Talk:Old Hill railway station

Services

I was informed by user @RedRose64 to post my edit on the talk page of Old Hill railway station before changing the article. I hope that someone of high enough authority would be able to check this for me before I post it on the article. Cheers, Lewis C (talk) 20:13, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Services

The typical Monday-Saturday daytime service is every 30 minutes, between Stourbridge Junction and Stratford-upon-Avon via Birmingham Snow Hill. During the daytime, services run alternately via Whitlocks End and via Dorridge; in the evenings the frequency remains unchanged but one service runs between Dorridge and Kidderminster. 7 Westbound services per weekday terminate at Worcester Foregate Street, these being at 06:26, 07:12, 07:42, 08:12, 19:47, 21:14 and 22:17, the latter of which continues to Great Malvern. On Saturdays 3 services travel to Great Malvern at 07:24, 20:15 and 22:15.

On Sundays, trains are hourly. No trains travel beyond Stourbridge Junction from this station on this day.

London Midland services generally consist of Class 172/2 and 172/3 DMUs. Some services are comprised of 170/5 and 170/6, which are often coupled with a 153.

Chiltern Railways only operate one service per weekday from this station, the 21:10 Marylebone to Stourbridge Junction, which departs from Old Hill at 23:36 on Mondays to Fridays only. This service consists of either a 168/0, 168/1, 168/2 or 168/3.

References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Lewis C (talk • contribs) 20:14, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

@Lewis C: What you're trying to add here is excessive non-encyclopedic detail.

Wikipedia is not a railway timetable: we should not give train times, especially not in the articles about individual stations, because timetables change twice a year and unless maintained, the information will go out of date this coming December - the next timetable change is only three months off. If people want the times of trains, Wikipedia is not the place that they should be referring to, they should check with National Rail Enquiries, or the train operating company (TOC) itself. These organisations have a responsibility to provide accurate information that is up to date and reliable, so they pay people to do exactly that. We do not have money to spend on staff that would maintain timetable information (whether such staff are initially willing or not, somebody who isn't paid will only continue so long as the enthusiasm is there), and nor do we have the reponsibility to maintain the information, so it can (and does) go out of date, surprisingly quickly. Look around the various articles on stations, you may find some that describe the services "as at December 2010" or similar. Old Hill is just one of some 2,500 stations in Great Britain, it would be a massive task to add timetable information to all of those (and get it checked by somebody else, to make sure that errors did not creep in), let alone go through it all again six months later. So we have decided not to. The Chiltern Railways service, being once a day, five days a week, is unusual enough to merit a mention - but it should really be sourced to an article in the railway press, such as Modern Railways or The Railway Magazine. Searching through the National Rail Timetable to discover this one is tantamount to original research.

The type of rolling stock is not of interest to the majority of readers. It might be suitable for an article concerning the TOC or the route, but not the individual stations.

Flickr is not a reliable source. Not only does it violate WP:SPS, a photo of a train in the station tells me just one thing: that that particular train was in that place at that time. It does not support a claim that the same type of train is presently in regular use for services that call at this station - not even that the same type of train was in regular use at the time that the photo was taken. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:56, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

As a general rule, we only give a rough summary of information about the level of service frequency, rather than the exact times. So it is fine to say that 'X station is served by two trains per hour each way' for example. It is too much detail however to say 'x station is served by two trains per hour each way at 12 and 42 minutes past each hour southbound and at 8 and 38 minutes past each hour northbound' for example. Generally speaking, the level of service frequency a station gets doesn't change too often, but the exact timings are constantly changing, and it's not our job to keep everything updated. Does that help? G-13114 (talk) 09:15, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Further regarding stock types, I generally believe that stock type is sometimes worth mentioning, but why would you say "168/0 or 168/1 or 168/2 or 168/3"? Just say "168". -mattbuck (Talk) 17:58, 20 September 2016 (UTC)