Talk:Birmingham New Street railway station

Naming

Disgussion moved from User talk: G-Man

Under naming policy, this should be at its most common name, i.e. Birmingham New Street. This also applies to London Euston, Manchester Picadilly etc. Also, if a station's name is duplicated by something else, it should be capitalised because it refers to a specific station, e.g. Derby Station, not Derby station. I appreciate the work you've done on the list of British railway stations, it still needs tidying. Dunc_Harris|☺ 19:47, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Birmingham New Street is also the name of a major street in Birmingham. So removing the "station" may well be a recipe for confusion, especially amongst Brummies. Likewise Manchester Piccadilly may be confused with the Piccadilly area of central Manchester, so I dont think removing the "station" is very wise their either. G-Man 19:54, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

er, no. The name of the street in Birmingham is "New Street", and an article on it would be entitled New Street, Birmingham to distinguish it from other New Streets. Likewise Picadilly deserves its own article, but not as. Anyway, now you've really screwed it up by turning Birmingham New Street into an article on New Street, Birmingham. Dunc_Harris|☺ 21:54, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You claim that "Birmingham New Street" is the common name: Do you have any proof of this?, I would say that "New Street Station" is just as common, that is certainly how brummies refer to it. Besides Birmingham New Street station is a station so leaving the "station" off the end is quite patently daft. I dont know why you have suddenly decided to move this page, it has been sitting quite happily at 'Birmingham New Street station' for well over a year and no-one has complained about it. Unless you can provide proof that "Birmingham New Street" is the common name. I will move it back and turn the latter into a disambig. G-Man 19:31, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A google search excluding several railway related terms still only generates links about the station http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22Birmingham+New+Street%22+-station+-rail+-train+-trains+-railway+-railways+-%22Network+Rail%22+-Virgin+-+%22Central+Trains%22 Conversely, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Birmingham+New+Street+station%22&spell=1 brings up Wikipedia mirrors, whereas "Birmingham New Street" has 17,200 hits, less the 3,930 for "Birmingham New Street station" still gives 13270 hits for Birmingham New Street against 3,930 for "Birmingham New Street station". There is no problem with New Street, Birmingham being confused with Birmingham New Street. Dunc_Harris|☺ 19:43, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes practically all of those are train timetables which are abbreviated, so that doesn't prove anything. G-Man 19:57, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

But that's the point; there is *nothing* about New Street, Birmingham that could ever confuse it with Birmingham New Street. Similarly, London Paddington isn't going to be confused with Paddington. or Leicester City with Leicester, or for that why don't we start naming things Empire State Building Skyscraper, or Burton-on-Trent Town? No. Because it violates Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). Dunc_Harris|☺ 20:25, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Have you actually seen where the examples you've just given actually link to. Leicester City re-directs to Leicester City F.C and London Paddington re-directs to Paddington Station.

The example you've given of the Empire-State Building invalidates your own argument, have you not noticed the "Building" at the end of the name. It would be rather silly if it was called the Empire State now wouldn't it. G-Man 20:34, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

One problem is that local usage and international usage probably differ here. In London, Victoria Station (London) is commonly simply called [[Victoria]], but please don't move that article there! Andrewa 11:45, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Logo

As you will have no doubt noticed, all 17 stations controlled by Network Rail have been given their own little logo. I have uploaded all the thumbnail images, but none of the articles for non-London stations have a suitable template with which to incorporate them. Thus I have just left it right at the beginning as this is exactly how the station board reads:

File:BirminghamNewSt.gif Birmingham New Street

The same format has been followed for every such station in the country, so if an alternative means of incorporating the logos is established, please change it for all. Or let me know! Deano 22:18, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. Discounting the anonymous vote without any contributions to speak of, it's 5 to 2 in favour. —Nightstallion (?) 08:13, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposed page move

Along with:

Birmingham Snow Hill station → Birmingham Snow Hill railway station

Cardiff Central station → Cardiff Central railway station

Clapham Junction → Clapham Junction railway station

Derby Midland Station → Derby Midland railway station

Euston station → Euston railway station

Exeter St Davids station → Exeter St Davids railway station

Glasgow Central station → Glasgow Central railway station

Glasgow Queen Street station → Glasgow Queen Street railway station

Manchester Piccadilly station → Manchester Piccadilly railway station

Manchester Victoria station → Manchester Victoria railway station

Newcastle Central station → Newcastle Central railway station

Nottingham station → Nottingham railway station

Sheffield Midland station → Sheffield Midland railway station

This has become the standard form for articles on railway stations in the UK; these articles were created before this was established. Only articles which cover both the railway station and a tube station should have the "station" format. Warofdreams talk 21:44, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

As there is much discussion about this standard I have created Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations) to try and keep discussion in one place.

Discussion

Add any additional comments

• Support; prevents any potential confusion with tram/bus stations (especially ones such as Nottingham station). smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 21:57, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support, I guess. I think we'll then need to shell a Clapham Junction article out of the current station article, since the area and the station currently are conflated into one. -Tagishsimon (talk)
• Support, but only in the case of National Rail-only stations. Newcastle Central, Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Victoria, Birmingham Snow Hill, and Sheffield Midland should keep their present names, by the same principle as combined railway/tube stations; Newcastle Central is shared with the metro, and the others are shared with trams. David Arthur 23:52, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

  Comment - I've removed Newcastle; I forgot it had a metro station. Tram stops are not generally referred to as stations. The official names of the tram stops (as shown on the relevant route maps) are "Piccadilly", "Victoria", "Birmingham Snow Hill" and "Sheffield Station/Sheffield Hallam University". So I can't see that omitting "railway" from the articles titles will make them any more relevant to the tram services. Warofdreams talk 02:55, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

  Comment - if tram stations are not to be included, then this would be a change from the custom which already seems to be in place for London; see East Croydon station, West Croydon station, Mitcham Junction station, Beckenham Junction station, and Birkbeck station. Since the major purpose of many of these tram stations is to provide a railway interchange (linking Piccadilly and Victoria stations was one of Metrolink’s major goals), it seems logical to me that they be covered along with the railway station in the same way as railway/metro interchanges in London and Newcastle. David Arthur 16:32, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose Sheffield Midland Station article concerns both the railway station (which by all mean shouldn't have the word railway in it anyway) and the Sheffield Supertram stop of the same name as stated by David Arthur. If need be, redirect Sheffield Midland railway station to sheffield Midland station (as it currently is) since there is no other object or place in the world with that name, adding railway is both long and vaguely significant. Captain scarlet 03:37, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support but not for Euston. It has a tube station part. James F. (talk) 17:20, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

  Comment - Euston tube station is a separate article. Warofdreams talk 17:36, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

  But we're renaming based on what the things are. And the split into having a separate tube station is, well, one worth revisiting. :-) James F. (talk) 16:53, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

  Euston is probably split from its tube station because the railway terminus interchanges with the tube not only at Euston tube, but also at Euston Square tube. David Arthur 17:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

  I have never, ever met someone who lives in London and seriously considers Euston Square to have an interchange with Euston Station. It's as far from Euston as Marylebone is from Baker Street, and further than Liecester Square from Covent Garden (in terms of time to travel on foot between them, at least). The proper Wikipedia manner in which to split the article is to have "Euston station" as the parent article, mentioning both, with "Euston railway station" and "Eustion tube station" as sub-articles with greater depth. James F. (talk) 13:16, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose Why make things more complicated for the sake of "consistancy". It's not as if anyone is going to confuse London Euston od New street for anything else. G-Man * 19:59, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose 86.141.197.242 16:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for making this your first edit. Would you care to explain why you oppose the move? Warofdreams talk 23:41, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Comment Probably coz no one would mistake a STATION for a PETROL STATION... the whole reason why there is no need to add RAILWAY top any station article. Bit suspicious though... anonymous voting... I'm not complaining, but doubt subsist. —Captain scarlet 00:31, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm interested to know. It's not difficult to imagine a situation where it could be confusing - what's the station in Leeds? Yorkshire Television? Leeds City railway station? BBC Radio Leeds? Maybe Leeds Bus Station? Warofdreams talk 02:29, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

• Support the defacto naming convention for train stations in the UK is clear:

Rail service	Name	Example
Mainline rail	x railway station	Swindon railway station
London Underground	x tube station	Pimlico tube station
Docklands Light Railway	x DLR station	Poplar DLR station
Tyne and Wear Metro	x Metro station	Pelaw Metro station
Trams*	N/A	N/A
Any two or more of the above	X station	Newcastle Central station

• Almost all tram-only stops are not notable enough for their own article.

  I am about to work out a suitable place to propose this as a general case, and will link to it when I do. Thryduulf 12:32, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

  • I've set it up now, please comment at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations). Thryduulf 13:44, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Hold on, isn't the general naming convention to use common names, not some contrived name which wikipedia has invented and no-one else uses, does this not contradict the station naming policy. G-Man * 20:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
      • Common names, but also correct names. That part usually gets forgotten. —Nightstallion (?) 08:13, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Dissent

Er excuse me but I dont think that this move has been properly discussed. This move appears to violate the principle of using common names. And I can find no evidence that "railway" is included in the title of the station. Looking up google hits we find that:

• "Birmingham New Street Station" gets 46,200 hits
• "Birmingham New Street railway station" gets only 536 hits
• "Birmingham New Street" gets 156,000 hits however many of these are false positives.

Therefore I contend that this move is in violation of the common naming principle. "Birmingham New Street railway station" appears to be a wikipedia neologism. Somebody above stated that this was the correct name, I can find no evidence of this. It appears to be incorrect, Network Rail's website calls it Birmingham New Street Station [1]. G-Man * 21:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Similarly: Glasgow Central Station - 48,000 Google hits Central Station, Glasgow - 875 Glasgow Central Railway Station - 501 86.144.36.159 11:50, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

The rather large sign stuck on the main entrance of the station says Birmingham New Street Station, NOT railway station.

As seen here: Birmingham New Street Station image. I'm thinking of moving the article back, i do think in view of facts that it will be named Birmingham New Street Station.

Please do not move this article again until there is consensus at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations). In the mean time I oppose any proposed moves of this article. Thryduulf 14:51, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The reason there is no concensus is that every time there's a station article you're always there with your railway this and railway that. This isn;t used in the real world, this wasn't used by British Rail, it isn't used by TOCs and it isn't used in the stations themselves ! There is a concensus just that you are not part of it. Captain scarlet 15:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there is no consensus either way. The debate needs more input and I'm trying to think of ways to get that. Thryduulf 16:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

~You're clearly stuck in a a totally inappropriate naming scheme, what more do you need than the official British Rail station naming scheme ? Captain scarlet 00:00, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Evidence there is a consensus that Wikipedia should use it. Thryduulf 01:17, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This talk page is the evidence, if you are not part of a majority of editors that agree on a different naming scheme to your own, so be it. You beeing part or not of any kind of consensus does not mean there isn't one. I am in talks with members who do not directly participate in the stations articles but in local history of which these articles are part of and I have had agreement and already changed articles, removed railway and used official naming including capitalised S on Station as these stations were named like so. Regards, Captain scarlet 10:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

For my part, I think the long-standing consensus practice that this convention was to formalise was one of the rare examples of consistency across a large-scale section of Wikipedia. David Arthur 14:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

That's great I have no problem with a Wikipedia wide scheme, just so as long as it involves using proper, correct and appropriate names! Captain scarlet 14:52, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The problem of simply using "Birmingham New Street" is that to the general public, this could mean "New Street in Birmingham" or the station. There are several reasons for adding the "railway station" to the end:

• Avoid any ambiguity what-so-ever
• Consistency of naming of all station articles. If say "Cheltenham Spa railway station" was renamed to just "Cheltenham Spa", would this mean the town or the station?
• By having a naming convention it is supposed to prevent arguments like this one!

Our Phellap 15:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Or, Birmingham New Street Station as its said at the station entrance; Leeds Station, Coventry Station, Chesterfield Station, Waterloo Station, the list goes on of how adding both railway and not capitalising S of stations is wrong. See at the photos, links that myself and G-Man have added to this conversation and you cannot support this scheme unless you live not in the UK and not go outside. Captain scarlet 16:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

My point is that it is not wrong. If I said "Chestefield railway station" you would know exactly what I meant, without any possible ambiguity. The whole point of an encyclopedia is to make navigation easy without having lots of articles that use the same name. Taking things to the extreme, "Chesterfield Station" could mean the bus station, the railway station, the fire station, etc... The other advantage of adding "railway" to the article name is it easily allows the identification of different forms of transport, e.g. tram, railway, metro. At the end of the day, I personally don't mind which system is used, so long as just one system is used. Should you choose the "X Station" convention, there will be an awful lot of articles that need changing (since most were created under the present convention). Our Phellap 17:10, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I see your point but, well when one mentions station it is by default a train station. A particular station such as a fire staiton is always mentionned with the extension. As an encyclopedia the articles must have an appropriate name, the body of the article is there to explain what it is, almost all the articles have this intro "blah blah is a railway station in blah blah town". Then in almost most articles need a link name as well as the link to X Station, by simplifying naming it will make all our lives easier when editing articles. Regards, Captain scarlet 17:24, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Your comment illustrates why "station" is ambiguous. What the introduction says is largely irrelevant to what the article title is, as it is the title that gets linked to not the introduction. The defacto standard is "x railway station" so that is what the links point to, removing ambiguity in the article and removing the need to hunt for what the article is called. Capitalising the S goes against the Wikipedia principle of unnecessary capitalisaion (i.e. using sentence case), as I've mentioned before. Thryduulf 02:56, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Whatever man, you're just fighting losing battle trying to hang on to your project that is unlikely to see the light. wikipedia principle of unnecessary capitalisation is irrelevant here as the capitalised S is part of the stations' names as I've mentioned before. just like Tower of London/ Railway station is not and has never been the (defacto?) standard, it is only in your mind. Just let it go. Removing 'railway' from the stations' articles removes the need to hunt for the article. How funny would it be to have station articles named (example) Nottingham Victoria Station railway station...Captain scarlet 06:29, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

As Thryduulf has already suggested, the names on the signs outside the stations should be used. If anyone, then the owners should decide what their stations are called. I regularly use Queen Street station in Glasgow, where the signs say "Welcome to Queen Street Station" and the equivilent in Gaelic (which I can't remember). Similarly, the signs all over Central Station carry the same naming convention, e.g. see photo on Central Station. 86.142.209.78 13:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[2] lists the stations as X station, not X railway station. This has clearly been suggested just as another argument on wiki. It seems that people are always requesting to change naming conventions although things are fine the way they are.