:::: I'm puzzled by the [[South African Class 34-200|34-200]] / [[EMD GT26 Series]] (probably others) Seems to have been a conventional Co-Co in other countries, but a Co+Co with the bogie interconnection link for South Africa. I can see some of the advantages to this, especially with bogie drawgear, but I'm puzzled that it wasn't also necessary for the other versions elsewhere. The 34-200 had a shortened lightweight frame and different bogies, which explains some of it, but I can't see why this seems to be such a widespread practice in South Africa, yet so unheard of outside it. [[User:Andy Dingley|Andy Dingley]] ([[User talk:Andy Dingley|talk]]) 23:16, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
:::: I'm puzzled by the [[South African Class 34-200|34-200]] / [[EMD GT26 Series]] (probably others) Seems to have been a conventional Co-Co in other countries, but a Co+Co with the bogie interconnection link for South Africa. I can see some of the advantages to this, especially with bogie drawgear, but I'm puzzled that it wasn't also necessary for the other versions elsewhere. The 34-200 had a shortened lightweight frame and different bogies, which explains some of it, but I can't see why this seems to be such a widespread practice in South Africa, yet so unheard of outside it. [[User:Andy Dingley|Andy Dingley]] ([[User talk:Andy Dingley|talk]]) 23:16, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
== DYK ==
Hi, would you mind if I nominated [[CGR 1st Class 2-6-0 1891]] for [[WP:DYK|DYK]]? Thanks, [[User:Matty.007|<span style="color: #56B404;">Mat</span>]][[User talk:Matty.007|<span style="color: #D20419;">ty</span>]]<span style="color: #800080">.</span>[[Special:Contributions/Matty.007|<span style="color: #04D2B3">007</span>]] 20:15, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
Revision as of 20:15, 22 October 2013
Welcome!
Hello, Andre Kritzinger! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! GT5162(我的对话页)15:03, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Article title: South African Railways Class NG G13
Hi, I hope this finds you well! I noticed that you moved an article to what you claim in your reasoning was the "official" title of South African Railways Class NG G13. I note from your edit record that you are new to Wikipedia, but the convention on moving established articles is to start a debate on the articles talkpage: please note this in future. On searching Google the results show that the official title is South African Railways Class NG/G13. So, before anyone comes along and moves this article again - we presently have six redirects which don't work thanks to the current move - I have started a debate on the articles talkpage on what the title should be. According to guide WP:TITLE, we don't need to name the article after the official name, but can use most popular searched for. I am also concious in this debate of other editors who have pan-wiki projects to sort locomotive articles on national basis: hence the previous inclusion of South African Railways in the title by one editor, over what seems the official SAR nomenclature for designation of locomotives. Can you please add your thoughts to this debate. If you have any questions, please leave a message on my talkpage - Thank You! Rgds, --Trident13 (talk) 13:16, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reply...
Hi, my apologies for creating chaos....
After coming across the List of South African locomotive classes and discovering that most SAR classes are listed there but with virtually nothing more than just the list itself, except for the Class NG G13/G16 and Class NG 15, Class 26 and the Class 91 Diesel, I started creating articles (in most cases really just bare bones, but with as much info as I can gather from official documentation) on the various South African locomotives to date. So far I have done the Class 1E, 3E, 4E, 15E and just now the 5E Series 1. I am planning to get all the diesels and electrics at least kicked off, and as much of steam as I have information on.
But I felt that there should be consistency in the naming of the articles, preferably in accordance with what the SAR did, hence my transgression. The creator of the SAR Class GL Garratt article will probably also be cross with me for moving it to the List of South African locomotive classes, where it was listed but not linked to the article.
Problem is, even the SAR itself was not all that consistent. Just from locomotive number plates, I've seen NGG.11 (#54), just NGG (#80), NG 15 (#147), 19D (tiny D) (#2682), 19 D (full size D) (#2683), 19.D. (#2696 & #2698), 19 D (#2701), etc.
The List of South African locomotive classes as it is now is more or less correct, except that some classes will have to be expanded on, eg Class 34 to 34-000, 34-200, 34-400, 34-600, 34-800 and 34-900. Similar to what I’ve started with the Class 5E by splitting it into the three series. The reason is different designers and builders, visual differences between models, etc. At least there I can still alter without causing chaos.
Also, with the present regular new corporate images and names (Spoornet, TFR, Shosholoza…) I used “South African” instead of “Spoornet” (when the orders were placed) or TFR (when it was commissioned) with the new Class 15E.
I've learned a LOT these past three days, and now I'll learn to use the articles talkpage too. Newbies, eh!
Hi, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. It appears that you recently tried to give SAR Class 16E a different title by copying its content and pasting either the same content, or an edited version of it, into another page with a different name. This is known as a "cut and paste move", and it is undesirable because it splits the page history, which is needed for attribution and various other purposes. Instead, the software used by Wikipedia has a feature that allows pages to be moved to a new title together with their edit history.
In most cases, once your account is four days old and has ten edits, you should be able to move an article yourself using the "Move" tab at the top of the page. This both preserves the page history intact and automatically creates a redirect from the old title to the new. If you cannot perform a particular page move yourself this way (e.g. because a page already exists at the target title), please follow the instructions at requested moves to have it moved by someone else. Also, if there are any other pages that you moved by copying and pasting, even if it was a long time ago, please list them at Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen. Thank you. VernoWhitney (talk) 02:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I know about the Move Tab from previous havoc I caused, but couldn't find it on my screen last night. (About 03:30 this morning in fact...) I see it now, though.
I see the Class 16E is fixed, albeit still with the CorenSearchBot label on it. The Class 17E page is clean but it gets redirected the wrong way round, ie from South African to SAR instead of the other way round, SAR to South African. (Think it's safe for me to try fix it...?)
Two other pages I also redirected didn't bring down the CorenSearchBot's wrath, but probably because I only created them a couple of hours earlier.
I may as well have gone with "South African" on all these locomotive pages, instead of "SAR" on the ones that were introduced in the SAR days. Makes things simpler trying to keep up with all these corporate name changes.
"South African" in lieu of "South African Railways", "Spoornet", "Transnet Freight Rail", etc
The first SA locomotive page I created was for the new Class 15E, at present being commissioned by Transnet Freight Rail. So I used "Transnet Freight Rail" in the title. I then continued with the old Class 1E, 3E and 4E and used "South African Railways" in the titles.
Then I reached the Class 5E's, commissioned by the South African Railways and still in use when SAR became Spoornet and later TFR, and some are even now still in use with Rovos Rail while others were recently sold at auction. The liveries they wear tell the story. The same with the 6E, all eleven of the 6E1 series, 7E's and so on, up to 12E. All of them are still in use, but in SAR, Spoornet, Shosholoza Meyl and TFR liveries, until some new corporate chief gets a new bright idea next week and add another new name. You can add TransNamib and Traction and Tracao and some Brazilian railroad for the diesels. Same with steam, there's some ex SAR narrow gauge locos working at Sandstone Estates in the Free State and some in Wales.
So I decided to stick with "South African" for the lot, since that covers all, even locomotives in mine service such as at Landau Colliery and with Sheltam Grindrod. The same thing happens in the private sector - Landau owners Amcoal is now Anglo Coal. For all I know, next month it'll be Billiton....
After all, the focus of the articles is on the locomotive type, not the owners.
Thank you for your recent contributions to one or more of Wikipedia's South African related articles. Given the interest you've expressed by your edits, have you considered joining the South Africa WikiProject? We are a group of editors dedicated to improving the overall quality of Wikipedia's South Africa-related content. If you would like to join, simply add your name to the list of participants.
That's some pleasant surprise! Thank you. André Kritzinger 19:09, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Slight problem with the article. A minimum of one reference per paragraph is required. Once you've done this, the article will be approved and eventually appear on the main page. Mjroots (talk) 06:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Even if it's the same reference para after para? Some were split just to make it read easier. André Kritzinger 08:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Better now? André Kritzinger 19:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
It's getting there. Manufacturers needs more refs (1 per maker). Attributes needs a ref for last para. SAR Number Plates is unreferenced. Take a look at Somerhill House, which I created today. Everything is referenced except one date, which I have temporarily marked as unreferenced pending the addition of a page from a blacklisted website to the whitelist per a request I made for that. Mjroots (talk) 20:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Manufacturers is a single para that was bulleted for easier reading and referencing each bullet seems silly. SAR number plates - the picture is actually the reference - link added. André Kritzinger 22:02, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
If you move the ref in Manufacturers to the 1st para, then it should be OK, but be prepared that another editor may still require all bulleted entries to be referenced. I'll let DYK know that the references have been addressed, and hopefully another editor will then pass it. Mjroots (talk) 22:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Did that, didn't look right, so I just replaced . with : which should make things clear. André Kritzinger 22:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Dear Andre, thank you for at last communicating! Firstly, when I created the original article, from sources added to the wikipedia Germany original at de:SAR-Klasse NGG 13, like them I concluded that there was probably insufficent difference between the two designs of NGG13 and NGG16 to make two articles. However, I felt what you had created does make some sence, particularly coming at it from your perspective of railways in South Africa. However, the differences are techincal and minute, so making two different articles is essential. The edits I made I felt made that a stronger over weaker diference: hence my reverts to your assumed distructive ditting, an edit note which appears to break WP:AGF. Thirdly, the information you included on SAR's numbering scheme and plates I was going to suggest would make good base text for a separate article on susch a subject. However, repeating the same text in both of these articles and across every other SAR loco article makes no sence. You commented that I removed the gallery, why when such code is included? For the precise reasoning that the generic pictures added little to the overall article quality above that which was available within commons. I also note in your editting style that you multi-link terms continually - please read WP:MOS as to why we don't do this. I think your additions to the wiki-project are excellent, although perhaps some of the labelling and moving of railway articles is better discussed before doing so, just so you get some help in doing it/support if someone later questions it - something that you never did when I asked you previously. Hope to chat soon, Rgds, --Trident13 (talk) 16:28, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, agreed about the SAR's numbering scheme and plates. In fact, making it a separate article has been sitting in the back of my head for a while already and it’s now a good time to do it. Point taken about multi-linking too.
The relabeling and moving of railway articles that caused “havoc” occurred on 28 August last year, three days after I really started doing anything “meaningful” as a contributor and at a stage when I was still totally clueless about the way things work on Wikipedia. And I did respond to and took heed of your reprimand back then. The one or two renamings I did subsequently, I motivated in the “discussion” pages of the articles concerned.
About WP:AGF, it becomes somewhat hard to do with editing comments like “who cares?” and a wham bang undo revision that created the impression that the editing I did do (eg removing multi-links in addition to the ones you did) wasn’t even taken note of. But then, I have days like that too….
So let me try this again. The renumbering is now removed, the number plate text is now removed, with the number plate pictures left in as ordinary illustrations.
I replaced the galleries again since, as I said before, each of those pictures were included for a reason, eg to illustrate something like a version of a locomotive, a livery, a renumbering, etc, as opposed to a picture album with no rhyme or reason to it. It is NOT “a gallery consisting of an indiscriminate collection of images of the article subject“, so I really can’t understand why you have a problem with a thumbnail illustration that is actually merely a pictorial link to another page.
Best regards, and may peace break out now.
André Kritzinger 22:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
Stellenbosch to bid for Wikimania 2012!
Hi Andre!
The nascent South African Wikimedia chapter has decided to bid to host Wikimania in Stellenbosch, South Africa in 2012. This would be the first Wikimania in South Africa, and would be a great advertisement for our country. Please take a look at meta:Wikimania_2012/Bids/Stellenbosch. If you can add to the discussion, please do. If you feel that you are able to do anything to help, please join the Wikimedia South Africa mailing list and let us know. Even simple messages of support are valued!
Hello, this is just to let you know that I have granted you the "autopatrolled" permission. This won't affect your editing, it just automatically marks any page you create as patrolled, benefiting new page patrollers. Please remember:
This permission does not give you any special status or authority
Submission of inappropriate material may lead to its removal
Thanks for the vote of confidence! André Kritzinger 10:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
DYK
Hey, you write some nice articles with some great images in them. I think they'd look great on the Main Page. Perhaps you could nominate your recent creations (the ones from the last week or so) at T:TDYK? All you need is an interesting fact that's reference in the article and the article must have at least 1500 characters of prose. Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:32, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Bushranger, tricky one, that. It's clear from photographs but I've still to find it documented in text. Can one use pictures as citations? André Kritzinger 15:48, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. There may be a way around that in WP:OR#Citing oneself. "If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person and complying with our neutrality and conflict of interest policies." These pictures have been published elsewhere as well, at http://grela.rrpicturearchives.net/ André Kritzinger 18:03, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
Cool! Thank you! André Kritzinger 11:09, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
RSA Barnstar
The South African Barnstar of National Merit
In recognition of the huge amount of quality work you have contributed to expand coverage of South Africa's rail history, I hereby award you the South African Barnstar of National Merit NJR_ZA (talk) 12:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Great stuff, I'll fiddle if necessary. Some day, when I'm done with locomotives (not likely soon....) I was planning to tackle the individual railways, so I'm pleased to see it being done already! André Kritzinger 10:37, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing that picture (image) "bug" in the infobox, I just could'nt get a handle on that one. For future reference: how did you do that? By going right back to the image file itself? Peter HornUser talk23:57, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The infobox image needs just the bare file name, without the File: and the [[ ]] bits. That's why it displayed those unnecessary characters above and below the image. André Kritzinger (talk) 00:17, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia's signature policy recommends that users put a link to their talk page and/or their user page in their signature the aid in navigation to the user's talk page. Currently your signature is just raw text, which makes it hard to navigate to your talk page. Please go to Special:Preferences and update your signatures. Thank you and happy editing! — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 03:37, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think that there should be a GE U26C article in the manner of GE U23C which will link them all together. At the very least, there should be a hatnote on the target to point to the others, or possibly use GE U26C as a dab page or expand the template to have small typeface links to each member of the class, such as:
That's what I'd actually like to see too, just didn't know how to go about setting it up. So in the meantime I inserted one of the four SA versions in there instead of the NZ one, mainly because with 299 U26Cs in total SA is probably the biggest user. Also the manner in which these locos are used on the OREX line is rather unique. Your idea sounds great so please go ahead and set it up. (I also experimented with "collapsed" to force the template to load in the collapsed mode - looks like it's working fine so far.) André Kritzinger (talk) 18:41, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure which idea. Did you mean the GE U26C article in the manner of GE U23C which will link them all together? I've just looked at the {{for}} hatnote, and realised it's not really appropriate for a redirect like this, so it really needs a GE U26C article of some sort (DAB or real), or a template change. Tim PF (talk) 19:24, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Andre, Tim - there's a already a GE U26C article in de.wikipedia. I found it when I went looking for German language articles about East African rail topics. I've also found some de.wiki articles about Rhodesian Railways Garratts as well. I'm happy to translate all of them if you wish. Bahnfrend (talk) 12:43, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Bahnfrend, but I think that the GE U23C makes a good template to link the existing ZA & NZ articles together. Once that has been done, however, the Kenya, Tanzania and Brazil (all metre gauge, or is it the Cape gaugedTAZARA?) bits could be added from the German. Regarding Brazil, the German mentions the 1600 broad gauge, but the very nice Portuguese pt:GE U26C article gives only 1000 (and 1067 for NZ & ZA), and pt:GE U23C gives 1600 in Brazil and 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) in the USA. That would tie in with the statement in the lead of NZR DX class that the General Electric U26C class [is] a narrow-gauge version of the GE U23C class.Tim PF (talk) 13:20, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Tim, I'm not sure how well you can read German. What the German article says is that the GE U26C was produced in 1,000 and 1,067 gauge, and that four of the Brazilian locos were later converted to 1,600. That's not surprising - here in Western Australia a number of different classes of loco have been converted from 1,067 to 1,435, or vice versa. It's also consistent with what the NZR DX class article says. Anyway, what I will do is create a GE U26C article in the style of the GE U23C article, using content translated from both the German and the Portugese articles. I should be able to do that within the next week. Bahnfrend (talk) 04:23, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously not as well as I thought I could. If the two classes can be converted so easily, why aren't they one class? If you happy to do it, that's fine with me, as it makes a lot more sense for someone to pick up the German info properly. Thanks. Tim PF (talk) 19:58, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That looks pretty good. One thing which I am a little confused about is that the "26" comes from the 2,600 horsepower (1,940 kW), which the South African Class 34-000 gives as the continuous power, but we just have 2050 kW given here. Then again, it looks like several versions got uprated. Tim PF (talk) 22:37, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Videos
Andre, any way we can get some of those videos under CC-BY-SA license? It would be excellent if we can upload some of the smaller ones to Wikimedia Commons. I can convert to ogg video format if required. --NJR_ZA (talk) 21:51, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Andre, I have created navigation template {{Locomotives of South Africa}} that we can add to the bottom of all those Loco Class articles. It will display as:
COOL! I've made one change: Autocollapse collapsed. The electro-diesel's 38-000 classification makes it a diesel. I'm in the process of revising the articles and will add it in as I go along. (And about to start on the tanks and garratts.) André Kritzinger (talk) 15:11, 2 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, please don't add the template en masse. It will be an excellent indicator for me to see which articles I still need to do a revision on. André Kritzinger (talk) 15:36, 2 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
With all the work you have be doing on the rail articles, Wikipedia is probably the definitive work on South African locomotives by now. Once you have satisfied that all the articles are as good as you want them you might want to have a look at compiling it all into a book.
Had look at the book a while ago but I don't like the page layout much as it is. It autoselects only one picture per article, and most times a crappy one instead of the main picture. I would prefer that the pictures are all included since I place every one for a reason.
I am busy with a mass clean-up of WP:RSAarticle assessments. During this process I am tagging most of your articles as C class though I suspect that most of them actually qualify as B class articles.
Classifying as C class is a lot faster as one can just look at the article briefly to determine it, while B class takes a lot longer as there is a 6 point checklist.
Once the mass clean-up is completed I will re-assess your articles for B class.
I saw. Suggest you do the ones that I'm "done" with first - the ones where I've added your new loco search bar. All diesels are done, about one third of the lectrics (6E1 S4) and up to Class 5 on steam. I revise them, first for the SAR-L yahoo group where I get GOOD feedback (and pictures) from people like Les Pivnic, Rollo Dickson, Trevor Staats, John Middleton, Leith Paxton and even Raimund Loubser (MM Loubser's son), and others, marked OSG revision since I also post them on the international Grumpy list (RRMSMMG - Officially Still Grumpy). Then a final SASSAR revision before I post them to a SAR train drivers group for more feedback. One per day to not overwhelm them all and make them gatvol. If they don't laugh, I'm happy with it.
This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a search with the contents of South African Class C2 4-6-4T, and it appears to be very similar to another Wikipedia page: South African Class C1 4-6-2T. It is possible that you have accidentally duplicated contents, or made an error while creating the page— you might want to look at the pages and see if that is the case. If you are intentionally trying to rename an article, please see Help:Moving a page for instructions on how to do this without copying and pasting. If you are trying to move or copy content from one article to a different one, please see Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia and be sure you have acknowledged the duplication of material in an edit summary to preserve attribution history.
It is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article. CorenSearchBot (talk) 19:09, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You were right to revert, I made an absolute mess of that one. What I tried to do was remove the overlap caused by the gallery as shown in this screenshot from my browser:
I like the stack feature, but I'm not too keen on the multiple image gallery thing and prefer the larger images. (I use "x170px" to get the pictures aligned horizontally, or smaller if there's more than two and they end up too wide for the screen.)
Still managing about two "final" edits a day, but getting slowed down a little on new articles, mostly by all the real old 1930s pictures that other train nuts are passing on every day. André Kritzinger (talk) 15:10, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is amazing to watch all the wonderful old images appearing on the SAR-L mailinglist. Your wiki articles are excellent. -- Firefishy (talk) 22:51, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's cool, I'll leave it to you then. The articles are brilliant. My dad was a driver, 5E and 6E out of Ladysmith and later for a short while 11E out of Ermelo. I still have fond memories of accompanying him on short shifts on the 6E when I was a young lad. --NJR_ZA (talk) 08:05, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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Hi, I hope that this finds you well! I reversed two of your edits today re articles tagged with gallery clean-up, because there do seem to be an excess number of images on some of the articles that you have edited. The number of similar distance shots make your edit reversal summary of the Anon edits hard to understand: "illustrating different versions" seems difficult unless close in, which most are not. I have noted that on many occasions, these are also your images - they are good, I just don't understand the need for such volume/number. I appreciate your knowledge of South African railways, but quoting WP:Gallery:
Images are typically interspersed individually throughout an article near the relevant text (see WP:MOSIMAGES). However, the use of a gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject.
Keeping well enough, thank you, apart from the "skete en kwale" that comes with getting older.
I’m well aware of the contents of WP:Gallery and, where practical, images were accordingly interspersed individually throughout the articles near the relevant text. Two factors that almost always made this impractical were, in some cases, the very sparse information that was available on some classes of locomotive and, in ALL cases, the space already taken up by the Infobox which often ended up being longer than the article itself. Pictures interspersed in the text in accordance with the policy guideline therefore resulted in a cluttered appearance, which led me to the gallery option with the pictures out of the way right at the bottom.
All pictures were selected for a reason such as to illustrate something, to show different paint schemes, to show specimens from different builders, to show the locomotive from different angles (front, left, right, etc), and were captioned appropriately. No gallery "merely consists of an indiscriminate collection of images of the article subject".
It is probably "politically incorrect" to admit that South Africa’s rich railway heritage is rapidly disappearing. Even unique locomotives such as the Red Devil regularly gets stripped of parts that end up with scrap dealers, in spite of it being staged in a "secure" location "protected" by security guards. Just last year a large number of unique heritage locomotives that were being staged for eventual cosmetic restoration were completely destroyed by scrap metal vultures. A very few items are still being preserved against virtually impossible odds by a few dedicated individuals and organisations, but with a transport executive who refers to railway preservation as "white man’s toys" and a government that would rather spend tax money for personal gain than on heritage items, it will all soon be gone and you’ll only be able to see South Africa’s heritage locomotives in places like Wales, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland.
These locomotive articles are my own small contribution to the preservation of our heritage and I’m very much afraid that in less time than you may think, it will literally be all that is left. If it ends up eventually as a collection of bare text-only pages, so be it, but I would personally prefer them to remain illustrated without a broomstick invitation to all and sundry anymouses to remove images as they see fit.
André Kritzinger 14:53, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Inviting you to WikiAfrica Incubator!
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This is an urgent call from Wikimedia South Africa. We are currently working hard on the South African side of the exciting international photographic competition, Wiki Loves Monuments [2]. We have been planning to make this national competition really take off, but to do so, we need your help! The competition starts on the 1st September, and we need your help now! If you are interested in being part of or can help the Wiki Loves Monuments national organising team, then please join here [ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012_in_South_Africa]. If you have limited time, but want to help out at an upload marathon at a heritage site near you, please then contact either Lourie [louriepieterse@yahoo.com] or Isla [islahf@africacentre.net]. We look forward to hearing from you!"
Hi Redrose, thanks. About the size of some of these articles, I agree some are big already, but all of them need some expansion wrt countries where they were used. For example, the 0-8-0 can certainly not have been limited to usage only in Austria, Germany, Russia, South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States! I must have missed the guideline about where to place it, but I felt that it would get more readers' attention right at the top. In that position it's visible when the page opens and it should get the attention of any Canadian or Australian or Kiwi or Frenchman, etc, who read the article and noticed that his/her country is absent. Will fix it tonight. André Kritzinger 13:44, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm wary of turning 0-8-0 into List of 0-8-0 locomotives by country (unless we formally did that, by creating a new article) as it's all too likely to turn into "Photo gallery of my favourite locos from my country". Some of these articles that aren't small articles are still poor articles with little real content, they're just bloated by the worst sort of train spotting. I'd agree that some of these are still stubby, but that's because they don't yet have a narrative of why the 0-8-0 existed, existed instead of the 0-10-0, and why it fell from favour to the 2-8-0. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:52, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ek het gesien jy antwoord jouself. :) André Kritzinger 20:20, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Decimal point and "," (commas) marking off thousands
Hello Andre, As far as I could see are not guilty of that but a number of European users, when translating articles into English, insist on using decimal commas and periods to mark off thousands. This gives hilarious results when using {{convert}}. I am aware of the fact that South Africa, upon metrication, opted for the decimal comma even in the English language. However the rest of the English speaking world stuck with the decimal point and {{convert}} (template:convert) works only correctly with a decimal point. E.g in 4-8-4#The South African 4-8-4 I had to make adjustments. Groetjes, Peter HornUser talk02:20, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, not me, I've not been to the 4-8-4 yet anyway. Only got done with the 2-8-2 last night - 04:00 this morning, actually - three days to rewrite large parts of it into understandable English, including standardising the page layout, and a few hours to update the South African section. Since I work on a sorted list of SA-used wheel arrangements, I'll get to the 4-8-4 last. 12 to go.... The convert templates can give strange results sometimes, especially after someone fiddled with a template, eg lately with unneccesary rounding of millimetres to the nearest ten when I don't want it to. But I'm learning how to get it to give the correct results. Only problem is I then have to go back to check my previous edits. The biggest problems are editors who just "klap" enter without previewing and checking their work, and people who dont flag pages for their watchlist after large edits so they cannot see when someone comes along later and screw up. We went decimal in 1961 when I was 12 and the way I was taught was to use commas for thousands and the fullstop for fractions. Lately it seems the "new" way in the press is to use spaces for thousands and commas for fractions, but I prefer the old way. Besides, when data is entered in spreadsheets, no punctiation is used except for the fraction fullstop. Same with these templates. Groete. André Kritzinger 10:26, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
About 2-8-2, I made some additional edits therein. In most locomotive articles, and elsewhere there is the problem of three possible tons. the tonne or metric ton, the long ton used in Britain and its former colonies, except Canada, and the short ton used in the US and, for the most part, in Canada. In addition to that there are the two gallons, the US gallon and the imperial gallon. The latter was in predominant use in Canada. Peter HornUser talk17:02, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I've noticed your similar edits in my loco pages too. André Kritzinger 17:13, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Garratt
I really think that the production list of Garratts is excellent worek - b ut would it be possible to separate the years from the woerks number? It is unlikely that I could help as I have limited wiki time at the moment - it is just thay KI the tasmanian original is lost amongst the others in the current format - I had the pleasure of being an admirer of working south african garratts in North Wales some 3 years ago - we have so few left in Australia (as far as I know G42 at Puffing Billy is it for working ones) SatuSuro00:02, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, will give it a go. André Kritzinger 01:05, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
Kontak vir SAR foto's
Baas Andre, kan jy my jou e-pos of selfoonnr verskaf...ek wil fotobydraes maak/ontvang van SA treine.
Dankie, gert.coetzee2010@gmail.com Aliwal2012 19:17, 9 October 2012
Apology Wikipedians, I thought i was writing on the Afrikaans Wiki, eish !
If you looked at the contents of my sandbox (or its editing history) before removing the image (twice now), you'd have noticed that I'm in the middle of reworking the 4-6-2 article. It's a huge article, it's in a huge mess, and I've been working on it daily since 8 October, 9 or more hours a day. I'm not quite done yet, maybe tomorrow or the weekend. To start with, I copied the whole 4-6-2 article into my sandbox. Usually I work in Word on the PC and don't bother with the Sandbox except for previewing. This time I saved it in the Sandbox once a day as I progressed, specifically so that non-Wikipedian friends in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the USA, the UK and elsewhere could see it and give me feedback where necessary. Which some of them did with good results. Now, before removing the picture again, after I save tonight's version of the article when I'm done working on it for the day, usually at 03:00 or later, please explain to me how all this is "not an actual article". Would a car undergoing a major overhaul be "not an actual car"? André Kritzinger 11:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
It's not an actual article because it is a draft and it is in userspace. The actual article is 4-6-2, and copies of it elsewhere (modified or not) are not the same thing. If you wish to use a car analogy, then perhaps this one is appropriate: a car made of gummy bears is not an actual car. If it is essential that others be able to see the article with any non-free images in place then it must be done on the article, not in a sandbox. {{Under construction}} is designed and used specifically to notify readers that an article is undergoing such a major overhaul.
I appreciate that there are useful reasons to have non-free images elsewhere, but the long-standing policy has been that their use in sandboxes and the like is not. If you have any questions or concerns with the policy, feel free to bring them up at the policy's talk page or other appropriate venue. VernoWhitney (talk) 14:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Call for Wikipedians in Residence in Africa
Hello,
I hope you are well and thriving!! WikiAfrica has just put out a call for two Wikipedians in Residence. One in Cape Town at WikiAfrica, at the Africa Centre; and the other for WikiAfrica Cameroon in Douala, at doual’art. If you are interested, please contact either Marilyn [marilyn.doualabelldoualart.org] for the WikiAfrica Cameroon call or Isla [islahfafricacentre.net] for the WikiAfrica position in Cape Town.
If you are not interested in applying, I would be very grateful if you could spread this call far and wide among your networks to ensure that both projects get excellent candidates. Here is the link for the information page: http://www.wikiafrica.net/two-wikipedians-in-residence-for-africa/
I do not know if I told, but I'm also ferreomodelista, and was negotiating with a micro producer (http://www.reddevilsar.co.za/) of South Africa to buy some models (shells) of GT18, GT26 and U20C1.
The site is unavailable and he's not responding to email, know anyone in South Africa who can help me?
I would love to model Spoortnet who came to Brazil ...
Thanks! I'm preparing to tackle the real old stuff. In the process I'm creating redirects for those oldie locos that ended up in SAR service, to make sure the eventual lists in the categories will be complete. So far:
Friend of mine, Paul, was in Hartenbos over the holidays and took some photos of SAR 19D no 2749 (This one). The 19D article states that 2721 to 2770 was delivered by Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns, but the actual locomotive carries a North British Locomotive plate (photo). Any idea why this would be?
The NBL works plates were attached to the smokeboxes. And over the years, with boiler changes, they migrated between locos. Same way as the domeless boilers ended up on later model locomotives. André Kritzinger 13:37, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Boiler exchange during overhaul seems a very plausible explanation. It's probably the boiler originally fitted to SAR 3364 (this being the loco built by NBL as their no. 26084 of 1948). --Redrose64 (talk) 13:46, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I was in Durban two weeks ago and photographed three apparently brand new large diesel electric locomotives EXX 3001/3002/3003 with the name Exxaro on the side. I have not been able to identify them on WP. Can you help please?--Das48 (talk) 16:10, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Exxaro is in coal mining, but I don't have any info on these locos. I'm on the road right now, touring, so in the meantime I'd suggest you try asking on the World Diesel Locomotives (WDL) list on Yahoogroups. André Kritzinger 19:02, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
It's one of those four, all right. The plate says JS Smit, so JJ Smit as mentioned in 2-6-0#Cape_gauge may be incorrect, but that's how it appeared in the reference I used (Holland, which has some typos in it). It's not on the list yet since I haven't done the SAR Obsoletes yet. That's my next challenge, along with the CGR, NGR, NZASM, CSAR lot. I've been preparing relevant pictures for uploading when I tackle the articles, but last December and my recent trip got in the way. Soon, though...
Thanks. Looks like one of a whole bunch of 4-8-2T and some 4-8-4T locomotives that were built for the gold mines. There's one (Freegold North no. 2) parked at Beaconsfield. They never saw SAR service, but according to John Middleton some of the 4-8-4T type saw service on East African Railways as their 13 class. André Kritzinger (talk) 19:32, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Locomotive no. 39-251
Hello, Andre Kritzinger. Greetings from the Photography workshop. A reply has been made to your request. You may view the reply here. If you are satisfied, please copy/paste the following code and add it to your request: {{resolved|1=~~~~}}
I see you're a fellow railfan, perhaps even specializing even in these articles... but you restored an awful lot of ugly white space, in this edit here, and I worked hard to balance that text and pics side by side so it paginated and worked well. Please explain, for whilst I hate the process, I'm considering reverting your edit.
Also had deliberately retained the British 4-4-2T loco as they invented the class... had just added a pic (surprisingly hard to find) with a good side view showing the Whyte code arrangement. Thanks for that, but think the Brits deserve the place of honor.
Would you be interested in helping reclassify some of the photo libraries on the Commons? I'm gradually trying to park some stuff in a more consistent logical way and can use some help. A few of us got together back in 2006-2007 and did the same with maps categories there and it was a fun and fruitful co-operative process. Best regards // FrankB00:06, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
H FrankB, I understand your pain - I often experience it myself, especially with picture plonkers who add images that are not even mentioned in the text and screw up the whole page layout in the process. (Spent months of 12 hour days last year virtually rewriting all the wheel arrangement pages that contain SA items and standardising the layout format.) Then I also found that different browsers display pages differently, which further complicated things. The only white space on most of these articles at present should be next to the index. (Sort of an invitation to the picture plonkers, I suspect...) Is that what you're talking about? I moved the Brit picture from there to where it's actually mentioned in the text and left the Milwaukee one at the top since it's a better illustration of the wheel arrangement, even though the Brit one is more pleasing on the eye. Larger pictures are not the answer, though. In loco articles an infobox prevents that white space from happening. But I've just tried another plan - take a look at 4-4-2 (locomotive) again and let me have your thoughts. If the WP:MOS folks don't object, this may be the way to go rather than enlarging the pictures. As to your invitation, thanks but not now. I've just started on the pre-SAR colonial era locomotives and have more than 60 more to do. Just the six NZASM locomotives "done" so far took me more than two weeks. Off to bed now. It's 02:55. André Kritzinger (talk) 00:53, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A barnstar for you!
The Original Barnstar
Hi Andre , I'm really impressed by how you wrote about the NZASM of water vaal boven , anyways i'm new on editing and making new articles but i'm facing problem with erros and stuff especially when i want to reference my sources what can i do to improve my editing ?? i also want to translate the page you did on NZASM to siSwati but i'm not sure if i can use the picture you've used there Bobbyshabangu (talk) 10:18, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
https://ss.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimela_Semalahle , after some busy schedules i've menaged to make a siSwati page , please take a look sir ,, i'm depressed because i can't insert pictures or make the appropriate referencing , i am however still gona come and play around the it and see if i won't win ............and hey tell me something , how do i send you a message without sending the Barnster everytime ?? , ( this is the only way i know how to send a message) Bobbyshabangu (talk) 19:48, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Bobby, to contact me here, go to the top of my talk page (this one), click on "New Section", fill in the section heading in the top editing block, then go to the larger editing block below it, start typing, end off with the four ~ signs in a row, click on the "Show preview" button at the bottom and fix errors or add info and keep on using "Show preview" until you're satisfied, then when you're completely satisfied with the result, click on "Save page". That should prevent more barnstars... A picture link comes out like this one here. To see how it's done, click on "[edit]" next to this comment and look for the bit that starts with "[[File:..." I can't see your article, the link you gave takes me to Abuse filter management. Even if I put "Stimela Semalahle" between double [ ] brackets, it comes out as a dead link: Stimela Semalahle. "If at first you don't succeed, try and try again." Good luck. André Kritzinger (talk) 20:55, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi André Kritzinger (talk) thanks a lot for your help, for the past couple of weeks i've been doing some thorough reading and editing on some other pages and i think the key is simple , the more you edit is the more you master your way around editing articles, so I'm gona run through your your work and see how i can't translate atleast half of your articles to siSwati before the year ends :). Bobbyshabangu (talk) 05:13, 08 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Andre, I was looking for help on South African locomotives. Specifically the South African Class 3E.
I'm looking at re-writing the Co+Co page, rather than merging it. It would become mostly a disambiguation, indicating the definition of Co+Co (two articulated frames) and how this is both rare and different from the Co-Co arrangement (two bogies beneath one frame). I would also list the slightly more common C+C (two frames, but not individual traction motors) and C-C (diesel-hydraulic with bogies). Historically there are some 1-C+C-1 (mostly electrics), such as the Pennsylvania Big Liz, which is a pair of six wheeler articulated frames rather than bogies, but even then it's a single motor per frame, and there are pony trucks. I think the GN Y-1s might have been 1-Co+Co-1 with separate traction motors, but more likely 1Co-Co1 with bogies.
Lots of South African locos are categorized as Co+Co at present, but I think these are incorrect and should be the much more common Co-Co.
So far I can't find a single example of a Co+Co ever existing. The closest possibility in the 3E, but I don't know this loco and the only photo is end-on.
Hi Andy, locally all diesels and electrics where the bogies are linked are described as Co+Co (All the six-axle diesels except the Class 34-500 and the Class 3E electrics.) Also the four-axle Bo+Bo Class 1E and Class 2E, and the 1Co+Co1 electric Class 4E and diesel Class 32-000 and Class 32-200. All of them are single-frame locomotives on bogies, with all axles except the pony axles having their own traction motors.
I don't know what the linkage looked like on the electrics - none are in service any more. The picture is from a Class 35-000, but it looks the same on the rest of the older diesels. When those things are removed to make room for a larger fuel tank, such as on the Class 35-000 family of GE locos working on the Sishen-Saldanha line, the arrangement is decscribed as Co-Co.
Thanks for that – it's more complicated than I realised. Now I wonder if any other non-South African locos are using a similar arrangement. I think the best thing now would probably be a merge to a section in an expanded Co-Co. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:04, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Some more info. All the electrics (1E, 2E, 3E, 4E and ES) had bogie-mounted drawgear and the argument was that, with the inter-bogie linkage, no push-pull train forces would be affecting the loco frame and body. They were all British-built, so maybe having a look at other Brit electrics may clear the picture.
Not so on the diesels. All their drawgear are frame-mounted, so the linkage probably has more to do with stability. They are all GE and EMD products, and some like the 34-000 are widely used elsewhere as well, such as New Zealand and South America.
I'm puzzled by the 34-200 / EMD GT26 Series (probably others) Seems to have been a conventional Co-Co in other countries, but a Co+Co with the bogie interconnection link for South Africa. I can see some of the advantages to this, especially with bogie drawgear, but I'm puzzled that it wasn't also necessary for the other versions elsewhere. The 34-200 had a shortened lightweight frame and different bogies, which explains some of it, but I can't see why this seems to be such a widespread practice in South Africa, yet so unheard of outside it. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:16, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. It appears that you recently tried to give SAR Class 16E a different title by copying its content and pasting either the same content, or an edited version of it, into another page with a different name. This is known as a "cut and paste move", and it is undesirable because it splits the page history, which is needed for attribution and various other purposes. Instead, the software used by Wikipedia has a feature that allows pages to be moved to a new title together with their edit history.
Mjroots (talk) 07:21, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
doualart.org] for the WikiAfrica Cameroon call or Isla [islahf)-.png){kind=icon}
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