Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways

EWR 2024-2025 consultation

The non-statutory consultation on updated proposals for East West Rail, running from Nov 2024 to Jan 2025 has been released today. See here. Difficultly north (talk) Time, department skies 11:02, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

• There is a WP:BRD debate at Talk:East West Rail#November 2024 Consultation on whether material on a non-statutory consultation should be included. Please contribute towards a consensus, as presumably the principle has wider significance. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:08, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

2324 station usage

The new station usage figures from the ORR will be released on Thursday 21st November. Difficultly north (talk) Time, department skies 14:55, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Which sort of DMU is this?

I've come across this photograph on Commons, and I would like to identify which sort of DMU this is so I can categorise it. G-13114 (talk) 15:32, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Probably a British Rail Class 105 - see also Media related to British Rail Class 105 at Wikimedia Commons 10mmsocket (talk) 15:41, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Just looking at other articles, British Rail Class 104 and British Rail Class 108 look closer. Not my area of expertise though Difficultly north (talk) Time, department skies 16:14, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Certainly not a 104 or 108, they have 3 windows across the cab front. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 16:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

It might be a Class 112? Though I'm not sure how to tell. G-13114 (talk) 18:30, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Not easy, they have the same bodyshells, it's the power trains that vary. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 18:36, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

• Two digit headcode box, it's a 112. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:12, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

  Or a 113, but you'd need to know numbers to tell that, they're the same bodyshells. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:14, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

  The 105s also had 2 digit headcodes Murgatroyd49 (talk) 21:23, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

• It's definitely a Cravens unit (all Cravens DMUs had that window arrangement, which was not used by any other builder), so we have five potential classes: 105, 106, 112, 113 or 129. 129 may be eliminated as being the wrong coupling code and the wrong part of the country; 113 may also be eliminated as they all had four-character headcode boxes mounted in the roof dome, and two marker lights above the buffers. Class 106 all had four marker lights and no headcode box, as did the earlier Class 105 units. However, the later Class 105 units had a front-end appearance identical to Class 112: two marker lights and a two-character headcode. I don't recall coming across the use of Class 112 on the former Great Central main line, it's most probably a Class 105. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:City Line (Merseytravel)

See Talk:City Line (Merseytravel)#Requested move 18 December 2024. 10mmsocket (talk) 15:04, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Too soon / WP:CRYSTALBALL

I am minded to nominate the following for deletion (or blank and redirect) as they have been created way too soon, but wanted to sound out my learned fellows in the project:

• c2c (2025)
• Greater Anglia (2025)
• South Western Railway (2025)

10mmsocket (talk) 08:58, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

I also noticed these, but was hesitant myself on nomination cause at the time, it had been less than an hour since creation. I am not opposed to someone nominating for AfD either; I would assume the creator of all 3 pages (the same user for all 3, to add) was not aware of the policy and just assumed the new TOCs would have the same name, when even we don't know what they'll be called when the new contracts take effect. Jalen Barks (Woof) 11:21, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

or indeed IF new contracts are awarded, given the political intent to cease the whole privatisation idea. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:02, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

This is a courtesy ping to Naleork. As the user who made these three pages and also added WP:TOOSOON categories to the relevant articles, what are your thoughts on this? Jalen Barks (Woof) 23:20, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Every national news agency and industry publication is reporting that the private operators will cease and the government, through DfT Operator, will take over. If we are going to have articles for potential operators, most of which won't get off the ground, Go-op, Virgin Trains, Wrexham, Shropshire & Midlands Railway etc, the Virgin one having already survived an AfD, don't see why not for operators that will commence per reliable sources.

The TOCs will have the same names as the trade marks are held by the Department for Transport. Hence why when Northern Trains, Southeastern and TransPennine Express were nationalised in the last couple of years, the name and branding was transferred from the private to the government sector operator. Naleork (talk) 23:31, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

We have no way of knowing what they names will be yet. It's way to soon for articles and it's way too soon to put them in the Toc Template. 10mmsocket (talk) 06:52, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Go-op, Virting Trains, etc. survived AfD because there is extensive coverage of them in reliable sources (i.e. they meet the WP:GNG). The same is not yet true for forthcoming operators of the Essex Thameside, East Anglia and South Western franchises. Thryduulf (talk) 22:31, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

We know exactly what they are called. From the mid-2010s, the DfT specified in franchise contracts what names each TOC was to trade as to avoid the wasteful rebranding that used to occur every time the operating company changes. Hence why Abellio Greater Anglia became Greater Anglia and First Great Western became Great Western Railway when these franchises came up for renewal, but the incumbent operator was successful in retaining. It's why when Northern Trains, Southeastern and TransPennine Express were nationalised, the brands and trademarks all transferred to the DfT OLR TOCs without any compensation having to be paid to the private sector operators. Previously wasn't the case, Serco-Abellio tried unsuccessfully to extract a couple of million out of the DFT for the Northern Rail trademark.

In 2021, the DFT renamed all its operator of last resort shell companies from DfT OR1 Limited, DfT OLR2 Limited etc to names closely reflecting the existing names including ones to South Western Railway Limited, GA Trains Limited and C2C Rail Limited. This was at the same time as Northern Trains Limited, SE Trains Limited and Trans Pennine Trains Limited that are the legal entities through which the current TOCs operate.

Even if hypothetically these turn out not to be the trading names, not the end of the world. The Lumo article was established in 2016 as East Coast Trains and remained as such until the trading name was announced and the article moved five years later.

The suggestion that its crystal balling to state that these TOCs are going to commence holds no water, when significant coverage from reliable sources explicitly states they will. The only way I can see that they won't would be if the incumbent operators launched a legal challenge over the DfT actioning break clauses, but there has been no evidence of that.

Of course they are only stub articles, but as more information becomes available they will expand. Bit like the Next United Kingdom general election article, not much more in it than the 2024 United Kingdom general election article, but it will grow.

As for not including them in the TOC template, it is perfectly acceptable to include until such time as an article for deletion discussion, concludes that the articles should be deleted or moved to draft space. To date that has not happened. Naleork (talk) 05:20, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

You stating things is not the same as achieving consensus. So far I don't see anybody supporting your assertions. 10mmsocket (talk) 11:06, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Short descriptions

There’s a discussion at Talk:WD Austerity 2-10-0 regarding what constitutes a useful and an overly simplified short description. I’ll be largely unavailable for a few days off wiki, so any other contributions would be welcome. Danners430 (talk) 10:51, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

It's policy at the WP:SHORTDESC project that descriptions don't have to be meaningful or useful, just conforming to 'short' and some seemingly arbitrary styleguide choices. This is not the first time that WP has made a deliberate, carefully-argued decision to make something completely pointless and useless, but nor will it be the last. So they're just best ignored and don't waste time on them. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:06, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I've never really understood the point of them. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 15:19, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

The point of them is that someone can use it, in combination with the title, to identify which article in a list of ones that match their search term is the one that they want to read. Thryduulf (talk) 22:33, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

The other value is that they are used by {{Annotated link}} to provide a quick'n'dirty expansion of terse article names in See Also lists that are otherwise only meaningful to the cognoscenti. This encourages visitors to explore further. See Guide to information sources for the principle.

Of course the crazy limitation to 40 characters (specified because of a technical limitation of iPhones. (!) See Wikipedia talk:Short description/Archive 9#Length – 40 or 90 characters??) doesn't help. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:45, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

I never add shortdescs, but do check those added by others. The two main things that I look for are: (i) does it exceed "short" (which I consider subjective, I don't stick rigidly to a max of 40 chars); does it redundantly refer to one or more words in the article title. --Redrose64 🦌 (talk) 16:07, 28 December 2024 (UTC)