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Fox River Grove level crossing accident

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Self-nom, and my first attempt to raise the bar for Wikipedia articles and entries. I have tried to highlight the importance of the event while still respecting the community, the memory of the victims, while maintaining a level of journalistic accuracy that I would expect to read in either a newspaper or a magazine. Possible objections: top image has no source, middle image has attributions to another company, bottom image is OK. I was assuming that if they were in the NTSB report, they were considered works of the government. --Rob 19:38, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • While I'd love to see more rail transport related articles reach featured status, I must object right now because 1) Cite your sources in a References section; 2) "... Metra train number 624 ... slammed into the back of a school bus ..." sounds too sensationalistic and makes it sound like Metra was at fault when further down it's stated "[t]he primary cause of the accident was the failure of the bus driver, Patricia Catencamp, to properly judge the distance ..."; 3) There is no mention of any recommendations by NTSB, FRA or any other agency on how to prevent a similar accident from occurring in the future except for one sentence in the lead; what legislation was proposed and what actions were taken? slambo 20:18, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    1. Noted — they're all in External links at the moment.
    2. This is just a matter of word choice in my opinion... "hit" sounds like an understatement, while "impacted" sounds odd. What about "crashed into"?
    3. There is a little bit of a mention in Consequences, but it can afford to be expanded. --Rob 21:16, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    On point 2, how about "collided with"? I usually use this for the timeline pages in Category:Timeline of rail transport. For point 3, my ideal solution would be a section like in Graniteville train disaster#Recommendations or Bourbonnais train accident#NTSB recommendations. As a minimum, something like the last two paragraphs of Clapham Junction rail crash should be included. slambo 22:53, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, fixed wording on the article. Points 1 and 3, I'll try to deal with later today. :-) --Rob 11:51, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding NTSB recommendations, they're a good idea, but I want to do more than paste them word-for-word into the article (unless it's in a sidebar). Sometimes they're confusing even then, because the recommendations require the context of the entire report. It's definitely possible, however. --Rob 15:11, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Added NTSB recommendations. It's a bit rough around the edges—further edits will help clean this up. It will be difficult, but not impossible, to find resulting legislation. Also, going back helped uncover another cause of the accident, which I must add later, if not tonight (inability of the driver to hear audible warnings). --Rob 20:59, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Did you see anything further on the legislation that's mentioned in the lead? slambo 18:23, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • One other thing before I forget. The CNW was known for running "left-hand main" similar to British practice, rather than "right-hand main", which is more common on US railroads. UP continues this practice on former CNW lines such as the one involved in this accident. That means that the Metra train in the accident was travelling eastbound, and probably was well loaded with commuters bound for Chicago. This should be mentioned somewhere in the article too, but I'm not sure where at the moment. slambo 23:02, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object: It's not bad at all, but it needs some more work:
    • There are a lot of short (1-2 sentence) paragraphs. Could they be expanded? If not, merge them into an adjacent paragraph.
    • The timeline should probably be converted into prose, rather than being presented as a list. Ditto for the list of victims, although since that would be such a short section on its own I'd probably move the victims to the lead.
    • Make sure that all figures are connected to their unit by a non-breaking space (  click Edit to see an example of the code you need to use), so that the figure is on the same line as the unit.
Good luck! If I can help out, just let me know. PacknCanes | say something! 22:14, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I would personally rather keep the timeline the way it is, for clarity. Lists are bad when they're really just a method of outlining that should be turned into prose. However, I believe the timeline would lose clarity if presented as paragraphs of prose. As to the list of victims, it would equally be a list if presented separated by commas or semicolons in a paragraph, rather than a bulleted list as present. I'm not sure I see the value of that, myself. It concerns me that 'remove all lists' is becoming a de-facto FAC requirement. —Morven 23:13, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I really believe that a featured article should have excellent prose from start to finish. Featured Lists combine good prose with a thorough list, and I think that's why you're seeing "remove all lists" become a standard objection in FACs. If Featured Lists didn't exist, then I don't think you'd see the number of remove-list objections. I'm willing to reconsider, but at least in my opinion a featured article should do everything possible to avoid listing information. PacknCanes | say something! 23:22, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think an article should present information in whatever way is most effective. Sometimes that is in list form. Featured Lists would not take an article like this: it is for articles that ARE lists, not that CONTAIN lists. I don't think the creation of Featured Lists was intended to bar list markup from ever being used in other articles seeking featured status.
That said, in many cases, lists are not the best way to present information. My main disagreement was in presenting the timeline as paragraphs, which I do not think could be easily done without reducing readability or removing information. It could be that the timeline contains a level of detail which is not needed in an article (as opposed to an accident report) - what do you think? As to the list of victims, I have no serious objection to them being listed in a paragraph rather than with bullets, but I simply feel the article neither gains nor loses thereby. —Morven 23:27, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reconsidered my objection to listing the victims as a list, and tried your suggestion of placing them in the lead. Do you think that looks better? Reason for my reconsideration was unhappiness with that too-short section. I also reworded as 'killed', not 'victims' - since the wounded also count as 'victims'. —Morven 23:36, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'll just note my agreement that the timeline as it is now looks fine. The presence of complete lists in articles is usually less of a problem than incomplete lists, and the timeline format helps with a time sequence that would be painful to visualize as prose. No vote. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:40, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Out of curiosity, do you want those in between the 7:xx and the AM parts too? --Rob 15:11, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object, although it has much potential. The diagrams add a lot to the article. However, the lead mentions that this was a "watershed moment," but the "Consequences" section is very sparse. The article should go into more detail about the coverage of the accident in the media, the reaction of politicians and other influential figures, and the specifics of what sort of legislation and regulations were handed down as a result of the tragedy. Was there any reaction on the national level? This sort of detail would flesh out the claim made in the lead, and also provide the reader with a lot more context about the accident's importance. Christopher Parham (talk) 13:59, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. This is an interesting and mostly well-written article. Here are some things I think need attention:

1) I would rewrite the first sentence as, "The Fox River Grove level-crossing accident refers to a collision between a school bus and a commuter train that killed seven students in Fox River Grove, Illinois."

2) You do not define the following terms: crossing processor, thumbwheel, EMT and sound attenuation materials.

3) I question the appropriateness of the first graphic, since it is hard to decipher. You might want to redraw it to make it simpler.

4) From what I gather, the intersection is a T, with the train tracks running parallel to US 14. Presumably, the bus was traveling northeast, on Algonquin, but I don't think you say that in the text.

5) This sentence is very confusing:

"The primary cause of the accident was the failure of the bus driver, Patricia Catencamp, to properly judge the distance between the railroad tracks and the vehicle stopped at a traffic signal across the tracks."

Does "the vehicle" mean the bus? And does "across the tracks" mean north of the tracks?

6) AASHTO should be spelled out in the first reference, or you should create an article on it.

7) There are no references in the text, only a collection of links at the bottom. Mwalcoff 00:33, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Object:This is a very good brief account and report of a tragedy, and that is the problem - it is just a factual report. It is not a featured article. It is too short, there must have been many after effects of such an occurrence, was the driver prosecuted, how experienced was she, what happened to her, and the many other survivors. I don't like the lack of a proper reference section, but I suppose links to official reports will do in a case like this. Giano | talk 09:18, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't deny that it's definitely a brief account and report, but at what point does information get included that belongs in another article? Some things I considered including in the article were background information, such as 1.) why Illinois has a history of being one of the leading states in grade-level crossings, and 2.) the accident history of the intersection. More information is better than none, but some of it may not be appropriate. The references section will be refined as I have free time. --Rob 18:51, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object - I agree with Giano. Bwithh 22:01, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • A lot better than it was recently, but object for now. (1) it needs a References section and (2) I'd like to see a bit more about the bus driver (e.g. in the timeline you mention a substitute bus driver, but is that the same person as Patricia Catencamp? Had she ever driven the route before? Was she disciplined for her error in judgement? etc.). JYolkowski // talk 02:48, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Time to completion

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These are all very good comments and will be addressed. I will keep referring to this page in the next week as I try to address each concern. --Rob 09:23, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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