholly-owned subsidiaries of
Cape Rail Inc..
In 2012, Cape Rail Inc. was purchased by
Iowa Pacific Holdings, although it continues to operate as a separate company.
Note, however, that the present-day
Cape Cod Central Railroad, the subject of this merger proposal, is merely the
namesake of the
Cape Cod Central Railroad (1861–1868). Aside from the name, they share nothing in common – they are different companies from different eras, and they don't even share a single bit of track in common! The two pages that are the subject of this merge proposal would be the last two that I would choose to merge if I were forced to pick two out of the entire list above.
And before anyone instead suggests merging
Cape Cod Railroad with
Cape Cod Central Railroad (1861–1868), I would have to ask why we wouldn't just merge the pages of all of the dozen or so aforementioned companies together? Simply put, Because they are (or were) different companies, each with their own histories; we need not merge their articles any more than we would do away with the pages for
Standard Oil and
Humble Oil (who combined to form
Exxon), or Exxon itself, who together with
Mobil became
ExxonMobil.
I would agree that many of the RR pages need to be tightened up, in that they all seem to "leak" their individual histories into each other's pages, making it difficult to connect all of the dots into the list I created above. Groll†ech (
talk) 02:18, 9 May 2012 (UTC)reply
Here's another suggestion that I think has some merit. The name of the article should be changed to "Cape Cod Railroads" (plural) and this article would become THE article for all things related to railroads on Cape Cod. Also, a new article would then be created for the former "Cape Cod Railroad" that would only cover this one topic.
FFM784 (
talk) 20:48, 22 September 2014 (UTC)reply
Acquisitions and trackage
It's a bit unclear which pieces of track were constructed by which company, when. A chart or map would be helpful. --
Beland (
talk) 00:58, 11 July 2013 (UTC)reply