Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject UK Railways

File:Information.svg There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway steam locomotive number 19#Requested move 28 March 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 12:13, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

There’s a discussion regarding the use of the BRC and RWS/Stnlink templates at Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Trains. Danners430 (talk) 15:07, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Someone has proposed moving Leven station and Leven railway station (Fife). See Talk:Leven railway station (Fife). Difficultly north (talk) Time, department skies 19:18, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm intending to nominate Kirkby train crash as a WP:GA fairly soon, but I'd like to add a bit more information about the line to the Background section. I don't think it is required per se, but it would provide a bit more context on the line before it was split at Kirkby. The section originally began with "The station opened in 1848 as a through station on the Liverpool and Bury Railway between Liverpool Exchange and Wigan Wallgate." However, I removed this as I couldn't find a source for it{{Hidden ping|Voice of Clam}} (I'm guessing this has been simplified somewhat, because it looks like {{rws|Liverpool Exchange}} opened in 1850). I took a look at Liverpool and Bury Railway, but it looks quite complicated! This seems like it should be fairly easy to cite, and maybe I'm just looking in the wrong place. Is anyone aware of any sources that provide a basic history of a railway station such as Kirkby? FozzieHey (talk) 20:47, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:{{tl|Quick-stations-5.05}} p269 gives the opening date as 20 November 1848. Nthep (talk) 21:03, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

::I've been meaning to look for some sources for the layout changes, but been rather busy of late. I've not forgotten though. — Voice of Clam (talk) 21:21, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Liverpool Exchange went through a complicated history. Early in its life, it was jointly-owned by two railways, who disagreed on many matters - they couldn't even agree on what to call their shared terminus in Liverpool. So you may find it described as Tithebarn Street in some books. See if you can get hold of

:::*{{cite book |last=Marshall |first=John |authorlink=John Marshall (railway historian) |title=The Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, volume 1 |year=1969 |publisher=David & Charles |location=Newton Abbot |isbn=0-7153-4352-1 |chapter=Chapter 7: The LYR and ELR Reach Liverpool }}

:::which covers the early history of the Liverpool & Bury Railway. Kirkby is listed as one of the original stations. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:51, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Thanks all, I'll try to get a copy of that book unless someone beats me to it. It should at least give us a short description of the history that we can add to the section. FozzieHey (talk) 11:30, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

File:Information.svg There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Leven railway station (Fife)#Requested move 19 April 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 04:02, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

::I already said this in the topic above this one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Difficultly north (talk • contribs) 17:40, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

{{fyi|pointer=y}} Please see Talk:Mid-Kent line#Article name. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:10, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

fyi, there is proposal that these two articles be merged. See Talk:Royston and Hitchin Railway#Requested merge May 2025. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:07, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

I've recently discovered that references to the [https://www.rhrp.org.uk/ Railway Heritage Register Online] website seem to have become broken links. Many of the UK "Rolling Stock of the....." articles are heavily dependent on these. I've certainly added many of these references to the Rolling stock of the Watercress Line article, all of which are now broken and need changing. I'm willing to tackle this for that article, but before I do so, I'm wondering if any of you clever people (who are far more experienced at this sort of thing than me...) might know of a quicker way of fixing them? I haven't managed to work out whether it's just part of the URL that needs changing, or a complete replacement. Mwsmith20 (talk) 16:19, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

:If the pages are archived (e.g. on Internet Archive) or if there is a consistent new URL then you can make a request for a bot to update all the citations at WP:URLREQ. There is a backlog but it's typically only a few days. Thryduulf (talk) 16:37, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

::It looks like they have done a complete rebuild of the database that feeds their website. I just tried an example and found that

::* Old http://www.ws.rhrp.org.uk/ws/WagonInfo.asp?Ref=6986 has become

::* New https://ws.rhrp.org.uk/WagonSurvey/displayvehicle.php?Ref=AO7JYKE2D04VN1C59QZX

::So, no easy fix that I can see. Geof Sheppard (talk) 15:51, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:::That's what I feared. Thanks for looking, Mwsmith20 (talk) 16:18, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

::::But [https://web.archive.org/web/20241213053441/http://www.ws.rhrp.org.uk/ws/WagonInfo.asp?Ref=6986 an archive copy] exists. Easier to automate a translation? -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 16:59, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::I suggest that we update the existing links to the archived versions en-masse so the references are working, without prejudice to manually updating to the live version. It looks like restricting the bot edits to URIs with "/ws/" would prevent any duplication of effort, edit conflicts, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 17:07, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::The archived copies might be out of date, so I think that it will need to be a manual job to amend to the fresh URLs. As I type this, there are [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch?target=www.ws.rhrp.org.uk&limit=300 290 links] to fix. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:34, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::The question is whether a broken link or a potentially out-of-date archive link is better in the interim pending a manual fix. My preference is for the latter. Thryduulf (talk) 11:37, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Agreed. The links should be checked regularly in case they become out of date, but these broken links can be fixed by pointing to the archive for now. I've made a mental note to update the pages on my watchlist that use this source soon - they were all done about 18 months ago so are probably due a check anyway. Geof Sheppard (talk) 15:56, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::I've made a request at WP:URLREQ#Railway Heritage Register Online. Thryduulf (talk) 16:10, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::There are two Railway heritage Register Online folders that have been moved. In addition to the above wagon survey, there are carriage survey pages that start http://www.cs.rhrp.org.uk/se/ so I have added them to the request. Geof Sheppard (talk) 17:24, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

See Talk:Jubilee line#Merge proposal for unbuilt stations for a proposal to merge articles for four stations into Jubilee line. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 17:13, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

This specifically refers to the infoboxes which show adjacent stations on services, and used on nearly every article. This discussion refers to the inclusion of limited services, and whether they are worthy of inclusion, and in which circumstances.

This is mainly to address a dispute around Southampton, where the majarity of Southern services call at Swanwick, Woolston and Southampton Central. There are other stations inbetween however, but no Southern services are scheduled to call at them. The big exception relevant to this discussion is Netley, served by two westbound services, one in the morning and one in the evening. Previously, on Swanwick and Woolston's articles, there was absolutely no mention of this, and no mention of the service on Netley's article. Therefore, following existing precedent on other similar cases (including, but not limited to Southern serving Bedhampton, and being mentioned on the pages of both Havant and Hilsea, and Southern serving Littlehaven and Ifield, mentioned on the pages of both Horsham and Crawley.

However, even after providing a source (which was to Southern's website) to prove this is the case, there has been a dispute, with user Danners430 arguing this is totally not needed, and reverting the edit on the page of Woolston (although not Netley and Swanwick as of the time of writing), in which I added a section which stated the preceding station was either Swanwick, or Netley, including a clarification the latter case was a limited service, including on more than one occasion.

What I think we need to define is what cases this is a neccessary thing to include. The main argument that they can sometimes be excluded can be very limited services which have no practical usage for the reader to know about, which can very much be the case in situations where the limited service is a parliamentary service only run to keep the line open, and we would be thinking about linking sections, such as a number in the north such as the Morecambe branch line, which has a single timetabled regular direct service from Bare Lane to Carnforth, instead of reversing at Lancaster first which all other trains do, with the Carnforth and Bare Lane articles needing that information removed IF (and only IF) the decision is made to officially restrict usage of limited services.

However, the reason why we should not neccessarily remove all cases are numerous. For one thing, the service at Netley is a legitimate additional peak hour service, that just by coincidence is operated by a different train operating company than the one which operated all off-peak services, and consequently it is reasonable to also mention from the adjacent station relative to the service, which is in that case scenario Swanwick and Woolston.

Some peak hour services also make up a significant portion of services during those times of the day, with half hourly services or more in some cases, such as on the Orpington branch line in London with frequent Thameslink services, but only during peak hours.

And the last argument I would put forward is that in some cases, all of the services at some stations can be limited services, so if in theory it was decided that adjacent station boxes can ONLY be used for regular and off-peak services, by definition , we would need to remove any mention of a station on an adjacent stations infoboxes, and consequently preventing the reader from being able to easily access them despite the stations being adjacant to each other on regular (I.E. offically scheduled and timetabled, to any extent) services (cases of physically adjacent stations but no regular services between them doesn't count in this scenario, even if the information may still be included in a historical section).

In general, I believe it would be best just to keep that information about limited services retained, given there is legitimate pre-existing precedent that does exist for inclusion, even if I acknowledge there is limited reason to exclude information under very specific circumstances, although I see absolutely no reason to ever exclude information such as limited services under every circumstance. Lawrence 979 (talk) 20:34, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:An aside, the source you give doesn't seem to want to reveal the existence of the Netley service on Safari and its validity expired yesterday. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 20:51, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

::I do have an alternative source available, which is the PDF variant of the same timetable, which does itself have validity all the way up to December 2025 on the updated version. The PDF variant does include the information I am quoting from, as using the CTRL-F function (or using the built in function in the case of mobile devices) and typing in "Netley" will immediately reveal the information showing that Southern serves the station twice per day. ("Also calls at Netley 0606" and "Also calls at Netley 1749"). Lawrence 979 (talk) 22:06, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:For transparency, I have reported Lawrence 979 to WP:AN3 as they have reverted the page yet again, and are now at 4 reverts in the last 24 hours. I’ll have a read through this wall of text shortly. Danners430 (talk) 21:22, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:In response to the content dispute, it’s not just myself that disagrees - Murgatroyd above is also reverting you for the same reasons. Indeed, the initial discussion took place on their talk page.

:My view on this matter is reasonably simple - the adjacent stations table and services field in the infobox should be used for regular services only. Irregular stopping patterns, such as peak time services, once- or twice-daily services or parliamentary services, should still be mentioned in the body of the article (let’s not hide genuine info), but shouldn’t be in the table or infobox, since they’re not representative of the normal service a station gets. Danners430 (talk) 21:38, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

::If we are going to take up your viewpoint that limited services should NEVER be included in any table or infobox, we should wait to see if any other editors want to contribute, because that would be overriding large-scale and longstanding precedent for countless stations based on the viewpoint of a single editor, which I am sure would sooner or later land you in a dispute with some other editor, and the issue of stations which only receive limited services would need to be decided. For example, links to Faygate station on the Arun Valley line (with only 10 Northbound and 12 Southbound services or something along those lines) would likely have to be removed outright because there are only services to the station during peak hours (minus a midday service), and consequently there would be limited access to the article, which could end up leading someone just to nominate it for deletion if no one ever views it. And even then with your view on peak hour services, I can see where you are coming from with that, but that can mean excluding mention of services from an infobox which a station regularly received for approximately 30-40% of the day or something along those lines, which is a substantially representative of services which the station receives over the course of a day. In general, what you are doing with Woolston is basically ordering me to exclude it from a longstanding precedent that you want to unilaterally override, which is not how any site like wikipedia should work. Lawrence 979 (talk) 22:01, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:::My friend… getting comments from other editors is precisely why I encouraged you to use these talk pages. I’m not ordering you to do anything - as of right now there are three editors in a content dispute, and this is being resolved by discussion. I have one view, you have another. That is why we use talk pages. Danners430 (talk) 22:28, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Fair enough, but until the day comes where everyone agree to your idea, articles such as Swanwick, Netley and Woolston should follow existing precedent on wikipedia when it comes to stations with a limited service, provided they are correctly sourced, and other stations nearby have very similar cases of limited services, such as Southampton Airport Parkway and Eastleigh, which technically fall into the same category as Netley, in that limited Southern (and GWR as well for that matter) services call at the stations three times per day on the exact same route (Brighton to Southampton), but still has links almost identical to the ones I put on Woolston on the articles for both Fareham and Southampton Central, and still clarified for them as limited service, just following older standards which probably need to be reviewed soon. So I can question what makes those articles acceptable but not Woolston's? Lawrence 979 (talk) 22:41, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::As of right now, we are still disputing Woolston. I have not looked at other articles in that region recently nor do I have any desire to do so. And as of right now, that dispute is not yet settled - and since you may have already broken WP:3RR I’d be very careful about more reverts on that page until the dispute is resolved - which will need input from others. Danners430 (talk) 22:48, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:They're not infoboxes. Infoboxes are the boxes top right of many pages. What you appear to be talking about is, strictly speaking, a succession box. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:47, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

::OK, I acknowledge that, and in general, i often use the wrong terms everyday in the real world and on wikipedia. Of course the area we are actually talking about is the adjacent stations boxes, and more specifically, the variant used for national rail stations. The main thing we need to resolve is when, if ever, we can mention a relatively limited service in an adjacent stations box, which can range absolutely anywhere from a once-weekly parliamentary service to a full service, but one which only actually runs during peak times. Generally, there seems to be existing precedent to include them in most circumstances, but it seems like some want to banish them UK stations completely. Lawrence 979 (talk) 22:57, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:The purpose of these boxes is to present a typical service pattern, not every service pattern. Two peak-time only services that call in one direction only is not the typical service pattern and does not need to be included. Wikipedia is not a timetable. Thryduulf (talk) 23:26, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

::There is already many examples of peak-time only services being included, provided they are always clarified very specifically as either "Limited service" or "Peak only". However, before June 2024, when Southern withdrew their service from every station between Swanwick and Southampton except for Woolston (upgraded to regular service) and Netley (retained limited services), every station did include Southern, but I do agree, Wikipedia is not a timetable, and if it was a comprehensive timetable, we would end up with an absolutely convoluted mess and a long list of adjacent stations when it takes into account early morning and late night services as well as peak services). However, based on existing precedent, there has generally for a long time been a case of selected limited services that do go alongside regular services in adjacent stations boxes, such as relatively regular peak services during the daytime, but I personally highly doubt that a one-size-fits-all approach would work out across the UK. In general, the main question is whether Woolston and the previous station being Netley on a "limited" number of trains counts as one example of an acceptable case, but generally most other stations include it, so there isn't a good reason for the status quo of Woolston having it banned due to an edit war (which was initially for not providing an additional source, and then for the source not being sufficiently accessible to all, even though that is the reality of many sources in all sorts of documents, then for disagreements about the purpose of the source, and was basically your fault as I was initially reverting after addressing the reason why my edit was reverted, but its obviously happened now) but other articles, such as Swanwick (which to be honest was an edit made by me at the same time as Woolston for the same purpose), or already well-established examples such as Southern/GWR services via Eastleigh. If Woolston stays exactly as it is, then those other aforementioned articles will have to change for consistency, I would suggest that a discussion could also be added to Woolston's page as well. Lawrence 979 (talk) 00:12, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I have just taken a look at the services section for Southampton Central railway station and see several things that I think we could do better. The first that leaps out at me is the long list of '1 tph' services. The 'tph' is not explained (try using the {{tl|abbr}} template), but is it really the best way of presenting this information? Perhaps it would make better reading if it was in prose: 'Services operate typically once every hour to...'

:::The positioning of the image is rather strange with all that whitespace above it. I am sure that a better image or two taken in daytime would illustrate the services better.

:::I am surprised that one line has 'Woolston or Southampton Airport Parkway' as the preceding station. These are on different routes so ought to have different lines using a 'rail line two to one' template insert.

:::In the succession box template, the columns are headed 'preceding station' and 'next station' so should have only one station in each row. So, to answer the question that started this discussion, the one station should be the nearest one, even if it has only a limited service. Another point to bear in mind is that the station with the limited service ({{stnlnk|Southampton Airport Parkway}}) will invariably have the limited service shown in its succession box, so the station which is served by all trains ({{stnlnk|Southampton Central}}) should have a link back to that station so that the navigation is bidirectional between the two pages. At the moment {{stnlnk|Woolston}} fails this as I can follow the link from {{stnlnk|Netley}} to Woolston but then not go back again.

:::I may have misunderstood the stopping pattern, but the Southern service at Southampton Central correctly shows Woolston as a preceding station as Netley is beyond Woolston. Geof Sheppard (talk) 16:35, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

::::I have made some edits to Southampton Central to reflect some of those ideas. I do agree though Southampton Airport Parkway for Southern should be in a separate box in preceding station given it obviously a different route. I also condensed the box, which consequently allows the London Victoria service to be merged into a single "West Coastway line" item on the list.

::::However, using two different stations in the same box isn't neccessarily completely the wrong answer in all situations, given in many examples, it relates to the next stations on a regular service but following the same route. For example at Fareham, the following station for Southern is "Portchester or Cosham", which is acceptable, given 1 train per hour calls at Portchester, and the doesn't and goes straight to Cosham, but both trains operate the same service to Brighton. However, that is only acceptable in the cases of regular services, so it doesn't apply to Woolston.

::::With that point about bidirectional navigation, the reason that doesn't work is because there was an edit which did allow that to work, and access Netley from Woolston's page (without going through Sholing first, but that is counterintuitive and obviously a no-no). However, for multiple reasons (first for being apparently unsourced, and then the source not being clear enough, apparently due to not working on the browser of an editor, and then because it was believed the edit was invalid due to relating to a limited service, causing me to have to stop trying before being blocked, causing this discussion to be opened in the first place), but the edit dispute only landed on Woolston, not Netley or Swanwick (despite that edit being near-identical to Woolston).

::::So generally, the best way to clear it up would be agreeing that edit should be reinstated based on the existing precedent and consequently consensus. That is in part because the purpose of my edit was in part correcting an edit from a user who went one step too far and removed Southern from every single station between Swanwick and Southampton (except Woolston because of its upgraded service), and removed Netley despite that station being the single exception and retaining a limited Southern service, unlike other stations such as Sholing. Lawrence 979 (talk) 23:58, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::So far, nobody in this discussion has agreed that your course of action is the way to go. So I’d hold off until such time as such a consensus has been agreed - because as of now, it doesn’t exist. Danners430 (talk) 06:52, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Well that is what I'll probably do, but that argument that "So, to answer the question that started this discussion, the one station should be the nearest one, even if it has only a limited service" does to some extent answer that question I put on this discussion, which I only started in response to my edits being reverted by you due to a unilateral belief that the edit was unacceptable, and ignoring other factors such as bidirectional navigation. Lawrence 979 (talk) 09:21, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I'm going to make one thing clear here, and it's the last I'm going to entertain on the subject. Your edits were reverted because two editors disagreed with your edits. It doesn't matter why - but we set out our reasons here and at Murgatroy's talk page. So far, you have yet to provide evidence of your so called "consensus" regarding how these tables are to be formatted. This is why this discussion exists - so that a consensus can be reached.

:::::::Given no consensus exists (unless you can provide the link to it), any editor is welcome to revert your edits if they disagree - the same way as any editor can revert my edits if they disagree. But per WP:BRD, that's the point at which the original editor starts a discussion - they don't accuse other editors of wrongdoing (which you have repeatedly implied, at least to my eyes, in your messages), and you don't edit war.

:::::::Please have a good read of WP:BRD, WP:CONSENSUS and WP:OWN. Danners430 (talk) 09:37, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Yeah, I know about that stuff. Otherwise I would have gone to revert the edit already, and you would have probably had another revert to do, something that I have not done as of the time of writing this comment. With one of those editors, the main reason originally was because of sources, which is fair enough when I didn't cite any additional sources, but then I cited an extra source, and kept reverting because they found it unacceptable because the information wasn't sufficiently clear for their liking, despite that often being the case with citations on wikipedia or the wider academic world, such as with book sources which someone may or may not own. Lawrence 979 (talk) 09:57, 15 May 2025 (UTC)