Talk:Route 66 Bridge over the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad

Explanatory note

I apologize if my edit came off as derogatory; that was not my intention. I was simply trying to make clear to readers, and future editors, that the name of the bridge (as properly established by the NRHP) is not the name of the company as given in contemporary records. I cannot and do not purport to account for the discrepancy, but simply to document it. Best, Mackensen (talk) 21:56, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Replying many days later. Mackensen, I don't know if I saw your comment here before you opened the ongoing wp:ANI proceeding at 23:02, 29 October 2018, or any time before now. There has been assertion at the ANI that you used Talk pages while I did not, and I am looking for any such cases. Okay, right, I regard your previous addition of note "The name adopted by the NRHP notwithstanding, the formal name of the railroad was ....". That is putting into mainspace the type of assertion made in several recent discussions, by yourself and/or other editors, that NRHP documents are wrong. Advocates of wp:USSTATION have gone so far as asserting that if the NRHP documents support one name for a former train station, that the name is ruled invalid because it was supported by the NRHP document. I have fairly acknowledged the limitations of NRHP documents, but the antipathy is unjustified. And it should not spill over into mainspace assertions disparaging the NRHP system.

About the name(s) of the railway. I grant that the more official name for the Texas subsidiary may be "Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway" (as used in the Texas online dictionary source which I put into the article from the getgo) rather than "Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad". However, given the slight difference, and given the fact that the parent is apparently officially and commonly known as "Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad", I am rather positive that "Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad" would be a common name used for the subsidiary. There is no way that anyone historically has been able to enforce an understanding that the parent is a railroad while the child is a railway, that distinction would not be understood or accepted. And I recall that in some edit summary or somewhere that I cannot now find, you yourself acknowledge that "Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad" is found in newspaper coverage. So it is a common name.

If someone wants to point out, in mainspace, that there exists discrepancies in sources, it would be okay to do that, e.g. by noting that Texas newspaper A refers to the line as "Railroad" in multiple news articles, while Texas newspaper B refers to it as "Railway", etc. But I would highly object to your singling out the NRHP usage out of context. Knowing how NRHP documents are produced, I strongly believe that it reflects common usage; indeed it would tend to reflect Texas local usage, which could differ from national-level official documents. It would be inappropriately reflecting the biases and political-type position of recent disputants, to single out NRHP usage (which reflects common usage) as being "wrong" according to whatever standard. To criticize NRHP usage in this case in mainspace, you would have to establish, with sources, that there is some standard, and that sources say the NRHP document of such-and-such a date is wrong. I don't think that any such sources exist. --Doncram (talk) 17:13, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

In the absence of source establishing "Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad" as a legal name of the company, it seems appropriate to note the name used in the NRHP documentation (thus establishing the name of this article, for want of an alternative), is deliberately at variance with Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway and does not represent an error on the part of the project. Random mentions in Texas newspapers do not create a WP:COMMONNAME, especially not when other Texas newspapers use what appear to be the correct name. Mackensen (talk) 18:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it is necessary or appropriate to put criticism into mainspace, particularly argumentative/negative stuff. The article is about a highway bridge along historic Route 66 and the emphasis should be about the bridge. I thought you acknowledged somewhere that there are other usages of "Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad". I assume and believe that is a valid alternative name, because it gets some usage, and as I state above, I think it would be impossible for anyone to suppress usage of the word "Railroad" in favor of "Railway" at all times. Also, the NRHP document refers to the Railroad, which suggests (does not 100% prove) that Railroad is one common name. Quick google searching finds:

• this AmericanRails.Com usage of "Railroad", in a webpage about the "fabled" railroad
• this usage at AbandonedRails.com (which shows the Chicago Rock Island and Gulf Railroad title for me, but does not load its content for me right now).
• This bloglike page includes numerous newspaper clippings, including one or more mentioning the "Chicago, Rock Island & Texas". It mentions a consolidation of that plus "Chicago, Rock Island & Mexico" plus "Choctaw, Oklahoma & Texas" into the umbrella name “Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf" (without using either Railway or Railroad at that point). There are Dallas paper mentions referring to Dallas having two "Rock Island" ones among its 41 passenger trains per day, and 2 "Rock Island" trains serving Fort Worth (where I am not sure if "Rock Island" refers to connection going north to Chicago or refers to the Texas subsidiary. There is a 1926 Sanborn map showing the "Chicago, Rock Island, & Gulf R. R. Shops" (in Fort Worth), with mention that "The Rock Island yard and shops, with roundhouse and turntable, were located east of Samuels Avenue and Pioneers Rest Cemetery and north of Pharr Street.", where "Rock Island" seems to me to refer to the CRI&G railway.
• I'll stop with that, but I believe you mentioned other usages of "Railroad" too.

It is indeed possible that the NRHP document does not use the official name of the railway, for example perhaps stemming from potential usage within the Texas State Highway Department's Bridge Division, which was a principal source for information about the highway bridge. And I am not disputing what naming should be used for the railway article.

Hmm, deep within the NRHP document I see mention of the "Chicago, Rock Island, and Gulf Railway Company" as a formal name. That does not mean the other usage of "Chicago, Rock Island, and Gulf Railroad" elsewhere in the document is categorically wrong. Also it may be making a distinction between railroad itself rather than the railway company. I think you should be sympathetic to this, to be consistent with argument elsewhere that informal "Town station" type names are okay when more formal proper noun names are available.

Anyhow it is a different matter to assert that the NRHP document is wrong for using an alternative name which seems to be a valid alternative name, used in practice. It would be consistent with a negative agenda to force that into mainspace; it should not be part of informing readers about the Route 66 bridge. If a reader wants to note that "Railroad" is in the title for the bridge article and its main source, but the link goes to an article titled "Railway", they can do that, and they can go to the sources themselves. And you can make negative assertions on Talk pages. Currently the article links explicitly to the "Railway". I don't think you or anyone needs to insert into mainspace a negative controversy. Do you want to insert personal criticism about Philip Thomason and Teresa Douglas into mainspace, for their 2006 work? To take it to an extreme, do you want to name them as authors and say in mainspace that they were incompetent or something? Note it is also possible that "Railroad" was more common usage in 2006 than it is now, and it is possible that it was/is more common in the local usage in Wheeler County, Texas, where the bridge is located. You don't know everything about the entire scope of actual common usage, so I don't think you can fairly state in mainspace that the 2006 usage in the NRHP document is categorically wrong. --Doncram (talk) 22:31, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Further, there is in fact a distinction to be made between "railroad" vs. "railway". Per Collins English dictionary,

Word forms: railways
1. countable noun
A railway is the system and network of tracks that trains travel on.
[mainly US]
2. countable noun
A railway is a route between two places along which trains travel on steel rails.
[mainly British]
REGIONAL NOTE:  
in AM, usually use railroad
3. countable noun
A railway is a company or organization that operates railroad routes.
[British]
REGIONAL NOTE:   
in AM, use railroad

It would be weird to say the highway bridge is over a railway (i.e. system or company), in that context. It is over a railroad (i.e. the steel rails). --Doncram (talk) 22:57, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

As I've previously explained "Railway" and "Railroad" were both used in legal company names and they are not interchangeable in that sense. The NRHP documentation makes it plain that it regards "Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad" as a proper name:

• On page 1, it gives the location as "Interstate 40 south frontage road over the former CRI&G Railroad ROW" (right-of-way)
• In the descriptive section, both "Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad" and "Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway" are clearly used to refer to the company, and "right of way" used to refer to the actual track. This is common usage.

If "Railroad" is not in fact a proper name from the point of view of the NRHP documentation, then perhaps this article should be named Route 66 Bridge over the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf railroad, with railroad decapitalized. Either way, the situation is simple and shouldn't be overcomplicated:

• The proper name of the company who owned the bridge was the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway
• The proper name of the preserved bridge is (probably) Route 66 Bridge over the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad
• That the two vary has the potential for confusion.

Under those circumstances, an explanatory note makes sense and helps the reader. I don't see how anyone could read it as a criticism. Mackensen (talk) 14:43, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

As I pointed out in the wp:ANI proceeding that you opened, and which now has been archived, the larger context involves yourself and other train station-focused editors dismissing NRHP documents as completely wrong. It was stated in the ANI proceeding and in linked discussions that NRHP information is categorically wrong, which is absurd, and frankly I somewhat resent that you have not disavowed some of the most egregious assertions made against me personally and against NRHP stuff. I think that makes you complicit, beyond what you directly said. Whatever. Anyhow, in usual circumstances, I am not averse to noting, in mainspace articles, about contradictions and even errors in sources, where that is not perjorative and where it would significantly serve readers. I myself work tirelessly to note problems in NRHP documentation and in interpretation of NRHP documents, in a vast non-mainspace system, wp:NRIS info issues, that I set up, which I and others use to take action to improve the National Park Service's coverage directly (through requests for public corrections and updates where facts have changed) and to resolve Wikipedia coverage situations. (Oops, I told you about that now, and maybe now you and others can try to misconstrue what that does. Oh well, go ahead and try.)

This discussion here, however, is amidst what seems to me to be an inappropriate private campaign for some, including yourself, to dismiss actual sources in favor of, well their private preferences not supported by any sources. I don't think that _you_ should be putting negative statements about the NRHP into mainspace articles. You are in a position of wp:COI conflict, it appears to me, i.e. you have been involved in pursuing a private agenda (at ANI and elsewhere) extraneous to what is said in this article.

So about what can or should be said in this article, I don't think you and I are going to agree. Unless you feel you have to win somehow and get something negative into the article, I suggest you drop it. I don't think it is worth it to involve a whole lot of others here with an RFC say. A different way forward would be to invite one or a very few uninvolved others, perhaps by Wikipedia:Third opinion process. I have tried that process before but never found it to work, because it requires both editors who are having a disagreement to participate civilly and for both to want for it to work. The 3PO mediator-type people will drop it if either side is incivil or vetoes a proposal. I would be willing to try that if you want, but you have to actually want the process to work and to participate in it and abide by its solution. --Doncram (talk) 16:46, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't see this in terms of "winning" or "losing"; this isn't a battle and we aren't combatants. I'm surprised that after the ANI thread, in which multiple uninvolved participants criticized your conduct, that you'd still approach an editorial question in this fashion. Anyway, I've made the request at third opinion. I think an additional perspective would be welcome. Mackensen (talk) 15:54, 11 November 2018 (UTC)