Talk:Koblenz Hauptbahnhof

Importance assessment logic

Category 2 station - one of about 60 in Germany. These are either important junctions for long-distance traffic or offer connections to large airports.

Requested move

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.

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:55, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Koblenz Central Station → Koblenz Hauptbahnhof – Koblenz already has a (quite different) station called (in German) Koblenz-Stadtmitte, which most people would probably translate into English as Koblenz Central Station. Therefore naming our article on the station called (in German) Koblenz Hauptbahnhof as Koblenz Central Station is potentially confusing and ambiguous to our readers. chris_j_wood (talk) 17:51, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment. Translating Hauptbahnhof as Central Station is not a good translation; Central Station implies a geographically central location. An implication that is utterly missing from the German term Hauptbahnhof, which implies a position in a heirarchy of importance amongst stations rather a geographical position. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 17:54, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. "Central Station" is the usual name in the English-speaking world for the principal station in a city. Translation does not have to be literal to be right; the question to ask is "what would we normally call the same thing in English?" For example Talbrücke literally means "valley bridge" but dictionaries usually call it a "viaduct". Ironically only German speakers might temporarily confuse Koblenz Central Station with Koblenz Stadtmitte, the vast majority of our readers will be blissfully ignorant! Finally there is at least some consistency because all other German stations are called "FOO railway station" or "FOO station" not "Bahnhof FOO". There's no perfect answer whichever way you go, but I'd leave this one as it is. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:50, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Response. (1) Central Station is not the usual name in the English speaking world for a main station; it is the usual name in the English speaking world for a centrally located station; the fact that the two are often the same thing is happenstance. (2) Just because translation doesn't have to be literal to be right doesn't make all non-literal translation right; Central Station is not a good translation of Hauptbahnhof. (3) Suggesting that most of readers would be blissfully ignorant of the Koblenz ambiguity is somewhat patronising; a great many (most?) native English speakers would be able to work out the meaning of Stadtmitte for themselves; after all Stadt=City is pretty common knowledge and Mitte has the same root as Middle. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 20:47, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment. (1) Many, if not most, central stations in the English-speaking world are not geographically central. (2) Langenscheidt's biggest dictionary translates Hbf as main or central station. (3) I would never patronise our readers; but the truth is very few speak German and most will be baffled by the word Hauptbahnhof. --Bermicourt (talk) 07:25, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support; I think chris_j_wood makes a convincing argument. (And the ritual translation from "haupt" to "central" has irritated me for a while). bobrayner (talk) 22:38, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't see any reason to give this station differently than other hauptbahnhofs. That the city has another railway station will no doubt confuse some people, but this isn't a solution. "Central station" is an idiom that means, "principal passenger railway station", as our central station article explains. That is to say, it is an exact translation of hauptbahnhof. "Central" modifies "station", not city. So in its non-idiomic sense, the central station is the one that isn't north, south, east, or west. To identify "central" with "urban center" is a misunderstanding. Back in the Railway Age, Britain had a Great Central Railway, so the stations it operated were "central stations." WP:UE says to translate non-English names. Koblenz-Stadtmitte station should be moved to Koblenz City Center Station. Kauffner (talk) 02:37, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment does that mean you want a disambiguation page here at the current name? 70.24.247.54 (talk) 06:15, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support Central Station is certainly not necessarily the main station in a city here in the United Kingdom. Examples where this is not the case are Liverpool and Glasgow, both of which have a Central Station which is not the main station. Other cities don't even have a Central Station (London, Birmingham, Edinburgh), or it has closed years ago (Manchester) and been redeveloped. No city in the Republic of Ireland has a Central Station! A better translation of Hauptbahnhof, if we have to have one, would be Main railway station Skinsmoke (talk) 21:03, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. Liverpool Central was historically the main station; Lime Street only replaced it when the upper ground level terminus closed. Glasgow Central is one of the two main stations in Glasgow and the one that receives all rail services from England. The fact that Ireland and various cities doesn't use the name "Central Station" is not relevant - unless they use another more widespread equivalent, which they don't. "Main Station" is never used as a station name AFAIK, whereas "Central Station" is very common and used in all the main English-speaking countries. It is therefore the closest English equivalent by miles. Check it out here. --Bermicourt (talk) 23:49, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. We have a new category, Category:Hauptbahnhof_in_Germany. There are 102 pages in it. Every one has a title in form "Foo Central Station." Kauffner (talk) 02:26, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

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.

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Kaiserslautern Central Station which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. Bahnfrend (talk) 14:03, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

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