Talk:Triplex locomotive

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Shouldn't the Allegheny 2-6-6-6 number 4601 at the Henry Ford museum get a mention too? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.59.41.96 (talk • contribs) 23:58, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Quadruplex

I know facts aren't always the main focus of Wikipedia, but when this says that there never was a quadruplex loco, it is actually wrong.

https://www.reddit.com/r/steamporn/comments/4uzfs6/the_sole_quadruplex_steam_locomotive_ever_built/ 2A02:C7F:516F:FC00:98D3:FF46:AC:B954 (talk) 18:58, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

The page doesn't say that "there was never a quadruplex loco", but AFAIK there was never a Mallet-based one, which is what this page is about.

The Belgian one you've given a link to, might be the starting point for a page on that wheel arrangement. I leave it to you. Kokopelli-UK (talk) 21:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

The lemma of the page is Triplex locomotive, not Mallet-based Triplex locomotive, then there are sections on Quadruplex, a term that could not be found in anywhere else in the English Wikipedia. Therefore, the Belgian Quadruplex should be mentioned here. Pechristener (talk) 05:20, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Not quite true. See the disambiguation page Quadruplex: Several articles listed, but not (yet) one for the locomotive. Kokopelli-UK (talk) 12:33, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

OK, I meant that nowhere did it say anything about quadruplex locomotives other than on the Triplex page. I had already found the disambiguation, but it didn't say anything about a quadruplex locomotive. I have now added that there, too. Pechristener (talk) 13:50, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Belgian quadruplex and hexaplex

These two paragraphs really should be on a separate page of their own, IMHO:

1) As I previously noted, this Triplex page is based on Mallet variants. The Belgians clearly are an entirely different type of locomotive. In fact, the Whyte Notation page mentions the Belgian quad, giving it as 0-6-2+2-4-2-4-2+2-6-0. Not remotely like a Mallet.

2) The insertions have been done clumsily, breaking up the "Expanding the Concept" section, which was written specifically about Mallets.

Come on, you can do this better!

Regards, Kokopelli-UK (talk) 20:21, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Again, this page is about Triplex locomotive, not Mallet-based Triplex locomotive. Pechristener (talk) 05:22, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

I'll grant you that the page title doesn't include the word "Mallet." I suspect that the author of the original page wasn't even aware of any non-Mallet triplexes, nor quad-, quint- or hexaplexes (sextuplex?), so he/she probably didn't feel the need to make a distinction.

I disagree with your argument about inserting the Belgian loco under the "Quad" heading, since this is a subsection of "Expanding the concept," which is specifically about developments based on the Mallet triplex. There's nothing to say that "quadruplex" couldn't be written into another new page, if need be.

But more to the point: The Belgian locos were a radical departure from conventional steam loco design - Revolutionary rather than evolutionary. The wheel arrangements, and the four- and six-engine designs were only part of a much larger engineering package, and a successful one at that. Why define these locos primarily based on just the number of engines, and then lump them together with the unsuccessful and untried proposal for the super-Mallet? They deserve more.

I could, of course, set up a new page for the Belgian locos myself, and just copy/paste your sections into it. I don't plan to do that, since Wikipedia would automatically credit me as the author of the new page, without Wiki mentioning your good self - questionably ethical of me, too. With respect, you're the probably the person best placed to do this. Not sure what the page should be named, though....

On the Triplex loco page, a link could be added as, say, "For non-Mallet quad- and hexiplex locos, see (name of new page).

Thanks for consideration. Kokopelli-UK (talk) 19:37, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

In my opinion there should be a page explaining Triplex, Quadruplex, Quintuplex and Hexaplex in relation with steam locomotives regardless of Mallet or non-Mallet. People not already familiar with the topic should not have to know, if they are looking for Mallet or non-Mallet design. Note that on the German Wikipedia, i already made a didcated page for that Belgian locomotive. Pechristener (talk) 10:31, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Compliments on your page NMBS/SNCB 2096: Thorough and well-ordered, impressive. I’m happy to recommend you put a translation of it on the English-language Wiki. (Wiki’s auto-translation of it into English reads very well, by the way).

My one reservation is the title, which is rather obscure and won’t be much help to any reader who isn’t “already familiar with the topic” (Your words, as the reasoning you’ve used that the Triplex Loco page should include other loco types). An easy-to-remember name may be difficult, since the Belgian locos are unlike anything else.

But back to the issue at hand: For a start, can you point me to a triplex loco which is not a Mallet? Or a quintuplex? I’m not aware on any. So it seems that quadruplex is the only shared description here. Looking at your NMBS/SNCB 2096 and the complexity of that marvellous, innovative machine, the four engines are probably the least interesting element, in my opinion. Yet you’re making "quadraplex" the reason for inserting the locos into this page.

You are trying to make the Triplex page into something it was never meant to be, and it would need a complete reorganisation to include the Belgian locos. I don’t think you can achieve this, and I don’t support it, for the reasons I’ve given in my earlier posts above.

In particular, and again, the “Expanding the Concept” section is specifically based on proposed variants developed from the triplex Mallet. Subsections Quadruplex and Quintuplex should flow seamlessly, since the Quint is just a variant of the Quad. Yet you’ve inserted your Belgian Quad between these subsections, totally out of context. Have you not noticed what this does to the existing text? And how does either of the Belgian locos “expand the concept”?

Unlike your well-written NMBS/SNCB 2096, you haven't finished the job on the Triplex page, which remains a muddle which will need cleaning up. I have held back from editing or reverting the page while this discussion continues, but in my opinion the ball is in your court, to make your insertions work sensibly, which I have my doubts is even possible. I will give it week or so, but then propose to revert the page to its earlier state. I also propose to add a link to NMBS/SNCB 2096 for “non-Mallet multiplex locos”. Kokopelli-UK (talk) 16:57, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I do not know, why I should prove that there are non-Mallet triplex locomotives, it has nothing to do with the lemma of this page, which is Triplex locomotive and not Mallet based triplex locomotive. Even before I added a single line to the article, the quadruplex Super Garratt locomotive was already mentioned in the triplex section. I have moved the super Garratt to a separate subsection of the quadruplex section, where it fits better.

It is also clearly states in the introduction: A triplex locomotive is a steam locomotive that divides the driving force on its wheels by using three pairs of cylinders to drive three sets of driving wheels and it does not say that a triplex locomotive is a Mallet locomotive, which is also not the definition of a triplex locomotive. The concept is actually that there are three pairs of driving wheels (triplex). So the extension of the concept is to have four pairs of driving wheels (quadruplex, regardless of the technology used), and five, and six and so on. It's possible, that the original editor thought, that there were only Mallet locomotives with more than two sets of driving wheels, but that's simply not true. So, I do not know, what kind of complete reorganisation you have in mind. We have a smooth progression from Triplex as the main topic to quadruplex, quintuplex, and hexaplex.

If you want to revert anything, then you have to bring up a valid argument. Changing a page in to something, the original editor had not in mind, is not a valid reason. Pechristener (talk) 18:55, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, OK, you’ve assembled the page to include apparently all of the “plexes”, and it reads pretty well. Congratulations – a lot of good work here.

I still don’t agree with your premise, though, since it packs together some very different locomotive types, with little in common other than multiple engines. This could have been three separate pages: The Triplex page as it was, the weird and wonderful Belgians, and the super-Garratt, each page with all the details relevant to its type, and perhaps with simple links added between pages. I won’t revert it, though I may add some minor edits on grammar, etc.

A couple of issues, though:

• Again, “Expanding the Concept” is relevant to the Mallet quad and quint, since these are derivatives of the Mallet triplex. Not so for the Belgians and the Garratt, which were independently developed.
• I observe that the Triplex section is now only about 25-30 per cent of the page content (Was 60-65 per cent until 9 September). So should this page have a different title, to better express the broadened content? Perhaps “Triplex and Multiplex Locomotives” or just “Multiplex Locomotives”, or similar?

Regards, Kokopelli-UK (talk) 19:09, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

OK, I like your new approach better, and thank you for refraining from reverting.

My premise is based on locomotives using more than two sets of driving wheels, not on the Mallet locomotives. The issue is, that you cannot talk about qadruplex without mentioning the other concepts. So, the common is in fact the multiple engines, what is in my opinion absolutely sufficient.

The setup of the various pages and its linkage can always be freely selected within a certain range. My suggestion is to leave this page as it is now and create separate pages for the Belgium monster and the Super-Garratt, which are linked via a main article links. Note that also the page of the Triplex XA is missing in the English Wikipedia, and that the P1 is not even mentioned on the Erie Railroad page.

Your grammar edits are welcome, since I'm not a native English speaker.

With the first bullet point, I do not agree. The concept is having more than two sets of driving wheels for the triplex, so the expansion of the concept is to have more than three sets of driving wheels. I put an introduction in Expanding-the-concept section pointing out, that not all these concepts are based on Mallet locomotives.

With the second bullet point, I agree. After checking that the term Multiplex locomotive exists in the real world, this could be used as a lemma. If you agree, I can move the article there and make the other required adaptions. Pechristener (talk) 09:16, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, but my position on all this hasn’t changed much. I still strongly disagree with your insistence that this page should be dominated by the “plex” aspect, and numerically ordered tp suit that. You’ve put together some very good information, but IMHO it’s in the wrong place: I’m pleased that you agree the Belgians and the super-Garratt deserve their own pages. I look forward to them.

On my bullet points, I stand by the first one. The Mallet quad and quint would certainly never have been designed, with their additional engines under the tender, if the triplex hadn’t provided that CONCEPT. There’s absolutely no continuity linking the Belgians or the super-Garratt to those earlier designs, because they would have used multiple engines regardless. How are they expanding any “concept”? Sorry, but your new introductory statement is just trying to rationalise the phrase to meet your "plex" agenda.

Re my second bullet: I’m not going to say I agree with this, because I don’t for all my reasons since the start of this dialogue. (While I appreciate you asking, I have no authority to stop you; I’m just another editor.) My argument is that the current state of the page is now more confused, with a lot of detailed info that should be elsewhere. My preference would be that the page return to its 9 September state without a name change, with added simple links to Belgian and super-Garratt pages.

But if you still decide to proceed:

What is meant by “move the article”? Hope you’re not proposing to set up a new page with the new title, and copy/paste the current text & images into it – You’d risking losing the history of the existing page, including past editors, etc.

Regarding the name change, bear in mind that “Triplex” has been used as a short-form description for that loco type for over a century and is familiar to most loco enthusiasts (at least in North America). So my own preference for a title would include it.

On another subject, an easy-to-find title for the Belgian’s page: Perhaps “Quadruplex Locomotive (Franco-Crosti)” or something similar? Also, The hexaplex probably needn’t have its own page: Since it was an unbuilt proposal (as were the Mallet quad and quint) based on the built loco, it could go on the same page – “Expanding the Concept” again. Kokopelli-UK (talk) 14:16, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the "Extension of the Concept" section overloads the Triplex article, but that was already the case before 9 September. There is no reason to have the George R. Henderson patent on the same page as the Triplex locomotive. The Triplex locomotive patent is not by George R. Henderson and contains always the articulated boiler, which is not part of the Mallet concept.

The best page concept would be:

• Triplex locomotive article without the section on extending the concept.
• Multiplex locomotive based on the section on extending the concept. I know how to create this without losing the editor history. This page will include all multiplex concepts, including triplex locomotive, but with fewer details as in Triplex locomotive
• Additional pages for Virginian Railway XA, SNCB 2096 and Beyer, Peacock and Company Super-Garratt

The names of the articles cannot be chosen freely. There are rules as to how the articles should be named. The suggestions above respect the rules. Please don't set time limits on when any pages are written and don't revert anything, it doesn't add value and it doesn't make the article any better. Besides the addition of the missing plex variants, I have also corrected a few other things and added sources.

Furthermore, I fixed on common the licence and source of the patent drawing, you integrated in the page. The source of the drawing is the patent, not you. Therefore, you also cannot publish under the stated licence. I fixed it by myself. Pechristener (talk) 23:26, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Looks like this is coming together well, at last. I’ll back off and leave you to get on with it.

My objections to your amends to this page have been mostly “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”: To me, the Triplex up to 9 September was excellent, and I didn’t regard inclusion of the Quad and Quint proposals as an overload. The phrase “Expanding the Concept” (which I didn’t write) is an apt segue, linking to the unbuilt proposals inspired by the triplexes – to me, a reasonable extension of their history. Elegant, but I suspect you’d say it’s not very encyclopaedic, and that may be correct. Ah, well…

Incidentally, the jointed boiler (which I did write) was only used on Mallets.

Re the Virginian XA, is this not just a variant of the Erie locos, with a longer/heavier tender which needed an additional axle? Unless there’s a significant difference in the technical spec, I’d suggest that a separate page isn’t necessary.

Thanks for fixing my error on the patent drawing licence. Kokopelli-UK (talk) 12:36, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

OK, so I will move on with the pages, but give me some time. Wikpedia actually does not work according to the ''ain’t broke, don’t fix it'' concept, it works according to continuos improvement, what typically also include, that not only one person work on an article. Regarding the Jointed-boiler locomotive: I challenge the statement, that this is a variant of the Mallet locomotive. See talk page in the article.

The Virginian XA is a variant of the Erie locomotive, but there is more to say about this locomotive, including technical data. See the German Wikipedia. There is also more to say about the Erie, so maybe also for this locomotive, a page could be made. Pechristener (talk) 15:42, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

“Broke” was nothing more than my attempt to add a bit of levity to a process, as it winds down, that has irritated us with each other. It seems to have fallen flat.

It’s taken a while for this process to morph from your insertion of the Belgians into the quadruplex subsection, to its current state: I’m now pretty confident that the path you proposed on 23 October will work, and I wish you well with it, though its not a direction I’d have taken. But I’ll be glad when its done.

It’s your project, so I’ll leave the heavy lifting to you to complete it, and I won’t interfere. And I still stand by all of my replies above. Kokopelli-UK (talk) 16:17, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Article split

The section expanding the concept was moved to the new article multiplex locomotive

Pechristener (talk) 15:12, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Article name unusual

@Andy Dingley:: Why did you change the name of the article to the unusual name ? Triplex Mallet locomotive is not an established name of the subject. The most common name is Triplex locomotive and that was the name we wanted to use for the article. If you search in Google, you will get very few results for "Triplex Mallet locomotive -wikipedia" but many more for "Triplex locomotive -wikipedia". This applies to both normal and book searches. So, please move it back, to where it comes from. "More specific name" is not a valid argument. Pechristener (talk) 11:13, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

There are no triplexes that aren't Mallets. This article was recently split into Mallets and the non-Mallets moved to another article on multiplex locomotives, a name that likewise has no common usage or sourcing for it. Now I don't see either of those as a problem, because we've instead used a descriptive term for what's in the article, even if we've had to some extent to find our own term for that. But Triplex Mallet is closer to the scope of what's here. Or are you just wanting to merge triplex locomotives back into multiplex locomotives? Andy Dingley (talk) 12:42, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

No, I would like to have normal term Triplex locomotive back. There is no merge with the multiplex locomotive article planned, especially since I made this split myself to unload things, which do not belong to the Triplex locomotive article. The term 'multiplex locomotive', I found in one single place. If there would be a better title for this page, we can talk about, but the situation for the 'Triplex locomotive' is clear, that the term 'Triplex Mallet locomotive' is not the common term. The so called better description is not a reason to rename the article. Wikipedia:Article titles clearly calls for Naturalness of the name , for the name, the readers are looking for and this is 'Triplex locomotive' and not 'Triplex Mallet locomotive'. Pechristener (talk) 15:11, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

No arguments came up anymore, so the orginal state using the most used term for the titel was recreated. Pechristener (talk) 05:23, 16 December 2023 (UTC)