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Better title?

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Can we come up with a better title, one that is more user-friendly? Most people in the general public do not know the term "Spuyten Duyvil". Most will try "2013 New York City train derailment" ... or "2013 Metro North train derailment" ... or "2013 Bronx train derailment" ... or some such. Few will know the very specific title of "Spuyten Duyvil". Thoughts? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:42, 1 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The current title it just got moved to is even worse, there have already been several other derailments- albeit without fatalities - in NYC in the current year. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 22:57, 1 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A better article title would be December 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment---especially given that there was a derailment on the next curve southbound in July 2013. --AEMoreira042281 (talk) 23:04, 1 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
December 2013 Bronx Derailment would be a better title. Few people outside New York know what Spuyten Duyvil is and the article is hard to find under this name Timo46 (talk) 23:15, 1 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So add a redirect from the titles you're thinking of. The only change I would make to the current one would be to add MetroNorth to the mix, something like December 2013 Metro North Spuyten Duyvil derailment, if that isn't getting too unwieldy... —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 00:22, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Geez... why specific, less familiar names? I prefer "2013 New York City derailment(s)". What do you think? George Ho (talk) 07:59, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the title should not contain the phrase "Spuyten Duyvil". It is an unfamiliar term to 99% of the population. The general public will search under "New York City" or "Bronx" or "Metro North", etc. If anything, the "Spuyten Duyvil" title should be a redirect to the more user-friendly title that is (hopefully) selected. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:02, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"December 2013 Bronx train derailment" would be good since there were other derailments in the city this year. Epicgenius (talk) 01:37, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What's wrong with precision? Personally, I think the original title was fine (Spuyten Duyvil derailment) as the derailment was in sight of the station. Redirects are cheap, use them. Mjroots (talk) 23:18, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Shall I create a new request right now? George Ho (talk) 20:25, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pictures

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Next several days are busy for me; I would cancel other activities if my pix were really valuable. Good thing I'm not trying to make a living as a news photographer. Must get a bigger camera for the occasional long-range work like this. These two are uploaded exactly as the camera made them, and I inserted one. Other retouchers ought to crop, increase contrast, etc and maybe they'll think I inserted the wrong one. I hope to retouch and upload a few more before Sunday's road trip, but they will be even less relevant than these. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:00, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So, maybe this is the best after crop and adjust and maybe a fellow editor will think it better than what I sent before. No others of the few dozen I snapped are really better. The next day that I have nothing scheduled is Saturday. I'll watch the news to find whether the SD station offers useful views. For that matter if opportunities seem really good I'll drop a scheduled meeting or something. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:43, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Metro-North, as usual, has some great pictures on its Flickr stream of the repair work, which are under a CC-BY-2.0 license, so we'll probably want to use some of them. We should also have a map, probably from OpenStreetMap.

And we might as well get a Commons category set up soon, too. Daniel Case (talk) 01:58, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ATC

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It seems that ATC was operational on other parts of the Metro-North line, but not at this curve. It would be interesting to know why. This curve seems to be a prime candidate for ATC protection. --Westwind273 (talk) 19:51, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The dicussion has been about PTC, not ATC (which I do think is in use on some other parts of the MNRR system). Daniel Case (talk) 01:48, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
i don't think that this part of the line has ATC yet… Epicgenius (talk) 14:04, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was not moved. --BDD (talk) 23:27, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

December 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment → ? – 2013 New York City derailment or December 2013 New York City derailment I prefer. The current title is too specific and NYC-biased. George Ho (talk) 09:32, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Probably December 2013 Bronx derailment, to be precise. 2013 New York City derailment is too generalised in relation to the time of year, and December 2013 New York City derailment is too generalised in relation to the location. 2013 Bronx derailment is too general for the same reason as that for the 2013 New York City derailment. Epicgenius (talk) 15:12, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why "Spuyten Duyvil" is too specific. Not when we have 2008 Chatsworth train collision for an accident most people think of as just being in Los Angeles. Not when we have Kew Gardens train crash ... not many people outside of the metro area (who aren't rabid Simon & Garfunkel fans, anyway) know that's in Queens. Why do we have to single this one out? I don't see its name as too specific compared to those other ones. Daniel Case (talk) 23:26, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, "Bronx" the burough can do also. "Spuyten Duyvil" is not a city or town. And "Kew Gardens"? At least there's Chatsworth, a city. George Ho (talk) 01:26, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Read it again: "The Chatsworth train collision occurred at 16:22 PDT (23:22 UTC) on Friday September 12, 2008, when a Union Pacific freight train and a Metrolink commuter train collided head-on in the Chatsworth district of Los Angeles, California." (The article about that district is here: "Chatsworth is a low-density, older-aged, maritally stable, high-income neighborhood of some 36,500+ residents in the northwestern San Fernando Valley district of Los Angeles, California ..." Daniel Case (talk) 02:56, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - The original title was fine (Spuyten Duyvil derailment). I don't see the need to add a month and year disambiguator as no other notable derailments occurred at Spuyten Duyvil in 2013. There's really no need to dab by year (2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment) unless there is another notable derailment at/near Spuyten Duyvil in another year. I do Support a move back to the original title. Mjroots (talk) 21:50, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There was the CSX freight derailment directly on the other side of the station in July 2013, so the date is necessary. oknazevad (talk) 23:22, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't disagree with that, but it would probably be a sounder reason for including the month if we had an article about the other derailment. Daniel Case (talk) 01:29, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Earlier derailment

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Here's a few photos of the July 2013 freight derailment that took place before this one, just in case anyone is curious. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 20:26, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Howard Permut's retirement

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<http://new.mta.info/news-metro-north-permut-giulietti/2014/01/10/mta-announces-new-president-metro-north-railroad> (Link to MNRR press release on Permut's departure)

I believe that Permut's retirement and departure is significant enough to merit mention, as a result of Metro-North's bad year. I understand if people disagree with me on this. Northeastern292 (talk) 03:16, 30 January 2014 (UTC)Northeastern292[reply]

Yes, but to be mentioned in this article, it would have to be shown to be related to the accident, or speculated to be as such. Daniel Case (talk) 05:05, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Report from the Federal Railroad Administration 2014-03-14

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Alvar☮ 13:48, 14 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, I read the Times story too. Thanks for the link to the FRA document. I will be incorporating this into the article when I have a chance to read through it. Daniel Case (talk) 14:10, 14 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Daniel Case: - The NTSB have released an open docket too. May be some good material there. Mjroots (talk) 19:58, 8 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

previous accident

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There was another accident in almost this exact spot on the night of January 13, 1882. The Western Express from Chicago to NYC stopped suddenly because a passenger pulled on the stop cord. The Tarrytown Special, also heading south, couldn't see the stopped train because of the curve of the tracks. The Tarrytown smashed into the last car of the Western Express, which was then pushed into the next car forward. The two cars caught on fire, and despite efforts to quell the flames with river water and snow, eight people died and nineteen people were injured. Webster Wagner, Senator of NYS and inventor of the Wagner Sleeping Car and Wagner Palace Car, was in the last car of the Express. The Senator was burned beyond recognition and was only able to be identified by his pocketwatch and some senatorial papers in his pocket.

http://myinwood.net/the-spuyten-duyvil-railroad-disaster-of-1882/

(Railroad Stories magazine, December 1935)

I only add this because the two accidents seem to have occurred in practically the same exact spot, which I find interesting. Also, further up on the talk page is a note about the Did You Know page, stating that the 2013 accident of the commuter train "caused the first passenger deaths in the railroad's history". Unless this Did You Know sentence only includes the Metro-North Commuter train, it wasn't the railroad's first passenger fatality.

(I've never submitted anything to Wikipedia before, so I hope I've done this right.)

Sosew (talk) 07:46, 6 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. But to answer your second question, yes the "Did you know" hook was referring to the first fatalities under Metro-North, for any line they operate. oknazevad (talk) 12:48, 6 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Helping To Keep Things Up To Date

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Hi all, there have been some recent developments regarding William Rockefeller, the engineer involved in the crash, so I have been helping to keep the relevant part of the page, "Legal actions", up to date. I welcome constructive help in this regard too.TH1980 (talk) 23:05, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Victim lists

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@Daniel Case:Please don't WP:ABF. As for the victim list, sorry for the wrong link, the correct page is WP:Victim lists. To summarize, victim lists clearly show a systematic coverage bias, and adding details about the victims (as a form of WP:MEMORIAL) does not add anything relevant to the article, unless said victims already have an article of their own, in which case it is appropriate to discuss it in both articles (the incident and the victim's page). Is it really relevant that one of the victims was a recent Korean immigrant, or that one was from Montrose, New York? No. The position of the victims, on the other hand, informs as to the violence of the incident.

For example, compare with the recent derailment in Taiwan. We don't have a victim list, yet it does not remove anything from the article. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 13:58, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Daniel Case: I know well it's an essay (which doesn't, however, mean it can just be thrown out "because it's an essay"), and templating doesn't exempt you from discussing controversial matters on the talk page. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 14:28, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@107.190.33.254:Yes it can, when there's a discussion, two in fact, both within the last two years, of a proposal to formalize that essay's position that did not find consensus, but instead found consensus to continue deciding this on a case-by-case basis. There is no need for a third opinion when consensus that has been reaffirmed elsewhere exists.

I can see that you're upset about people including it in the Taiwan crash article. But going around and changing other articles because you're not getting your way on one is, unambiguously IMO, disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point, which forfeits a good-faith assumption on my part.

I will nonetheless commend your attention to the discussion that does matter in this instance], in which a proposal to formalize the position of that essay did not find consensus; what did was "that these scenarios should be handled on a case-by-case basis" as I wrote in my edit summary.

If, having read this (which I will assume you did, per WP:BLANKING, if you delete the warning I left on your talk page), you revert again anyway, we will be discussing this at AN/I, or more accurately we will be discussing how you have handled this.

I also wonder why this TekSavvy account from Quebec just pops up in late September, suddenly seeming incredible knowledgeable about policy and insisting that they are a "regular". Are you perhaps someone who got banned/indefblocked before? Daniel Case (talk) 14:48, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Pings don't work on IPsI'm not upset about anything. In fact, there's not even a list in the Taiwan article for me to be upset... As for 'disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point', one can hardly claim that removing the list on 1 article is "disrupting".As for the rest of the bad-faith, I just don't have an account, never had and, except for the occasional situation, don't see a problem with that.
Now back to the real discussion. If this is to be discussed on a case by case basis, then let's start. What does the victim list add to the article in terms of encyclopedic content, beyond mere trivia? In my opinion, knowing the ethnicity of the victims or where they were headed isn't particularly relevant (it's not like this was some form of incident where those individuals were specifically targeted, in which case yes the information would be relevant) 107.190.33.254 (talk) 14:56, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"As for the rest of the bad-faith, I just don't have an account, never had and, except for the occasional situation, don't see a problem with that." Just what you'd expect a sock to say, isn't it? Daniel Case (talk) 15:24, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, I agree with the anon. This victim list is too detailed for an encyclopedia. It reads like a newspaper story profiling the victims that would have been published a day or two after the crash as a follow-up story. Unsurprisingly, that's exactly what the references used for the list are. I think it should be removed as well. oknazevad (talk) 14:58, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK, a real person, one who's worked on this article before, one I can take seriously. How about we just put it in a box on the side and hat it? Some people have accepted that as a solution in other articles. Daniel Case (talk) 15:24, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I also agree that the victim list is too detailed. But since there were only four deaths here (as opposed to 18 in the Taiwan accident) it isn't too extensive to mention the names and ages, but nothing more. A quote box on the side would be fine. epicgenius (talk) 15:54, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

3O Response: I'd like to point out that WP:NOTMEMORIAL/MEMORIAL and WP:VICTIM both refer to stand-alone articles about victims. They don't have anything to say about lists of victims within an article on a notable subject. Wikipedia:Victim lists is an essay, not a guideline or policy, and does not appear to be an accurate reflection on such. While essays often give good general editing advice, they may also represent minority opinions and following such advice is entirely optional. Looking at the needs of this specific article, I don't really see the relevance of the descriptions, one of which had no inline citation. The four fatalities doesn't seem excessive, and if just listing their names it could be done inline. (The side quote boxes are discouraged per MOS:BLOCKQUOTE for accessibility.) Could say that the fatalities were all adults, rather than specifying ages. I would suggest keeping the Vivian Yee reference in case readers are interested in reading more about the victims. This is a non-binding third opinion. While I hope it is helpful, you have no more obligation to follow it than you do to follow the advice of an essay. – Reidgreg (talk) 20:43, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

With a list this short, I wonder if we might also put it in a note, via {{efn}}, with a little less info. Daniel Case (talk) 16:53, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Is this enough info or have I removed too much? I've also formatted all notes to be of a similar format.107.190.33.254 (talk) 20:15, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

GA Review

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GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:December 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Vami IV (talk · contribs) 17:05, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Opening statement

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In reviews I conduct, I may make small copyedits. These will only be limited to spelling and punctuation (removal of double spaces and such). I will only make substantive edits that change the flow and structure of the prose if I previously suggested and it is necessary. For replying to Reviewer comment, please use  Done,  Fixed, plus Added,  Not done,  Doing..., or minus Removed, followed by any comment you'd like to make. I will be crossing out my comments as they are redressed, and only mine. A detailed, section-by-section review will follow. —♠Vami_IV†♠ 17:05, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Epicgenius: Another one :) –♠Vami_IV†♠ 17:05, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Vami IV, thanks. Let's also ping Daniel Case as co-nom. epicgenius (talk) 17:08, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Vami IV: Thanks. I have printed the article out to do a deep copyedit; perhaps I should get that done today. Daniel Case (talk) 17:53, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'll wait on that copyedit, then. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 11:14, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Vami IV: I am ready for comments whenever you are. Thanks.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 23:11, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Copyedits and mapping

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@Vami IV and Epicgenius: I have finished the copy edit and also, per the notes I took as I was doing it, updated it regarding the disposition of some of the lawsuits, which yielded the now-significant fact that this has become the costliest accident in Metro-North's history due to the $60 million+ in payouts and settlements.

The one other thing I'm wondering is if we could do better than my Inkscape-made map of the accident site (that big black block is supposed to be an "N") ... actually, the question wouldn't be can we do better, it's how. Maybe we could use that mapping technology we didn't have back then (or in the infobox at least), but OTOH it does seem like quite a few other train wreck articles have maps like these showing not only the vicinity but where the cars came to rest. Daniel Case (talk) 17:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Daniel Case: You mean like Kartographer? epicgenius (talk) 17:31, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Epicgenius: Yup, that's what I meant ... didn't know what it was called. We didn't have it back in 2013-14. Daniel Case (talk) 17:32, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Daniel Case, are you planning to make the map or should I do it? If you want to make the map, you can install KartoEditor on your Commons common.js page (similar to what I have done). Alternatively, use GeoJSON or some other tool to create the necessary JSON. epicgenius (talk) 17:37, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose if we want it sooner rather than later, someone who knows how to do it should do it rather than someone learning how ... Daniel Case (talk) 17:40, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Daniel Case, OK, then I might be able to do this later. epicgenius (talk) 17:44, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

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  • There should be no citations in the lead. Everything in the lead is supported by the article prose.
WP:LEADCITE doesn't completely bar cites from the intro. The two things I have decided to leave cites in for are extraordinary claims, IMO, of the "only" "Most/least" or "first" type, that should be cited in introes. Not just for that, but because as anyone who regularly maintains an article with those claims in its intro can tell you, that type of IP-busybody reader who never goes deeper into the article than the intro never tires of putting in "{{fact}}" tags on things like that, and it gets a little tiring to continually remove them and then have to explain why in the edit summary.

Just my experience. Daniel Case (talk) 00:44, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Done--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 00:47, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Background

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Accident

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  • The content of Footnote C should fill out "Fatalities", or it should be dissolved into "Accident".
That was a consequence of the discussion above, rather a way to dodge having a lack of consensus either way on an issue that policy says is to be decided on an article-by-article basis. I have no problem including it, but some people feel very strongly about not doing so in any circumstance, and to me the endnote was the best compromise at the time. Daniel Case (talk) 21:04, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, noted. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 21:15, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Effects

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  • [...] with delays due to reduced speeds and activity in the accident area. Insert an "albeit" before "with".
  • The next morning, many of the 26,000 who commute to the city via the Hudson Line were tolerant of the inconveniences and detours in stride. Recommend abridging this to "many of the 26,000 commuters going to New York City via the Hudson Line [...]"
  • The third paragraph of "Service and repairs" does not feel encyclopedic to me. "We're living like kings and queens" compared to the grieving families of the dead. Especially rubs me the wrong way. The abundance of weasel words is also undesirable.
  • Some commuters temporarily switched to buses, or drove themselves. Combine this with whatever becomes of paragraph 3.

Aftermath

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  • In mid-March 2014, the agency released its report to Congress on the results of Deep Dive. Metro-North, it said, had a "deficient safety culture." The FRA identified "three overarching safety concerns: No citation given.
That's actually the one at the end of the graf. But I'll put it at the end of the bulleted list as well. Daniel Case (talk) 04:05, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
 Fixed Daniel Case (talk) 04:10, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • From the train event recorders, it determined [...] Who/what is "it" here?
  • [...] a New Windsor man who had been on the train filed suit. Eddie Russell [...] Is Russell the New Windsor man?
 Done--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 00:47, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rockefeller, who retired on a full disability [...] When did he retire?
  • [...] sued the MTA for $10 million [...] When?
 Fixed I realized the second graf should have come first in this section, and once I made that change, it flows much better. Daniel Case (talk) 04:24, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Referencing

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References are credible. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 18:40, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GA progress

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Article passes CopyVio scanner. No disambiguation links are present. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 17:13, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Images are relevant to the article and free/tagged. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 18:40, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article review progress box
Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV ()
3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant ()
Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Injury

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@Daniel Case:, @Dadgeoff: just edited the article, saying Article incorrectly described Linda Smith as uninjured in one sentence and then said that she was one of the injured in the very next sentence. There were more sources that described her as being injured, and the source on the sentence for her being injured seemed to majorly be about her sister's passing, and the link is currently nonfunctional for verification. Do you have any idea whether this is the case? I hope you are doing well. Thanks.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 14:01, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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