Talk:Rail transport in Northamptonshire

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by TheNuggeteer talk 04:31, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that Northamptonshire used to have 92 railway stations, but now has only 6?

Source: ISBN-978-1-84674-108-1

• ALT1: ... that rail transport in Northamptonshire is popular with freight due to its location in the “golden logistics triangle”?

Source: [[1]]

• • Reviewed:

Moved to mainspace by DimensionalFusion (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

DimensionalFusion (talk) 17:25, 16 September 2024 (UTC).

• This is a new and substantial article, that has no copyvio problems, and is well sourced. The main source for the article, and the hook, is a book (not digital) so AGF for this. Hook ALT0 is effective: it is short, and surprising, and is stated in the opening lede of the article. ALT1 is less immediately easy to understand without a bit more context. Good to go! Chaiten1 (talk) 18:51, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Rail transport in Northamptonshire/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: DimensionalFusion (talk · contribs) 08:30, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: MaranoFan (talk · contribs) 08:56, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

I will review this soon.--NØ 08:56, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Had a couple of quick comments before I do the full review,

• There should not be references in the lead as this text should appear in the article body and be cited there.
• Where are the sources for the sub-sections in Current operations?--NØ 19:12, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

  References have been moved out of the lead and to appropriate sections. I've added sources to statements made in Current operations DimensionalFusion (talk · she/her) 10:04, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

• Thank you for addressing this.--NØ 10:30, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

• "Northamptonshire historically had many railways and stations, having had 92[1] total railway stations, most of which were closed following the Beeching cuts, leaving the county with 6 railway stations still open on the national rail network." - Don't think ref in the middle of the sentence is required since there is no direct quote.
• "The first major passenger railway to enter Northamptonshire was the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) in 1838, however did not pass through the county town of Northampton. This is thought to be because of the gradients from Blisworth, where the L&BR passed, to Northampton were larger than locomotives at the time were capable of handling." - Change to "The first major passenger railway to enter Northamptonshire was the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) in 1838; however, it did not pass through the county town of Northampton. This is thought to be because the gradients from Blisworth, where the L&BR passed, to Northampton were larger than locomotives at the time were capable of handling."
• "This meant that the largest settlement in the county, Northampton, did not have direct rail links to London. A branch from the main line was built to Northampton in the early 1840s: the Northampton and Peterborough Railway, from Blisworth, which gave the town indirect rail links to London and Birmingham." - This is used to start a new section so what is "This" referring to?
• "The successor to the L&BR, the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) decided to construct the Northampton loop line through Northampton in the 1870s. It was built as part of a wider scheme to double the capacity of the West Coast Main Line between Bletchley and Rugby, by quadrupling the track; however, routing the additional tracks on a deviation via Northampton had the advantage of giving the town a much better rail service, including a direct service to London, and avoiding the cost of widening the Kilsby Tunnel. The LNWR obtained Parliamentary approval for the line in 1875, and commenced construction in 1877." - "The successor to the L&BR, the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), decided to construct the Northampton loop line through Northampton in the 1870s. It was built as part of a wider scheme to double the capacity of the West Coast Main Line between Bletchley and Rugby by quadrupling the track; however, routing the additional tracks on a deviation via Northampton had the advantage of giving the town a much better rail service, including a direct service to London, and avoiding the cost of widening the Kilsby Tunnel. The LNWR obtained parliamentary approval for the line in 1875 and commenced construction in 1877."
• "When it was decided to expand Northampton railway station, owing to the proximity of the River Nene, the only way the expansion could be facilitated was to expand onto the site of Northampton Castle.[6] On 18 December 1876, the L&NWR purchased the site from William Walker and subsequently demolished the remains of the castle except for the postern gate which, following a local petition, was moved to a new site in the boundary wall of the new station where it remains to this day." - "When it was decided to expand Northampton railway station, owing to the proximity of the River Nene, the only way the expansion could be facilitated was to expand onto the site of Northampton Castle. On 18 December 1876, the L&NWR purchased the site from William Walker and subsequently demolished the remains of the castle except for the postern gate, which, following a local petition, was moved to a new site in the boundary wall of the new station, where it remains to this day."
• "Following the Great Depression in the United Kingdom, several post-grouping railways were forced to initiate station closures. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway, sucessors to the Midland Railway, decided in July 1939 to close St. John's as a cost-cutting measure. Services were switched to Castle station via Hardingstone junction." - "Following the Great Depression in the United Kingdom, several post-grouping railways were forced to initiate station closures. The London, Midland, and Scottish Railway, sucessors to the Midland Railway, decided in July 1939 to close St. John's as a cost-cutting measure. Services were switched to Castle station via Hardingstone junction."
• "Richard Beeching, then Chairman of the British Railways began a reorganisation process known as the Beeching cuts" - "Richard Beeching, then Chairman of the British Railways, began a reorganisation process known as the Beeching cuts"
• "The L&BR, prior to its merger to become the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), wanted to a branch line from Rugby to Peterborough, originally to keep the Midland Railway out of Northamptonshire." - This seems grammatically incorrect.
• Overall, the article has a List-y presentation. I will go through some similar articles to determine whether GA or FL might be the more appropriate process for it. Do you have examples of similar-presenting articles like this that have gone through the GAN process?--NØ 10:30, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  The citation in the middle of the sentence is mainly for DYK so that people can see the number has a direct citation.

  The only GA-quality article of the same series as this is Rail transport in New Zealand ITMT, I've made the changes requested, bar the one about St. Johns as they look identical DimensionalFusion (talk · she/her) 11:30, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks for the example. I think I can pass this in that case. If someone has the same question about the article in the future, it could always be revisited.--NØ 16:45, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Peer review

Rail transport in Northamptonshire

Listed for peer review because it was recently promoted to GA (which I didn't think would happen - really thought it would fail and that I'd get feedback but hey-ho) and I'd like to gain a peer review so that I can improve the article. I do think it needs improving but I'm not sure how to action this.

Thanks, DimensionalFusion (talk · she/her) 10:38, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Airship

As requested, I'll give general feedback aimed at improving the article, maybe with a featured content nomination in mind.

• This is one of those odd articles that could be both a list or an article, and would probably be eligible at both WP:FAC or WP:FLC, it it was formatted appropriately. My personal inclination would be WP:FLC—it feels quite listy to me—but it's your call. If it's a list, it might need a name change.
• Regardless, the lead needs expansion. It needs to summarise the entire article—I'd want to see detail on the history, on former lines that are no longer in operation, and on the current state of affairs. WP:LEAD says a three sentence lead for an article of this size is woefully short.
• You may also look at MOS:OVERSECTION, especially for the history section. The section could easily be four paragraphs long in total, and it currently has four subheadings. All that does is unnecessarily clutter the prose, and for minimal benefit for the reader, who you can assume knows that earlier events will be found near the start and modern events near the end.
• You know what this article really misses? Maps. I don't know if {{location map}} can handle drawing lines, but if you could somehow wangle maps of the former railways or the current ones, that would be really helpful.
  • OH, and a map of Northamptonshire is an absolute must. People might be reading this from darkest Siberia. They might not even know what Northamptonshire is. I don't actually think there's a link to Northamptonshire in the body. WP:MTAU is not typically applied to articles like this, but I think you should probably bear it in mind more than you have.
• On references, there seems to be a lot of dependence on one source, Lost Railways of Northamptonshire, which considering its title is fair enough; you really have to keep an eye out for plagiarism, especially close paraphrasing, if you do this though. I don't believe the GA reviewer asked to spotcheck (which they really should have), but they will at FAC and they probably will at FLC.
• On the note of citations, Wake 1935, Hatley 1959, and Gough 1984 don't actually refer to anything. Might want to find those books again. If you want to see the errors yourself, install User:Trappist the monk/HarvErrors.
• There is variance between the actual lists of stations on the line in the "Former railways" section, and the prosified lists of stations in the "Current operations" section. Might want to standardise.

Feel free to ping if you have any further questions. Nice article, but in need of some polish, and maybe some thought as to what it actually is. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:55, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29;

The reason for the variance between the prose list of current stations and those listed in the Former railways section is that the ones listed there are former/closed stations, whereas the ones in current operations are open stations.

A map would definitely be nice, and the lines are all on OpenStreetMap, but I can't for the life of me figure out a way to compile it into a map. The reason that there's no general map of the area is that I assumed that anyone who did not know where the county was could just click on the link to the Northamptonshire article which is in the lead. There's not a link in the body because I've been that duplicate links are bad

I'll probably just remove the citations that don't go anywhere, because they're covered by other sources anyway

I'd like to check for close paraphrasing or plag, but I'm not sure how feasable that is

How does MTAU apply to the article? I'm a bit lost regarding that, clarification welcome

I'll look at expanding the lead and removing the history sub-sections, no problem there

I don't think this article could be a list without getting deleted, it's essentially a duplication of the category Category:Disused railway stations in Northamptonshire. Ultimately I think it works better as an article, but I'm unsure how to do this whilst retaining the information about the closed stations

DimensionalFusion (talk · she/her) 08:59, 8 November 2024 (UTC)