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Project Started

WikiProject Trains in Japan is a proposal no more! Please feel free to join by adding your name to our member's list - Tangotango 03:04, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Style

I have created a Style page detailing the style used in articles about trains in Japan. The page is still preliminary; please feel free to add and remove as you see fit. I'm concerned that there doesn't appear to be any consensus about line names and rolling stock names in article titles. If there is a consensus, can anyone clarify, and if not, can we make one as one of the first tasks in our Project? - Tangotango 03:47, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I am fairly keen to start adding articles on individual rolling stock types (e.g. 205 series EMUs, EH200 electric locos), but have been reluctant to start before there was a consensus on the preferred convention for naming these articles. I have already created an article for the E231 series, and one also exists for the E233. However, before the number of rolling stock pages begins to increase, I suggest the following conventions:

  • Shinkansen: 0_Series_Shinkansen (as already used)
  • Diesel locos: DF200_diesel_locomotive
  • Electric locos: EF200_electric_locomotive
  • EMUs: E233_Series_EMU (note capitalization)
  • DMUs: kiha110_DMU (or KIHA110_DMU?)
  • Passenger cars: E26_Series_passenger_car
  • Freight cars: koki106_freight_car (or KOKI106_freight_car?)

What do people think? It would of course require renaming the current E231 and E233 series articles (I don't think there are many others yet). The Wikipedia style manual suggests avoiding abbreviations (such as EMU or DMU), but I think these are preferable to having the spelled-out versions (e.g. diesel_multiple_unit) in titles. DAJF 04:07, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


About the capitalization of rolling stock titles, here are some pointers to get the discussion going:

  • Tokyu Car Corporation uses "E231 series" (small s) on their website: [1]
  • East Japan Railway Company also uses a small s: [2]
  • Hobbylinc.com, a website selling model trains, uses a big S: [3]
  • The Japanese Railway Society uses a small s: [4]
  • A leaflet I have from JR East for their ac@train prototype train says: "E993 Series Prototype Train"
  • The company that designed the doors for the E231 S/series uses the small s: [5] (their website is currently closed due to corporate trouble)

As for Shinkansen stock:

  • Tokyu Car Corporation uses the form "Shinkansen type E3" (sometimes with a redundant "series" (small s) after it): [6] I think that's more akin to saying E3型 (-gata, type) than E3系 (-kei, series)
  • Hitachi uses the small s: [7]

I'm really not sure what to make of this. Statistically, I think the small "s" wins out for both Shinkansen and normal (在来線, zairaisen) stock. I haven't included personal websites because they might be following Wikipedia's lead.

Does anybody know why the current Shinkansen articles are titled like they are, and has there ever been a consensus?

As for the Japanese Wikipedia, they use a long unwieldy form of "CompanyName SeriesNumber 系 TypeOfTrain", like "JR東日本E231系電車", and the Chinese Wikipedia follows this too. However, that's great for kanji but not for English: imagine having an article titled "East Japan Railway Company E231 S/series Electronic Multiple Unit". (Oh, but British rail articles use "British Rail Class XXX", but they use class instead of series)

DAJF, you've proposed using "EMU" like in the Japanese version (but without the company name), and I think that's fine. But is there any need to be specific? There doesn't seem to be anything else so far on Wikipedia that uses a 3-digit number followed by "series", let alone "E" followed by a 3-digit number followed by "series". But maybe it's better to be safe than sorry later on.

I agree with your suggestion on electric and diesel locomotives, though. However, articles on other countries' locomotives don't seem to follow that: see Category:Diesel locomotives. If we followed the lead of articles about locomotives in other countries, that would result in "JRF EF200", or maybe even "JRF Class E200", although "JRF E200 S/series" seems like an acceptable variant. Only problem is, not many people are going to recognize what JRF means.

There's a lot of discussion that needs to take place. I'm going to leave the rest of the proposals for now. Too much typing :) - Tangotango 05:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


Thanks for your comments and feedback. I have gone ahead and put these style conventions on the Style page, although I realize that they are still subject to change, and people are welcome to modify them as appropriate.

Regarding capitalization, I am not really bothered whether we use "XXX Series" or "XXX series", but since "Series" is already used for all of the shinkansen articles, I think it would be better to standardize on this style for zairaisen stock too.

Including the company name for JR/JNR rolling stock will make the names long and unwieldy, and will cause problems if people are not sure whether something was built by JNR or JR. I suggest that the company name only be used for private railway rolling stock. I would prefer to include "EMU" and "DMU" in the names, as I think this will avoid any possible confusion in the future.

Anyway, let's leave these conventions on the Style page and see if there are any objections or suggestions. Dave F. aka DAJF 02:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

DAJF, thank you for updating the Style page. I've removed the underscores, because strictly speaking, they aren't part of the title and could prove to be confusing. I'm still a little unsure about the katakana type identifiers... maybe a space between the type (e.g. KIHA) and number (110) would make things more readable, but I wish there was a nicer way of doing things. What do other people think? -- Tangotango 07:52, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Featured article

In our scope, I think the Shinkansen article is closest to becoming a featured article. The Japanese version, ja:新幹線 is featured; if we can work our version up to featured status, that would be great. - Tangotango 07:44, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Hikari (Shinkansen), Hikari Rail Star (Shinkansen)

Do you think these should be two separate articles, or should they be combined under the single Hikari article?

I added stopping patterns on the Hikari page which include stopping patterns for the Rail Star. JRHorse 04:10, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I think they can be in the same article for now, and if the Rail Star section becomes large enough, then it can be split off. The Rail Star is just one of the Hikari trains anyway. --日本穣 18:58, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Userbox

I made a userbox {{User JTrain}} which yields the following:

This user is a member of
WikiProject Trains in Japan.


Hope you like it. (^_^) --日本穣 Nihonjoe 07:01, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks good! The sign does look a little garbled at smaller sizes, though. - Tangotango 09:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Is the sign used in Japan? It's unfamiliar, but perhaps it's in use? Fg2 09:34, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I've seen similar signs in use in western Japan. --日本穣 Nihonjoe 15:48, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I'll look for it. It's probably one of those things that when you start looking you see it everywhere. Fg2 21:00, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I've seen it several times, though it is a bit redundant because there is almost always a fumikiri that goes with it. I like this graphic, but a fumikiri, a track switch sign, or a grade indicator would do just as fine.struggle 12:43, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Requesting content suggestions for Portal:Trains

In editing Portal:Trains, I try to present items from a worldwide perspective. Being stuck in the Kingdom of America, however, I've found that I have to go searching out information from outside the current 50 states. For this I am requesting the help of any project members here to suggest content for the portal's Selected article (archive/candidates), Selected picture (archive/candidates), Did you know... (archive/candidates), Selected anniversaries (archive) and Trains news (2006 archive) sections.

The Selected article needs to be at least Good article quality (although it does not need to be tagged as a GA or better). The Selected picture needs to be available under a free license (following the same guidelines as featured picture candidates). Items in the Did you know section are probably the least restrictive; it needs to be a fact about rail transport and the fact must be mentioned in the article somewhere. For the anniversaries, supporting references would be great, just be sure to use the format that is shown already (any of the March anniversaries pages show examples of the format that I'm following now and that I'm upgrading the rest of the anniversary pages to). In the Trains news section, I'm trying to list significant events from around the world, leaving out, for example, announcements of derailments that only caused minor delays or that did not adversely affect traffic; I'm also trying to keep it from listing six events from one area of the world at any time.

A few editors who are working on British railway articles are helping out with the Did you know and Selected picture sections with suggestions of their own, but I'd like to see more from other regions. AdThanksVance! Slambo (Speak) 14:01, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I have nominated FASTECH 360 for the Did you know section. -- Tangotango 15:17, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Ladies Only photo

Was someone looking for this? I recall a discussion, but can't figure out where or when. Fg2 12:28, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Hey, cool. I've got a use for it in the Portal's anniversaries section. Thanks. Slambo (Speak) 13:45, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Adjacent Stations

In the station articles, there appear to be mainly three ways of showing/linking to stations that are adjacent the one in question:

  1. Using one of the railway line templates derived from Template:Japan Railway Line, like Template:Senseki Line
  2. Using a blockquoted version (see the Neighboring Stations section of Yokohama Station)
  3. Using Template:Service rail start (see Akihabara Station) - admittedly, this template is of my creation, idea borrowed from Template:Rail start, which is inexplicably UK railway-only)

I realize it will be difficult, but shouldn't there be an effort to standardize this to some degree? (If there's a method I've missed, please feel free to edit my post). Cheers, Tangotango 12:28, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that there may be room for both the line templates and the service rail start templates. The Japanese wikipedia usually has both (a list of neighboring stations; and then a template for each line through the station). But, the Japanese pages are obviously serving a different audience than we are. For the majority of English speakers, I don't know which one is more useful. At any rate, I'm not a big fan of the style that you pointed to in Yokohama Station; and, would not object if we standardized on the Service rail template in the Adjacent stations section, along with the line templates at the bottom of each article. Neier 10:24, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
I think we should have the line template as a minimum. It is very useful in navigating along a line from station to station. Without it you need to find the line page then navigate to the next station. Service rail start and the block quoted version only allow you to move one station at a time. Softgrow 10:43, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree with both of you. Why don't we (1) have the line template as a minimum and (2) add {{service rail start}} as the page gets more mature? Tangotango 09:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I found a user on the Japanese Wikipedia who has uploaded all kinds of train-related pics under GFDL, which means they can be used here with no problems as long as they are sourced correctly. See the two pics on Takaoka Station for how I sourced them, and feel free to copy my sourcing format if you wish. (^_^) --日本穣 Nihonjoe 23:48, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Have you come across this page? Some useful (and seemingly accurate) data about lines in Japan. The photos particulary caught my eye - there are three for each station: the exterior, a view of the platform and a platform station-name sign. It's not clear if we can use the photos - there's no indication of their copyright status. Does anyone know? ShonanSummer 03:51, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

The top page for that site is here. It includes various regions. I'd assume it's copyrighted unless otherwise stated. Fg2 03:58, 6 August 2006 (UTC) I checked a couple of photo pages and they bear the copyright statement "PHOTO © HisaAi" at the bottom. Fg2

moved from below: I stumbled across this user's pictures on the Japanese wikipedia (over 400 station pictures). They are GFDLd, so it shouldn't be a problem to put them in the commons and reuse them here. I'm not sure how much overlap there is between our existing stations and those pictures; but, there are already some that I noticed, and will move into articles. The link is ja:利用者:Kouchiumi/3. Is there a good place to keep lists of pages like this? Neier 13:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Style discussion

Just a note: A discussion about article titles for stations is currently being held at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains in Japan/Style. - Tangotango 16:52, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, the Japan MOS has now been updated to reflected the changes about stations with the same name. Limitedexpresstrain 23:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Odakyu Odawara Line

Someone on the talk page of the Odakyu Odawara Line has recommended it be merged with the Odakyu Electric Railway page. In my opinion this doesn't make sense at all, since we have usually have seperate line pages, and each line deserves it own page. Anycase the discussion is on the Odakyu Odawara Line talk page. I thought everyone might want to chime in there. Limitedexpresstrain 23:41, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Proposed changes to {{TrainsWikiProject}} for subprojects

I've proposed a change to {{TrainsWikiProject}} that would incorporate links to the various subprojects of WikiProject Trains. Your input on the template talk page would be appreciated. Thanks. Slambo (Speak) 18:39, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Shinbashi Station to Shimbashi Station

I recommend changing the name frm the (n) spelling to the (m) spelling. Please refer to talk page http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:Shinbashi_Station Limitedexpresstrain 23:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Line service table

In Jōban Line, there is a nice table showing which trains (rapid, special rapid, etc) stop at which stations. I was about to embark on expanding it up to include the northern half of the line, but didn't know a good place to get the info. I am 99% sure that the current table came from an older version of ja:常磐線 (the table was removed in June). On the Japanese talk page, it looks like this was discussed at the bottom of the page (maybe someone with better Japanese ability than me can figure that out).

Anyway, it brings up two questions. Well, actually only 1.5, because depending upon the first answer, the second question may be meaningless.

  • 1 - Should we try to include such a table for all of the train lines (especially those with multiple grades of service)?
  • 2 - Since the stops on an "express" may change from time to time, how do we verify that?

As much as I like the table, and the information it conveys, #2 may be nightmarish to deal with. What does everyone else think? Neier 14:30, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion: "Wikipedia is not a timetable"

A policy re: station and station stop articles is being proposed for Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains and it has been suggested that it be considered here as well. Please come and comment at User:Mangoe/Wikipedia is not a timetable. Mangoe 19:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

In a related vein, I received the following message on my talk page regarding my recent addition of several train stations: Neier 13:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Translation

At Ōu Main Line, there is this sentence:

Together with the Kosei Line, Hokuriku Main Line, Shin'etsu Main Line, Hokushin Line, and the Uetsu Main Line, the Ōu Main Line is one of the express lines and freight lines that make up the Nihonkai Jūkan-sen (Sea of Japan North-South Line).

Since North/South is normally 南北 (nanboku), and since the western half is not so much norht/south, I decided to look it up. The Japanese of Nihonkai Jūkan-sen is ja:日本海縦貫線, and 縦貫 doesn't mean North-South, but "traversal". Is there a reference for the North-South translation? Since the line spreads from Kinki all the way through Tōhoku, I doubt that there is an official English name for it; but, I'll gladly be proven wrong. (again). Or, should it be reworded in English? Neier 10:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

No reference. Please word it as you think best. "Traversal" or "trans-Japan" may be best. Fg2 10:58, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Trans-Japan is what I used. Neier 01:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Template:Service rail start

I came across a variation of the template which is similar to the signs on train platforms, where a major station is listed up top on both sides, and the next station is listed below it on both sides. See Allen Lane (SEPTA station) for an example. This might start to get unwieldy in stations with very many lines, but it might also make things a little clearer... I'm sure each train company has their definition of 上／下 for every line, so it may be ok just to standardize on that and not clutter up the template with even more text.

Is there a convention for the directions of these templates (ie, is left-previous towards Tokyo; or is it the right-next station)? Neier 12:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


924 Articles

I've just gone through the 17 July database dump and found 924 articles under Category:Rail transport in Japan and its subcategories. The complete list is available here. Just that, nothing else. ;) I'm hoping someone can put the list to good use. Cheers, Tangotango 15:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Updating location articles

Some of you may have seen over at the Japan project talk page a discussion on listing transportation (like rail stations, airports, highways, etc) on city and town (or district) pages. It seems that there is a consensus to do it, as well as an accepted standard (see Yuzawa, Akita for an example). I also think that it is in this project's interest to do the updates to the town articles. But, we need to decide on several things first.

First, a fairly non-controversial one: I think that stations should be listed in the smallest location article (as in, the village, but not the district; or in the ward, but not the city).

Also, it may be impractical to list all of the stations of Chiyoda, Tokyo, so in some cases it would be ok to just list the lines and possibly the major stations in an area with large numbers of stations. That is open to interpretation, I suppose, but I don't know of a good rule of thumb.

A trickier problem is how we could go about adding this info. There are two options: going through city by city, or going through line by line. Going through city by city would more than likely require some copying from the Japanese wikipedia, since each town seems to already have a 交通 section. Line names and stations would have to be translated, of course. Going through each line might be easier (especially, since a good number of JR lines already have the stations and their cities listed in English). The ja line articles also usually have that info too.

So, I guess I'm proposing a subtask to add the list of stations to each city/town (with links where possible, and either red links or no links if no station articles exist). I think the most efficient way is for one person to take either a prefecture or a line (see above), and fill it out. My individual preference would be to sort by prefecture, even though it is a little harder. The rationale is mostly due to a prejudice I have against incomplete lists. If a town has three or four separate lines, the article might end up with just one or two lines of stations listed for a long time, until someone volunteered to do the remaining two lines. It also makes it easier to chart progress.

Opinions and comments?? Neier 02:39, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

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