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Free access to The Railway Magazine

Would you like to have free access to the full set of back issues of The Railway Magazine though the Wikipedia Library? If you are eligible for a Wikipedia Library account, please upvote this request.

Even if you already have access through some other means, your upvote will help to secure free access for other Wikimedia volunteers. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:13, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Upvoted. For those (like me) unaccustomed to the Wikipedia Library, you have to click the 'Log in' button at the top right of the page, then click the bar that says 'Login via Wikipedia. Then the Upvote button will appear next to each suggestion. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 22:30, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Upvoted. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 09:40, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Upvoted. Although, as somebody who pays for a monthly print copy, I think that I already qualify for direct access. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:07, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Dadar Central–Ratnagiri Passenger#Requested move 17 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Dadar Central–Ratnagiri Passenger#Requested move 17 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Warm Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 15:20, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

The articles on electro-pneumatic brakes are a mess

We have an article on the Electro-pneumatic brake system on British railway trains and an entirely US-focused article on Electronically controlled pneumatic brakes. What we need is one article about electro-pneumatic brakes in general that covers the various varieties found worldwide, that could include the content of the existing articles. Eldomtom2 (talk) 19:50, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Walden–Wallkill Rail Trail

I have nominated Walden–Wallkill Rail Trail for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 01:10, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Southeastern (train operating company 2006–2021)#Requested move 16 February 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Southeastern (train operating company 2006–2021)#Requested move 16 February 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 13:39, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Administrator Request: Protected Status for Rio Grande 223

The Rio Grande 223 article has had several extensive edits with unsourced claims and marginally related tangents via User:DTParker1000 over the last few months. This included using an outdated restoration report by John Bush implying the locomotive's current restoration status in a August 2023 revision [1], an extensive off topic tangent written in a non-encyclopedic tone of voice about the history of the Rio Grande added in January 2024 along with an unsourced claim about the styles of restoration Ogden City is considering for the locomotive [2].

This article requires protected status to prevent future edits from veering off topic and into speculation about the locomotive's potential restoration. Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 23:14, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

@Xboxtravis7992: You need to make this request at WP:RFPP. Fork99 (talk) 00:55, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, I will look there and at some other templates to see if I can find how to best resolve the issue. Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 03:10, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Further information, I have begun digging through past articles and I found this example Rio Grande 268 which does not confirm to quality standard guidelines. It seems much of the text here was the source of self-plagiarized fluff words that the author copied into the Rio Grande 223 article as well as D & RG Narrow Gauge Trestle. I am trying to clean up the older articles to the best of my ability, but Rio Grande 268 requires clean up from the foundation up due to it's quality issues. Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 04:27, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with Xboxtravis7992 in his characterization of my recent posts on Wikipedia articles "Rio Grande 223," "D&RG Narrow Gauge Trestle" and "Rio Grande 268."

His charges against me are baseless and are nonsense.

Below is a recent exchange between the two of us. Judge for yourself which one of us makes more sense.

He sent me the three messages below:

February 2024[edit]

Please do not introduce incorrect information into articles, as you did to Rio Grande 223. Your edits do not appear to be constructive and have been reverted. If you believe the information you added was correct, please cite references or sources or discuss the changes on the article's talk page before making them again. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you.

Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 03:33, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop. If you continue to vandalize pages by deliberately introducing incorrect information, as you did at D & RG Narrow Gauge Trestle, you may be blocked from editing. Text self-plagiarized from text in Rio Grande 223 article with arbitrary tangent about railroad's general history

--Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 04:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you vandalize Wikipedia, as you did at Rio Grande 268. Same self-plagiarized text of fluff words from Rio Grande 223 and D & RG Narrow Gauge Trestle articles previously mentioned

--Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 04:08, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This was my response to him:

You accuse me of "deliberately introducing incorrect information" and "vandalizing" Wikipedia. That charge is complete nonsense.

You state that if I believe the information I added was correct I should "cite references or sources." Yet, that is precisely what I did. I included citations for every single paragraph that I wrote.

You apparently think that my sources are incorrect, but you offer nothing to refute them.

Instead of offering ANYTHING to contradict ANY of the 11 sources I cited, you simply deleted the entire seven paragraphs that I wrote on the "Rio Grande 223" article (and you made the same sweeping deletion on the D&RG Narrow Gauge Trestle article).

Your actions are completely unreasonable and without any scholarly basis. DTParker1000 (talk) 04:36, 17

He then sent me this:

February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Removed paragraphs were self-plagiarism of text in Rio Grande 268 article, with noticeable errors in citation quality, generalization, broad claims and weasel words. In addition removed images in the Rio Grande 223 article included copyrighted Otto Perry photos owned by the Denver Public Library collection, and further copyrighted material has been noted as having been uploaded from the Otto Perry collection to other pages. For further discussion please discuss with fellow WikiProject Trains editors at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains under the Administrator Request: Protected Status for Rio Grande 223 tab. Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 04:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This was my response:

Your removed my text because of "self-plagiarism?" There is no such thing as "self-plagiarism." I'll buy you a dictionary if you like. Plagiarism is taking and using the work of another and passing it off as one's own.

In other words, you are removing my text because I failed to give credit to myself for writing it.

Sheesh. What nonsense.

You accuse me of making "noticeable errors in citation quality, generalization, broad claims and weasel words." Yet, you offer no examples whatsoever.

Speaking of broad claims and generalizations...

I, on the other hand, provided citations for everything I wrote. Perhaps you could learn from that.

Now, you go on to start deleting pictures I provided claiming copyright infringement. If the photo is old enough, it CAN'T be copyrighted. Just because it is posted someplace and with the word "copyright" attached to it doesn't make it valid. This is made clear on the Wikimedia Commons pages. DTParker1000 (talk) 05:17, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

If anyone should be blocked from changing these articles it is Xboxtravis7992, not me.

I will be happy to discuss this further if needed. Please advise me if I should be doing so in some other forum. Thanks so much for your attention to this matter. I appreciate it. DTParker1000 (talk) 05:34, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks but please be aware that most people are not going to read a wall of text. There is no reason to copy/paste comments from somewhere else to here. It would be much better to focus on one issue and explain why your edits were justified. That would allow others to give opinions on that one proposed edit. After that, another issue could be considered, etc. Johnuniq (talk) 05:40, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

To give a clearer view of why I stated those as issues and to clarify my actions:

Self plagiarism:

Duplicate publication

When recycling your own work can get you into trouble

US Copyright date information:

Public domain in the United States

Information Library of Congress

Otto Perry was roughly 35 years old at the time of current US Copyright expiration for works prior to 1929. His photos from then until his death in 1970, including the majority of his photographs of the Rio Grande narrow gauge photos in the 1940's fall under copyright protection. Without a rights release from the right holders of Perry's work (be that his living estate or the Denver Public Library archives) we can assume that even as "old photos" they are still under Copyright protection unless Otto Perry failed to extend copyright protection prior to 1989 when the laws changed to their current 95 year term length. Wikipedia has operated under the assumption Otto Perry photographs are under copyright in the past as seen in this template. I have noted similar usages of photos from the Friends of the Cumbres and Toltec archives and the Colorado Railroad Museum archives uploaded and used by this user which flirt with copyright expiration risks.

Broad Claims and Citation Errors

To use some sample text from the Rio Grande 268 article to highlight my concerns:

1. "Engine 268 was part of this order, the largest order of narrow-gauge engines ever made." The Baldwin 10-12-D orders from France for use in World War 1 outpace the orders from the D&RG by a wide margin. Without further research claiming "the largest order ever" is to broad of a scope without further research.
2. "Now farming became profitable. Now ranching became profitable. Now mining became profitable." While the railroad was certainly successful in opening the economy of the west, this argument is again to broad to constrain to the history of specific engines. Furthermore the existence of the Union Pacific, Central Pacific, Denver South Park & Pacific, Utah Northern, Santa Fe, and other railroads within the market served by the Rio Grande make the claim that the Rio Grande itself played a critical role in opening the region too broad to claim. The repetition of statements doesn't follow encyclopedic writing style and are an example of weasel text.
3. "In the 1880s, the Denver & Rio Grande was expanding rapidly. It was hastily constructing a main line to Ogden, Utah." The Denver & Rio Grande terminated in Grand Junction, Colorado and the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway continued construction westward as a separate company based in the Utah Territory. After William Palmer was expulsed from the D&RG, he retained control over the Utah based D&RGW.Ry transforming it into the Rio Grande Western a standard gauge line that met the Colorado Midland in Grand Junction. The two companies would not be a unified D&RG again until the 1900's at which point the only remaining Rio Grande owned narrow gauge in Utah would have been the Little Cottonwood Canyon line. Stating the D&RG was building to Ogden, although it and the D&RGW.Ry briefly shared the same corporate roots, lacked specificity as to the accurate history of the Rio Grande's expansion westward.
4. "The railroad dramatically transformed Utah and Colorado." Again too broad of a statement. This can just as easily be applied to the Central Pacific, Union Pacific or Kansas Pacific Railroad. It has little bearing on the history of the locomotive itself.
5. "There are well over a thousand steam engines still in existence in the United States (on display in parks, museums and in operation).The vast majority of these were built in the 20th century." Weasel text that is irrelevant to the subject of the article. There are over millions of people in the United States, however when writing an article on a pop cultural figure we wouldn't start off by pointing out how many other people live here; what bearing does this statistic have on the actual locomotive's history? Why does it matter that 268 is a 19th Century engine instead of a 20th Century one beyond sentimentality? Why was the same text used for two other engines that the Rio Grande classified as the same class, especially considering their grouping together as a class is a result of later power schemes on the Rio Grande and as built a Grant 2-8-0 such as 223 would be considered a different machine than the Baldwin 2-8-0's such as 264? It is comparable to saying a 1960's Mustang and a 1960's Camaro are the same car just because they both have V-8 Engines and are "mid-century Muscle Cars."

Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 06:11, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I know I am digging up this dead horse again, but looking at the changes to Rio Grande 268 and I don't feel like the added citations fix the core issues. A few of my concerns (from the latest February 20th revision):

1. At least two citations (#15 and #33) are to Wikipedia itself and not first or third party sources.
2. Citation #22 is to User:DTParker1000's own post on another website.
3. Multiple citations rely on the same author, Jerry Day's articles in The Prospector, which make me concerned that even when accurate third party sources are being used they are extremely limited to one perspective.
4. The citations notably from Robert Athearn, Lucius Beebe & Charles Clegg, and Gilbert Lathrop don't allay my complaints of weasel words and fluff text since that might as well be the holy trinity of railroad fluff text in my personal opinion (not to mention the many complaints elsewhere regarding Beebe & Clegg's sloppy research suggesting they make poor sources to use in general). Regardless, the tone of Athearn, Beebe & Clegg and Lathrop while often making for a good story fail to imitate the encyclopedic voice of Wikipedia and support the fluff text used in the article.

Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 15:44, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

South Eastern Railway

I boldly merged and redirected the disambig at South Eastern Railway to Southeast (disambiguation)#Rail transport as it was a near complete subset. However, now I'm wondering if I shouldn't have gone the other way and expanded the more specifically-titled page to become a set index of railways with "South East" or "South Eastern" (with various spacings) in their name? There are at least a couple of US and one Australian that are the "Something & South Eastern". I'll leave a note for the disambiguation project about this discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 03:49, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

I started a similar discussion about “Northern/Southern/Eastern/Western etc Railway/Railroad” a while ago, which is now in the WT:WPDAB talk archives which might be of interest. Fork99 (talk) 21:20, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

I'd completely overlooked "railroad". Southeastern Railroad appears to be the only relevant article, so I've added links to and from the dab page. I agree with PamD's suggestion in the discussion you linked to combine "South East", "South Eastern", "Southeastern"/"Line"/"Railway", "Railroad"/etc into one dab page (unless there is a need to split for size reasons). Thryduulf (talk) 21:32, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Passenger route sections in Italian railway station articles

Greetings, editors! I would like to invite your comments in a discussion I've opened on the routes section found in the articles of Italian railway stations. You can join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Italy#Routes in railway station articles. Your expertise and thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! IgnatiusofLondon (talk) 20:35, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Minimum railway curve radius source

Unfortunately, the important formulas and examples in Minimum railway curve radius, first added here in October 2009, are unsourced or insufficiently sourced. Without reliable sources for the formulas, it is hard for me to tell if the formula was real or original research: if the latter was true then the factual accuracy of the entire article could be in doubt. --Minoa (talk) 23:11, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Repeated insertion of subtle factual errors in railway-related articles

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents § Repeated and unexplained insertion of dubious content. Jc86035 (talk) 14:51, 27 February 2024 (UTC)