Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

→

Archive 5

This is the archive page of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways.

Pilot loco

I want to add a wikilink to define a pilot loco - ie the lead locomotive in a train hauled by two (or more) individually driven (normally steam) locomotives The link to pilot is naturally a disambiguation page, but the closest definition that gives is of the American use of the term i.e. a "cowcatcher", so for the time being, I have linked to double-header, although pilot is not defined there either. Am I using the phrase correctly in UK terms? Is there an alternative article I can use?

regards, Lynbarn 11:24, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Lynbarn asked "Am I using the phrase correctly in UK terms?" Yes --7severn7 12:31, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

But ... a pilot can also refer to a locomotive that is stationed at a junction or terminus for breaking up and reforming trains: a station pilot. In the nineteenth century these locomotives would be called upon to run on the mainline to resuce failed trains - what Virgin term Thunderbirds these days - and hence they would pilot the train to where a replacement locomotive could be found. Geof Sheppard 13:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• Does anyone have a definitive answer about who coined the term 'cow-catcher' and does anyone have references regarding Babbages 'invention' of a 'cow-catcher' (esp sketches or pictures). (Ok I know it's trivial but I would like to know) see my notes on Talk:Pilot_(locomotive) --AGoon 12:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Portsmouth metro - hoax?

I notice an article about a 'proposed' Portsmouth metro has been created. I don't know much about Portsmouth, but it seems rather unlikely. This article does not have any sources, and I can't find anything on Google, so I suspect its a hoax. It does have some nice pictures though... Anyone want to confirm this and list it for deletion as appropriate? -Vclaw 11:54, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I remember talk of a scheme for a sunken tunnel under the Solent etc but AFAIR that was a light-rail scheme not a metro as this article seems to describe. This is the first that I've heard of proposing such a project and without any offical outside sources from local papers or local council I'd be vary of it also, did check to see if was created on 1st April! Does anyone from that neck of the woods know more?? --Achmelvic 13:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

It does say in the article N.B. This is the artists vision, currently there are no plans to construct a Portsmouth Metro. That says it all really. The fact that it seems to be using Jubilee Line stock is also a bit of a coincidence(!). It's probably someone's graphics design coursework or something like that. That would count as original research, rather than a deliberate hoax.

The "real-life" plan was for a tunnel under Portsmouth Harbour to Gosport (not under the Solent), then along a disused railway line to Fareham, using light rail vehicles. --RFBailey 14:49, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this is more original research than a deliberate hoax. In addition to the last line, the plans seem very odd - why would Portsmouth Harbour railway station be abandoned for example, it is currently a very good interchange between trains and ferries to Ryde Pier Head railway station on the Isle of Wight and only 2 minutes walk from Gunwharf Quays. There is much existing heavy rail infrastructure that would apparently be demolished, removing national services from the centre of Portsmouth - a major destination. Thryduulf 15:11, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I've listed it at WP:AfD. --RFBailey 15:49, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Great Northern Route

Hi I've often heard this route referred to as as Great Northern so i have decided to create an article on it. The route runs from Kings Cross and Moorgate and merges at Finsbury Park. It then diverges at Alexandra Palace. The Main Route passes through Welwyn Garden City to Stevenage whilst the Hertford Loop goes an alternative route via Hertford North to Stevenage. Here the tracks merge to Hitchin where the Cambridge line diverges. I have included Letchworth as this is where many slow trains terminate. Anyway, the main route continues from Hitchin to Peterborough

I used route as it is a combination of lines. I was wondering if i could have peoples' opinions on this article. Right now it just has the list of stations it serves (except to Cambridge as that is already in the London to Cambridge article).

Right now this article needs a lot of work to be done to it. It only covers the commuter lines from KX and Moorgate.

To clarify: KX and Moorgate to Stevenage via both Welwyn GC and Hertford North and continuing from Stevenage to Cambridge (I think) and Peterborough. This is generally referred to Great Northern.

Simply south 10:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Does this actually count as a line on the UK network? It incorporates the suburban route and follows part of the route of the Great Northern Railway. Right now it is classed under the East Coast Main Line. Also wherever you go it is often referred to as the Great Northern franchise. Simply south 12:02, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The above comments

I cannot think that either of the above are terribly important insofar as the project is concerned! Surely we are only engaged in looking at the overall picture of how to better present the overwhelmingly poor current system (growing like Topsy all the while)? Peter Shearan 06:08, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Wish to help - re Early Railways and Wagonways

I signed up to Wikipedia to correct some very poor and misleading entries I had seen covering the above subjects which are my current main research interests. On a solo basis I have already managed to tidy up some of the worst howlers on the railway timeline and wagonways pages. Also added new content about Huntingdon Beaumont and the Wollaton Wagonway.

Like the person who began this project I soon discovered the same problems in that the railways and transportation section of Wikipedia are a mess as the outline to this project states. I fully concur that pages have evolved through the inevitable editing on an ad-hoc basis resulting in the duplicated entries on several subjects, entries conflicting with some being correct and some wrong.

I would like to help on this project but as a Wikipedia newbie not sure what my next step is regarding joining this much needed project.

--Johnrnew 20:46, 2 July 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)

Newbie's view the structure framework should come before content

Probably not my place to comment as an absolute beginner at contibuting but I think Peter Shearan's view is correct and the structure should be addressed first. The Wikipedia structure is confusing, it is that confusion that leads to duplication, and it is therefore the structure that needs to come first. Once the structure is clearer content format can be addressed.

Isn't the analogy one like a library, it needs the Dewey system to order the books, but the books themselves don't have to be identical in size, shape, or style.

For my four-penneth' trains are vehicles running in multiple on a railway, therefore the trains category falls lower in heirarchy to an umbrella railway layer and level with other railway related sub-categories like track, engineering, signalling etc. Railways is itself lower than a generic transport layer and level with shipping, road transport, aircraft etc.

Example is the short page about Sir Percival Willoughby which I created recently a biography, a general history item, a railway history item or a ******* feature? It fits all of the foregoing as he was a partner in building the Wollaton Waggonway. As you can see from the above I wouldn't even have looked for a trains category to place it into as trains have no direct relevance to it; thus there are some absolute fundamentals to be resolved.

Lots of tutorials about writing style, copyright etc on Wikepdia but the pages on how to categorise the placement of content are much less obvious.

--Johnrnew 20:20, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

My head's just full of trivia (hopefully of interest to somebody). This is the place for me to off-load it and let other more earnest people wikify it for more general consumption.--7severn7 14:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Usage - is this right? (ulp)

Finally, i've worked out how to calculate these. However, can they really be trusted? For example:

• Manchester Victoria's usage comes out as 0.395 million whilst Man Piccadilly comes out at 16.250 million. I am sure Man Victoria gets many more passengers than 0.395 million.

• Birmingham Snow Hill gets only 0.225 million annual entry/exit whereas B'ham New Street gets 14.221 million.

I see a pattern where these figures only really seem to focus on the main stations. I am also sure that the usage figures for minor stations are wrong too.

Source: Stats from sra

Simply south 20:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

See also: Talk:Manchester Victoria station

To further this, strangely 368,104 people exited more than entered the system. Where did these extra people come from (unless it was something like the airports and Eurostar)? Simply south 12:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

usage

Just looked up one of my local stations, Dorchester West. The figures do seem to be wrong, perhaps indicitive of creative accounting or mass-fare evasion. Even if you add the ins and outs together it only makes 242 or = less than one passenger person per day over the year. West is a quiet station compared to South but not that quiet.

--Johnrnew 21:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The figures aren't accurate for these stations, as (taking the first example), many tickets are sold to "Manchester stations". When someone buys a ticket to "Manchester stations", it counts towards the city's busiest station's total (Piccadilly in this case). See Gainsborough Central railway station for details on this. Warofdreams talk 02:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Re Dorchester West - As I passed through on the train both ways on Tuesday I counted the pax as well as I could from aboard a Sprinter. 7am (outward) 3 off 1 on, 7:45pm (return) 2 off 1 on. PLUS two on platform meeting persons getting off the train. So station usage = 9 from just two trains on one day whereas the average is supposed to be 2/3rds of a person per day!! A fortnight's worth of users according to the stats. One hopes the official figures are not used to justify closure.

--Johnrnew 18:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I hope to write more about this in my Station groups article, which explains the concept from a ticketing point of view. There will shortly be a table on this page showing all the station groups available on tickets since the mid-1980s (I'm just having it checked against older fares manuals etc.); by cross-checking with the usage stats spreadsheet I should be able to add a piece identifying the main station within each group. As soon as I downloaded that spreadsheet a few months ago, I thought there was something funny about the stats for stations that are part of groups!

One thing I did wonder is whether, for the "smaller" station/s within the group, only tickets issued to/from the station itself (e.g. MANCHESTER VIC), rather than to/from the group entity (e.g. MANCHESTER STNS), are included in the rankings - whereas for the main station, both tickets issued to the group entity and any issued to the station itself are included (as Warofdreams mentions above) . Any thoughts?

--Hassocks5489 12:31, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Correct! For each group, a station is designated the "main" station and all non-specific tickets booked to that station. This is explained on the SRA website. For the London stations group, bookings are allocated to the main station for the relevant TOC eg GNER (Kings Cross), Virgin (Euston) etc. Stations which are not a "main" station are therefore undercounted (in London - Charing Cross for example, Birmingham Snow Hill, Glasgow Queen St)

Also Travelcards and similar multi-mode tickets are ignored. Affects London stations most of all but also those in the other conurbations. Interchange passengers (ie getting off and then getting on without leaving the station) are not counted (in contrast with airport statistics).

Nevertheless, for most stations the figures give a general idea of how busy the station is. Comparing the stats for a station with the population of the urban area it serves is illuminating - some stations, incoveniently sited, with no regular commuter traffic or on a short branch line, generate 1 or less journeys per head per year (maximum is 50-100 per year for stations in the London commuter belt).

It is rather a crude system but unless someone here wants to commission a traffic census it's the best we're going to get. There are some stations out there where a passenger getting off or on a train is a notable event.

Exile 13:42, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Standard layout

Is there a standard format for UK railway station articles? Generally, the {{Stn art lnk}} is used, followed by the preceding/following route table, though sometimes this order is reversed. Also, should {{Stn art lnk}} be preferred over {{Stn art lrnk}}? As far as I can tell, the only difference is the ommission of the station code. Why does the latter exist, is this a legacy template? Thanks Hertzsprung 23:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

This is something I would like to see implemented: they're rather haphazard at the moment. The principal difference between {{stn art lnk}} and {{stn art lrnk}} is that the latter links to a map at a smaller scale, which is more suitable for stations in rural areas. The other difference is that for some reason {{stn art lrnk}} omits the aerial photo link: I don't know why this is, as Multimap has different "zoom levels" for these too. This could be fixed easily: I might do it when I have time.

Participants should definitely think about a standard format for these articles. However, I won't have time to participate in a discussion over the next few days, so don't want to start one that I can't join in with! --RFBailey 21:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Keep with photo. It is interesting and helpful to see where the station is and can also compare surrounding land use... Simply south 09:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

What are you talking about? No-one was suggesting removing the photo! I've now added the photo link to {{stn art lrnk}}, so that problem is resolved. --RFBailey 10:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Hertzsprung was suggesting was it better to use the template with the station info, map and photo or to use the template which included map and station but without photo. Or at least thats the links i followed. Simply south 10:33, 14 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 19:51, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

This discussion has yet to come to any hard conclusions, but I have been trying to generally follow the ideas discussed. Yet every time I tidy up route infoboxes, other users come and put extra "routes" to cover local and inter city services running on the same line of track. In particular, I keep finding Night Riviera added as a route, when in my mind it is just another service running on the Great Western Main Line. If we follow this principle then there should be routes for the Bristolian and the Cornish Riviera Express. What is the feeling of other project members? Geof Sheppard 13:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Some stuff like the Scottish sleeper is a separate service probably worthy of mention on the info boxes (as its a different TOC). However i agree that some stuff like the Night Riviera, VSOE and Dutchflyer are dubious. I don't know if there is an answer though. I personally tend not to put stuff that goes though the station as a non stop. Pickle 13:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Template:Cardiff, Newport and the Valleys railway stations - a problem

Could someone please help me out with this template? I have no idea how to properly format a template. That has been done by User:Owain (thanks). Is there some sort of tool for this? Also, i have been trying to insert the Valley Lines in, similar to, for example, edinburgh

this is my result

For added convenince, i have somehow put the valley lines in a seperate template. Hope this won't be deleted. Phew. Simply south 15:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Its sorted now

Greater Manchester

Hi

Any chance I could help out with the Greater Manchester area? - Jrgnet 15:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

By all means! For a start, a lot of the Greater Manchester station articles are a bit short on detail: perhaps you could help out by expanding on these? Thanks, --RFBailey 09:43, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Open task: sorting UK railway station stubs

Greetings! I come with a request for help on a task I have sitting half-finished on behalf of WikiProject Trains and WikiProject Stub Sorting. Back in March, the stub sorters noticed that the category being fed by {{UK-railstation-stub}} was too large, and when it remained so even after splitting out {{Scotland-railstation-stub}}, {{Wales-railstation-stub}}, and {{London-railstation-stub}}, decided to split out further stub categories by Regions of England. I went through and sorted out about half of these by hand, but four more stub categories remain to be populated:

• {{EastEngland-railstation-stub}}
• {{EastMidlands-railstation-stub}}
• {{NorthEastEngland-railstation-stub}}
• {{Yorkshire-Humber-railstation-stub}}

I wasn't moving very quickly to begin with, and no longer have Copious Free Time to devote to the task (especially as, according the their articles, these are the English regions with complicated boundaries), so I thought I'd ask here if someone(s) more local and less busy would mind going through the category and re-sorting to these four new stub categories. Whatever assistance you could offer would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks, --CComMack (t•c) 12:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do: I'll make a start on North East England (that's the easy one!). --RFBailey 12:51, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I've done North East England and Yorkshire/Humber. Geof Sheppard seems to be working on the East Midlands. That leaves Eastern England: I don't have time for that immediately, but may make a start some time next week, if nobody beats me to it. --RFBailey 22:35, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Correction: now I've done Yorkshire and the Humber: I'd forgotten (!) the Esk Valley Line (and also discovered the North Yorkshire Moors Railway had station articles!)..... --RFBailey 23:01, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I have cleared the remainder of South West stations (I hope!) and done a first read through of East Midlands. I may have time to look at East of England in a few days time. Geof Sheppard 07:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I've done the East of England. I've also moved articles about Tyne and Wear Metro and Glasgow Subway stations to the new {{UK-metro-stub}}. Once East Midlands is done, we'll need to go through this list to see what's left over. These will either be about heritage railways or disused stations (which can have the appropriate regional stub), Northern Ireland stations (which may be given their own stub category in future), or shouldn't be there at all (e.g. Isle of Man, Alderney, or articles not about stations). --RFBailey 10:35, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Well done, we've got there! There are just 15 pages left, none of which fit into the sub-categories. Mind you, has anyone noticed that the main Category:United Kingdom rail stubs now has 199 pages! Geof Sheppard 12:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Now that {{NI-railstation-stub}} has also been created, I've implemented it on Northern Ireland station articles. Although there were only about a dozen of these that already had {{UK-railstation-stub}}, pretty much every other Northern Ireland station article needed one, as they are in such a poor state with very little content. I've left a note at Wikipedia talk:Northern Irish Wikipedians' notice board asking if anyone with local knowledge wants to start expanding on these. --RFBailey 12:43, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Naming railway station articles convention

What is the preferred convention please, when naming articles about railway halts? should they be be: Location railway station, Location Halt railway station, Location (Halt) railway station, Location railway halt,... or some other? Similarly, are there conventions for non-timetabled locations, goods only stations, depos, yards, etc. Many thanks. Regards, Lynbarn 15:40, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Most halts that are still open have lost the "Halt" from their name, so are just recorded as Anytown railway station. Closed ones should have the name as it was normally shown in timetables so would often be Anyway Halt railway station, but if it lost the "Halt" during its life, I guess it is a question of what it is most familarly known as. Geof Sheppard

British railway ticket machines and systems

Hi all,

I've just added my name to the project list, having already made quite a lot of edits to UK railway articles independently. My main "personal" project at the moment, however, is a series of articles on the British railway ticketing "scene" of the past 20-25 years, with particular emphasis on the machines and systems themselves, where they are used and other factual details like that. Shere SMART is the first completed article in this format. Related to this are some articles that go a bit deeper into explaining features of tickets (NLCs, Station groups and so on). Anyway...

• Would it be appropriate to feature this set of articles within the UK Railways project?
• Is it appropriate to have introduced the "British railway ticket machines (computerised)" Infobox, and are there any alterations that would need to be made?
• Can anybody think of any more articles that would be worth writing? - I notice there is nothing about any of the Railcards available on the National Rail network, for example...

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

--Hassocks5489 12:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Infoboxes and Station Mergers

Just thought - though all the click through infoboxes are not ideal, to cover our arses if someone does try to read them as gospel would it be a good idea to edit the infobox with a "Correct as of (DATE), subject to change" in small at the bottom.

Also have an idea for potentially merging the more minor stations into line articles, especially the unstaffed halts on branchlines. I will work on a copy of an article to create a prototype for discussion :)

--Enotayokel 15:42, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

• UPDATE: See User:Enotayokel/avocet test for a version of Avocet Line With the unstaffed halts merged in to the route article - staffed stations retain their own articles. At the moment I've just pasted the station stubs in AS IS - they would of course need editing to fit their new context.

Safety graph

I just knocked together Image:UK rail fatalities.png for a discussion I was having - it might be of use to illustrate an article on UK rail accidents, or the like, if anyone wants it. (fatal accidents 1975-2005, broken down by type). Shimgray | talk | 09:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Locomotive names

When I explored the existing pages relating to locomotive classes, I found that the names given to locomotives in many articles linked to pages explaining the origin of the name (e.g. GWR Banking Class). This makes perfect sense to me as few people will know who, say Hebe, was. However, since adding several locomotive articles, such as South Devon Railway Dido class I have had to revert or defend on the discussion pages this method of linking. The locomotives certainly do not merit pages of their own, as suggested by all the redlinks on GWR Ariadne Class. What is the feeling for other project members? Geof Sheppard 07:19, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I think having links like this is a bad idea. If a reader sees a list of locomotives which are links, they will expect the names to link to articles about the locomotives. I think it would be better and less confusing to add a note after the name, eg. "named after the mythological figure, Hebe". --Vclaw 12:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:London railway stations

Template:London railway stations has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page.

I decided to create a template quite a while a go to incorporate all of London's railway stations. Now it is rather too large (hopefully in the deletion process they will ignore the London Stations template i have incorporated into it). Please comment. Simply south 23:23, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please comment, suggestions are welcome. --RFBailey 16:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Can't the template have the hide feature like the new zealnd railways lines template. I don't understand the html that makes it work, but it looks very good. Pickle 16:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

NO concensus

Route Description template

When using one of the route description templates, in which direction should the preceding and next stations be? Should we assume we are travelling up- or down-line? Is there a convention for this? Lynbarn 20:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

We must be careful if using up and down for the direction since the Midland Railway went up to Derby, not London. --7severn7 12:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Not that i know of, only that the line is going in roughly the same direction.

For example:

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Baldock		First Capital Connect		Royston

so the next stations is obviously Royston

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Ashwell and Morden		First Capital Connect		Meldreth

Royston station is not shown as the article is on that station. Because it is going in that direction, it shouldn't really read...:

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Meldreth		First Capital Connect		Ashwell and Morden

... in this article as it is going back on itself.

It is also best to check start and finish stations to see where termini and continuing stations. Hope this was helpful. Simply south 20:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

When adding infoboxes, I took a general view that the "previous" station was the one closer to London, and the "next" was the one further from London, with the signficant proviso that, wherever possible, lines should continue in the same direction and lines running together should be shown going in the same direction. While there's no policy on this, you'll find that most lines follow this format. Warofdreams talk 02:21, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

USAGE again

There is now an update for the usage at railway stations. Usage for 2004-2005 Simply south 21:39, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject UK Railways page contents

There are a number of links on this page (section 19.1 railroads) to non-UK railway articles. I'm not sure what is intended to be done with these - should they be removed? replaced with UK equivalents Lynbarn 22:55, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

That's a transclusion from Wikipedia:Cleanup process that is automatically generated based on various cleanup tags on articles. The cleanup project doesn't do the country sorting like we do here, but as many UK railway articles are included, it is appropriate here as well as on WikiProject Trains. Slambo (Speak) 10:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Merkland Street station

I am having trouble as to what category(s) i should use and anything else related to Merkland Street station, which i am expanding. I think, although i am not totally sure, it is the only disused station on the Glasgow Subway and am trying to find from the current info whether it was purely an underground station or an overground station. Advice anyone? Simply south 20:41, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Merging non-notable and stub stations?

How do feel about the shorter stub articles being merged into the Transport section of the article for their local community? There are many station articles that no-one will work on unless they are part of a more visible article on a borough or town. For example, Bath Spa railway station and Swindon railway station are major junctions and have enough material written to warrant an article, but it is a long time before the intervening Chippenham railway station will get Good Article status. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 19:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Never mind. I see this issue is already under discussion at User talk:Mangoe/Wikipedia is not a timetable and User talk:Mangoe/Railroad line and station articles. If I have anything to say that hasn't already been said, I will say it there. I will digest that debate before taking more rash action (as I did with Melksham railway station and Melksham) --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 20:10, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Locomotive technical data tables: duplication

I was going to add User:David Newton/British Railway Locomotive Tables to some more loco classes when I discovered that User:AA Milne had today created Template:Infobox UK Train 1. Is the latter intended to replace the former? Which one should I be using?--QuantumEngineer 20:36, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Why not use {{infobox Locomotive}}? Slambo (Speak) 10:31, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 17:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposed change to UK stations infobox

See Template talk:Infobox UK station#Bilingual station names for my proposed way to standardise the formatting of stations that have names in more than one language (e.g. English and Welsh names). Thryduulf 22:30, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

History of rail transport in Great Britain article split

There is a proposal to split the above article into four or five speerate articles by era. See its talk page for details. Tompw 17:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Railway company naming conventions

Someone with a lot of USA rail-related edits has renamed South Devon Railway Company to South Devon Railway (1846-1876) stating in the edit comments that this is the standard naming, leving a whole host of pages to be redirected. I can't recall any other railway company pages named like this, nor anything in the Wiki Naming Conventions. It was not discussed before renaming; the orginal title was agreed through discussion to disambiguate from South Devon Railway Trust. Any commentsGeof Sheppard 13:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Wimbledon Traincare depot

This article, originally created as "Wimbledon train care depot" on December 23 was nominated for deletion through the {{prod}} template usage as a non-notable entity. Another editor contacted me about it since the prod term expired. I found a couple items of notability for it and added the data and refs to the article, and removed the prod template. However, there are no other articles that link to either name, so we need to add links pointing to this article. Since I only know what I found on the net about this subject, I'm coming here to let you know that this article has been started and needs to be referenced from other appropriate locations. Slambo (Speak) 20:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 21:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)