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Requested move at Talk:China Railway#Requested move 17 February 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:China Railway#Requested move 17 February 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Sophisticatedevening ^(talk) 21:30, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Indian Railways locomotive class WAM-2/3#Requested move 4 February 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Indian Railways locomotive class WAM-2/3#Requested move 4 February 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 12:51, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Infrastructure inspection train

Do we have any articles covering the concept of an infrastructure inspection train or an inspection train? I'm thinking of something like the inspection trains in Victoria (Australia). Nyttend (talk) 04:47, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

We have more specific articles Track geometry car, Track checker (covering only the USA and Ireland), China Railway comprehensive inspection trains, Catenary maintenance vehicle, Clearance car, and articles about individual examples (e.g. New Zealand Track Evaluation Carriage, New Measurement Train, Doctor Yellow, SNCF TGV Iris 320, Inspection locomotive (which focuses exclusively on the steam era)), but as far as I've been able to find we don't have an article on the concept as a whole beyond the higher level Departmental vehicle (an article in poor shape). We have Category:Maintenance of way equipment (which is broader) and sub-category Category:Track recording trains (which is narrower) which I found by knowing the New Measurement Train article exists. It turns out this is an area which needs quite a bit of work. Thryduulf (talk) 12:54, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Sometimes infrastructure is inspected using an ordinary train that is not carrying passengers (in the UK, it will run under a 1Z** or 5Z** headcode). An example of this is the empty train sent out along the down Northern City line from Moorgate on 8 March 2013, in order to find out why water was pouring through the tunnel crown to the north of Old Street. See Penetration and obstruction of a tunnel between Old Street and Essex Road stations, London 8 March 2013. No spoilers: it's interesting reading. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:01, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Baraboo station#Requested move 4 March 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Baraboo station#Requested move 4 March 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Sophisticatedevening ^(talk) 22:58, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Bulk page move/updates needed for SEPTA Metro articles

Last week the SEPTA Metro rail network in Philadelphia debuted its new line names.[1][2] This means that there are a bunch of pages that need to be moved, and their articles need to updated. Additionally, we'll have to update many templates and its subpage at Module:Adjacent stations. This is a big task and while some editors have been making some changes, there are currently lots of inconsistencies in the existing articles (i.e. some have been partially updated, some not updated at all). Aside from this conversation from over a year ago, I haven't seen much discussion on it, and would like to suggest forming some type of ad-hoc taskforce.

See this talk post (from December 2023) that mentions many of the proposed page moves that should now be implemented: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Stations#SEPTA_Metro_page_moves

I would be happy to have a discussion about this and I hear any other suggestions. –Dream out loud (talk) 18:25, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

@Dream out loud: Stations and Modules are already done, I'm saving the line articles for last. Cards84664 18:36, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Have all the station articles been updated to reflect the new modules? Also, City Hall station (SEPTA) and 15th Street station (SEPTA) should be merged into a single article. –Dream out loud (talk) 18:10, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

All done yes. There's a draft for 15/City that I am adapting now. Cards84664 19:00, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Camellia railway station#Requested move 28 February 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Camellia railway station#Requested move 28 February 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Sophisticatedevening ^(talk) 14:59, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

200th anniversary of passenger rail

Wikivoyage notes at voy:Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub#200 years of railway travel that the 200th anniversary of passenger rail travel is coming up in about six months. Does this group want to do anything? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:16, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Relatedly, I do have plans to get Granite Railway – the first common carrier railroad in the US – to GA or FA in time for its 200th anniversary next year. (It wasn't a passenger carrier until decades later, though.) Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:28, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Short descriptions

I noticed this morning that a large number of locomotive articles which previously had no short description had been given one… however, I’m strongly of the opinion that the description given was too basic and non-descriptive. I wholly agree that the wikidata descriptions are all too often way too in depth to be used as a short description, but I feel as though the replacement “type of steam locomotive” was too far in the opposite direction.

What do we think short descriptions for locomotives should contain so that we can have some kind of basic consensus on the issue? I’d be in favour of something like, as an example, “type of shunting locomotive in the UK” for a UK-based shunter. Danners430 (talk) 07:39, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Courtesy pinging @MediaKyle Danners430 (talk) 07:40, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I was basing it off this chart. MediaKyle (talk) 10:33, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

That makes sense... I think this instance though is an example where a small amount of additional information is actually useful to users - there are so many hundreds (thousands?) or types of locomotive, that simply saying something is a "type of steam locomotive" is (I would argue) somewhat unhelpful, since it could be anything from a shunting loco from the 1850s in Europe to a new-build replica in China. Danners430 (talk) 10:37, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

That makes sense. Feel free to start setting them to whatever you think is right. It does say above the chart that they "can be varied if the context allows something better". MediaKyle (talk) 10:41, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I'll hold off for now - I just think it would make sense to get agreement on some kind of loose standard we should follow, as right now it's only my opinion :-) Danners430 (talk) 10:44, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

If you take a look here to see both pages that have a short description and infobox locomotive, there's absolutely zero consistency across the 2600 pages with a short description. I wouldn't worry too much about it and just set them to whatever you think will aid the reader in navigation. MediaKyle (talk) 10:49, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

The zero consistency is precisely why I'm using the opportunity to hopefully get a discussion going - obviously if nothing comes of it then nothing changes, but there's never any harm in trying to get a discussion started. Danners430 (talk) 11:05, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Absolutely. I went ahead and left a link to this discussion at WikiProject Short Descriptions, that might solicit some more input. Cheers, MediaKyle (talk) 11:06, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

That's helpful, thanks. I've contributed below. MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:50, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Here are a sample of the short descriptions for articles about individual steam locomotives (in the order search displayed them to me) along with my comments:

• Stephenson's Rocket Steam locomotive by Robert Stephenson in 1829

  Not sure the builder's name is relevant, especially as it's in the title, but the year is good

• LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman British express steam locomotive

  Good, but I'd add the year and possibly a note it's preserved, e.g. Preserved British express steam locomotive built 1923

• LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard Preserved British steam locomotive

  Again I'd add the year, role and date ("Preserved British express steam locomotive built 1938") I'm on the fence about mentioning it's the speed world record holder - it's key information but I can't think how to express that concisely

• LNER Peppercorn Class A1 60163 Tornado British steam locomotive built in 2008

  This is good, although I might add "express" in there.

• Santa Fe 3751 Preserved American Santa Fe 3751 class 4-8-4 locomotive

  "Santa Fe 3751 class" is redundant to the title and I'm not sure about the wheel arrangement. I'd definitely add "steam"

• Fairy Queen (locomotive) 1855-built steam locomotive in India

  I might add "preserved" or "operational" or something like that but otherwise I think this is good

• Salamanca (locomotive) Early British steam locomotive (built 1812)

  I can't improve on this

• Southern Pacific 4449 Preserved SP GS-4 class 4-8-4 locomotive in Portland, Oregon

  I'd replace "SP GS-4 class 4-8-4" with "express steam" or "express passenger steam" and the year

• Steam Horse locomotive Early British locomotive (1813-1815)

  This is good, I don't know "steam" is needed here given it's in the title but I wouldn't object

• Pere Marquette 1225 Preserved PM N-1 class 2-8-4 locomotive

  I think something like "Preserved American steam locomotive built 1941" would be more useful

• Sierra No. 3 Preserved 4-6-0 steam locomotive in Jamestown, California

  I'd get rid of the 4-6-0 and add "built 1891"

• Pennsylvania Railroad 5550 PRR T-1 class 4-4-4-4 locomotive under construction

  I think something like "American express steam locomotive under construction" would be more useful

• Cherepanov steam locomotive First steam locomotive built in Russia

  This is a good short description imo, I might add the date at the end though.

• Union Pacific 4014 Preserved Union Pacific steam locomotive

  "Union Pacific" is redundant, I'd replace it with "American" and add the date (and maybe role).

Having gone through them I think I can say the key bits of information are "steam locomotive", date and nationality with role or other distinction also sometimes helpful. Thryduulf (talk) 12:11, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps something like the following - "Type of [early/late/preserved/new-build] [nationality] [traction type] [express/freight/passenger/mixed-traffix/shunting] locomotive, built [first built year]. As an example for the Class 08 - "Type of early British diesel-electric shunting locomotive, built 1952" - thoughts? Danners430 (talk) 12:35, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I was focussing on individual locomotives, but that could work for type. We'd need more adjectives for your first set though as I don't think any of those work for something like the e.g. Class 67. Thryduulf (talk) 12:42, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Many modern locos are either general purpose or freight… I’d make the argument that the 67 was designed as a passenger locomotive, but has morphed into a general purpose loco.

At the same time, we could just leave the adjective open to individual interpretation - it would still result in broad uniformity if we said that “field” is for a 1-2 word descriptor of the type of locomotive it is. Danners430 (talk) 12:58, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I was thinking about the [early/late/preserved/new-build] field rather than the role field. 67s were intended for fast freight, particularly mail trains, but I agree they are now general purpose. Together with your suggestion I think that would leave:

"(Type of) [period/status] [nationality] [traction type] [role] locomotive, built [first built year]" as the general pattern, with each field being 1-2 or exceptionally 3 words. Examples are better than a rigid list I think. Thryduulf (talk) 13:19, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I like the direction this is heading. However, the pattern above seems a bit too detailed to me. In favour of the WP:SD40 ideal (of which "locomotive, built " already occupy 18), and to allow the short description to be, well, short, I would generally omit "Type of" when reasonable and drop period/status and wording like "under construction" once mentioned above, which should help WP:SDAVOID time-specific adjectives. Describing traction type and role is probably too detailed for an SD, so I'd choose whichever is more descriptive. That leaves "[nationality] [traction type OR role] locomotive, built [first built year]". Let's not get caught up in being too descriptive and forgetting what the purpose of short descriptions is. YuniToumei (talk) 14:35, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I like that suggestion... For traction type/role, I think it would make sense to prioritise traction type, unless the role is "shunting" - "British shunting locomotive, built 1952" makes more sense for the Class 08 than "British diesel-electric locomotive, built 1952"... but for non-shunting locos, simply saying that they're steam, diesel, electric etc. makes more sense. Danners430 (talk) 15:05, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Sounds great! That's a perfect specification on choosing the more descriptive word. YuniToumei (talk) 15:29, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

"Type of" is for the difference between e.g. LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard and LNER Class A4, although the latter uses "Class of locomotives designed by Sir Nigel Gresley" which I'd probably change to "Class of British steam locomotives designed 1935" or similar. I agree with Danners re traction type/role. Thryduulf (talk) 15:24, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Although maybe we could dispense with the "class of"/"type of" by just distinguishing between "locomotive" and "locomotives"? The only time this might be confusing is if we have a single article about multiple individual locomotives where the article title is confusable with a class/type, and off the top of my head I can't think of any examples of that (but I've not researched). Thryduulf (talk) 15:32, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

There’s a few list articles about “list of preserved X locomotives”, such as List of preserved BR Standard Class 9F locomotives… whether we let that influence the decision making or make them a special case though? Danners430 (talk) 17:16, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Most "list of" articles tend not to need short descriptions (as the title itself is adequately descriptive), but for those that do I don't think the general pattern for individual (classes of) locomotives will necessarily be a good fit and so shouldn't form part of the decision making for it. Thryduulf (talk) 17:51, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

The other consideration that I just remembered (and wished I’d thought of earlier!) - what about articles about locomotive/multiple unit families, such as Alstom Juniper? Might be useful to have “class of” for the individual classes, and “family of” for the family articles Danners430 (talk) 17:54, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that makes sense. I'd go with whatever the article describes them as. Thryduulf (talk) 17:57, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. Additionally, instead of prepending it (e.g. "Family of Swiss electric locomotives"), putting it after locomotive as in "Swiss electric locomotive family" would make it start more consistently with the other short descriptions, and save 4 characters. YuniToumei (talk) 18:12, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I think what we’ve landed at then is the following:

[Nationality] [shunter/motive power] [locomotive/multiple unit] [type/family], built [year first built]

Any objections? Danners430 (talk) 18:28, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

This all seems very sensible. My only suggestion is to include a clear expectation that each field should normally consist of just one or two words, to cover the major aspects of interest to a non-specialist (WP:SDJARGON). Experience shows that in the absence of repeated reminders that short descriptions are supposed to be short, inexperienced editors often include excessive descriptive material in the interest of 'accuracy', and try to turn the SD into a definition, contrary to WP:SDNOTDEF. It's easy to see the nationality and the motive fields becoming excessively long with all possible countries of manufacture and all available motive power combinations. Assuming this WikiProject arrives at a consensus, I'd propose to incorporate it into the guidance at Wikipedia:Short description. MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:47, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. Suggestion for definitions:

• Nationality - one-word description of the region where the subject is based, eg. British, American, Chinese. Where more than one country is appropriate, use the continent, region or simply omit the field.
• Motive power - either “Shunter” where appropriate, or Diesel, Electric, Steam, Hydrogen etc. Must be one word.
• Type or Family dependant on the topic of the page (single class of locomotive or a “family”
• Built - year first built. Not a range, the single year when the first one was built.

Danners430 (talk) 19:53, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Some thoughts:

• Is nationality based on country of manufacture or wide-spread use? We might want to expand this to a greater area - some SD's for GE or EMD locomotives say "North American", and we may want to suggest that as an option.
• I agree to keep power source short (diesel, electric, steam, hydrogen, etc.). Skip transmission (Do not say diesel-electric, diesel-hydraulic, etc. - just say "diesel") as it's too much detail.
• How do we want to handle dual-modes, e.g. Bombardier ALP-45DP?
• Per my comment way below - I'm leaning against including year, as:
  • Locomotive families may have different first production years for submodels
  • Many locomotives have very long production lifepsans
  • Many very old locomotives are in widespread use today

I'm a bit worried about using a singular year implying an old locomotive family is no longer relevant today 4300streetcar (talk) 20:00, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Nationality should be 1-2 (e.g. "West German" should be allowed), "bi-mode" and similar should be allowable for motive power. I don't think we need to be too prescriptive about built as a class built 1980 is very different to a class built 1980-2010. Type/family/class should match the article, normally one word but exceptionally 2. Thryduulf (talk) 20:02, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Agreed on all points.

@4300streetcar in replying to your point too, I don’t think including the year presumes anything - rather it’s a useful navigational tool, which after all is what the SD is for. It’s a very easy way of differentiating different locomotive classes very quickly with a minimal amount of wording. But also agree with @Thryduulf - we could loosen it so that it’s either the first build year for “simple” cases, or a range for more complex cases. Danners430 (talk) 20:05, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

The year is also very helpful with regard individual locomotives - a steam loco built in 1830 is a very different thing to a steam loco built in 1930 for example. Thryduulf (talk) 20:27, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I think all these recommendations are sound, and would serve as a good reference point for developing the locomotive short descriptions. There is no one-size-fits-all standard format that's going to fit all of them, it'll have to be decided on a case by case basis. "Type of steam locomotive" was definitely lacking in hindsight, but there's no need for unnecessary detail either. The short description is a navigation tool, not a way of imparting information per se. MediaKyle (talk) 13:05, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Removing short descriptions en masse, no matter how (un)helpful you think they are and although they're easily amendable if context allows, is even less helpful than the short descriptions themselves – and by a massive margin. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 14:19, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Replying about short descriptions in general really, but I suggest trying a search that brings up some of the articles, so you can see how the descriptions look in a list of search results.

• Do they make it easier to know whether to visit a particular article?
• Do they clutter the results up with too much text to quickly scan through?
• Are they all too similar to be any help?

I think that's the real test: seeing the short descriptions in the context they're meant for, namely search results, popup lists and the like. Try a few searches, including ones that aren't primarily for locomotives (e.g. I'd expect Mallard to bring up ducks as well, though I've not tried it yet). Musiconeologist (talk) 20:02, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi All! I did a bunch of short descriptions on railways and I'm happy to have discussion on consistency and guidelines. It's a big project. There are about 28k articles without short descriptions that contain 'railway' as a term.[3] Some additional questions to consider in railway articles: 1) Location descriptions: when a railway operates in a single state or province, should the state be listed? What if it's two states? Maybe if it is three or more, it should be described with a broader geographical region e.g., UK or United States 2) Should years be listed in former railways? My reading of the short description guidance is no, but I think it could be useful.

I think after establishing consensus on these topics, we could include this as task on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Todo under for articles with missing information. Pencilsforall (talk) 13:57, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Since 28k is quite a lot, and a little more than 2k seem to stem from locos alone, it might be worth considering automatic short descriptions generated by the locomotive infobox by pulling the relevant infobox parameters, if consensus emerges for a basic, generic pattern. While they certainly won't be perfect for each article, I'd argue they'd be better than nothing, and won't harm since one can always manually override them with a better short description.YuniToumei (talk) 14:47, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I think consensus has been mostly against (further) automated short descriptions, due to the possibility of errors. If there's agreement on what exactly they should be, the ~2200 odd locomotives needing short descriptions could be finished by a couple people within a day or two. As for everything else train-related, that's another discussion. MediaKyle (talk) 14:49, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I should have read more before posting this. I was thinking of biographies - I add a lot of short descriptions to biographies, and I don't think there's been an effort to automate that. Stations and such might be a good candidate, but as for the locomotives, there's not enough that I'd see a need to make the bot do it. MediaKyle (talk) 14:55, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

The other advantage is that they would deal with any newly created articles lacking SDs, lest that number grow over time when unattended. No need for a bot as they are automatically included with the transclusion of the template generating them.YuniToumei (talk) 15:03, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I apologize, I misunderstood. I had in my head that a bot would be generating the short descriptions based on the infobox. I see what you're saying now, this makes a lot of sense. MediaKyle (talk) 15:08, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

For classes, I'm leaning towards [Nationality] [Power source] locomotive class E.g. the EMD GP60-series would be "North American diesel locomotive class". Leaning just "diesel", "steam", or "electric" for the traction type (or dual-mode), and not going specifically into "diesel-electric/diesel-hydraulic/etc. as that's a bit too specific for an SD). I'm leaning against passenger/freight distinction, as a lot of locomotives do both, or are families that encompass both (E.g. the EMD GP40 series is generally a freight locomotive, but has numerous passenger variants) I'm personally against year, as a lot of fairly old locomotives are still in widespread service (e.g. EMD GP40-series locomotives are still in widespread use despite originating from the 1960s). Maybe if all examples have been retired we can mention retirement, though even this introduces headaches (e.g. are the EMD F-units from the 1940s truly "retired" if several tourist railroads still use them in active service?), and I would lean against it. 4300streetcar (talk) 18:31, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

We further refined the thoughts above in a different thread… one downside of talk pages is when the discussion splits, things get lost :) Danners430 (talk) 18:39, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Ah - sorry about that. I can move the comment into the earlier thread if desired. 4300streetcar (talk) 18:48, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

No no, I’m just making you aware to have a look at that discussion, as I think it’s advanced a bit :) Danners430 (talk) 18:51, 26 March 2025 (UTC)