Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways

Possible merger of Coventry branch line articles

I just saw this in the local press Residents asked to choose a new name for Leamington railway line which says that there is a competition for a new name for the line between Leamington Spa and Nuneaton via Coventry. However, we currently have two articles covering this route, the Coventry-Nuneaton line and the Coventry-Leamington line. If these become treated as a single route, then would that require the merger of these two articles under whatever name is chosen for them? G-13114 (talk) 12:42, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Having only skimmed the two articles, there may be some merit to this. Currently trains run from Nuneaton to Leamington Spa via both lines. Presumably the Service upgrade section on the Coventry–Nuneaton line page applies to both lines? Garuda3 (talk) 13:09, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

It's one service running over two lines. They were built at different times by different companies, although they both became part of the London & North Western Railway (LNWR) at an early stage. First was the Warwick & Leamington Union Railway, incorporated in 1842 to build a line between Coventry and Leamington Spa; it was opened in 1844, and subsequently absorbed by the London & Birmingham Railway (which amalgamated with others to create the LNWR in 1846). Second was the Coventry & Nuneaton Railway, authorised in 1846 as a L&BR subsidiary to build a line between those two towns; it was opened in 1850 by which time it was wholly part of the LNWR. I don't think that through trains ever ran between Nuneaton and Leamington except as specials and excursions. If a timetabled service ran, there should be information in two books in the Middleton Press Midland Main Lines series: Rugby to Birmingham and in Coventry to Leicester. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:38, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Articles are primarily about the physical railway lines, and not the services that operate on them. See no need to merge just on the basis that at the moment a through service operates on both. Airpopg (talk) 03:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Sometimes articles are also created on the service that runs through them. Difficultly north (talk) The artist formerly known as Simply south 22:49, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

TOC Fleet tables

Users may be interested in Murgatroyd49's thoughts at Talk:Great Western Railway (train operating company)#Current Fleet table about fleet tables on TOC articles. Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 19:36, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Tables are useful, but should be simplified with the number of columns reduced. Having columns for Class, Image, Number, Carriages per set would be suffice. It doesn't need all the other columns nor the hideous computer generated images of every class length. What is at First Great Western Link#Rolling stock and Virgin CrossCountry#Final fleet is much better. Airpopg (talk) 03:24, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains#Platform layouts, again: June 2023, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:54, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Template:NRtimes

{{NRtimes}} on the face of it should be a good thing - an easy way to link to a National Rail timetable for referencing purposes. Except it does nothing of the sort. It just generates some text. No link to the actual online timeable, so a 0/10 score for supporting WP:V. Any thoughts on getting rid of it, or improving it so it does link to an actual timetable online? 10mmsocket (talk) 22:08, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

If it can be updated to include links to timetable PDFs, and archive links, then I’d definitely keep it. Otherwise, it should not be used until it supplied verified info. Danners430 (talk) 08:18, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

I've just had a look, and the template is unlikely to be usable now because the PDF versions of the latest (May 2023) timetable now have names rather than just numbers (e.g. "001 London to Barking, Upminster, Basildon, Grays, Tilbury, Southend Central and Shoeburyness.pdf" rather than "001.pdf"). Timetable website is here. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 08:31, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

I feel a TfD coming on... 10mmsocket (talk) 17:05, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

The template did at one time generate a useful link, but three things happened: (i) the template should have been periodically amended for the changes in May and December each year, but (judging by the page history) has not been since May 2015; (ii) the change in filename format as noted above; (iii) this edit six weeks ago by Techie3 (talk · contribs). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:30, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

The original links do not work anymore, so that is why I removed them. Techie3 (talk) 03:43, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Request for new photographs: Boxhill at the National Railway Museum

Boxhill

Boxhill is a LB&SCR A1 class "Terrier" tank engine and is part of the national collection at the National Railway Museum in York. Unfortunately for the last 20 years it has been on display in the Learning Platform part of the museum, the layout of which meant that it was impossible to take a good photo of the locomotive. The only pictures of Boxhill on Commons are from the early 2000s.

According to this tweet, Boxhill has been moved into the Great Hall and now has pride of place on the turntable. I don't know what the long term plans for the loco are, but it seems unlikely that it will stay there for more than a few months. So if you're visiting the NRM over the summer, please do take some pictures and upload them to Commons. This could be our once-in-a-generation opportunity to get some decent photos for Wikipedia before Boxhill is relegated to the Learning Platform again!

Thanks and best wishes Mertbiol (talk) 07:32, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

National Rail Contracts

There has been some dispute in various articles as to whether TOCs operate franchises or concessions. The answer is a combination of concessions and National Rail Contracts, but not franchises.

Pre COVID-19, most TOCs operated franchises, being responsible for both revenues and costs and either paying a paying a premium or receiving a subsidy, the amount being predetermined when the contract was signed. A few let by local authorities, e.g. London Overground and Merseyrail, were and remain as concessions with the authority responsible for revenues and the TOC only the cost base.

With revenue evaporating in the early days of the first lockdown in 2020, that would have resulted in all franchised TOCs collapsing within days, the franchise agreements were terminated. TOCs then operated Emergency Management Agreements and now National Rail Contracts. When operating franchises, TOCs bore revenue risk and were responsible for fare setting etc, something that the DfT now does, with the TOCs remit only being to operate services in return for a management fee, much like was, and still is, the case for those TOCs operating concessions.

Hence what was the TransPennine Express franchise is now the TransPennine Express rail contract. Airpopg (talk) 02:50, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

A bit of a mix up here I think. A franchise was a set of services within a specified geographic area. A franchise agreement was the "contract" between the DfT and the TOC to deliver those services. You're right that the EMAs have now been replaced by contracts, but that contract is a document, so TPE (for example) doesn't operate the TPE Contract, rather TPE has a contract to operate (or deliver) a set of services in a specified geographic area. To me that is still the TPE franchise. It now has a contract to operate the franchise rather than a franchise agreement to operate the franchise. What it definitely doesn't have is a contract to operate a contract. 10mmsocket (talk) 06:28, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

But I am with you though. There are no franchisees any more, just National Rail Contract (NRC) holders. Where franchise still has relevance though in our TOC article is in describing the set of services and geographical area specified, e.g. the TransPennine Express franchise area. 10mmsocket (talk) 07:05, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

What constitutes an incident?

I just removed two incidents from Class 802 (diff). I did this because I considered them to be trivial and not newsworthy WP:NOTNEWS - one was a breakdown, the other a derailment - but nobody was injured and there was no damage to the train involved, nor the rail infrastructure.

I really think we should have a documented guidance and examples in this project guidance on what is and is not notable. Thoughts? 10mmsocket (talk) 06:21, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The evacuation happened when the trainsets were in the early stages of their service. Arguable as to whether or not this incident should be included. The derailment should be included IMvHO. Mjroots (talk) 12:15, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree that some kind of guideline is needed, and across the pond too. I think there are two separate issues: when is an incident notable enough for a standalone article, and when is an incident, regardless of the first question, relevant/due enough to be mentioned in a related article. On the first, my personal rule of thumb is that the incident killed someone or had some obvious lasting impact. On the second, I think the incident has to have an obvious relationship to the rolling stock, such as a design flaw. Routine reporting isn't enough. Mackensen (talk) 12:47, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Dead links to TfL's Usage Statistics for London Stations

The URLs for these references at Cutty Sark for Maritime Greenwich DLR station are all dead. They appear to be created by Template:Infobox London station but that then appears to be calling yet more templates and my willingness to abide by SOFIXIT only extends so far. Somebody who actually knows how it all works needs to repoint them when they have a moment. Thanks. XAM2175 ^(T) 17:04, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Barton line

Hello, on the Barton line article there has been changes to the stock used in the article, but no change to the reference. Has anyone got access to the cited source to see what it gives?

"May Milestone for MML Timetable". Modern Railways. No. 872. May 2021. p. 23.

Thanks. Keith D (talk) 17:36, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Maurice Oly might, he's done a sterling job with updating various changes from such magazines...! Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 19:15, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't have access to that issue as I have not bought it.
Somebody else might have access though. Maurice Oly (talk) 19:36, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@Keith D: Perhaps we could use this? Its from friends of the barton line and backs up the changed infomation.
Given what I've read on that website I don't think issue 872 of Modern Railways backs up the changed infomation. Maurice Oly (talk) 19:45, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks. I have used that ref for the current situation of the stock in place of the Modern Railways ref. Keith D (talk) 22:25, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Discussion at Template:Infobox station

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Infobox station#Move map, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. Mackensen (talk) 13:56, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Every UK train company and railway station article fails WP:V

Based on the discussion above about Table National Rail timetable,, it seems that there are 1,339 articles that now fail WP:V because they rely on this template. It just gives a text reference that bears no relation to actual reality. The template isn't fixable so that means 1,339 articles are unreferenced as far as their service table goes.

Take a random station like Hadley Wood railway station. The reference generated says "Table 24 National Rail timetable, May 2022". However the actual timetables at National Rail cannot be verified from that information. You have to go to NR timetables - https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/travel-information/timetables/ - then click on Great Northern - https://www.greatnorthernrail.com/travel-information/plan-your-journey/timetables#timetable (which has now gone to Great Northern's own website) and then click on Table B Stevenage - https://timetables.greatnorthernrail.com/GN/#/timetables/2092/Table%20B

I'm not suggested we replace it now, but it would be useful to do in December maybe when the timetables next change. Thoughts? 10mmsocket (talk) 14:56, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Note: this refers to the #Template:NRtimes discussion above.  Dr Greg  talk  15:17, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Every UK train company and railway station article fails WP:V - 1.3k is only about half of all the railway stations (almost 2.6k) in the UK so that's hardly fair.

I don't mind which timetable is used in all honesty; Aaroncrudge has done a great job of updating a significant number of stations' service sections (and I've done a few across the Far North of Scotland, though little in comparison). I'll be belittled for saying this, but verifiability does not mean things need to be internet-published, so - although a link would be helpful - IMO the template used is not that much of a 'sort it out asap' issue (although, yes, TOC timetables can be used, and are probably more helpful in many regards). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattdaviesfsic (talk • contribs) 15:59, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Are the ones I’ve done good updates? JamesVilla44 (talk) 15:08, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely, yes. So long as any updates have a source to support it, it's all good. Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 15:14, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Verifiable doesn't mean "verifiable in one click". Thousands (perhaps millions) of articles have dead links which need a visit to archive.org or similar to verify; we rightly don't delete their claims. It's a non-urgent usability issue, but not a WP:V failure. Certes (talk) 16:30, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Eurostar

Eurostar has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:54, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

2023 Ticket Office closure proposals

Do we need a section in an existing article on the proposals or a page on the proposals themselves? JamesVilla44 (talk) 15:06, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Now being discussed at Talk:Rail_transport_in_Great_Britain#2023_Ticket_offices_closure_proposals. Let's keep it in one place... 10mmsocket (talk) 15:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)