Talk:New Haven–Springfield Line

Electrification

I think this article should explicitly state whether this line is currently electrified. If it isn't, mention of switching locomotives at New Haven that presumably happens on NEC trains that continue to Springfield should probably be in this article. JNW2 (talk) 02:36, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Having read both articles, there seems to be great deal of redundancy to them. While one is meant to be for the physical line, and the other for the current Amtrak service, there is a great deal of duplication of information, to the point where having separate articles makes little sense. Heck, even the infobox pictures are the same!

That said, the reason for proposing the direction of the merge (Shuttle into Line) is due to the relative age of the articles. The Shuttle article dates to February 2008 (10 months old at this writing) while the Line article dates to September 2005, over three years ago. While not reason in and of itself to merge, if the merge carries, that's the direction I believe it should go. oknazevad (talk) 21:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

• Disagree I created the Shuttle article so the information about the train would be easier to find. It's not a big service, but if the New Haven-Springfield Commuter Rail proposal becomes reality two separate articles about the two services will make the information easier to find. To merge it could end up being like having the Acela and Northeast Regional articles merged into the Northeast Corridor article. It doesn't make sense and makes the information harder to find. The merge would've been a good idea had the Shuttle been the only train running on the line, but I'd like to keep them separate articles until I see what happens with the commuter rail proposal. Murjax (talk) 17:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Six months later (to the day!) I finally get a response....

You make a very good comparative point with the parallels between the NEC and the services running on it. I withdraw my proposal.oknazevad (talk) 17:58, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested move 26 January 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: NOT MOVED. Lack of consensus for moving is clear. Consensus is that usage is mixed, and convention on WP leans towards leaving it caps. That said, when one is trying to change a convention, as is apparently the case here, retaining consistency with the previous convention is not a strong argument to oppose, for that could be used to oppose to any change to convention. В²C ☎ 00:33, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

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New Haven–Springfield Line → New Haven–Springfield line – Per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS, no need to capitalize Line here. Dicklyon (talk) 16:16, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Evidence

• books use lowercase "line" almost always.
• news, too.

Survey

• Oppose. Usage is mixed; and every other article about a line, branch, subdivision, or district in the United States capitalizes the designation. If that convention is wrong or outdated we should change it, not start making exceptions. Mackensen (talk) 16:24, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, good idea, I agree. Where can I find that naming convention documented or discussed; I was not aware of it, and it was not obvious from looking at category listings. Dicklyon (talk) 19:04, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not aware of it being documented; like many conventions it stems from the fact that all articles are consistently named. I'm surprised that you looked at the category and didn't notice the consistent capitalization. Mackensen (talk) 22:49, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

I saw mixed caps, and took that to be deviations from the convention that is documented, which is WP:NCCAPS. Dicklyon (talk) 23:15, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

"Usage is mixed" = follow MoS. The only time MoS is not applicable is when usage is overwhelmingly not mixed in favor of a variance from it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:19, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

If that's your position then you can start by explaining why we're not dealing with a proper name. Mackensen (talk) 20:23, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose: the railway line designators "Line", "Main", "Secondary", "Subdivision", and "Branch" are always capitalized in proper US usage, as Mackensen noted. (See for example an Amtrak ETT - which simply calls this line "Main Line" as it does several other lines.) Unfortunately journalists are often unaware of this stylistic convention (and ConnDOT sometimes as well) but this is a broad convention that absolutely should not be circumvented on a single page. "New Haven–Springfield Line" as a whole is a proper noun - it is a named railway line. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 16:49, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

What do you mean by "proper US usage"? Never heard of such a thing. And you're saying that essentially all books and news sources just got this wrong, and we need to cap it for some reason that can't be justified by looking at sources? Dicklyon (talk) 04:14, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per Pi.141592653. And don't anyone bother with quoting the WP:SSF essay as though it is a policy or guideline, please. oknazevad (talk) 16:52, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment in addendum. The problem here, of course, is that the proper name of this line, that is to say it's formal designation, is identical to a simple descriptive phrase of the line (that is, it's a line that runs from New Haven to Springfield) except that it's capitalized as proper noun following the rules of English. That leads to confusion in the sources where some, possibly not knowing it's an actual name and not just a descriptor, use the descriptive phrase. But, per Wikipedia titling conventions, descriptive phrases are only used as titles when a full name cannot be determined. oknazevad (talk) 13:20, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. No evidence has been presented that demonstrates that reliable sources using the proper name of this line use lower case. The links above include all mentions of the phrase, including in unreliable sources and no effort has been made to filter out any sources describing the line rather than using the name or any sources that are not talking about this line. Thryduulf (talk) 03:39, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I didn't pretend to tabulate the individual evidence items, but the results are pretty clear. On the news hits, I see two for "Mobilizing the Region (blog)", with one capitalizing Line and one not; so whether you want to count that one or not, it's a wash. The rest of the them, looking like actual newspapers, all use lowercase "line". In the books, it's at least 4:1 lower:upper, so however you want to filter those, you're not going to find support for the idea that it's a proper name. Please look again. Dicklyon (talk) 03:51, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

It's not up to to me to look again. It's up to you, as the person who wants to change the status quo, to provide evidence that reliable sources using the proper name of this line use a lowercase title. Thryduulf (talk) 11:59, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I have done exactly that. But you can't see the evidence if you don't follow the links and look. Dicklyon (talk) 15:51, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

No you haven't. You've provided links to the results of searches for books and news articles that include the string "New Haven–Springfield Line" with no attempt to filter out unreliable sources, duplicates, descriptions, references to other things, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 16:43, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support per mainstream, plain-English in reliable sources – about this particular subject, about this sort of subject, and about this grammatical question. As noted above, actual newspapers and books almost always use lower case for this, while only signage (Which Typically Uses Capitalization As Emphasis) and railfan or governmental insider specialist material capitalizes "line" here, and even those don't do it consistently. The few general-audience sources that do it are the same kinds of paper that imitate "Goverment Caps" across all subjects, and write things like "Three Councilors voted against the new Proposal for cuts in the City's Budget". We've been over this many times before, and it's always the same bogus "give me specialized-style overcapitalization or else" and "I don't know what a proper name or proper noun really are, I just think they mean 'something I ever see capitalized'" unsourceable opinions offered in opposition to following WP's own style guide and basic English rules of the road. The bare fact of the matter is that source usage on this is not consistent, but leans heavily away from the overcapitalization (especially in more modern materials, and especially in materials intended for the public). Just the "not consistent" point alone is enough for the result to be "then just do it the MoS way, as usual". The entire point of MoS (and the naming conventions pages like WP:NCCAPS based on it) is precisely to avoid squabbling for trivial "exceptions" when the real world does not actually support them as conventional.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:06, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

This is argument by assertion, with a healthy dose of aspersions thrown in. Do you have any actual proof, or are you just going to attack everyone who disagrees with you? Mackensen (talk) 20:15, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I've not cast any aspersion at all, I've analyzed a series of re-re-rehashed, fact-denying, WP:POLICY-denying arguments made by the same faction of "my topic is magically special and immune to WP norms and English writing norms just because I say so" arguers at RM after RM after RM. It's tendentious application of the special pleading fallacy. Accusing someone of casting aspersions and attacking people because they don't agree is, um, guess what? It's casting aspersions and attacking someone because they don't agree with you. See WP:KETTLE.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:24, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

That's a silly argument which won't fool anyone; you ruin your own case by throwing in more attacks when claiming you're not attacking anyone. Edit: you do realize that everyone can see Wikipedia talk:Requested moves#Narrow gauge railway moves, yes? Mackensen (talk) 20:34, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment. To amplify my own point and follow up on something Pi.1415926535 said: I believe we're dealing with a proper name in this article, and with other articles. "Line" here doesn't mean a generic railway line; it's a specific designation (as are Branch, District, Secondary, Subdivision etc) and part of the name. This isn't a railway line called "New Haven–Springfield", where "line" is appended for disambiguation or identification; it's a piece of physical infrastructure called "New Haven–Springfield Line". I don't see this as any different from how we handle the names of institutions. It's no different from Chicago Subdivision, which is always called that (never just "Chicago"), and always capitalized. Mackensen (talk) 17:03, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Is there evidence in sources for this being treated as a proper name? Dicklyon (talk) 18:59, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. To be honest, I support this move in principle, given the good evidence presented by Dicklyon, showing that sources overwhelmingly treat this as a non-proper name. However, there is clearly a very strong WP:CONSISTENCY right now amongst US rail lines, and policy dictates that we should not make an exception just for this one line. If someone wants to start a wider discussion about decapsing most other US lines (and indeed those from other countries), then I would happily examine that on its merits and woudl likely support.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:07, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

  Agreed. Pressing on this one won't do any good. At some point I'll try to engage the project in sorting it out; working on that with UK lines for now; it was going well until it wasn't. Dicklyon (talk) 20:39, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.