Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways

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Nature of Integrated Kent Franchise

There seems to be some disagreement about the nature of the IKF. Let me nail my colours to the mast. The Integrated Kent Franchise is an amalgamation of the old South Eastern Franchise and the CTRL Domestic Services. For the purposes of accuracy on the succession box, I believe it is fair to treat the CTRL-DS as a franchise itself that simply did not run any trains. Is this fair, or am I talking out of somewhere unpleasant? Hammersfan 31/10/07, 13.19 GMT

I'd weakly support that - it's a bit of a messy solution but anything else would be even messier. — iridescent 13:22, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm looking at it as Southeastern aren't operating the same franchise as their predecessors, and so this has to be reflected. Hammersfan 31/10/07, 13.25 GMT
Kent is such a mess of repeated changes - and that's without even counting the CTRL and any forthcoming London Overground wanderings onto the Kent routes - that your "year zero" approach is the only workable answer that I can see. — iridescent 13:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell, the IKF is a direct replacement for the South Eastern/Southeastern franchise, with the CTRL services integrated into it. (Possible a few services on the boundary have been added or removed, I can't remember the details.) Consequently the IKF only has one direct predecessor to be displayed on the succession box.
However, this is yet another reason why I think succession boxes are a nuisance on the TOC pages. If the original franchises that were let at privatisation had been stuck to rigidly (and not only that, were clearly distinct from the companies operating them), it would be different. But no refranchising I can think of (except GNER) has been re-let directly without some major reorganisation being done, which makes for mayhem when an operator's "predecessor" (or "successor") are attempted to be described in something as succinct as a succession box. Complicated situations should be described properly in the text of articles, not in succession boxes. --RFBailey 00:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
All too often, I see authors carping on about including more and more details in infoboxes, navboxes, succession boxes, diagrams, charts, timelines, etc.; forgetting that when you've already got enough detail in these elements, there's this little thing filling the gaps between them you can use - it's called an "article" :o). The above point makes sense - while it may be useful to put basics into a succession box saying that (e.g.) First Great Western have inherited some services from Thames and Wessex and passed some over to Arriva, (brief) details of the franchise changes that brought about the current situation can and should go in the article body. Since it would indeed appear that IKF is basically the previous Kent routes with CTRL domestics thrown in for good measure, it makes the most sense to treat it as being the successor to the previous Kent franchise but with a new line added, which is precisely what it is, as opposed to treating the CTRL-DS as some separate unit which got merged with the old Kent franchise. In particular, AFAICT we aren't doing the same thing over the changeover of the EPS itself into St. Pancras. 85.92.190.81 17:13, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SR type casing

See SR multiple unit numbering and classification

Is there a particular reason why these are in mixed-case? It seems more logical to me that they should be capitalized, being as they are abbreviations of other words rather than words themselves, e.g. CIG being C for Corridor and IG being the SR telegraph code for Brighton (Or Something™), and REP being R for Restaurant and EP representing EP brakes, etc. 85.92.190.81 18:11, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Project homepage redesign

I've created a draft for a redesigned main page of the project. It would involve moving the templates, categories and members lists to their own subpages. I hope that this will help the main page become clear and more concise. I would appreciate all comments, opinions and suggestions.

The draft can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Railways/Draft. Feel free to edit it.

Thanks, --Jorvik 20:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good so far. Some minor changes needed and maybe sections on GA and FA? Simply south 21:02, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've added GA and FA as well as FL under the heading Assessment. As for the minor changes, go ahead and chnage them! --Jorvik 13:32, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think lists should be put on their own page? Simply south 20:17, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there's no real need for them to be on the main project page. --Jorvik 21:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I know it's been discussed before but I think the "Adopt an article" should be dropped; it's virtually moribund, and has the potential to encourage a WP:OWN attitude ("I wrote Hammersmith and Chiswick branch, how dare you change it without consulting with me when I'm clearly listed as its adopter..."). For articles with primary editors it should be pretty obvious from the history & talk pages who's done the work on them. — iridescent 21:36, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with that. I never really took off anyway, with only one name added. I've removed this, as well as the lists from the draft. --Jorvik 18:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have been bold and implemented the new design, as there were no objections to it. --Jorvik 19:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Franchise changes

Discussion copied from Geof Sheppard's talk page for information...

Please can you leave them, its only 5 days and there are so many about, think it would be easier to leave them Mark999 14:19, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The WikiProject UK Railways has always followed the WP:CRYSTAL process of not including future events unless they are notable, hence it is okay to create a page for a new franchise when it is awarded, but this information is not put into the station link boxes of individual station articles until the actual change. With the Virgin CrossCountry franchise changing to Arriva on 11 November 2007, that is when the changes should be made. Newquay railway station in particular does not need to change so early as Ariva does not Arrive there until next summer.
Similarly, I notice that the planned december changes to the First Great Western local services pattern around Bristol have started to appear. (Groan! I thought they had settled that last year!). IMHO this just confuses the station link boxes. Remember, Wikipedia is not a timetable Geof Sheppard 09:01, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quick strawpoll

I've been reviewing some of my old railway articles and am coming to think that merging the three separate articles on the three Cromer railway stations (Cromer railway station, Cromer High railway station and Cromer Links Halt railway station) into a single article makes more sense given that only one of the three is still open and has taken on the business of all three; this would save the content-forking of the Other stations in Cromer section. Does anyone have any strong feelings for/against this? (I don't propose to do it anywhere like Gainsborough which still has two stations open, or Leicester where the closed stations have enough material that a merge would be very messy and make the articles overly long.) It seems that Cromer Links, in particular, is doomed to be a perma-stub as a stand-alone page, and even the fairly substantial Cromer High could just as well be served as a section on the current station; if anyone did feel the urge to expand either closed station, they could always be separated back out again. — iridescent 17:14, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No strong feelings either way, provide it is not used as a blanket precedent elsewhere. Other people have merged groups of stations, such as Disused railway stations (Bristol to Exeter Line), but I'm not sure whether that is universally applicable either.Pyrotec 18:06, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The reason I'm asking rather than just doing it, is because the three stations were on different lines so it's not as straightforward as the "single article on a disused line" precedents & I'm not sure it's been done before — iridescent 20:23, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have just added the merge tags. Simply south 20:26, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See also:here. Simply south 20:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Railway crash articles and synopsis

I'm at present working my way through the lists of crashes on List of rail accidents in the United Kingdom (in an attempt to make them more concise in their reading) and it's occurred to me that, although not technically biographies many of the articles or synopsis could pose the same issues that are raised in Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons as some of those directly involved could still be alive - although most facts are taken from official reports etc, so the facts are not in doubt, there is still the possibility of 'sloppy wording' that could cause miss interpretation and thus controversial, contentious or even libellous content. Perhaps we need a simular template as to the "WPBiography" template as used on biographies of living persons, any thoughts? SouthernElectric 23:07, 6 November 2007 (UTC) edited @ 23:20, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Franchise changeover

The franchise changeover is finally happening on November 11. For those staying up to make the changes, here are a few things to bear in mind:

What needs to be done

Just remember...

  • There is no immediate rush that all the chages be made immediatley. Make sure all changes you do are accurate, to prevent editing one page several times. Using the "show preview" button is the best way to acheive this.
  • Officially the franchsies start at 2am, but there shouldn't be any harm in edits being made before then.

I hope this advice has been useful. --Jorvik 19:53, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've used AWB to update the Birmingham area station articles, replacing Central Trains with Londom Midland (except for historical contexts) - I can carry on with other articles that link to Central Trains later. – Tivedshambo (talk) 07:53, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have done Central Citylink. Dewarw 10:20, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We can also now change many details on the new TOC's pages eg route detail etc. I have started this. Dewarw 10:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

TOC colours

Can we decide what colours for TOC templates, please? C80815 for ACC seems standard, but what others? --Quentin Smith 14:50, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

LM will either be 000000 (black) or 70BC1F (a shade of green). Is it possible to do dual colours? Or which one? Simply south 15:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So far, 008000 (green) seems to have been used for London Midland (for instance at Birmingham New Street. Have the others been used anywhere? --RFBailey 15:24, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I got the shade of green from e.g. Park Street railway station. Simply south 15:37, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I see. Which version do people prefer? It would make sense to go for a shade which resembles one used by London Midland themselves. (I don't like the black, but either of the greens would be OK by me.)
Also, for East Midlands Trains, User:Year1989 has been changing the colour to FFA500 (orange)--this seems reasonable, although some discussion of it would be nice. That leaves London Overground--what's happening there? --RFBailey 17:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Answering my own question, London Overground seems to have FF7518, another shade of orange. --RFBailey 17:49, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Orange seems to be used for East Midland's Intercity services whilst a shade of blue is used for the rest, according to the route maps on the East Midlands Train website. Simply south 17:53, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm User:Year1989. Sorry I did not disscuss this before changing East Midlands Trains infoboxes. I did not know that this page existed to talk about these matters. Orange seemed like the logical choice to me, as red could be confussed with other comapanies. Maybe a different colour for the non-mainline services would be better? Year1989 18:14, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think just one colour is fine for both. --RFBailey 22:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
London Midland use 76B41F for the shade of green on their website. If a consensus can be reached as to which shade to use, I'm happy to go through and update using AWB On the other hand, given the name, I'd like to see Crimson Lake ;-) – Tivedshambo (talk) 18:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
London Midland's colour - 76B14F - is the same as the Mersey rail wirral line colour we use, and on Liverpool Lime Street, is a bit confusing... ACBestDog and Bone 19:50, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, as far as I can tell from a small sample, the Wirral Line stations have 008800 for the shade of green on the previous/next boxes, while the bar at the top of {{Merseyrail Wirral Line}} is in 4CC417. So there shouldn't be a problem with 76B41F for London Midland. (After all, it is the colour they actually use.)
So to save confusion, I suggest we have:
London Midland: 76B41F (green)
East Midlands Trains: FFA500 (orange)
CrossCountry: C80815 (dark red)
London Overground: FF7518 (orange)
Is that OK with everyone? --RFBailey 22:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good to me. – Tivedshambo (talk) 23:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
70BC1Fvery small chance.......... :p
Anyway or would Cobalt blue (0047AB) be better for EMT? Simply south 00:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Cobolt Blue could cause confussion with other blues out there. i.e. First. Maybe blue could be used for the "Connect" services if they are going to be organised that way. Year1989 00:10, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The orange has been implemented on many station articles, while I don't believe that the blue has, so I'd rather stick to the orange. (I'll ignore the remark about the green.) --RFBailey 00:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've done an AWB run through the London Midland articles, and set the colour to 76B41F green. --RFBailey 05:12, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well done, and thanks - I'd have done the same but didn't have the opportunity to log on last night. – Tivedshambo (talk) 08:58, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Full (Updated) TOC and other railway companies\organisations Colours List

Open access, etc

Future TOCs

Heritage

  • Generic heritage - █ #000000

Defunct TOC (post privitisation)

Historic (BR era)

Historic (big four)

Historic (pre grouping)

Scotland

  • G&SWR - █ #66ba5a
  • Caledonian - █ #496799
  • “Great North of Scotland” - █ #cecece
  • “Highland lines” - █ #cecece
  • “Joint Caledonian and G&SWR” - █ #517a6a
  • “Joint NBR and Caledonian” - █ #556920
  • misc/various Scottish - █ #ffff00
  • North British Railway - █ #556920
  • North British Railway - █ #8f691e

Other

West Midlands

Glasgow

London

London Underground

Other London

Manchester Metro Link

  • “Bury-Altrincham” - █ #00ff80
  • “Eccles” - █ #0080ff

Nottingham

Sheffield

Tyne and Wear Metro

  • Green - █ #5bac26
  • Yellow - █ #fabb00

Discussion

This is an updated list that Pickle made back in September, does everyone now agree with the colours shown above? Mark999 12:45, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That is a lot of work! I would guess NXEC be some form of Dark Red, similar to GNER but perhaps we should await the rolling stock or nearer when the company changes over next month. I've also changed the title as not all of the above are TOCs. Simply south 13:41, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Pity all of these can't be centralized...Mackensen (talk) 16:47, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
0000CD #for NXEC? ACBestDog and Bone 18:34, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Any particular reason for that choice? We don't yet know what NXEC's colour scheme will be--either for the livery on the trains, their printed publicity, or their website. --RFBailey 19:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

S-rail redux

I don't want to raise a potentially ugly topic again, but if this project switched from {{rail line}} to {{s-rail}} these changes would've taken a fraction of the time. Changes like this [1] would be totally unnecessary. Now, I realize that means we don't get to inflate our edit counts any more, but I'd like to see a serious discussion of the matter. The last time (August?) this came up, the only real opposition I noted came from users who didn't want succession boxes at all...Mackensen (talk) 16:01, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I happened on Luton railway station, where there has been another silent edit-war, this one between Geoking66 (talk · contribs) [2] and Hammersfan (talk · contribs) [3]. Now, I'm going to paste the different boxes below so we can see easily what's being fought over:

Preceding station National Rail National Rail Following station
London St Pancras   East Midlands Trains
Midland Main Line 		  Bedford
Luton Airport
Parkway 		  First Capital Connect
Thameslink 		  Leagrave
Preceding station National Rail National Rail Following station
Luton Airport
Parkway 		  First Capital Connect
Thameslink 		  Leagrave
Preceding station   East Midlands Trains   Following station
Template:East Midlands Trains lines

The graphical differences should be apparent: the second shows terminus information, and locates the name of the train operating company in the header instead of the route box. I submit that a casual viewer will not notice a significant difference, except that there's more information presented.

The really important changes are internal. The second box does not, for East Midlands Trains, define the route colour locally. That's done at a central template (Template:East Midlands Trains color). The termini, the line names, the station naming pattern-this is all done centrally. Once the initial templates are created, user modification is a snap.

I want to emphasize, again, that s-rail does not induce drastic formatting changes. It does not create lots of whitespace. It's derived from rail line and is designed to simply the per-article box as much as possible, while guaranteeing uniformity of appearance and easing maintenance. As I said, I'd like a fruitful discussion of this topic. Mackensen (talk) 17:23, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(After edit conflict) The trouble is that the way {{s-rail}} works isn't necessarily well-suited to the intricacies of the British network. The biggest problem (in my view at least) is the "terminus information", i.e. the "towards" fields on the left and right: that presupposes that there is a primary destination at each end of every route. In a self-contained suburban system, like the London Underground, this works fine. In North America, with named trains (such as the Lake Shore Limited) or simple networks (like VIA's Corridor), it works fine too. However, let's consider the example of Watford Junction, which is on the West Coast Main Line, and its Virgin Trains services. In one direction, they all operate to London Euston, so saying "towards London Euston" is fine. But in the other direction, there are several destinations, including Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Manchester, Liverpool, Holyhead, Glasgow, etc. What should "towards" say there? Or should we have separate lines for each destination? Surely not. The CrossCountry network gets even more complicated.
Of course, I'm not suggesting that the {{rail line}} template system is perfect. If there is a way of suppressing the "towards" fields, then I might reconsider my position, but for the moment I remain unconvinced. --RFBailey 17:44, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, for one thing "towards" can show multiple destinations in the same box (e.g. X, Y, or Z). There's no upper limit on that either, although at some point it might become unreadable. That's certainly an argument for refraining from truly complex systems like CrossCountry. However, it's ideal for something like Silverlink, or c2c, and the two templates can sit next to each other just fine. Mackensen (talk) 17:52, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's also possible to show "abstract" destinations. For the inbound side on many Chicago L trains, it simply says "towards Loop." It could say "toward(s) destinations west" or some such, and only getting specific as lines branch off. Mackensen (talk) 17:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Having multiple "towards" would definitely be unreadable, so I don't think it's helpful to force that information to be included, like {{s-rail}} seems to do. And abstract destinations don't always make sense either: just saying "towards the north" at, say, Watford Junction isn't very helpful.
Considering the Luton example: obviously, defining the route colour centrally is the main advantage of {{s-rail}}. However, the {{s-rail}} version defines "East Midlands Trains" separately from "National Rail", which gives the impression that EMT is not part of the NR system (when of course it is). (However, this does seem to be caused by an unhappy marriage of {{s-rail}} and {{rail line}} in the same box.) The second problem is the "terminus information", that gives the impression that the route, the Midland Main Line, operates just between London and Nottingham. This is not true at all: it also has Sheffield as an equally-important destination. So, in my opinion at least, I find that the former template is much better, for now at least.
By the way, Silverlink no longer exists (as of three days ago!). --RFBailey 18:02, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, rest in peace Silverlink! First of all, I was simply reposting what was in there. Were I doing it, it would look like this:
  National Rail  
Preceding station   East Midlands Trains   Following station
Template:East Midlands Trains lines

Here, it's quite clear that EMT is part of the National Rail system. Now, the s-rail version is silent on the Midland Main Line, it's clearly dealing with just the branch. That's not how I would have done it; I'd have done this:

  National Rail  
Preceding station   East Midlands Trains   Following station
Template:East Midlands Trains lines
London-Nottingham

This makes it clear where the line sits within the greater system. Mackensen (talk) 18:12, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Taking a simple timetable like the EMT this may work, however when EMT then decide to stop London-Derby trains at Bedford, another line would be added to the table; The various calling patterns, etc as a station such as Crewe would be very messy. What added value is this given, the next station up (or down) the line that is used by the particular franchise is one thing, but multiple variations depanding on particular calling patterns............(add your own thoughts). I would follow the link to the on-line timetable.
Just because {{s-rail}} is there is no reason to use it, we could go down the line followed by an editor to add the route lines to the station Infobox. I for one would not advocate its usage. To my mind, it does not any encyclopedic content to the article; it does appear to add timetable information. --Stewart (talk) 18:57, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If the article discusses service patterns then you're well into timetable territory already. I'm not advocating s-rail for its own sake; I'm suggesting that there are very real benefits from a switch, particularly where template maintenance is concerned. If you don't show the differing calling patterns right now, then why would you start doing so with the switch over? Mackensen (talk) 19:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Virgin Cross Country

I've begun a temporary Virgin Cross Country article in my userspace at User:RFBailey/VXC. This is designed to replace the current article, now that the franchise no longer operates, and should be written from a historical perspective, covering the whole 10 years they existed. It's nowhere near ready yet, but any thoughts would be appreciated. --RFBailey 16:20, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A good start. If it's to be written from a historical perspective then you'll presumably you'd need more details on the fleet they operated throughout the franchise's lifetime, including British Rail Class 43s, British Rail Class 47s, British Rail Class 86s and so on, instead of the one they ended with? That might cause complications when it comes to detailing fleet size etc. Possibly a bit more about the DfT opting not to extend the franchise as they did with West Coast. Divy 21:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the encouragement! I was planning to include the 43s, 47s, etc. The "fleet size" in the infobox only makes sense for current TOCs--otherwise it's not clear which time period it's referring to, so that can go. --RFBailey 23:47, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Valley Lines - split?

Should the Valley Lines be split? See Talk:Valley Lines#Split? Simply south 20:41, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

London Station Info boxes!

Please can we get rid of them!!! I really think they are horrible. Mark999 13:49, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Can you tell us which infobox you mean exactly, and what the problem is? --RFBailey 14:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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