Talk:UIC wagon numbers

Merger proposal

Hello. I propose to merge UIC wagon numbers into Reporting mark. Both broadly define the same content; which is railroad road numbers and reporting marks. I feel merging these into a single, unified, "Road Number" page (with reporting marks covered separately) would help clarify it, and in addition allow the focus to be shifted from a Euro/Amerocentric view to an international one, Including certain quirks of other systems. In addition, the UIC numbering is broadly covered on the other page redundantly.ConnieC420 (talk) 01:41, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Oppose. US railroad practise and terminology is quite different from international railway practice and terminology. Basically the rest of the world has joined the UIC which lays down common standards for railways. North America is an affiliate member but doesn't comply with UIC regulations and has basically stayed on a completely divergent path, so putting the international picture under a US title would be confusing and, if anything, the wrong way round. And then we would be having to decide whether to use US or international railway terms in the text. Even a third article called "road number" would sound odd to non-US speakers because it suggests the route numbers for motor vehicle traffic. Meanwhile each article has enough material to be self-supporting. What we could do though, is refer from one article to the other e.g. under "See also" or perhaps in the lede. HTH. Bermicourt (talk) 07:38, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

PS Yes looking at the lede, it should be clearer what the scope is i.e. Europe, Russia, China, Japan, India, the Middle East, etc, but not North America and e.g. parts of Africa.Bermicourt (talk) 07:42, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

This doesn't hold water when looking at the precedents; i.e Shunter and Switcher share an article, despite terminology being different - so do Marshalling yards and Classification Yards. In the former case, the article was, in fact, under American terminology - which, again, seems to set a precedent for this sort of thing. ConnieC420 (talk) 05:57, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Actually it's a mixed bag; in many cases there are two separate articles. But even if you look at the combined ones, they're often split into sections covering US practice and non-US practice; or they have to constantly distinguish between "US switchers... " and "European shunters... ". And the talk pages often have lengthy debates about naming. Meanwhile having separate articles is cleaner and justifiable because practice is so different. The railroads in America developed separately from the railways in Europe and much of the world. But there's another issue. If we combine articles, they should go under the international name agreed by the UIC, but that will be highly unpopular with US editors and is likely to result in a one of those protracted heated arguments that happen on Wikipedia all too often. The articles have happily been separate for some time, it's uncontentious, and personally I'd let sleeping dogs lie. We have more important things to do than fight about terminology. Bermicourt (talk) 07:48, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

PS if you look at the List of UIC country codes you'll see that the overwhelming majority of countries follow UIC practice here. Only Australia, North America, South Africa and the Congo don't. This article is entirely about the UIC practice and there is no overlap with those regions that have national systems. Meanwhile you'll also see that, at reporting mark, there is a navbox to no less than 26 separate articles on US reporting marks. So having separate articles for numbering schemes is common practice and I'd suggest it's impractical to merge them all. Bermicourt (talk) 08:09, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

To be completely honest; aside from allocated country codes, i've seen no evidence of the majority of the world outside of Europe using UIC codes. ConnieC420 (talk) 21:32, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Are they or aren't they using them, I don't know; but any railway carriage used for international transport or travel in countries including any country where UIC numbers are in use has to bear a unique UIC number constructed according to this article. This applies for instance to passenger carriages and freight wagons traveling between China, optionally Mongolia, and Russia over any or all of the Trans-Siberian, Trans-Manchurian and Trans-Mongolian railways with gauge change at the Chinese border, including Chinese carriages among them (and I consider China as being "outside of Europe" even if Siberia follows the "European" Russian conventions). – Tonymec (talk) 10:42, 20 February 2024 (UTC)