Talk:Washington and Old Dominion Railroad

Desperately in need of a map

Is there a public-domain map of the line available? I can't recall seeing one. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thetrick (talk • contribs) 01:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

• Public-domain maps of the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad and its predecessors are available in the Ames Williams Collection in a branch of the Alexandria public library system at the following location: Local History/Special Collections, 717 Queen Street, Alexandria, VA 22314-2420. Public-domain maps of the railroad are also available at the headquarters of the Washington and Old Railroad Regional Park in Ashburn, Virginia. Corker1 (talk) 21:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Comment

Dang that is one hyperactive bot. Thetrick 01:45, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

1911 or 1912?

According to the ICC valuation of the Southern Railway, the W&OD leased the line from November 15, 1911. Is this correct, or was it actually effective in 1912? --NE2 11:26, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

• The Washington and Old Dominion Railway concluded negotations with the Southern Railway for the lease of the Southern's Bluemont Branch in 1911. Under the lease terms, the Washington & Old Dominion Railway would take over all of the Bluemont Branch service on July 1, 1912. Reference: Harwood, Herbert Hawley, Jr. (April 2000). "4. Transformation". Rails to the Blue Ridge: The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, 1847–1968 (3rd ed.). Fairfax Station, Virginia: Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority. pp. 45–46. ISBN 0-615-11453-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Corker1 (talk) 21:42, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Coordinate error

{{geodata-check}}

The following coordinate fixes are need for LATITUDE NEED TO BE NEGATIVE...YOU END UP IN CHINA!!—72.192.201.191 (talk) 06:57, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Coordinate has been corrected and made negative. See Mapping on Bing Maps

File:En-wodr.ogg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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Merge Railroad and Railway articles

This page has previously been merged into the Washington and Old Dominion Railway page, as that article is more concise and covers all important historical aspects of the line (see WP:DETAIL). A Wiki article should contain a quick summary of the topic's most important points. The level of detail contained in this article far exceeds the qualifications of a wikipedia article and is more appropriate for a fansite. A railroad line that did not exceed 80 miles does not need two articles covering its history. Please do not revert this move until first discussing on talk page. Thank you. Oanabay04 (talk) 19:05, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

• WP:DETAIL encourages editors to create "parent" and "child" articles if a single article contains too much detail. WP:DETAIL states: The parent article should have general summary information and the more detailed summaries of each subtopic should be in child articles and in articles on specific subjects. This can be thought of as layering inverted pyramids where the reader is first shown the lead section for a topic, and within its article any section may have a {{Main|<subpage name>}} or similar link to a full article on the subtopic summarized in that section (for example, Yosemite National Park#History and History of the Yosemite area are two such related featured articles). The summary in a section at the parent article will often be at least twice as long as the lead section in the child article. The child article in turn can also serve as a parent article for its specific part of the topic, and so on, until a topic is very thoroughly covered. Thus, by navigational choices, several different types of readers each get the amount of details they want.

Therefore, if an editor, such as Oanabay04, considers that an article has too much detail, that editor has the responsibility to create a parent article and child articles that together retain all of the verifiable information that the original article contains. Further, if an editor considers that an article contains too many Wikilinks, that editor has the responsiblity to remove those that are excessive on an individual basis, rather than deleting or replacing entire sections.

All of the information in Washington and Old Dominion Railroad is supported by in-line citations to reliable sources. However, some of the information in Washington and Old Dominion Railway lacks adequate in-line citations. For example, the reference to information in The Historical Guide to North American Railroads identifies the editor of the book, but does not identify the author of the referenced information or the primary source of the information. Readers therefore find it difficult or impossible to verify the relliability of the source. Further, the infobox in Washington and Old Dominion Railway does not contain any citations to reliable sources. This is important, as some of the information in the infobox is inaccurate (e.g., the logo in the infobox is not that of the Washington and Old Dominion Railway and the Alexandria, VA, did not contain the headquarters of the company that controlled the Railway.) The merges and other edits that Oanabay04 performed removed a large amount of verifiable information from Wikipedia and replaced it with inadequately sourced information. This is vandalism, regardless of an editor's intent.

One of the contributors to The Historical Guide to North American Railroads may have used the name Washington and Old Dominion Railway. However, there is no reason to believe that the contributor had sufficient expertise to use that name in the contribution. As noted above, a public entity (the Northern Virginia Regional Parks Authority) has assigned the name Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park to one of its facilities. Further, the authors of three books (including a 2013 book referenced in Washington and Old Dominion Railway before Oanabay04 deleted the reference without explanation) bear the titles of Washington and Old Dominion Railroad or Washington & Old Dominion Railroad. Together, these authors and entities carry greater weight than does the unknown contributor to The Historical Guide to North American Railroads. The title of the parent article should therefore be Washington and Old Dominion Railroad.

I am therefore restoring Washington and Old Dominion Railroad and Washington and Old Dominion Railway to their versions that existed before the most recent edits by Onabay04. I encourage Oanabay04 and other editors to create parent and child articles that retain all verifiable information in Washington and Old Dominion Railroad and Washington and Old Dominion Railway in a series of layered inverted pyramids in accordance with WP:DETAIL. To avoid any loss of verifiable information, both articles should remain open to all readers until editors have created the parent and child articles. Corker1 (talk) 03:49, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

• I am glad you want to enourage myself and other editors to create parent and child articles that retain all verifiable information in these articles. The problem is that you failed to include the main purpose of the WP:DETAIL:

Summary style is based on the premise that information about a topic should not all be contained in a single article since different readers have different needs:

• many readers need just a quick summary of the topic's most important points (lead section),
• others need a moderate amount of information on the topic's more important points (a set of multiparagraph sections), and
• some readers need a lot of details on one or more aspects of the topic (links to full-sized separate articles).

• The only railroads that probably warrant full-sized separate articles would be the Pennsylvania Railroad, New York Central Railroad, Canadian Pacific, and public transit agencies with several moving parts, like SEPTA, MBTA, New Jersey Transit, etc. Creating two entire articles on the small W&OD brings up a serious question of notability WP:ORG. You seem to be under the impression that just because a fact is verifiable, it needs to be in a Wiki article. Hardly. Applying that logic to Wikipedia would result in excessively detailed articles on the over 10,000 small railroads that peppered the U.S. over the last 150 years. As long as the basic facts are present, written in a concise, simple manner and has a verifiable source, that works fine. Then, if you want to include additional sources that are not referenced in the text, you add "Further Sources," "External Links," etc. For the record, the excessive coordinate linkage of each and every station is hardly appropriate for a wiki article, but I left that (the sister article for Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park suffers from the same issue). Retaining two separate articles for a railroad the size of the W&OD overkill and more appropriate of a fanpage, as previously mentioned. I suggest you look through some other Wiki format links because it is really important to know unless you want your work mercilessly edited.Oanabay04 (talk) 18:31, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• WP:DETAIL describes the correct method for retaining verifiable information in Wikipedia while assuring that the main article and each child article will be concise. Adding "Further Sources" and "External Links", as Oanabay04 has suggested, does not permit readers to differentiate useful information from all of the extraneous, irrelevant and/or redundant information present in each link and source. Further, this procedure would often result in long and confusing lists of "External Links" and "Further Sources".

I agree with Oanabay04 that Wikipedia should contain only one article describing this railroad. This article should have several child articles, as WP:DETAIL recommends. In contrast, removing much verifiable and relevant information from Wikipedia by redirecting entire articles, as Oanabay04 has repeatedly done to Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, is inappropriate, is against Wikpedia policy, is an extreme form of vandalism, and needs to stop. Corker1 (talk) 20:14, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Dispute between two editors submitted to Wikipedia:Third opinion for resolution. 03:52, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

Having had a look through this, I do not believe that WP:DETAIL is even relevant to the discussion at hand. It makes no statement as to what level of detail is "too much" for WP, but only states how any information that is included should be divided up. If, for the sake of argument, we were to accept that the information in this version of the article is appropriate for WP, then it makes perfect sense that it should be included here, in a separate article, and not clutter up the main one. The real dispute, it seems to me, is whether or not the information is important enough to be included in WP at all, and the policy for that is not WP:DETAIL, but WP:N. This is the policy used "to decide whether a topic can have its own article" and "to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics", and it is the one that applies here. As Oanabay04 correctly says, WP:ORG is the more specific version of WP:N that applies in this instance. That policy says "An organization is generally considered notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources" and "if no independent, third-party, reliable sources can be found on a topic, then Wikipedia should not have an article on it." The article includes inline cites to a single independent secondary source (the other does not appear to be independent of the subject). But one is not zero, so it seems to me that the standards of WP:ORG have been met. They have not been met very well, and I would encourage the inclusion of more sources, for example, by using inline cites to the sources currently mentioned in "External links" and "Further reading". But this is not sufficient grounds to delete the article. Yes, one might argue that, by this criterion, any small railroad could have an article on WP. So what? If they can be properly sourced, then I don't see any reason why every small railroad in the country shouldn't have its own article. If they can't be properly sourced to independent reliable sources, then, of course, they shouldn't be included, because they're not notable. There are limits to this, and to some extent, they are outlined at WP:INDISCRIMINATE and WP:DISCRIMINATE, but the page, as it currently stands, does not seem to me to violate either of these standards. I would suggest that, if you still disagree about this, WP:AFD may be the best place to obtain wider opinion, since the question ultimately comes down to whether or not this page should be deleted. Anaxial (talk) 16:39, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Article scope

What's this article actually about? If it's about the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad (as the lede says), the reorganized Washington and Old Dominion Railway, then it should start in 1936, but it's essentially a history of the entire company beginning with the Alexandria and Harpers Ferry. I'm not opposed to that, at least until such time as sub-articles can be written. Note that the existing Washington and Old Dominion Railway article is up for deletion as a copyright violation; Oanabay04 (talk · contribs) copied much of the text word-for-word from George Drury's book. Mackensen (talk) 11:23, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)

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External links

This page is a flagrant violation of WP:EL. Just Bluemont Junction alone has 24 external links, most to photos. In total there must be at least 150 external links in this article, if not more. To quote the policy: "it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a lengthy or comprehensive list of external links related to each topic." Some links can be helpful to document information that can't be included here, but what has happened in this article goes entirely beyond any reasonable interpretation of the external links policy. The vast majority will need to be deleted.

The same goes for the massive station lists - they violate Wikipedia policy on excessive detail. I appreciate that editors have been working to make a comprehensive article, but Wikipedia's policies exist for good reasons. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:06, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Trainsandotherthings (talk): Please do not delete major parts of articles without first discussing specific potential edits on article's Talk pages. Your unilateral deletion was a violation of WP policy, which emphasises collaborative efforts by editors. Such unilateral actions can lead to edit wars.

You deleted a large amount of information supported by references to reliable sources. When doing this, you repeated an action that was reverted more than five years ago by consensus. As that action involved a redirect, it does not show up in the revision history of this article.

Many readers (including rail fans) use the station lists and external links in this article in discussions and when preparing publications. There are no other easily accessible sources for this information, except by using citations that you deleted.

You did not delete only external links and lists. You deleted entire sections of text, maps and photographs. Those deletions essentially destroyed the utility of this article.

You cited a Wikipedia policy that states: "it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a lengthy or comprehensive list of external links related to each topic" and cited another that discusses a policy on excessive detail. While these policies are often beneficial, they are detrimental when no publications or websites put together most or all of the information in an article.

I concur that there may be too many links to photos of Bluemont Junction and other stations. However, the appearances of these stations and nearby facilities changed over the years that the railroad operated. The photos document these changes. If you believe that there are too many links to photos, please identify the ones that you wish to delete.

Wholesale deletions such as the one that you have made have no place in Wikipedia. I have therefore reverted your edit.

If you wish to add or remove individual items from the article, please discuss these changes first on this Talk page. This will enable other editors to contribute their comments if interested and will provide a basis for using Wikipedia's dispute resolution procedures where consensus has not been achieved. Corker1 (talk) 21:16, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I am not the one who deleted most of the article. You want to talk to User:Susmuffin. I was posting here to give you a chance to remedy the issue rather than me unilaterally deleting everything. With that said, consensus can change over time. Just because there was a consensus 5 years ago does not mean that consensus can never change. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:22, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Trainsandotherthings (talk) I apologize for confusing the identity of the editor that unilaterally deleted almost everything. You followed proper procedures. User:Susmuffin did not.

Please provide a summary or a specific list of changes to the article that you would like to make. I can delete many of those without reducing the utility of the article, including reducing the number of links to images. However others may be more problematic, as they are important references that cannot be found in publications (such as the list of historical maps). Corker1 (talk) 21:52, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

To be blunt, you do not own this article, or any article on Wikipedia. I do not need to get your permission to make changes to it. Policies are not suggestions for you to pick and choose, they represent community consensus and are not optional. I'm not interested in trying to get this article deleted or turned into a redirect, the subject is notable. That does not make it ok to keep a page which is approaching 300 kb in size and riddled with policy violations as it is currently. Policies exist for good reason. If you truly want to document trivial and excessive information for railfans, that would be wonderful on your personal blog, but not here. Much of your response is just WP:IDHT. If you are unwilling to accept that, I'd be happy to bring it to the attention of admins.

Wikipedia is not a publishing house, and we do not keep things solely because "they are important references that cannot be found in publications." You are more than welcome to make your own website to document that information, but on Wikipedia we do not allow original research. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:56, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Of course, I do not "own this article". That said, I want to avoid an edit war. Lists of maps and other sources are not "original research", as others made the maps and created those sources. Compiling the maps and other sources into a list is not synthesis, as each map and source is essentially an external link.

I asked for your suggestions for deletions to avoid an edit war or the appearance of one. However, if you would like to make the deletions yourself without proposing them first in Talk, please do so.

We should be able to edit this article cooperatively, with the help of other editors that may be interested, as I believe that you do not want to "delete everything". If I perform the deletions without your input, you and others may consider that I have deleted too little or am "owning" the article.

This article may be too long and contain too many external links. The article may also contain information that is of little interest to many readers. Please therefore create subordinate "child" articles that contain some or all of this information if you consider that this would help Wikipedia. I should not do this myself, as some may then consider that I am "owning" the parent article and its children. Corker1 (talk) 23:04, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

The stations list for the Great Falls Division should be largely or completely deleted from here, as it is already included in full detail on Great Falls and Old Dominion Railroad. This has created a WP:CFORK where this article and GF&ODR article have identical lists. The latter article is already linked from here, so anyone can go there to view the full station list.

One other easy change would be to default the tables to collapsed, which would make the article way easier to navigate. It would only take one click to open up any of the tables.

Having some links to photos is okay. The problem is when there's a large number of redundant ones showing the same place at the same time. The best solution is to simply link to a website which has a bunch of the photos, allowing only one link to convey the same information as the previous large number. I will cut down some duplicate photos the best I can without compromising the history from them completely. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:40, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

The tables have now been changed to be collapsible, and to default to collapsed. This alone made a huge difference in how easy it is to navigate the article. I also deleted the table for the Great Falls and Old Dominion Railroad, since the list is available at the other article like I mentioned before. Corker1, if you don't mind, could you add a few paragraphs to summarize the Great Falls Division and how it relates to the W&ODR, so it isn't an empty section anymore? You clearly know far more than I do about the subject, so I'd much rather you write the summary. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:49, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I needed to restore the table containing the station list for the Great Falls Division because the table contained the coordinates for each station. Those coordinates helped generate the maps of the W&OD's routes to which the article links.

You later made the station list collapsible, which made it consistent with the other lists that you changed. I concur with your changes. I also concur with your deletions of some of the links to photos in the station lists. I was already preparing a draft containing similar deletions, but you made your deletions before I had added mine. I have also added a summary for the Great Falls Division section in accordance with your suggestion. Thanks for the edits. Corker1 (talk) 01:35, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Removed all of the ones that can be construed as a further reading section, aka maps, timetables, and the External Link sections. Facebook posts as ELs are unacceptable per our ELINK policy. This has now crossed into the spam event horizon. Every link should provide additional knowledge and serve as an interest to a general reader, whether they have a flying rat's knowledge of rails or not. Sennecaster (Chat) 11:20, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Recent edits have seriously damaged this article. For example, as I described in a previous comment, the tables in the article contained coordinates for each station that helped generate the maps of the W&OD's routes to which the article links (see box entitled "Map all coordinates in "Washington and Old Dominion Railroad" using OpenStreetMap: Download coordinates as: KML.") All of that information is now gone, leaving a map of the W&OD Railroad's route with only a few data points, one of which is located in Baltimore, far from the railroad's route.

As another example, Sennecaster removed several sections, stating: "This section should also be treated as a further reading. Removing as spam for now." However, nobody has added the information in these sections to the "Further reading" section. Somebody should to do this.

While some edits have been useful, others haved removed information that is of general interest. I therefore suggest that editors that have removed information review their changes and assure that they have not thrown the baby out with the bathwater, including the creation of links that now confuse readers because they no longer link to anything useful. Corker1 (talk) 18:02, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

This article still contains a massive collection of unreliable sources. It needs to be purged. ―Susmuffin ^Talk 18:15, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Please provide some examples of "unreliable sources" that the article still contains. Corker1 (talk) 18:25, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Several of the footnotes are bundled collections of Internet forums, YouTube videos and images. ―Susmuffin ^Talk 21:12, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

This, this, this or any number of the actual photographs I see cited in this article. To form a conclusion off of an image like this is pure WP:OR since it is not actually stated. Someone credible must anaylse these pictures and then we must cite their analyses to include it in Wikipedia. Sennecaster (Chat) 21:12, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Response to Susmuffin: Your first This is part of an in-line citation that contains a photo and the following direct quote from its source: "Iowa traction number 50 is a 50-ton steeplecab, built by Baldwin-Westinghouse in 1920 as Washington & Old Dominion Number 50. It was acquired by the Cedar Rapids & Iowa City in 1947, was rebuilt and renumbered number 58. In 1955 it was sold to the Kansas City-Kaw Valley Railroad and became their number 507. Finally, in 1962 it was sold to the Iowa Terminal and renumbered 53, later becoming IATR 50. The unit is seen here switching out Mason City's AGP plant". The in-line citation was apparently intended to support the following sentence in the text: "It was sold in 1962 to the Iowa Terminal Railroad and renumbered to 50, becoming #50 of the Iowa Traction Railroad in 1987". However, the first "50" in the text appears to have been a typographical error. I have edited the text to correct the error by changing the first "50" to "53". The sentence in the text is therefore now not WP:OR because the citation contains a statement that directly supports that sentence.

Your second this is within an in-line citation to a reference that follows the following sentence in the article's text: "After serving on the Great Western Railway of Colorado as #44, the locomotive retained its number when it became the Burlington Junction Railway's (BJRY's) first when the BJRY opened in 1985." The reference that you identified is a 2014 photo of BRJ 44, accompanied by the photo's source. This is not WP:OR because the 2014 photo directly supports the text's statement that the locomotive retained its number (#44) when the BRJY opened in 1985.

Your third this is now a dead link. My computer could not download the archived link that the citation also contained. As an in-line citation to a secondary source also supports the sentence that preceded the citation, I have removed the citation from the article's text.

If you still consider first two "firsts" to be WP:OR, please provide an explanation. Please also provide additional examples of references that support statements in the article's text that you consider to be WP:OR. Corker1 (talk) 23:11, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

My removal of the Maps, Timetables, and Further reading sections have not seriously damaged this article, nor did it break the coordinates. That is the second time you have associated the wrong editor with certain actions you view as breaking the article in this discussion. Please be careful, and review what changes each editor makes before you accuse everyone here of "damaging the article".

Further reading sections, additionally, function as a bulleted list of a reasonable number of works that a reader may consult for additional and more detailed coverage of the subject (from WP:Further reading.) These maps and timetables can be kept as a subsection of the section or separate, I don't care, but they are to be treated as if they are a Further reading section and thus subject to a curation of limited and notable works. These sections should not be restored as is. They must be curated to brief lists, possibly only one link each.

Lastly, I don't see the edits taken over the past few days as damaging the article. It is a bold change that is now being discussed, and it seems that most people endorse it. Multiple outside editors have seen this article as needing major cleanup and that cleanup is being done according to our policies and guidelines. Sennecaster (Chat) 21:08, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I did not state that you broke the coordinates. Trainsandotherthings did that, for the second time. I cannot restore the coordinates again without being accused of "edit-warring" (an accusation that has been made against me in the past).

The coordinates were within the tables listing the locations of stations. If the tables are gone, the map generated from the tables will be gone. Something important that is of general interest will be lost unless someone other than myself restores it.

When removing external links, you stated: Facebook is almost always an unacceptable elink.". You cited WP:EL to support this. However, WP:EL states that one should generally avoid providing external links to Facebook and other social networking sites. WP:EL does not state that Facebook is "almost always an unacceptable e-link."

Each of the e-links to Facebook that you removed contained an image of a published newspaper article. While Facebook is a social networking site, many Wikipedia articles contain in-line citations to newspaper articles. When an image of a newspaper article appears in a link to Facebook, the link is not "unacceptable" and is not one to be avoided when it is in an External links section.

The best place for a link to newspaper article is within an in-line citation, as this will reduce the length of the External links section and will support a sentence or paragraph in the text. However the texts of articles sometimes do not contain suitable locations in which to place citations containing links to newspaper articles, as is true in Washington and Old Dominion Railroad for the links that you removed.

You removed links to maps and timetables. As you can read near the top of this Talk page, a contributer to Talk asked in 2006: Is there a public-domain map of the line available? I can't recall seeing one." When those maps later became available on-line, I added links to them. These links were clearly important and of general interest. They are now gone.

You stated that the recent edits that removed content are "bold changes". However, when an editor disagrees with the need for or the desirability of such removals, others need to use care when removing content. Some editors can construe "bold" removals of information to be vandalism. Attempts at "cleanup" can be excessive. So far, these are.

You stated: "These sections should not be restored as is. They must be curated to brief lists, possibly only one link each." As you removed those sections, you appear to be the editor responsible for creating the initial "brief lists" that you suggested. Other editors can later curate the lists if they so desire.

You wrote on this article's "Revision History" page: "Removing as spam for now." "Now" is now history. It can become ancient history. Please therefore reduce, replace, restore or revise the "spam" that you removed in the manner that you see fit before your edits become ancient history. Corker1 (talk) 16:18, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Corker1, you have edited your message more than 10 times since posting it. Need I remind you that this is widely considered bad practice? [1] And your last statement can be construed as a threat against another editor. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:58, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

All of my edits were grammatical (corrections of spelling errors, replacement of missing words, etc.). None affected content; if they had affected content, I would have updated the time-stamp. I made all of the edits before anyone responded. As somebody has responded, I will make no further changes to the edit.

My last statement involved a note on on the article's "Revision History" page. I used the word "Please". Where is the threat? Corker1 (talk) 01:24, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Your last edit modified my comment to break the link I included. At this point, I'm not sure if you are trolling or just fail WP:CIR. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:01, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Do you seriously not see how "before your edits become ancient history" could easily be interpreted as a threat? Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:16, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

What are you trying to communicate? First, you stated that I had edited my message 10 times after I first wrote it. You then stated that my last edit modified your comment to break the link that you included. However, the first version of my message stated Trainsandotherthings did that, for the second time. The last version of my message stated Trainsandotherthings did that, for the second time. Therefore, neither my initial message nor my edits to my message modified your comment. I am thoroughly confused. I can't see how or where I modified any of your comments.

If you actualy believe that "before your edits become ancient history" is a threat, you have a very different belief than I have. There are no consequences to having an edit become ancient history, other than the obvious fact that the edit may last for a very long time.

Please direct your attentions to the contents of my message. I stated (correctly, I believe) that, for a second time, your edits broke the coordinates (you did not actually "break" the coordinates, but instead removed them) that had generated a map of the railroad's route. Your edits therefore left the map with only a few points. One of these points is in Baltimore, far from the railroad's route. Do you have any plans to change or restore that that map, or do you wish to leave it as it presently is, thus confusing readers attempting to learn the locations of the railroad's routes and stations? I am not planning restore the map myself because I cannot do that without restoring the tables that listed the railroad's stations, all of which I believe that you removed. Corker1 (talk) 07:33, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

[2] Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:24, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I see it now. Either I or my computer produced a typographical error that changed a url. The error did not show up in the text. The text did not contain a link to the url. The error only showed up on the "Difference between revisions" section in the "Revision History" page for this "Talk" page.

You have sharp eyes. Thanks for correcting the error.

Please use your editing abilities to restore the map generated from the coordinates in the tables that your last edit removed from Washington and Old Dominion Railroad. I suggest that you accomplish this by reverting your last edit to the article, by restoring the article to the condition that I considered to be satisfactory in my comment above that I date-stamped at 01:35, 9 October 2021, or by another method that you may find desirable (without removing any revisions still present in the article that other editors made after 01:35, 9 October 2021). Corker1 (talk) 19:42, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

In response to to the condition that I considered to be satisfactory, I think the community can safely ignore such a demand as it's the community that determines what is satisfactory. I'll agree with the others that the article looks much better now than it did before edits like this. KoA (talk) 23:10, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

...to make room, etc.

Quoting part of the source doesn't help. It says (use a map) that the location of the line and station in that area is now under I-66. An editor summarized it accurately. TEDickey (talk) 01:38, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

@Tedickey: I quoted the entire source, not just part of it. As I stated, a sentence near the top of Section 8, page 15, of the cited reference states in its entirety: "The station was dismantled in 1970 (Wrenn 1972:79)." The sentence says nothing about I-66, nor does any other sentence on page 15.

Further, the former station's site is now not under I-66. The site is not even close to I-66. It is about 200 feet south of the highway.

A NOVA Parks historical marker identifies the station's former site. The marker is under the W&OD Trail bridge over Langston Boulevard. I-66 (the Custis Memorial Parkway) is north of the trail bridge and Fairfax Drive. You can see this for yourself on the 2023 satellite image at https://www.google.com/maps/place/East+Falls+Church+Station+Historical+Marker/@38.8874385,-77.1652887,671m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89b7b5e2b9dc3681:0x938599b99c7ece63!8m2!3d38.8874344!4d-77.1627138!16s%2Fg%2F11h01pck0h?entry=ttu. The satellite image identifies the location of the "East Falls Church Historical Marker", which is adjacent to the station's former site.

Figure 2 on the Historical Marker Database page entitled "East Falls Church Station" at https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=55964 contains a photograph of the W&OD's East Falls Church station. The legend beneath the photograph states: "From 1887 to 1970, the East Falls Church station stood on the site where you are located." Figure 3 on the page contains a 2012 photograph of the historical marker, which was near the south side of the W&OD Trail (before the trail bridge was constructed). The legend beneath the photograph states: "The old train station stood just to the right of the marker."

Pages 22-25 of the book "Guillaudeu, David A.; Foreword by McCray, Paul E. (2013). Washington & Old Dominion Railroad. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9780738597928. OCLC 811603181", which this article cites in its References section, describes and contains photographs of the demolition of the W&OD's East Falls Church station. The legend of the top photo on page 22 states: "The Virginia Electric Power Company had purchased the right of way for its power line and was concerned that the station could burn and severe its cables. It gave the station away to the Amissville Trading Post. Here, Trading Post workmen have removed the shingles and are removing the roof boards and rafters on August 18, 1970. (Photograph by Henry H. Douglas, courtesy of the Fairfax County Public Library Photographic Archive.)"

Based on the above, please remove the text in the article that states that the station was torn down in 1970 "to make room for I-66". It is not correct. 2601:140:9480:81B0:91CF:3966:9A0F:FBD (talk) 16:46, 2 January 2024 (UTC)