Talk:Welwyn Garden City rail crashes

Categories

I have added this to both Category:Accidents and incidents involving London and North Eastern Railway (as the 1935 crash involved the London and North Eastern Railway) and as British Railways operated the line and trains at the time of the 1957 accident. Dunarc (talk) 22:36, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

@Dunarc: Why did you put them on the main article and not in the redirects Welwyn Garden City rail crash (1935) and Welwyn Garden City rail crash (1957)? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:43, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

That is probably a better option thinking about it - I'll change it to that. Thanks. ~~~~ Dunarc (talk) 22:45, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal

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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Did this earlier this morning but was reverted so thought I should take it here. Propose merging the contents of this page into the station's article. This article is relatively short (compared to, say, the one about the derailment near Falls of Cruachan, and I believe it could relatively easily be merged into the station's article (a tag specifies a need for some more ref's - here you go). I'd be interested if anyone has any opinions. Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 15:28, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

And - thinking about it - if anyone can actually find some reliabel sources for either of these, it would be helpful (or it will only go to AfD, defenceless and vulnerable, like a hedgehog missing its spikes...) Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 18:00, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Discussion on this second point has been taken out into the separate heading "Source tag" below, to help clarity. Hyperman 42 (talk) 22:28, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

• I agree that it makes sense to merge from Welwyn Garden City rail crashes. It's awkward to have a separate page for both crashes as they are unrelated. Merging to a page with a wider context is a good solution. Pichpich (talk) 21:13, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose, it doesn't fit well at all in the main station article with the big infoboxes etc. G-13114 (talk) 21:07, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose, these accidents did not take place in the station. Lamberhurst (talk) 09:23, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose, if anything, the rail crashes should be separate stand alone articles. Mjroots (talk) 17:48, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose, agree with suggestion to split into two articles rather than merge. Shoehorning them into the railway station article which is not where they occurred makes no sense. The two cites currently in external links can be moved up. Given that they were accidents with fatalities, there will lilely be coverage in publications such as Railway Gazette and The Railway Magazine of both the accidents and the findings. Rossonwy (talk) 05:46, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose, the 1935 crash in particular is of major historic importance and led to a significant change in signalling methods (Welwyn Control), far more significant that the Falls of Cruachan derailment mentioned above. As a general policy, significant railway accidents should be separate articles from stations. Not so sure that splitting is necessary; for example Morpeth has 3 major accidents concatenated in a single section, although they were all linked to the same root cause (the sharp curve) whereas the Welwyn accidents were unrelated except by geography. As an aside, there are far too many trivialities recorded under "Accidents and incidents" for many locations - minor derailments with no injury that just happen to have a photograph in a book. Maybe these could be gradually removed? Hyperman 42 (talk) 09:41, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Also, as well as 1935, Welwyn 1961 is also mentioned in other books (Vaughan, Fiennes). If both accidents are expanded, which seems justified, it strengthens the case for splitting, and making this a disambiguation page. Hyperman 42 (talk) 10:02, 8 October 2022 (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.

Source tag

This was originally in the merger proposal but I have put it as a separate thread for clarity, hope this is OK with everyone. Hyperman 42 (talk) 10:38, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

And - thinking about it - if anyone can actually find some reliabel sources for either of these, it would be helpful (or it will only go to AfD, defenceless and vulnerable, like a hedgehog missing its spikes...) Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 18:00, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

• But it seems inappropriate for the article to be headed that it does not quote any sources, as the definitive sources are the Railway Inspectorate accident reports and they are linked in full. Any other source is secondary and unnecessary. If a more direct link to the accident report pdf is preferred, then that should be added. That being said, Welwyn 1935 is an accident where other book sources would be of interest, as different commentators have disagreed markedly about the capability of the signalman (LTC Rolt, JAB Hamilton, Adrian Vaughan). Hyperman 42 (talk) 09:47, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Don't normally engage in my own proposals, but feel compelled to disagree on the tag point. Although the reports are a helpful and reliable source, WP requires "extensive" sources to prove an article's worth. So the reports cannot be solely relied upon for everything. As it stands the article has a grand total of 0 citations, bar the reports (inevitably, unless other sources can be found, it will only go to AfD...). Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 09:51, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

This surely seems a very narrow view of citations. The accident reports are directly linked at the bottom. The accident reports are the most detailed, contemporary and primary source of any railway accident, particularly when they happened 50+ years ago, written by experts after prolonged and detailed investigation, far more important than random newspaper or online articles by journalists with no specialised knowledge. In general the RI report is, and should be, accepted as a fully adequate source for any accident, far more reliable than sources quoted for many other pages. That being said, if a more direct link to the accident report pdf is preferred, then that should be added, as has been done for other significant accidents. Hyperman 42 (talk) 10:02, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if we should put the tag discussion as a separate subheading. Hyperman 42 (talk) 10:03, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

It's been useful to have the article challenged. It was originally written 16 years ago and looking at it now, there is a lot more useful material that could be added. Definitely worth a revisit, thanks. Hyperman 42 (talk) 10:38, 8 October 2022 (UTC)