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Valhalla train crash

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

I've listed this article for peer review because it's one of the few GAs I've worked on that was nominated for that by someone else, therefore I didn't put it up for PR first like I usually prefer to do.

We have slightly more than a year till the 10th anniversary of this accident, the deadliest in the history of Metro-North Railroad, and I think this could be an FA in time to run on the Main Page the day of that anniversary. So I will be listing it in that sidebar as well.

Thanks, Daniel Case (talk) 02:49, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

RoySmith

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I don't know if I'll find time to do a full review, but here's a few comments from a quick read:

  • Looking around, I see sources that use both "underrunning" and "under-running". Do you know if either is considered more correct or official than the other?
No, actually. It seems that in American English we're less likely to use hyphenated prefixes, though. Daniel Case (talk) 05:00, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The wedge-shaped end of the third rail used on Metro-North" (image caption). I'm assuming this isn't the actual third rail that was involved in the accident, just a typical example? You should make that clear. The other problem with this image is that it doesn't really show how the rail is shaped. I know what I'm looking for and I still can see it. So I'm not sure this image really adds anything useful to the article. On the other hand, the Wall Stree Journal ran a drawing (https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NY-DL252B_NYCRA_J_20150209190012.jpg) which they credit to the MTA. If that drawing could be found on the MTA's site with acceptable licensing, it would be an excellent replacement.
No, that isn't; someone took that photo at Katonah, where there's a grade crossing to the immediate south. It wouldn't be too hard to go down there to Valhalla again and get a picture of the actual rail, probably from the side where its shape is more readily apparent. I almost did that one time I was down there, but I was a little uncomfortable with the idea of lying down between the tracks to do it, even though it could have been done safely. I might, somewhere, have one attempt at that. Daniel Case (talk) 05:00, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps, but given that there's a lot of long walls of text in the article I feel that we really can't be too choosy about the images in it if we want to give the reader's eyes a break. Daniel Case (talk) 05:00, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've been reading though this. Overall, my impression is that it includes an excessive level of detail. WP:FACR 1b says, comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context. I think you've concentrated more on the "details" part rather than the "no major facts" part. Item 4 says, Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail. I'll give a few examples:
    • "north of the hamlet of Valhalla in the town of Mount Pleasant, in central Westchester County north of New York City" this goes into great details about the political structure of Westchester, but how does that contribute to the reader's understanding of the crash? The key facts for this entire paragraph is that a crash on the Taconic Parkway forced highway traffic to overflow onto local streets. The time and date are clearly necessary boilerplate, and the fact that it was shortly after sunset is a significant detail. But all that could be said in about half the words this paragraph uses.
    • "which provides commuter rail service along an 82-mile (132 km) route from New York City to Wassaic in northeastern Dutchess County,[6]" It's a commuter rail line. How does knowing that Wassaic is the last stop or that Wassaic is 82 miles from New York add to the understanding of the train crash?
    • "just north of a brick electrical substation". How does the existence of this substation (let alone that it was made of brick) add to the reader's understanding of the train crash?
You are correct that these details aren't necessary, but at least let me explain why they were there. They're left over from the earliest versions of the article, right after the crash, when it wasn't anywhere near as long as it's gotten to be, and it was as much a news story as an encyclopedia article, so details, especially for those who might be reading from outside the New York metropolitan area, were helpful. They're also sort of what I call "defensive editing", when you anticipate what other editors might ignorantly question or remove and so put details in there that aren't long-term relevant in order to forestall that sort of edit. Daniel Case (talk) 22:19, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Brody had left a Chappaqua jewelry store, where she worked part-time in sales,[16] at 6; she was going to meet a potential bookkeeping client at a coffee shop in Scarsdale." Likewise, why is it important for the reader to know what she did for a living, where she was planning to eat lunch, or who she was planning to meet there?
Well, wouldn't you find it relevant to know why she was at that particular intersection? It wasn't on her commute home. I can understand cutting the detail about what she did in Chappaqua, but it's not like she just hopped behind the wheel that evening for a random drive around. Daniel Case (talk) 22:19, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not really. How does it add to the reader's understanding of the crash to know why she was there? What would be different if she was going to the bank, or shopping, or just out for a random drive? RoySmith (talk) 15:49, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One of her husband's claims is that she was not very familiar with that intersection and had rarely gone through that grade crossing, hence did not realize she was stopped on the tracks when she had to pass through it in wintertime twilight (since there's only one sign you're coming up on it from that direction). She would never have gone through it on her usual commute home as she would have taken the Saw Mill home all the way to Edgemont, and would never have gotten off the Taconic to loop back up to it at Commerce Street but for the accident at the next intersection south. IOW, her unfamiliarity with the grade crossing, created by the atypical circumstances of her itinerary that evening, are argued to have been a contributing factor in causing the crash. Daniel Case (talk) 02:41, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • "other than complaining about a cable bill they both felt was too high" Why is this useful for the reader to know?
Should be cut, I agree. This sort of sets up what might never, at this point, be revealed or even discussed in a reliable source, the rumor around Westchester that Brody's destination that evening wasn't what's been reported, and that's why it took the NTSB so long to put the report out. Daniel Case (talk) 22:19, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can only speculate what those rumors might be, but they're not relevant. We only include things that are in WP:RS. And while I know this isn't about a living person, I think WP:BLPGOSSIP certainly applies.
But since we're on the topic of how long the NTSB report took, I think you need to dig into better sources to back up statements like "After an unusually long delay for such investigations that it declined to explain...". It's hard to put my finger on it, but this statement in the lead, and the first paragraph in "Reports and conclusions" which it summarizes, have a vague breathless tone to them, hinting at some nefarious but unspoken reason. And in fact, you've alluded to exactly that reason here; rumors about why Brody was driving that day.
Statements like, "declined to explain" hint at there being some kind of wrongdoing. Does the NTSB ever explain why a report took so long? If not, then "declined to explain why it took this long" is a true statement about every NTSB report. The article you cite ("Lowey wants an update on NTSB report on Valhalla crash") cites Nita Lowey pressing the NTSB to release the report. Well, of course she's going to do that; she's the local congressperson advocating for her constituents. Is she an expert on how long NTSB reports take? The NTSB web site says "The timing between the beginning of an investigation and a probable cause determination and report varies based on the complexity of the investigation and the workload of the agency’s investigators. In general, the NTSB tries to complete an investigation within 12 to 24 months, but these and other factors can greatly affect that timing." This was certainly a complex investigation, so releasing the report at the long end of that span seems perfectly reasonable. And while the Journal News certainly ranks as a WP:RS, they're also a second tier paper providing local coverage of this event. For anything controversial, I'd be looking for stronger sources, especially those with greater than local coverage and/or those which have an established track record of covering the NTSB.
You mentioned that some of the content is "left over from the earliest versions of the article ... it was as much a news story as an encyclopedia article". I feel your pain. Articles like that tend to be filled with any sound-bites that are available and often lean towards the sensational, very much contrary to WP:NPOV. Cleaning something like that up is often a far more difficult job than writing a new article from scratch. One thing I learned from my first FAC was to avoid depending on contemporary coverage and instead rely more on later material looking back at the events of the time from a historical perspective. In my case, the events were 120 years ago. Here it's nine years ago. But it would still be more valuable to see what people are writing about the crash now. Of the 66 sources you cite, I only see 2 that are from after 2020. Taking a closer look at the distribution of years:
1 2006
1 2014
43 2015
2 2016
6 2017
3 2018
4 2019
1 2021
2 2023
so this really does still look like a news article. RoySmith (talk) 16:55, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The problem there is that I do keep a regular eye out for fresh coverage. The 2021 and 2023 articles are the only ones from those years. I thought that the anniversary yesterday would lead to some more ... but this minimalist Westchester 12 story was it. Other than that, Google News shows nothing I've missed AFAICT. Daniel Case (talk) 21:42, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, you may be right. I've spent some time searching and can't find anything either. Well, at least now you're prepared for when somebody asks this question at FAC :-) RoySmith (talk) 23:21, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Alan, who had once worked as a conductor in his native South Africa" How does knowing her husband's former profession, or where he was born, add to the reader's understanding of the train crash?
Alan Brody has been very critical of how grade crossing safety has been handled by the MTA since then; I think the fact that he once worked on trains is relevant in that context (see the article in further reading). I will move this down to where it would be more self-evidently relevant, though. Daniel Case (talk) 22:19, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Uninjured passengers, who had either escaped or had been evacuated, were taken to a nearby climbing gym called The Cliffs," Two issues here. First, "escaped or had been evacuated" pretty much covers every possible way a passenger might have gotten off the train. It thus adds no useful information. Second, how does knowing that the marshalling location was a climbing gym or that it was called The Cliffs add to the reader's understanding of the train crash.
    • "One local shopkeeper, a 30-year resident, told The New York Times that she would never ride the front car of any train, ever. "I remember hoping and praying it wasn't anyone I knew. But ... you don't want it to be anyone anybody knows." This is just sensationalist junk that newspapers print because it sells newspapers. I'm surprised the NY Times sunk to printing it. We shouldn't.
    • "Nadol was a member of a local Episcopal church". Well, you should be seeing the pattern by now. The goal is to educate the reader about the crash; what happened, why it happened, what the consequences were, what changed based on lessons learned from the crash. As you're reading the sources, look at each piece of information presented by the source and evaluate whether it advances that goal. If it doesn't, then leave it out.
 Done All of these, as it turns out; I just realized that I am making these edits and writing them in the time frame of the to-the-hour ninth anniversary of the accident. Daniel Case (talk) 22:35, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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