Talk:Voie ferrée d'intérêt local

That was cute conversion

9 to 35 kilograms (20 to 77 lb) per metre was cute nonsense. 9 to 35 kilograms per metre (18.1 to 70.6 lb/yd) makes sense as is in the correct format. The weight of rail is given either in kilograms per metre or in pounds per yard and thus converted from kg/m to lb/yd or vice versa. Peter Horn User talk 01:40, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Going back in the history of Voie ferrée d'intérêt local I found "atteindre 45 à 50 ‰ alors qu'elles ne dépassaient guère 25 ‰ sur les lignes classiques." The symbol here is "‰" which means "pro mille" and NOT "%". The subsequent English translation was delightful nonsense. The correct rendering is 4.5 to 5 %....2.5 %. Peter Horn User talk 02:55, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Not so much a cute conversion as just a bad translation – I do know what per mille (pro mille?) is, but I slipped. If I recall, I was surprised they were so steep. I think I was trying to find a "linear density" (lb/yd or ton/mile -> kg/m) conversion without success – they may not have existed then – and probably got distracted. (I suppose, more correctly, assuming a constant density for the rail, they measure its cross-sectional area.) Sorry about that, and thanks for fixing it. The whole article was a bit hurried as rather a subsidiary article to what I was working on, and is probably a rather stilted translation. Si Trew (talk) 08:42, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

As a penance, I've translated a stub at Douvenant Viaduct. It would be nice to do one for its architect, fr:Louis Auguste Harel de La Noë, as he seems quite notable. Si Trew (talk) 10:33, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally, it's odd there's not an article for booking hall or ticket hall. They're often interesting structures in their own right, although I suppose a general article might amount to little more than a dictionary definition (there's no equivalent fr:guichet in French Wikipédia, for example). Or can I not find just the right term? Si Trew (talk) 10:37, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Mea culpa, my Dutch sense of humor got in the way. Odd that there is no definition for fr:guichet. The term is used in Montreal on the Montreal Metro. The English translation would be ticket wicket, wicket being a cricket term. Fun and games for all. I have noted your comment at User talk:Peter Horn#User talk:Peter Horn. I tend to agree. On another note, or tack, Olivier Charbonneau needs to be fleshed out with a full translation from fr:Olivier Charbonneau, after all the Olivier-Charbonneau Bridge was named after him. Translation is difficult at the best of times. By the way Wikipedia has per mil fr:pour mille ("pro mil(le)" or "for mil(le)"). Peter Horn User talk 12:11, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

OK, I might take a look at the Charbonneau one. I don't find the translation of the words too hard, translating all the Wiki markup (e.g. templates) is more painful, and always at the first pass the translation doesn't read very naturally because it tends to have vestiges of the original grammar (word order, not using the possessive case, etc.) Si Trew (talk) 17:50, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

The reason that I was amused was that slopes of 9:10 or 10:10 (45 % or 50 %) are the kind of slopes that one finds on the steeper, if not steepest, funiculars. A tad hard for trains. Other than that, what about ticket sales counter or ticket window? Peter Horn User talk 20:54, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

The Gelmerbahn funicular "weighs in" at 106%! Peter Horn User talk 21:52, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

By the way a rail may be 100 pounds per yard (49.6 kg/m). See above for the referse. Peter Horn User talk 21:59, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes – and to make matters worse, I think I came to translate this article from Montmartre funicular via Old_Rouen_tramway#Bonsecours_funicular_railway_and_tramway, so I knew better – but I wasn't paying 1000‰ attention. In fact I seem to recall I have struggled elsewhere (on those articles?) with gradients, since sometimes it is not clear to me from the text what a particular percentage or ratio refers to. But this was just a gaffe, pure and simple. Si Trew (talk) 21:15, 3 September 2013 (UTC)