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Talk:Rail transport in Australia

Latest comment: 4 years ago by SCHolar44 in topic Please comment: some railway terminologies
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High-speed rail

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Latest comment: 16 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Does Australia have a High-speed rail? It is not listed in the article? --Avinesh Jose  T  11:29, 8 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

Do you call 160 km/h high-speed - this is the fastest service speed. I have been working on an article on the various high speed rail proposals Australian has seen. Wongm (talk) 06:57, 10 August 2008 (UTC)Reply
I didn't know it. Which is the article? --Avinesh Jose  T  06:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)Reply
Just finished it now: High-speed rail in Australia. Wongm (talk) 02:01, 13 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

Read the internet articles

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Latest comment: 16 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

In Rail_transport_in_Australia#Iron_ore the article says "Read the internet articles" - which ones? There are no links or references. I would love to read the articles but without links ... 210.80.142.30 (talk) 00:36, 10 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

The phrase made no sense, so I have reworded it. http://www.railways.pilbara.net.au/ is a good railfan site about the railways of the area. Wongm (talk) 01:32, 10 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

Presentation of rail gauges

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Latest comment: 13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

In the "Milestones" section the rail gauges are presented differently, sometimes in feet and inches first, sometimes with metric measures first and sometimes with the names "standard gauge" and "broad gauge" and sometimes not. I think it would be preferable to have a consistent layout. Compare this:

With this:

The second example is more consistent and less cluttered. Therefore I think it would be preferable. What do others think? Michael Glass (talk) 11:23, 16 November 2011 (UTC)Reply

Heritage and tourist railways

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Latest comment: 12 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Is there anywhere a list of heritage and tourist railways in Australia? -- Riggenbach (talk) 23:54, 27 December 2011 (UTC)Reply

Comments

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Latest comment: 9 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

As an overall comment on the Rail Transport in Australia category, it looks like a bit of organisation and structuring would be helpful. I am willing to help with this but might need to get some tutorial assistance from some more experienced wikipedians to help me out. Are there any wikipedians wiling to do so. Would this warrant a wikipedia project category, as a sub project to Transport in Australia and the overall Australia project? Let me know thoughts either here or my talk page. Thanks Jamesbushell.au (talk) 09:40, 5 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

I'd just ask questions at WP:AWNB and see what happens. People tend to have broad and overlapping interests, so it might be worth a notice at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian Roads to inform people if a conversation or collaboration starts. I've also thought there's a body of work in matching up the articles and improving the consistency. I've mostly looked at SA railways, and Rail transport in South Australia looks like it was written by several separate people who didn't read what was already written, but I haven't had time to think about planning a coherent article yet. The other states might be just as bad. --Scott Davis Talk 11:58, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
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Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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Opening summary

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Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The summary has information that could be considered as opinion. Specifically the statement: "Rail transport in Australia has often been neglected in favour of the Australian road transport network." is an opinion of the author and not necessarily a statement of fact and could be subject of disagreement. While it may be true not everyone may agree. I suggest this be removed. (Footballzs (talk) 04:21, 27 December 2018 (UTC))Reply

Please comment: some railway terminologies

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Latest comment: 4 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
The proposals in a nutshell

My proposals below ended up being too discursive -- sorry for that.

Essentially I'm proposing unifying terminologies, subject to any of your comments:

  • renaming Adelaide–Darwin Railway to Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor (same as with other cities, and avoids title of a non-existent "Railway")
  • swapping the roles of East–west rail corridor (Australia) and Sydney–Perth rail corridor (redirect ↔ article)
  • starting a new page, North-south rail corridor (Australia) – comparable to the present East–west rail corridor article – to redirect to the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor article (for uniformity)
  • creating a new redirect page, Transcontinental rail corridors (Australia), to point to the E-W and N-S corridor articles (to aid searches, especially from outside Australia).

For the rationales, please see the headings below.

Cheers, Simon SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬  at 07:03, 14 August 2020 (UTC)Reply


Dear colleagues,

I would like to get your views on use of the terms Railway and railway, line, route and corridor. The distinctions are relevant to several current articles about Australian rail corridors and railways; your feedback will guide my next steps with them.

In relation to capitalisation, I have taken account of the guidance in the Style manual for authors, editors and printers (often known by its old title, The Commonwealth Style Manual), including, on page 123:

Initial capitals should also be used for proper nouns and for proper names (the names of specific people, places and organisations). When organisations’ names are reduced to a generic element, the capitals can usually he dispensed with; capitals are retained, however, if the shortened version still carries a specific element.

Railway

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Instances of Capital-R Railway are those which were named when built with a formal name of "... Railway". The Trans-Australian Railway is an example.

That also applies to some railways when they were announced as a project, but although they were known by that name immediately after they were built, it later became redundant. The Tarcoola–Alice Springs Railway was known as such at the planning stage and for two decades after construction, until the Alice Springs–Darwin gap was closed. The gap-closer was officially called the AustralAsia Railway during the lead-up and construction phase, but the name died a quick death. Both names lost relevance when they became part of a longer route. I have confirmed with an industry executive that the operator (One Rail) and the rail industry generally use the name Tarcoola–Darwin line or, more often, just the Darwin line.

When "railway" is generic – including when it's part of a longer route – the case is usually lowered, in keeping with the Style Manual quote above. An examples is the Main Southern railway line.

Line/railway line

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These terms seem to me to be synonymous. Also, almost synonymous, is railway – on its own and lower-case. The three terms are almost always lower-case because they are generic terms.

Corridor or route

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The titles of Wikipedia articles about the railway connections between four of Australia's mainland capital cities use corridor rather than route. Articles on the three corridors involved are titled as:

  • Sydney–Melbourne rail corridor (redirected from Sydney–Melbourne railway)
  • Sydney–Brisbane rail corridor (redirected from Sydney–Brisbane railway)
  • Melbourne–Adelaide rail corridor (redirected from Melbourne-Adelaide railway).

This, I think, has established "corridor" as the preferred term among our writers.

However, the article titles for the Perth and Darwin connections are handled differently. Currently they are:

  • East–west rail corridor (Australia) (redirected from Sydney–Perth railway)
  • Adelaide–Darwin railway.

I suggest the following changes for consistency with the other corridor articles:

  • A new Sydney–Perth rail corridor article. It would contain all the text and images in the current East–west rail corridor (Australia) article.
  • The current East–west rail corridor (Australia) article would then be turned into a redirect to Sydney–Perth rail corridor.
  • The title of the current Adelaide–Darwin railway article would be changed to Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor.
  • A new page, North-south rail corridor (Australia) – comparable to the present East–west rail corridor article – would redirect to the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor article.

Additionally, I suggest creating a new article:

  • Transcontinental rail corridors (Australia).

It would be a redirect page to cater for searches for "transcontinental". It would contain two links, i.e. to the north–south and east–west corridor articles.

And finally: the Adelaide–Darwin "Railway"

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Five railway lines, opened between 1917 and 2004, form Australia's north–south transcontinental rail corridor

Adelaide–Darwin Railway is problematic as an article title because the "Railway" per se does not exist.

Over the past few weeks I have been checking the use of the name in a number of websites. None of them use Adelaide–Darwin Railway. This is shown, for example, on the website of One Rail, as owner and operator of the Tarcoola–Darwin line – https://1rail.com.au/#services:

  • "... intermodal services on the Adelaide to Darwin corridor, servicing Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine & Darwin"
  • "the Adelaide-to-Darwin rail corridor"

One Rail also uses the term "Tarcoola-to-Darwin rail line":

  • "We operate in South Australia, the Northern Territory, which includes the Tarcoola-to-Darwin rail line, ...".

I asked two industry executives and three railway historians, "What terminologies do you use for the various railway infrastructures between Adelaide and Darwin?" None of them used the term "Adelaide–Darwin railway". Three of them specifically brought it up as a term that wasn't or shouldn't be used (one even wrote "There is NO Adelaide–Darwin railway!"). I received several operational documents which showed the only use of "railway" was "TAR" – Trans-Australian Railway.

I therefore propose that the article Adelaide–Darwin Railway be renamed to Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor.

The map opposite reflects the terms discussed. (It can be changed if necessary.)

I look forward to your comments. Cheers, Simon SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬  at 13:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Your comments

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Feel free to put them under any of these headings and/or under the "Other comments" heading at the end.

Capital-R Railway


Lower-case railway


Line/railway line


Corridor or route


Article names and changes

New Sydney–Perth rail corridor article

Proposal: to be instigated as an article containing all the text and images in the current "East–west rail corridor (Australia)" article.


Current East–west rail corridor (Australia) article

Proposal: to become a redirect to "Sydney–Perth rail corridor".


Current Adelaide–Darwin railway article

Proposal: to change the name to "Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor".


New North-south rail corridor (Australia) article

Proposal: to be instigated as a redirect to "Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor".


New Transcontinental ... article

Proposal: to be instigated as a redirect with a choice between "Sydney–Perth rail corridor" and "Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor". Titles in order of my preference (because of the more likely words that people overseas might use for their search): Transcontinental railways (Australia); Transcontinental railway lines (Australia); Transcontinental rail corridors (Australia).

Other comments

The relevant policy is Wikipedia:Article titles. It needs to be remembered that we serve the reader and not railway executives or railway historians. In town planning, "corridor" refers to *land* which connects places (hence "rail corridor" and "road corridor"). But I really doubt "corridor" satisfies WP:COMMONNAME for a contiguous set of tracks that take trains from X to Y. Common use would appear to be "railway" and "railway line". The Macquarie Dictionary has several definitions of corridor (which don't include the town planning use) and offers one meaning in connection with rail as "a passageway on one side of a railway carriage into which the compartments open". Personally I think "X-to-Y railway line" is the best way to name such articles. If there are multiple routes in use between X and Y, then they can be disambiguated as "X-to-Y railway line (via Z)". We can of course have any number of other titles which redirect to the main article title, but I think "railway line" is the "common name". Kerry (talk) 01:10, 25 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

I agree with the above comment - there's nothing to be achieved by naming articles with uncommon nomenclature - "East–west rail corridor (Australia)" as a name for the Sydney-Perth railway line is so non-specific that I wasn't even aware of the article. John beta (talk) 02:30, 25 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your comments, Kerry and John.
First I should clarify what you commented on initially, Kerry: "It needs to be remembered that we serve the reader and not railway executives or railway historians". I assure you I thoroughly understand that basic tenet of writing Wikipedia articles. The reason I mentioned those people was for a different reason: when doing fact-checking and initial research I sometimes consult with people who know their field. I find it's especially important, and useful – as in this case – when published sources are few on the ground and/or contain many inaccuracies.[a]
"Corridor" is used widely in the public domain in a railway context. This is reflected in Wikipedia, which you can confirm if you search for articles with "corridor" in the title. In particular, the titles of all Wikipedia articles about the routes between other Australian mainland capitals include "corridor".[b] I felt obligated to follow those well-established precedents.
Concerning the definition of corridor, the SOED has:

a belt of land linking two other areas or following a road or river:
e.g. the security forces established corridors for humanitarian supplies".

The use of corridor in a railway sense would seem to fit fairly comfortably alongside that definition:

a belt of land linking two other areas or following a road, river or railway.

Maybe that's how it became common in a railway context.
You referred to "... a contiguous set of tracks that take trains from X to Y. Common use would appear to be 'railway' and 'railway line'." I believe that's right when talking of a single x–y connection. But in the Adelaide–Darwin story, there's more to it: within a 200 km wide strip of land, there were (off the top of my head) 17 separate construction projects involved in attempts to link Adelaide and Darwin, built over a span of 126 years. The present coast-to-coast standard-gauge route involves seven lengths of line, constructed separately at different times spanning 87 years.
To summarise, in priority order:
  • use of "corridor" in a rail transport sense is common in Wikipedia in describing all the other Australian inter-capital links and those overseas
  • in a geographical sense, the inclusion of several attempted routes in a 200 km wide swathe of land prompts the use of "corridor"
  • the rich political history over more than a century invites the term "corridor" far more than if the link had been the product of one united political push over, say, a decade, for an x–y railway.

The implications I draw from that are:

  • The three parts that had "Railway" in their official name and had prolonged public use – Central Australia Railway, Trans-Australian Railway and North Australia Railway – should be referred to as such.
  • All other links should be referred to, in keeping with your comment, Kerry, as lines – for example, the Tarcoola–Darwin line, the Port Augusta–Port Pirie line, the Oodnadatta–Alice Springs line.
  • At the macro level, both the historically uncompleted and contemporary lines should be referred to as being components of the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor. Cheers, Simon – SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬  at at 05:03, 7 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Notes

  1. ^ Both factors applied here, and the inaccuracy factor especially so. Several of the references in the present article are to news items that use the terminology, Adelaide–Darwin Railway. Two examples: when FreightLink, the first operator, went bust, a Financial Review article was titled "Banks force sale of $1.2bn Adelaide-Darwin rail link"; an article in the Adelaide Advertiser was titled "FreightLink-owned Adelaide-Darwin railway to be sold to US company Genesee & Wyoming". They were in fact referring to the Tarcoola–Darwin line, which accounts for only three-quarters of the Adelaide–Darwin corridor.
  2. ^ Perth–Sydney; Sydney–Brisbane; Sydney–Melbourne; Melbourne–Adelaide; Adelaide–Perth. There is Corridor selection history for Australian high-speed rail, which is full of mentions of corridors. In a non-Australian context, there is Northeast corridor in the US, a habitual term in the non-specialised media for heavily trafficked rail routes). In Canada, Québec City–Windsor Corridor starts with: "The Corridor … is a Via Rail passenger train service area in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario". In an Indian context there is North-South Dedicated Freight Corridor, containing many mentions of corridors. And so on.
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