Talk:Port Pirie railway station (Ellen Street)

Proposal to combine articles

I have been looking at the 4 articles on Port Pirie's stations. Each is rather brief and there are some inaccuracies (or a reference does not actually provide the key point made).

Unless a reader knows something about the subject already, it's difficult to comprehend the way in which passenger stations changed in Port Pirie.

I think a more comprehensive presentation would result from having one article dealing with all of them (with redirects from Ellen Street, Mary Elie Street, Solomontown x 2, and Coonamia station). More photos, a collapsed set of track diagrams (from NRM) and some more references would bolster it.

Comments, anyone? If none, I'll do the work. SCHolar44 (talk) 04:50, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi SCHolar44

I am not keen on proposals that suggest the combining of articles because the result can be little better than a bulked-up disambiguation page. However, I would support your proposal provided it will result in something much bigger and more useful than the sum of the four existing articles and takes account of the following comments:

1. The new article needs to be about how the rail system fitted into and worked within the Port Pirie urban area and the role of the four stations in respect to this rather the other way around.
2. Port Pirie (Ellen Street) railway station is an article which is capable of being expanded into a much larger article and should be retained as a separate article. This is because the article is currently focused only on the building’s role in the rail system. There is no discussion about its building form and its historical role in Port Pirie, while its use (since 1972) as a museum operated by the National Trust of South Australia is mentioned in one sentence. I found three heritage reports on the South Australian Department of Environment and Water website that include content about this building. These contains additional sources that can be consulted. Also, the building was listed on the South Australian Heritage Register on 26 November 1981 – there will be a proclamation in the South Australian Government Gazette published on that day which can be cited.
3. Port Pirie (Mary Elie Street) railway station may be an article that can be expanded subject to what can found about its original and current uses.

I have some comments re your recent edits of Port Pirie railway station – I will place these on your talk page. Regards Cowdy001 (talk) 10:15, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

No thanks - they're different stations, on different sites, at different times, and mashing them into one article would just be confusing (as attempts at merging distinct topics usually wind up). They just all need a bit of work: there's no reason those new references, track diagrams, photos, etc., couldn't go into the existing articles. This is especially so because some of them are notable buildings as well (one is state heritage listed). An article about railways in the Port Pirie urban area would belong at Railways in Port Pirie, not mashing together perfectly decent station topics. The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:23, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Proposal to amend titles of two articles on Port Pirie's railway stations and add two new ones

Thank you for your comments, Cowdy001 and The Drover's Wife.

I have now prepared substantive upgrades to the existing articles about Port Pirie's passenger railway stations:

• Port Pirie (Ellen Street) railway station
• Port Pirie Junction railway station
• Port Pirie (Mary Elie Street) railway station
• Coonamia railway station.

I have uploaded Ellen Street and Coonamia; the others are awaiting some references and will be ready soon. Additionally, I've prepared articles on the two stations not currently covered:

• the original Port Pirie station at what eventually became known as Port Pirie South railway yard
• the first Solomontown station (not the parenthetic name for Port Pirie Junction).

The articles need to be named consistently, and I propose them as:

• Port Pirie's first railway station
• Port Pirie (Ellen Street) railway station
• Port Pirie (Solomontown) railway station
• Port Pirie Junction railway station
• Port Pirie (Mary Elie Street) railway station
• Port Pirie's last railway station (Coonamia stopping place).

I have already supplemented the disambiguation page to list the 2 additional stations but have not yet implemented the proposed title changes there.

At present I have covered the sequence of changes resulting from gauge changes with a panel titled "Port Pirie's six stations and the 'multi-gauge muddle'", which includes a timeline diagram with reasons for the construction/demise etc. That may be enough; I'll see how things look once the six articles are up.

I'd appreciate your comments. SCHolar44 (talk) 09:13, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Notes

Fantastic job on Coonamia, by the way. Wikipedia doesn't really do editorialised titles - like, you generally won't find equivalents to "Port Pirie's first railway station" or "Port Pirie's last railway station". If there isn't an obvious location disambiguator (like Mary Elie Street/Ellen Street), I'd tend to go with years. I think we should call the station what it was actually called in practice (see WP:COMMONNAME) and not use "Port Pirie" if the station wasn't actually called "Port Pirie". I'm not really bothered as to whether one calls Coonamia a stopping place or a railway station; Australian Wikipedia tends to use "railway station" across the board but the sources elsewhere could go either way. The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:27, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks; will research further and ponder. SCHolar44 (talk) 11:16, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi @SCHolar44:, overall, this and the other associated articles are starting to look good. Re the Port Pirie railway station article, I had placed a 'cleanup' tag on it because I do not think it conforms with  Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation requirements - please refer Wikipedia:Disambiguation dos and don'ts. Re Coonamia railway station, I would recommended saying that it is a railway station and add a sentence/change an existing sentence to advise that the railway operator considered it to be a "provisional stopping place". Re Coonamia & Ellen Street, I think the photos of the station facilities should be in the infobox (above the maps etc) as this will inform the reader that the articles are definitely about railway stations. I also looked at the articles on my mobile phone to find that the tables etc all fitted nicely on the screen without any loss of information (which usually happens). I have done some minor edits and will have a detailed look later. Regards Cowdy001 (talk) 23:03, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the other comments. You are doing a great job. The infoboxes would look better in my opinion to have a photo at the top rather than a diagram that needs to be expanded to make sense. Content question - was there ever a raised platform at Coonamia or Solomontown somewhere? I thought I remembered having seen one, perhaps as a steel structure rather than earth and concrete, and only a couple of carriages long. --Scott Davis ^Talk 07:57, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

I have fixed some errors in your edits re heritage listing. FYI, the only legal heritage listing is the state legislation associated with the SA Heritage Register. The building is not listed on the National Heritage List (please refer Australia's National Heritage List) and was listed on the now-defunct Register of the National Estate. The citation that you added re the National Heritage List was actually for the Register of the National Estate. Regards Cowdy001 (talk) 03:12, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your very constructive comments, Cowdy001, The Drover's Wife and Scott Davis.

Scott, you'll see I have swapped the Ellen Street photo into the infobox, which I'll also do for Coonamia. (My failure to do this is a hang-over from my abandoned draft of an article centred on the stations as the gauge changes occurred; it's amazing what you miss before others see it!)

You asked: was there ever a raised platform at Coonamia or Solomontown somewhere? My best information (from relevant railway historians and former train crew) is not at Coonamia and almost certainly not at Solomontown (first). Narrow gauge Western Division stations invariably had ground-level boarding, and it was only the need to transfer passengers across between trains at break-of-gauge (as also at Terowie and Hamley Bridge) that gave rise to platforms. There would have had to be a very good reason to justify expending funds, even on a step platform.

Cowdy, thanks for your correction re the heritage listing. Given that, my suggestion would be that the actual listing be referenced too, namely:

<ref>{{cite web |url= http://maps.sa.gov.au/heritagesearch/HeritageItem.aspx?p_heritageno=13529 |title= Heritage Places |date= 2020 |website=SA Heritage Places Database Search |publisher= Government of South Australia |access-date= 9 February 2020 }}</ref>

Any thoughts?

I would recommend staying with the citation from the State Government Gazette because it is the original notice of the listing and because the SA Heritage Places Database is ultimately derived from this (and the entry on the SA Heritage Places Database does not include any additional information apart from a link to the Location SA Map Viewer, a graphical database. BTW, the SA Heritage Places Database have the risk of containing errors and the addressing of sites can be up to 30 years out of date. Regards Cowdy001 (talk) 10:16, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

The problem with using the Government Gazette for this is that we're not sourcing a fact that's fixed in time (as with, say, an establishment or abolition date of an entity); citing the Government Gazette from the 70s doesn't tell us whether it's still listed today. The current database does. I haven't found the heritage places database to be an unreliable source in any way (it would be hard for it to be, given how relatively little information it contains about anything besides the fact and status of listing), and addressing of sites is a problem with heritage registers everywhere and isn't avoided by citing the original listing. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:27, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Drover's Wife, based on your comments I've reviewed the article titles as follows. In particular I've thought about your comment, "we should call the station what it was actually called in practice (see WP:COMMONNAME) and not use "Port Pirie" if the station wasn't actually called "Port Pirie". I agree. However, since three stations were called "Port Pirie" and one (#1) forfeited the name for a few years' overlap with #2, I can't see any alternative to adding their location parenthetically, as in column 2 (because of the overlaps, dates wouldn't work).

Present article name	Name now proposed	Notes
—	Port Pirie railway station (at Port Pirie South)	1st and only station 1876–1902, so no probs in itself. However, subsequent stations were named "Port Pirie". Adding dates to distinguish between this and Ellen Street is problematic because of overlap for several years after 1911 (when it became "Port Pirie South").
Port Pirie (Ellen Street) railway station	Port Pirie railway station (in Ellen Street)	Signposted as, and on timetables as, "Port Pirie" until closed and superseded by Mary Elie Street in 1967 but known in Port Pirie and by railways employees as "Ellen Street".
—	Solomontown railway station	No problem here.
Port Pirie Junction railway station	Port Pirie Junction railway station	No big problem. On timetables as Port Pirie Junction; station signage showed Port Pirie Junction and Solomontown. Known widely as Solomontown. Will remark to this effect in article.
Port Pirie (Mary Elie Street) railway station	Port Pirie railway station (in Mary Elie Street)	Signposted as, and on timetables as "Port Pirie". Known in Port Pirie and by railways employees as "Mary Elie Street".
Coonamia railway station	Coonamia railway station	No problem. On timetables as "Coonamia" followed by a symbol indicating its status as a provisional stopping place.

The disambiguation page could then read (links omitted for the present):

Port Pirie railway station may refer to one of the following six stations that existed in Port Pirie, South Australia:

• the inaugural Port Pirie railway station at Port Pirie South, next to what was later named Port Pirie South railway yard, from 1876 to 1911 Port Pirie railway station in Ellen Street – in central Port Pirie from 1902 to 1967 (now a museum)
• the first Solomontown railway station, for passenger journeys to/from the town centre – from 1911 to 1937
• Port Pirie Junction railway station – also known as Solomontown – from 1937 to 1967
• Port Pirie railway station in Mary Elie Street – at Port Pirie South from 1967 to 1989
• Coonamia railway station – an unattended "provisional stopping place" on the outskirts of Port Pirie from 1989 to the 2010s.

Further comments most welcome. Cheers, Simon. SCHolar44 (talk) 08:00, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree with most of those. I don't particularly see a problem with the current names of the Ellen Street and Mary Elie Street stations - if we wanted to make it clear that the streets weren't part of the names, we could just move them around to, say, "Port Pirie railway station (Ellen Street)" - the "in" is superfluous. The only one that is really tricky is the Port Pirie South station - was it the case that both Ellen Street and Port Pirie South were called Port Pirie simultaneously? That must have been confusing. I think my inclination would be to put the article at Port Pirie South railway station, given that a pretty common means of dealing with things with multiple names on Wikipedia is to use the most recent one, which would solve the disambiguation issue, and we could explain its original naming in text and through piped links. Disambiguation page looks perfectly good to me but sticklers might complain that it uses a different format to the norm. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:12, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Will drop "in" -- thank you.

The inaugural station, Port Pirie, was not called Port Pirie South during the time it was the only station, 1876–1902. When Ellen Street opened, Ellen Street took the name "Port Pirie" (as in the photos), and the inaugural station (which remained operational until 1911 or soon after), took on the new name of Port Pirie South. That name applied for only a quarter of its existence (during which time it was a pretty minor station, possibly a stop-on-request "provisional stopping place"); its importance is as the inaugural, "Port Pirie" station. I think "Port Pirie railway station (at Port Pirie South)" is probably the best of a bad bunch of alternatives. In view of the 2 others with the name "Port Pirie", it needs a qualifier. SCHolar44 (talk) 08:32, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

I think the three "problem" articles should be

• Port Pirie South railway station
• Port Pirie railway station (Ellen Street)
• Port Pirie railway station (Mary Elie Street)

As The Drover's Wife said, in cases where things have changed names, it's common to name the article for the current/most recent name, for example North Gawler railway station had that name from 1911 to 1984, but the article has its current name. The lead sentence can say that it was "...known as Port Pirie railway station from when it was built in 1876 until it was replaced by a new station in Ellen Street in 1902." --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:54, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Scott, that is the best solution, all told. Thank you for your thinking which, as always, gets to the nub of the problem.

I'll go ahead with the 2 new articles on that basis then when all 6 are ready, will change the titles of Ellen and Mary Elie Street and amend the disambiguation page. Cheers, Simon. SCHolar44 (talk) 21:10, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for doing the hard work on these articles. Also, thanks for confirming my question about a platform. I don't know what I remembered, as when I looked more closely at Google Maps, my recollection would have it on the wrong side of the road for where I thought I remembered, anyway, so it must have been either completely made up false memory or in a different place. Thanks. --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:18, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Article names have been changed

Just to report that I have taken "Move" action to amend the titles of the Ellen Street and Mary Elie Street stations articles, as discussed. I have also amended the Port Pirie railway station disambiguation page.

Currently I'm waiting to have the redirect page for Solomontown railway station (to Port Pirie Junction) deleted — it was originated long ago by someone who wasn't aware that there was a station named Solomontown before the PP Junction station, i.e. they are different stations. Unfortunately, an Admin who received my request for speedy deletion knocked it back, and it's in limbo as a "Deletion refused" item. If an Admin reads this, I would be more than happy to repeat the reasons so I can upload the two articles.

Cheers, SCHolar44 (talk) 02:43, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

You don't need to have the redirect deleted if you're just going to create an article over the top of it - just go here and do your thing! The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:04, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back,The Drover's Wife.  :-)

I may be misinterpreting you, but I'm not seeking to create an article over the top of the present one. I want anyone who searches for "Solomontown railway station" not to be redirected to the Port Pirie Junction article but to be taken to the "Solomontown railway station" article I've written (but can't yet upload). This is all because there were two railway stations on the same spot, consecutively: Solomontown, narrow gauge ground-level, 1911–1937 (then demolished); and Port Pirie Junction, platform-level, 3 gauges 1937–1967.

I have a bad feeling that the solution is staring me in the face. Please be gentle with me! Cheers, SCHolar44 (talk) 04:34, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Follow the link I just gave you and replace the redirect with your article! The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:59, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

[Sound of heel of hand hitting forehead repeatedly.] Terrific -- thank you!! What a nifty work-around! Done. SCHolar44 (talk) 23:32, 12 March 2020 (UTC)