This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I'm seeing an increasing number of Wikipedians interested in trains and railways, and I think it would be a good idea to start a WikiProject on the subject to coordinate our efforts, establish standards, and help each other keep track of what's going on. We'll discuss more later, but I'd like to see if we can get something started here.
I anticipate that both trains and the railway infrastructure will be on topic. Stations appear to already have their own WikiProject. Model trains are probably also appropriate. —Morven 23:23, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Some thoughts User:duncharris
Firstly, need to have a top-down structure. I honestly think List of locomotives is pretty pointless, and could potentially run into several thousand! Perhaps list of famous locomotives is better (but then who decides what is famous?)
The first level would be perhaps be by country. So USA, Australia New Zealand, (presumably this is going to gravitate towards English-speaking countries). Note however, that lines in Ireland, both in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland should be considered together since because of their common use of broad-gauge, (not any political things, its all historical). As a result, the Great Britain should be considered instead of the United Kingdom.
Secondly, to categorise everthing out there, would it be a good idea to put some boilerplate text at the top, possible {{msg:trains}} so that we can see what links here? And owuld it be possible to cross-reference with stubs?
Just a question as to the scope of this project, is this just for trains or is it including railways as well? -- Golbez 20:12, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Might it be appropriate to rename this WikiProject Rail to overcome this potential confusion? duncharris 2004-April-5 T 19:32 in UTC
What exactly should be done about the American/British railway/railroad terminology confusion on articles which are about railways in general and not just in individual countries.
Many railway related articles seem to be strange mix of both American and British railway terminology.
I dont think many people would find standardising on one countries terminology acceptable.
Anyone any ideas G-Man 18:32, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I think neutral terms should be used wherever possible like "rail line" instead of railroad/railway for example. I think I proplosed a while ago that a page should be created about British/American rail terminology G-Man 20:15, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Right then. Several secondary pages.
Firstly, rail transportation by country page, should link through to descriptions of all the systems. eventually...
rail terminology already mentioned.
Model railways because its an odd topic.
Possibly another, perhaps rail operations or rail transport operations? Duncharris 17:31, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Not sure if this is the right place to put this, but I can envision two, possibly three good subcategories for modeling: scales/gauges (could be two, since gauge is sometimes out of scale) and manufacturers/brands (also could be two, potentially). Also, I was wondering how we might pull Toy train into this. While it certainly has a lot in common with model railroading, it's not exactly the same hobby. Or does this need to be pulled in?
Thoughts or comments? -- Dave Farquhar 19:02, 31 May 2004 (UTC)
Before someone dives into splitting eveything by countries, it might be more logical to split by manufacturer: a very large number of countries' trains were built in other countries and exported there ... (and sometimes they return decades later ;-) Another option would be split by motive power (steam/diesel/gas-turbine/diesel-electric/electric-hi/electric-lo/etc). Much of it can be paralled with multiple indices of course -- VampWillow 22:11, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I merged union station into Union Station simply to eliminate confusion, and made a link from train station. Now somebody's modified train station with some terminology I'm not familiar with (interchange station). I sort of regret I did anything, so would somebody familiar with the precise terminology take a look and make sure its correct? Thanks. Mackerm 07:12, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Anyone know? Dunc_Harris| ☺ 10:44, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Hi everyone! I've been adding North American railroad information that I know or have access to, starting a few pages for various railroads and trains. The most significant page (in terms of disk space) that I've created so far is the List of named passenger trains. There are quite a few more to add as I go through my timetable collection to gather data as well as Googling around for it. I've also created a category called Named passenger trains as a subcategory of Rail transport. Some quick searching around (and creating a couple articles like 20th Century Limited and Super Chief) and we've got articles populating the new category. However, should we possibly add a further subcategory for named trains per continent?
The second item is more of a question. Under the Railway companies of the United States category, should we split out the company names for defunct companies into a Fallen flags subcategory? There aren't a whole lot of pages specific to one railroad yet, but the List of United States railroads includes a rather extensive list of fallen flags (but I noticed it was missing Green Bay & Western so I added it there and created a page for it too). It would be easier to recategorize the pages for fallen flags now than it would be after we add pages for many more of them.
Finally, what is the threshhold for the number of edits/additions to be considered a project participant? Since I've been adding so much information on American railroading, it probably won't be too long until I hit that threshhold, if I haven't surpassed it already. slambo 02:58, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Okay, here's another thought. Now that I've had some more practice adding new articles (the latest that I added tonight was Stourbridge Lion), how about a section on the project page or a subpage like maybe Wikipedia:WikiProject_Trains/Todo where we list articles that need improvement or that we want to see written? I'm thinking of something along the lines of the requested articles list, but the articles would be specific to this project. Rather than randomly adding articles, such a list could help us identify what really needs to be documented as well as provide a strategy to fill out information on the topic. Thoughts? slambo 02:08, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I've created a summary template that we can use on pages that discus specific railroads. The template itself is at Template:Railroad, and it will accept parameters for:
There are probably a few more parameters that we can put here, but this gives a quick overview of the railroad. Two examples of it in use are Wisconsin Central and Green Bay and Western. This is the first version of such a box for specific railroads, so please suggest anything else that you would want to see in such a summary box. slambo 18:30, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
I have just acquired a copy of the 1922 Locomotive Cyclopedia of American Practice, an over 1100 page book about the state of the art of locomotives and their equipment in the United States at that time. It's sort of a half-catalog, half-descriptive work - sections are clearly written by various manufacturers about their products. Being 1922, it's public domain, so it's a huge source of images for various articles.
I've already put a few up (see PRR K4s, Booster engine) but I plan to do a huge number more. It should improve our coverage of locomotive equipment, in particular.
If anyone wants me to look for an image or text about any subject likely to be covered, please ask.
I'm hunting down copies of the car builders' cyclopedia, the railroad equipment one and the streetcar one too, so we'll see if I can get those. They're not cheap, alas. —Morven 00:48, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)
There is a similar book by Aherns from about 1925; I'd also recommend using a longer boilerplate msg. Are you sure it's in the public domain? How many authors does it have? Dunc| ☺ 17:07, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I'm seeing an increasing number of Wikipedians interested in trains and railways, and I think it would be a good idea to start a WikiProject on the subject to coordinate our efforts, establish standards, and help each other keep track of what's going on. We'll discuss more later, but I'd like to see if we can get something started here.
I anticipate that both trains and the railway infrastructure will be on topic. Stations appear to already have their own WikiProject. Model trains are probably also appropriate. —Morven 23:23, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Some thoughts User:duncharris
Firstly, need to have a top-down structure. I honestly think List of locomotives is pretty pointless, and could potentially run into several thousand! Perhaps list of famous locomotives is better (but then who decides what is famous?)
The first level would be perhaps be by country. So USA, Australia New Zealand, (presumably this is going to gravitate towards English-speaking countries). Note however, that lines in Ireland, both in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland should be considered together since because of their common use of broad-gauge, (not any political things, its all historical). As a result, the Great Britain should be considered instead of the United Kingdom.
Secondly, to categorise everthing out there, would it be a good idea to put some boilerplate text at the top, possible {{msg:trains}} so that we can see what links here? And owuld it be possible to cross-reference with stubs?
Just a question as to the scope of this project, is this just for trains or is it including railways as well? -- Golbez 20:12, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Might it be appropriate to rename this WikiProject Rail to overcome this potential confusion? duncharris 2004-April-5 T 19:32 in UTC
What exactly should be done about the American/British railway/railroad terminology confusion on articles which are about railways in general and not just in individual countries.
Many railway related articles seem to be strange mix of both American and British railway terminology.
I dont think many people would find standardising on one countries terminology acceptable.
Anyone any ideas G-Man 18:32, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I think neutral terms should be used wherever possible like "rail line" instead of railroad/railway for example. I think I proplosed a while ago that a page should be created about British/American rail terminology G-Man 20:15, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Right then. Several secondary pages.
Firstly, rail transportation by country page, should link through to descriptions of all the systems. eventually...
rail terminology already mentioned.
Model railways because its an odd topic.
Possibly another, perhaps rail operations or rail transport operations? Duncharris 17:31, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Not sure if this is the right place to put this, but I can envision two, possibly three good subcategories for modeling: scales/gauges (could be two, since gauge is sometimes out of scale) and manufacturers/brands (also could be two, potentially). Also, I was wondering how we might pull Toy train into this. While it certainly has a lot in common with model railroading, it's not exactly the same hobby. Or does this need to be pulled in?
Thoughts or comments? -- Dave Farquhar 19:02, 31 May 2004 (UTC)
Before someone dives into splitting eveything by countries, it might be more logical to split by manufacturer: a very large number of countries' trains were built in other countries and exported there ... (and sometimes they return decades later ;-) Another option would be split by motive power (steam/diesel/gas-turbine/diesel-electric/electric-hi/electric-lo/etc). Much of it can be paralled with multiple indices of course -- VampWillow 22:11, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I merged union station into Union Station simply to eliminate confusion, and made a link from train station. Now somebody's modified train station with some terminology I'm not familiar with (interchange station). I sort of regret I did anything, so would somebody familiar with the precise terminology take a look and make sure its correct? Thanks. Mackerm 07:12, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Anyone know? Dunc_Harris| ☺ 10:44, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Hi everyone! I've been adding North American railroad information that I know or have access to, starting a few pages for various railroads and trains. The most significant page (in terms of disk space) that I've created so far is the List of named passenger trains. There are quite a few more to add as I go through my timetable collection to gather data as well as Googling around for it. I've also created a category called Named passenger trains as a subcategory of Rail transport. Some quick searching around (and creating a couple articles like 20th Century Limited and Super Chief) and we've got articles populating the new category. However, should we possibly add a further subcategory for named trains per continent?
The second item is more of a question. Under the Railway companies of the United States category, should we split out the company names for defunct companies into a Fallen flags subcategory? There aren't a whole lot of pages specific to one railroad yet, but the List of United States railroads includes a rather extensive list of fallen flags (but I noticed it was missing Green Bay & Western so I added it there and created a page for it too). It would be easier to recategorize the pages for fallen flags now than it would be after we add pages for many more of them.
Finally, what is the threshhold for the number of edits/additions to be considered a project participant? Since I've been adding so much information on American railroading, it probably won't be too long until I hit that threshhold, if I haven't surpassed it already. slambo 02:58, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Okay, here's another thought. Now that I've had some more practice adding new articles (the latest that I added tonight was Stourbridge Lion), how about a section on the project page or a subpage like maybe Wikipedia:WikiProject_Trains/Todo where we list articles that need improvement or that we want to see written? I'm thinking of something along the lines of the requested articles list, but the articles would be specific to this project. Rather than randomly adding articles, such a list could help us identify what really needs to be documented as well as provide a strategy to fill out information on the topic. Thoughts? slambo 02:08, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I've created a summary template that we can use on pages that discus specific railroads. The template itself is at Template:Railroad, and it will accept parameters for:
There are probably a few more parameters that we can put here, but this gives a quick overview of the railroad. Two examples of it in use are Wisconsin Central and Green Bay and Western. This is the first version of such a box for specific railroads, so please suggest anything else that you would want to see in such a summary box. slambo 18:30, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
I have just acquired a copy of the 1922 Locomotive Cyclopedia of American Practice, an over 1100 page book about the state of the art of locomotives and their equipment in the United States at that time. It's sort of a half-catalog, half-descriptive work - sections are clearly written by various manufacturers about their products. Being 1922, it's public domain, so it's a huge source of images for various articles.
I've already put a few up (see PRR K4s, Booster engine) but I plan to do a huge number more. It should improve our coverage of locomotive equipment, in particular.
If anyone wants me to look for an image or text about any subject likely to be covered, please ask.
I'm hunting down copies of the car builders' cyclopedia, the railroad equipment one and the streetcar one too, so we'll see if I can get those. They're not cheap, alas. —Morven 00:48, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)
There is a similar book by Aherns from about 1925; I'd also recommend using a longer boilerplate msg. Are you sure it's in the public domain? How many authors does it have? Dunc| ☺ 17:07, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)