Template talk:Stn art lnk

Usage notes

This template provides external links for railway station articles in Great Britain. The links are to the National Rail website's "live departure boards" and station information pages, and to Multimap for a map and aerial photograph.

The distinction between this template and {{stn art lrnk}} is the scale of the map: this template links to a large-scale street map, and is more suited to stations in urban areas. For urban areas, a smaller-scale Ordnance Survey map is linked to by {{stn art lrnk}}.

The first argument should be the station's National Rail code. The second argument should be its postcode. Both of these can be found in the alphabetical lists of UK railway stations, linked to from here:

Maps

Why has the map link function been removed from this template? I'm sure I'm not the only one who found it useful. – Tivedshambo (talk) 12:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

In the absense of any response, I've re-instated it. Most station articles do not have geolinks. – Tivedshambo (talk) 12:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

As a compromise for those stations that have the correct location info, I have made the postcode parameter optional, when it isnt stated the multimap options dont appear. Pit-yacker 03:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Multimap aerial imaging

The aerial imaging offered by multimap is very poor compared to the competition (most obviously maps.google). This template also doesn't provoke a dot on Google Earth (needs to be COOR or COORD). Can a template guru try to (a) add code to convert OSCOOR into Lat/Lon, then invoke COORD [maybe in OSCOOR template?] and (b) offer a lot more mapping options that Multimap. --John Maynard Friedman 17:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

As i understand it, it is because we have rail code, we can look up the station postcode on the national rail website, and thus get a postcode which mulitmap handles very well. other map sources need the more complex templates which have to be programmed manually. thus "Stn art lnk" is very anachronistic, and could be replaced is all 2000+ mainline stations had info boxes and coord templates but many don't so until then, as i understand the old "Stn art lnk" works well. Pickle 19:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Use on wikipedia

This template lacks justification on whether it should be present or not on wikipedia. It offers a link to timetables which wikipedia does not cover and links to an exclusive mapping website that doubles the coordinates template which offers a choice (including mapping websites which do not advertise). This template should be changed and it will be nominated on the grounds its entire concept is geared around something Wikipedia does not cover. Cheers, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 12:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• Users wishing to air their views on this should probably refer to Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2007_February_26#.5B.5BTemplate:Stn_art_lnk.5D.5D M0RHI | Talk to me 17:37, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merge

I have proposed that the template Template:Stn art lrnk be merged into this one. Please see my comments at Template talk:Stn art lrnk. Adambro 19:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Relation to Infobox UK station

Please see: Template talk:Infobox UK station#Links from Template:stn art lnk. Andy Mabbett 11:27, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Broken link

The station information link seems to be broken, at least for Ancaster railway station, Rauceby railway station, Grantham railway station. Looking at the way the calling mechanism works, I can't see it would not be broken for every station. I have no doubt the problem lies at their end --Robert EA Harvey (talk) 16:17, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I suspect that every National Rail station is affected; it's probably the same issue that necessitated this edit, so on that basis, I've made this edit. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:23, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Train times prioritisation over station information

I happened to look at an external link on a UK station article today and noticed it mentioned Train times first and Station information second. This is seemingly at odds with purpose of a Wikipedia article which is to give information first and respect WP:NOTTIMETABLE. I also note the national rail station information page has a clear link to the live departure/arrival boards. On that basis I propose:

1. That the link to Train Times ... which is actually a link to departure board ... is removed
2. Or as an alternative The template is changed so "Station Information" is the first link and "Train times" or "Train departure times" is the second.

Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 09:13, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

If we remove the train times link, somebody will then try to add the train times to the Wikipedia article prose on each one of 2,500 (approx) stations, and that information will age in six months. It's difficult enough persuading people not to add train times to the text, I don't want to give them an excuse like "it's not otherwise available in our article". It's better to link to a website that has an obligation to ensure that the information provided is accurate and up to date, since that relieves us of the responsibility of making 5,000 checks each year. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:47, 24 May 2019 (UTC)