Talk:Main Line of Public Works

MergeTo Pennsylvania Canal

re: '{{quotation needed|Citation of this title is needed, this article title sounds like a revisionist historian's politically correct title in a academic tome, not any sort of cultural or political reference|date=September 2013}}'

 • I placed this tagging above last week expecting an explicit reference to where in actual historic culture this article title is used. That means magazine or newspaper usages (media of the day), not academic studies years later. In response, their were given three key citations, sans quotation. The enabling act act (here) makes some interesting reading, for example ca. pp-35-37 it's unclear to me whether the entity was borrowing on bonds or funding by issuing stock —which while fun, is off point, nowhere in searching that document, does the phrase "Main Line of Public Works" appear, whereas repeated references to the Pennsylvania Canal do pop out on search. Similarly, 'Public Works' does show a few times, leaving the confusion over what is meant by 'main line'.

 • Inasmuch as much of that document refers to surveying measures and route choices made by the Canal Commissioners being instituted, again we see a corporate entity, a commission giving lie to Public Works which were funded by borrowed funds or stock... not paid for by the Pennsylvania Legislature, afaik, the more corrupt way things are done now. To me that also gives the article title a cachet of deceit -- misconstruing and deliberately conflicting the actual history with terms now used in a very different sense.

 • As written the title would make a A) pretty good term paper, B) possibly even a thesis topic in advanced work C) A good book chapter giving the overview of the 1820s-1870s technological boom in Pennsylvania, or even D) a justifiable section title in the main article herein. The material itself should be part of a History of 19th Century Transportation in Pennsylvania or the Pennsylvania Canal. IMHO, we shouldn't be spawning articles with titles no one would ever think of, or search for. Test? How many 'Main Line of anything' articles can we list that don't reference an object? Virtually all of them refer to Railroads or roads, not something as ambiguous as 'Public Works', and all certainly are far more geographically well defined.

 • The title integrity... is not even accurate and self-consistent, inasmuch as there are multiple lines of development of transportation infrastructure as your very own map shows. These were built by differing groups of capitalists from the brothers behind the Delaware and Hudson to the iron works owners backing the LC&N (Who's role as the Microsoft of day (High tech, High visibility, capable by reputation, successful, central) wasn't even mentioned—despite the fact they singlehandedly joined the Susquehanna and the Lehigh/Delaware, and so the Hudson and central New Jersey and Delaware. Oops. THAT for Bulk cargo was the Mainline far sooner, and effectively—it was built by private enterprise-albeit on a right of way granted by legislation in 1837. It is likely so was the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad anchor stretch was as well... political arm twisting for such benefices has it's routes in Merry Olde England, aside.

 • Lastly, the very phrase 'Public Work' is espousing a non-neutral POV. There are those who recognize such are virtually always controversies.

What I don't see is 'any reason' it shouldn't be anything more than a subsection of the article Pennsylvania Canal, which historically covers the topic; to me, the title is very misleading. While the acts of legislature were enabling, the great majority of the costs were capitalized by private investment making the public works phrase a pretty big misdirection. In short, I've been given no reason to even suspect it is anything less than WP:OR without such a quote. So before I actually formally cast a vote on mergeto or not, I'd like to hear justification for how the title is useful (to me it is just adding confusion to articles which should be linking the Pennsylvania Canal, or section linking at worst) and whether others are struck with the same sense of 'creeping unsourced article titles' that strike me as so wrong. // FrankB 16:27, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

• Apparently you missed the citation (footnote #6) I added to the article last week at the end of the sentence "The Main Line of Public Works opened in 1834 and was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad on June 25, 1857 for $7,500,000." to a New York Times article entitled "Sale of the Main Line of Public Works of Pennsylvania" published in that newspaper on June 26, 1857. A month later on July 24th the Times published another front page item entitled "The Main Line of Public Works of Pennsylvania, &c." reporting that at a meeting in Philadelphia the previous day the Stockholders of the Pennsylvania Railroad had approved the purchase of the Main Line of Public Works by a "a large majority".

• Just as a point of order, then that cite should have been used to replace the original {{Quotation needed}} tag. My comments were rather specific. I try to be clear on what I want justified. // @FAB

• Two years earlier on May 11,1855, the Times published a business item its front page reading: "Pennsylvania Main Line of Public Works.—The principal provisions of the bill have already been given in these columns. One of the sections makes it obligatory on the purchasers to at all times keep open the present connection at Columbia with the Susquehanna and Tide Water Canals and at no time to discriminate against the trade or tonnage passing to and from the said canals, neither shall they at any time charge more for boats or other crafts passing the out-let locks at Columbia than is now charged for the passage of similar boats or crafts through other outlet locks owned by the State." In addition to these three stories I have also found eleven others published in just the New York Times alone that include the term "Main Line of Public Works" so hopefully this should settle the issue for you as to the existence of "explicit reference" to where "in actual historic culture this article title is used in magazine or newspaper usages (media of the day)." Centpacrr (talk) 16:44, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

• Merging the extensive "Main Line of Public Works" article into the "Pennsylvania Canal" article is completely unjustified because (as is clearly stated in the this article's first paragraph) the Main Line of Public Works was a complex transportation system that was established in 1828 by an act of the Pennsylvania General Assembly entitled An act relative to the Pennsylvania Canal, and to provide for the commencement of a Railroad to be constructed at the expense of the state and to be styled "The Pennsylvania Railroad" (Act of March 24, 1828, Pamph. Laws, p. 221). (See: Churella, Albert J. The Pennsylvania Railroad, Volume 1, Building an Empire 1846-1917. Philadelphia:The University of Pennsylvania Press (2012) pp. 2 and 43; Compilation of the Laws of Pennsylvania relative to the Internal Improvements: together with the canal and railroad regulations, as established by the Board of Canal Commissioners Harrisburg:Barrett and Parke (1840), pp. 35-42; and Burgess, George H. and Kennedy, Miles C. (1949), Centennial History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Philadelphia: The Pennsylvania Railroad Company. p. 10, 96.) As such, the Main Line of Public Works was therefore far more than just the Pennsylvania Canal, but was in fact an integrated public transportation system made up of both canal works and railroad grade which the state built to connect Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The railroad portion was eventually sold by the state to the Pennsylvania Railroad on June 25, 1857 for $7,500,000, a transaction which the New York Times reported in a story entitled "Sale of the Main Line of Public Works of Pennsylvania" published in that newspaper on the following day. Centpacrr (talk) 03:18, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

• From your post 03:54, 4 October 2013 (UTC) on my talk (here):

Appreciate the due diligence, but not sure a single newspaper article is any less an 'awkwardly constructed' term, nor that it should be kept as a separate article. Who would ever search for it that way, and why should it be sundered from the main cultural context (and indeed duplicate said content) as well. I'll think on it a few days and for now keep the Mergeto tag on. Note I have not hung a corresponding Mergefrom tag pending these discussions. (Cross-posted here on the article talk) // FrankB 15:09, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

• Now upon seeing the further information here, note your own quote whereby the RAILROAD STOCKHOLDERS okay the MAIN LINE OF ... a far more normal context for the term MAIN LINE. Note as well, you added again documentation for the project as PENNSYLVANIA CANAL COMMISSION business, etc. as well. The enabling Legislation and later acts at least upto 1837's action enabling the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad cross project--one not financed by the State-- were all Pennsylvania Canal focused.

Which is my concern--historical ties are being obfuscated by using a weird name. As someone who does a lot of "cross-article integration editing" it's the context that is bugging me, not the content. Or put another way, the title should be a RAILROAD history piece, and a certain amount of what it contains should be co-resident in the Canal related articles -- IN HISTORICAL timing, the way this title is usually being invoked is 'back-asswards'--the canal was the project, the railroads were new high tech that came onto the planners tables unexpectedly but were IN TIME later gleefully added into the solutions mix once the world had some railway experience and the power and range improved to the point the technology could be adopted. My field is engineering and I marvel at the sheer amount of technological progress in that 1820-1870 half century when rail came into it's own... and began to dominate. One thing missing here is a Canal Age article... another related topic. But overall the concerning point is this overall project of en.Wikipedia is consistently devaluing historical roots. Town articles rarely mention founding causation, such as for example the whole string of towns in the Little Schuylkill Valley that were founded as company towns with little or no mention of their roots in favor of blase' bureaucratic cites such as "Census designated place" and National Historic Register, but rarely WHY they came about. As a project, I feel we need to tip things back into a better balance of current and past in the presentation. Terse linking without local context in articles divorces our readers from the sometimes fascinating historical backdrop. This title is of a similar vein... sterile and out of focus. Hence my 'dislike' bump when I encountered it in related "glue things together" edits.

In large part, much of this 'loss of context' is causally being driven by WP:MOS requirements too narrowly defined so that many lead (or lede!) sections systematically get rewritten to hide the historical. Given plain vanilla bland boilerplate (exacerbated by infoboxes and the predominant culture of over citing articles making editing difficult and time consuming!) there is little reason for reading down to where such a standard has dictated key salient facts such as governing local geography or historical causes are relegated by the MOS. Hence, what strikes me wrong here is of a similar vein. It does occur to me that a title change my be an appropriate possible solution. I agree that in such an environment merging the two would be a pain. I'm not pushing hard one way or the other, merely noting concerns so you see why I'm raising the issue(s). I've not the time, have too many irons in the fire to address this matter politically, nor the trends I note (by RFQ?) for that matter now, so think on my concerns. THE BLENDING OF THE 1820s beginnings and 1850s transfers (as cited) are what are being jammed in the same box hiding three decades of development, operations and history. Any ideas on a cure by yourself or others would be welcomed. // FrankB 15:09, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Upon reviewing... Just rewriting this lede

The Main Line of Public Works was a railroad and canal system across southern Pennsylvania between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh that was planned and funded as the Pennsylvania Canal system in response to the advent and success of the Lehigh Navigations and the Erie Canals.

to (sans links)

The Main Line of Public Works was the name given in the mid 1850s to the collection of railroad and canal system properties owned by the Pennsylvania Canal Commission that ran across southern Pennsylvania between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh at the time when the Commission was undergoing consideration of being dissolved and the properties were to be sold to private enterprise; the whole had been planned and somewhat funded in the 1820s as the Pennsylvania Canal system in response to the advent and success of the Lehigh Navigations and the Erie Canals.

... defangs most of my objections. Given such a little bit more detail, the context is far clearer and the title then becomes far more sensible as the PRR becomes the entity applying the 'Main Line' term... minor text fixups below that should follow that flow and focal change appropriately. What do you think? // FrankB 15:09, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

I think the confusion you have over the term is when it was first used to describe the system which was long before the Pennsylvania Railroad bought the system from the state in 1857. All of the various sources I have looked at indicate that this is the name by which the system was known when it became fully operational in 1834 and continued to be called until sold to the PRR. For further details I refer you to "The Pennsylvania Railroad Company: The Corporate, Financial and Construction History of Lines Owned, Operated and Controlled To December 31, 1945, Volume I The Pennsylvania Railroad Proper." Chapter: "The Main Line of Public Works" pp. 109-135. (Coverdale & Colpitts, Consulting Engineers, New York 1946).

The Act of May 16, 1857 that authorized its sale was entitled "An Act for the Sale of The Main Line of Public Works" and states in part: "Section 1. That it shall be the duty of the governor, within ten days after approving this act, to cause to be advertised daily until the day of sale, in one or more newspapers of extensive circulation, or published in the cities of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, Boston, New York, and in the borough of Harrisburg, a notice that the Main Line of Public Works will be exposed to public sale at the Merchants' Exchange, or some other public place in the city of Philadelphia, on a day to be selected by him, not more than forty days after the passage of this act. ... Section 2. That at the time and place so selected, it shall be the duty of the governor to have offered at public sale the whole Main Line of Public Works, to wit: the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad; the canal from Columbia to the Junction at Duncan's Island; the Juniata canal from thence to Hollidaysburgh; the Allegheny Portage railroad, including the new road to avoid the inclined planes, and the canal from Johnstown to Pittsburgh, with all the property thereto appertaining, or in anywise connected therewith." Charle Dickens wrote a description of travel over the route in his book "American Notes" published in 1842. If these two articles were to ever be merged it seems to me that the "host" article would "The Main Line of Public Works" with the shorter "Pennsylvania Canal" article be appended to it as a subsection and not the other way around. Centpacrr (talk) 19:02, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

• I find it difficult to believe any part of the system sold tickets or shipped cargo under this title as an operating name, whatever an engineer or lawyer called it—I bet you $20.00 the common people and advertising used different names. However, my sense of wrongness is no reason to keep a much hated "In your face" tag on the page (It's a stress for me to use such!) so I'm caving to your obvious expertise.

Apologies for taking up our time! // FrankB 02:45, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

• What I mean by the above is that the system as a whole was known as the Main Line of Public Works of Pennsylvania as an overall legal entity. The riding public bought their passenger tickets under the names of the various divisions (canals, railroads, and their branch lines) such as "Philadelphia & Columbia RR", "Allegheny Portage RR", "Pennsylvania Canal", etc. I have posted a map of what the entire system looked like at the time of its sale to the PRR in 1857 here, and the schedule for the Phila & Columbia RR as it appeared in the American Railway Guide and Pocket Companion in 1851 here. Sorry for the confusion, I should have been clearer about this. Centpacrr (talk) 06:41, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

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