SwalleyD

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Speedy deletion nomination of Train Inspection Systems

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A tag has been placed on Train Inspection Systems requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an article with no content whatsoever, or whose contents consist only of external links, a "See also" section, book references, category tags, template tags, interwiki links, a rephrasing of the title, or an attempt to contact the subject of the article. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

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Feedback reply

Posted here: Wikipedia:Requests_for_feedback/2011_April_9#User:SwalleyD.2FTrain_Inspection_Systems. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:28, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

April 2011

In a recent edit to the page Rail transport, you changed one or more words from one international variety of English to another. Because Wikipedia has readers from all over the world, our policy is to respect national varieties of English in Wikipedia articles.

For a subject exclusively related to the United Kingdom (for example, a famous British person), use British English. For something related to the United States in the same way, use American English. For something related to another English-speaking country, such as Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, use the variety of English used there. For an international topic, use the form of English that the original author used.

In view of that, please don't change articles from one version of English to another, even if you don't normally use the version in which the article is written. Respect other people's versions of English. They, in turn, should respect yours. Other general guidelines on how Wikipedia articles are written can be found in the Manual of Style. If you have any questions about this, you can ask me on my talk page or visit the help desk. Thank you. Tim PF (talk) 07:53, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Train Inspection Systems

Hi SwalleyD, you may have realised that I already came across you, and I've had a look at your new article Train Inspection Systems, and made a couple of attempts to improve its layout in line with WP:MOS. I can see that it potentially covers a big topic, and has a long way to go. I haven't formally assessed it, but I have a few notes:

• Misnamed: The article should be renamed / moved to Train inspection systems (note that if one used the "Move" tab, it will preserve history and create a redirect -- I note that you've done that already).
• There is too much overlap with the existing "defect detector" article. Since the scope of "train inspection systems" appears to be a superset, this may not be a problem, but it must be addressed (see below).
• {{Globalize}}: It could really do with a worldwide view. You may have already realised that I'm British, but I don't know enough about these systems as used on British or European railways (I am a railfan and have a broad engineering background).
• Further cleanup: I've made a provisional tagging assessment in a comment on the page that it still needs some more cleaning up (as well as globalising).

Since I believe that this article is a superset of "defect detector", I think it should concentrate on the non-defect detector systems (eg ultrasonic testing, slide fences, trend monitoring), and just have a short sub-section to describe and point to the latter. It should also then be easier to properly section the article, which if I've understood the subject, would be something like:

1. Workshop / yard testing.
2. Pre-movement checks.
3. In-motion systems.
   1. Defect detectors (mostly pointing to defect detector).
   2. Other(s).
4. Back office systems.
   1. Maintenance scheduling.
   2. Trend monitoring.

I should have said already that it looks like you should also be able improve defect detector, which should complement this article (and vice-versa). Keep up the good work. Tim PF (talk) 08:52, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Tim. Re:train inspection systems It well may end up being that "defect detector" may end up being the catch all page, my intention here was to separate each type of device because that term DD is ambiguous. In the USA DD has traditionally been used to refer to a hot box detector. There is enough good information on each of these technologies to easily have a good page for each, and that is my goal, as misdirected as I might be. I have been involved in the bearing temperature detectors for 30+years and have just come into the larger systems world. I sit on an industry group under AREMA that deals with the issues in this broader area. Members of the group would love to help bring our understanding to the wiki.SwalleyD (talk) 14:08, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I've revised the lead section, and copyedited and wikified the whole article. I haven't yet removed the {{userspace draft}} tag, as I would then have to uncomment the {{multiple issues}} tag, and I'm not sure if it still needs a restructure (if I leave it now and get some sleep, someone else might do it for me).

I had to correct a few things, such as the link to Hot Box, reinstating "Train inspection systems" at the top, eliminating adjacent links (WP:LINK), adding the "http://" prefix for the PDF reference, and combining another repeated reference (ref name="aar-hightech"). I'm sure you'll get used to these conventions before too long.

I've also moved your addition to my talk page to here (with ":" indents) so the conversation is in one place. This page is on my watchlist, so I'll see any further comments and reply here. Tim PF (talk) 22:21, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Tim, you have been most patient and helpful. In my last edit I wanted to put the gallery to the right of the contents for a little show of the several photos I am working on getting together, don't know how to do that. These will show something of the major structures involved with some of the detectors. I have tons of pictures, but no clear copyright, so this is one of my new tasks. I also believe several of the detectors will be better served with a page of their own, am not there yet.

I've not used galleries, and I would tend to avoid them. I think that the non-gallery version is better, although each thumbnail needs to be moved to one of the corresponding sub-sections, so that it illustrates the text. I also wouldn't put it in the lead section, and would just put it at the end to accommodate illustrations which cannot be fitted in elsewhere. Looking at the few pictures you have so-far found, and noting that several of the systems with existing articles also have no pictures, I don't think it really needs a gallery. Tim PF (talk) 20:31, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Scope

Hi, I've just realised that you've included Railway slide fence, which doesn't check the trains themselves, but the permanent way. Is this really outwith the scope, or should you be including things such as the New Measurement Train (and similar)? Tim PF (talk) 20:55, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

You are right about the gallery. Thinking back, this subject could well be a subset of "railroad inspections systems" and open a huge can of worms. Including all the track inspection systems, but also safety systems tied into the signal systems like the slide fence and broken rail protection. You are also right that the fence does not inspect the train, I got that out and replaced it with "Derailment Detector".

Another giant subset, which we are right now installing nationwide here in US, is the authority system, which will check if movements on the track are within authorized speed, in real time, inside the limits of speed restrictions, on proper track, within GPS location limits and authorized direction of movement, near on-track workers, approaching malfunctioning highway crossing gates, etc... and if not authorized, stop the train. And that is an example of a true run together sentence, kind of reminds me of a guy named Paul who was Saul. LOL SwalleyD (talk) 02:09, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

In which case, I've added the German loading gauge clearance diagram in lieu of the Rail Slide image, de-emphasised North America to make it more global, and replaced the {{Userspace draft}} template with {{refimprove}}. That's not saying that others might not come along and add other header tags, but I've seen much worse articles.

I wouldn't worry too much about the global perspective, as many of the existing linked articles cover worldwide practice, and you can use information from there, as you indeed got that Australian picture. Tim PF (talk) 09:40, 18 April 2011 (UTC)