Talk:Crewe–Liverpool line

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Chester to Manchester line which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 04:46, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Chester to Manchester Line which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:46, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Weaver Junction

The terminus of this line is Weaver Junction. From there services continue on the West Coast Main Line which can't be "shared" with another line because railway lines are the infrastructure. That means that any track is always part of exactly one line. There is no reason to keep this title just because it has always been like that (which is not even true). --PhiH (talk) 17:37, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

If you're going to make the southern end Weaver Junction, then the northern end must be Ditton Junction. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:59, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

The section from Ditton Junction to Garston was built by the St Helens and Runcorn Gap Railway but then the LNWR leased that branch line and the majority of it became part of the route from Weaver Junction to Liverpool. Also speaking in terms of ELR that section can be considered part of the new LNWR line.

I would be open to both versions at that end but prefer a Weaver Junction–Liverpool line instead of having separate articles for Weaver Junction–Ditton Junction and Garston–Edge Hill which were part of the same project. --PhiH (talk) 08:49, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

There is no consensus here for any change, so I don't know why it was made again after being reverted once. and as Redrose notes, using a junction at one end and not at the other is inconsistent. Lines are not defined by when they were built, and which junction they emanate from, but by the destinations at each end. Unless you hVd clear sourcing to the contrary, Per WP:COMMONNAME, this line should remain as the status quo.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:56, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Some lines begin at junctions and end at a station. There is nothing inconsistent about that.

Railway lines are the physical track; that means they are usually defined by the construction. If there is no other name we choose the places where a line begins and ends, not an arbitrarily chosen station almost 30 kilometres away. Why should we take Crewe anyway? Why not Stafford of even Birmingham?

If you want to have a source for Weaver Junction have a look at the Sectional Appendix. I can't see why Crewe follows WP:COMMONNAME and Weaver Junction not. Keep in mind that User:Mattbuck who created the article moved this article to Weaver Junction and Liverpool Line where it had been for three years. --PhiH (talk) 19:41, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I did? Huh, do not remember that. I have no opinions on the name of this article, I think I just realised there was a gap where an article should be and so created it and let someone more knowledgable about the area sort it out. -mattbuck (Talk) 22:11, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Every line is named according to the destinations at each end, that's the convention, as you will see if you look at Category:Railway lines in South East England or Category:Railway lines in North West England. Hence why we have a Reading–Taunton line for example, not the Reading–Cogload Junction line. And as far as I can tell, this convention also matches common usage in the wider world. For example in this book source: [1], or the Mid Cheshire Rail Users Association. As for why Crewe is used, rather than a closer station such as Acton Bridge, I assume that's just because the majority of services run straight through from Crewe. And Winsford, Hartford and Acton Bridge are not interchanges as they have no stopping trains on the GWML. Anyway, it seems like this probably needs a wider conversation, either through a formal Requested Move, or perhaps a thread at the UK rail WikiProject, since your proposal seems to go against all other similarly named lines. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 22:31, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

The article was created at 10:23, 3 August 2012 by Mattbuck (talk · contribs) and was initially named Crewe to Liverpool Line. Since then, it has been moved no fewer than nine times, as follows:

Page move history

Date and time	User	New name	Reason
10:58, 26 December 2013 (UTC)	Mattbuck	Weaver Junction and Liverpool Line	correct name
16:14, 18 June 2016 (UTC) (UTC)	Nathan A RF	Crewe to Liverpool Line	correct name
02:48, 2 November 2016 (UTC)	Dicklyon	Crewe to Liverpool line	reserve caps for proper names
12:07, 2 November 2016 (UTC)	Amakuru	Crewe to Liverpool Line	rv move to state before move request
01:59, 11 December 2016 (UTC)	Bradv	Crewe–Liverpool line	outcome of requested move discussion
14:22, 25 November 2020 (UTC)	PhiH	Weaver Junction–Liverpool line	correct name, the rest is the West Coast Main Line
14:41, 25 November 2020 (UTC)	Amakuru	Crewe–Liverpool line	rv undiscussed move away from long-term title; generally known by the major termini at each end, even if the end sections are shared
15:26, 1 December 2020 (UTC)	PhiH	Weaver Junction–Liverpool line	not part of the line, see talk
17:51, 1 December 2020 (UTC)	Amakuru	Crewe–Liverpool line	Rv Undiscussed move again. No consensus on talk for such a move.

Now, since the move of 01:59, 11 December 2016 (UTC) was the result of a formal WP:RM discussion (see bundled discussion at Talk:Chester–Manchester line#Requested move 2 November 2016), the name agreed there, i.e. Crewe–Liverpool line, should not be altered without another RM discussion that supersedes the first. If this move-warring continues I shall formally warn those involved, restore the agreed name, and move-protect the page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:17, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

@Redrose64: I would take issue with your warning to me here - as you note above, "Crewe–Liverpool line" is the agreed title of the page from a prior requsted move, therefore my two recent moves were simply reversions of undiscussed moves, which is permitted by WP:RMUM: "If you disagree with such a move, and the new title has not been in place for a long time, you may revert the move". And my reverts were not both done on the same day - the earlier one was a week ago. As for the 2016 move, that was also simply reverting a long-standing title following a bold move, on the unrelated question of whether Line should be capitalised. That was eventually settled via RM. I do not consider myself to have move-warred on this article. Regards  — Amakuru (talk) 23:49, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I didn't say that I would warn you specifically - I said that I would formally warn those involved, no names given. Also, I never claimed that you (or anybody else) moved the page twice in one day. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:25, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

OK, noted, thanks.  — Amakuru (talk) 00:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

If was accepted that "railway lines are the infrastructure. That means that any track is always part of exactly one line", then I'd have been OK with this undiscussed move, since the move from the original Weaver Junction title to the Crewe title was also undiscussed, and since the other moves were about the dash and the case, not about which endpoint to use. However, I think that premise is not right, and that lines are more often (always?) named for service endpoints (stations). Is there a project-level concensus on that question some place? Dicklyon (talk) 00:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: Thanks for your comment, although I would add that the move from Weaver Junction to Crewe was made four years ago. That's a sufficient amount of time that an RM is definitely needed, whatever people may feel are the rights and wrongs of the situation. And even if subsequent RMs didn't specifically address that point, the status quo is still clearly to refer to the southern end-point as Crewe. Reverting an undiscussed move doesn't really apply when it's four years after the fact.... Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 11:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the categories you mentioned, railway lines are named by the station at each end, not by a "destination" somewhere on the next line. The Weaver Junction–Liverpool line is an unusual case because it wasn't built from a station but diverges from the WCML in the middle of nowhere. In that case a junction is the terminus of the line. The Reading–Taunton line also "runs to Cogload Junction (east of Taunton)", not to Taunton; that's how it is stated in the article. Claiming that a line is twice as long as it actually is can't be compared to that situation.

The RM was about the consistent use of en-dashes and the capitalisation of "line" for a total of 14 articles. It has nothing to do with this discussion. --PhiH (talk) 11:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the sources I would like to add two things: The electrification took place Crewe–Weaver Junction section and on the Weaver Junction–Liverpool section. The book took that as a single railway line and considered the northern part of the WCML as the branch line because it wasn't to be electrified at that point. I wouldn't say that this point of view is correct but it is a possible option. Most sources consider the route to Warrington and onwards to be the main line instead which is in accordance with the history.

In the second source the organisation referres to "those travelling between Crewe and Liverpool." In contrast to the Mid-Cheshire line they don't call it a railway line but a connection between two cities. Trains are of course running between these cities but that doesn't make it a line. Many services use multiple lines on their route. --PhiH (talk) 16:44, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Well that's all well and good, but ultimately it sounds a little like original research. What matters is the sources, not a deep analysis of which line was built when. I've seen one or two places referring to the line as running between Weaver Junction and Liverpool, but they are few and far between. Unless it can be shown that a majority of reliable sources refer to the line in the way that you say, then we stick with the WP:COMMONNAME, which is attested in recent as well as older sources. Not to mention that, as already stated, there is a WP:CONSISTENCY issue with using a junction as a terminus in just this one case, when we don't do so elsewhere.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:51, 6 December 2020 (UTC)