Talk:Hastings line/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Floydian (talk · contribs) 17:15, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

I will review this article. I'm going to be nitpicky, to give you the best peer review; however, many of the issues I'll present to you will be up to your discretion to fix. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 17:15, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Lede

• The lede is rather short for the size of the article; try to beef it up a little.
  •  Done - Lede expanded. Mjroots (talk) 10:24, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
• Paragraphs shouldn't generally begin with "it". Introduce the subject of the paragraph in the first (topic) sentence.

Background

• "was built at a cost of £5,700" - You should provide an inflation figure here as well.
  • I'm not in favour of this. Providing such a figure does not mean that the same link could be built for that price today, and as such means little. Mjroots (talk) 16:15, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Construction

• "The line then climbs at gradients between 1 in 86 and 1 in 170 before a dip where it crosses the River Brede and another climb to Battle with gradients between 1 in 100 and 1 in 227 before the line falls to Hastings at gradients of between 1 in 100 and 1 in 945." - this could use punctuation or possibly be split into two sentences.
  •  Done - sentence split. Mjroots (talk) 18:08, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Openings

• The first two dates should have refs
  •  Done Mjroots (talk) 16:31, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Stations

• The opening two sentences need a source for the style and designer.
  • noted, probably Jewell's book, need to extract from library Mjroots (talk) 17:59, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
    •  Done - ref found and added. Mjroots (talk) 18:28, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
• Note 3 begins with "which"; generally only questions begin with that word, otherwise it is used as a conjunction.
  •  Done - changed "Which" to "This". Mjroots (talk) 17:59, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Links to other lines

• I'd condense the three paragraphs in the Built subsection into one, or at least the second and third into a single paragraph.
  •  Done Paras 2 & 3 combined. Mjroots (talk) 16:37, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Planned electrification

• "One of the main reasons that electrification was not given the go-ahead was the fact that non-standard rolling stock would have to have been built." - this is very passively worded, and it makes it somewhat clumsy. I'd suggest something along the lines of: "Because non-standard rolling stock would have to be built, electrification was not approved at that time."
  •  Done - reworded. Mjroots (talk) 18:04, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Services

• Looking at other railway articles, there is generally mention of the ownership of the line and the rolling stock. I do see these mentioned in the article, but scattered amongst other sections.
  • This is because the line has three distinct periods of operation - steam, diesel-electric and electric, The services section gives a brief overview of current operations. Mjroots (talk) 18:11, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Fair enough, but perhaps the two sentences of the service section would then be better suited at the end of the electric section? - Floydian ^τ _¢ 00:22, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
      •  Done Mjroots (talk) 10:26, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Driver's view of the line

• This seems better suited as an external link, no?
  • After much thought, I've remoed the section. Mjroots (talk) 10:33, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Refs

• All the notes except note 2 should have refs.
  •  Done Mjroots (talk) 17:21, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
• The ref titles are very inconsistent, and I personally recommend sticking to one format for visual appeal. You currently have refs with cap-locked titles, refs with TitleCaps (my preferred method) and refs where only the first word is capitalized. After randomly checking, I see that they all follow the title format of the linked article - which is good - but the reflist will look far more upkept if "They All Used the TitleCaps Format". Your mileage may vary.
• The day of the week should be removed from the refs that provide it (17, 59, 60, 61, 82, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95) or added to the ones that don't. Again, not a GA requirement, but will certainly be brought up down the road if you take this to FAC.
  •  Not done Only {{Cite newspaper The Times}} supports the day of week parameter. {{cite news}} used to, but it was removed. Mjroots (talk) 17:21, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Well, I won't hold it against this review, but it seems like that odd-man-out citation template should have the day of the week removed if the main newspaper citation has removed it. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 00:22, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
• Refs 55 and 56 were dead. Since ref 10 was still working, I took a peek. Seems all you need is an underscore _ between "hastings" and the "2" and the "4". I've fixed this for you. However, my bigger concern is that kentrail.org.uk is a self-published source. Can you provide any evidence that David Glasspool is considered an expert is the field by other reliable sources.
• Ref 34 also appears to be a self-published source
• Refs 63 and 104 should be filled like the others. Ref 63 also appears to be a self-published source.
  • Refs now properly cited. Mjroots (talk) 17:58, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Images

• File:Kent Railways.svg - GIS sources?
  • Not sure what you mean. @ClemRutter:, can you help? Mjroots (talk) 17:36, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Basically the ref used to plot the course of the railway and for the rest of the map. This is probably not a GAN requirement. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 00:22, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
• I have to question the ownership of the three historic locomotive images, and whether these were owned by the people uploading them to geograph.co.uk
  • Three? I presume you mean File:Eastleigh Works geograph-2383942-by-Ben-Brooksbank.jpg and File:London Bridge with Hastings express geograph-2975137-by-Ben-Brooksbank.jpg. Ben Brooksbank (Inchmole (talk · contribs)) has supplied many railway images to Geograph under a Creative Commons 2.0 licence. There is no problem with us using them. Mjroots (talk) 17:36, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Sounds good. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 00:22, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
• File:1066_ticket front.jpg - Not sure this is PD-ineligible, seeing as the British Rail logo is fair use, I'd assume the 1066 Country logo is as well.
  • Raised at WP:MCQ#Railway tickets. Mjroots (talk) 17:52, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Cool. If nothing comes up there by the time the other issues are dealt with or responded to, I'll consider it fair game. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 00:22, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

I still have to go through the Operation and Incidences sections; I should have comments for them up within the day. Cheers, Floydian ^τ _¢ 15:00, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Operation

• "From 1861, Cudworth 2-2-2 "Little Mail" class locomotives were introduced." -> "Cudworth 2-2-2 "Little Mail" class locomotives were introduced in 1861."

  The problem with "introduced in 1861" is that it implies that all of the locomotives started work on the Hastings line that year - are we certain that no more arrived later? For a similar reason, I made this amendment to this edit. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:14, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

  How about "introduced beginning in 1861"? I just find the "From [date], yada yada yada" reads odd grammatically. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 21:23, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

• "In 1890, the winter service was eleven trains each way, of which five were fast." - what do you mean by "fast"?
  •  Done Note added explaining fast and slow trains. Mjroots (talk) 09:35, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
• "The service was again reduced during World War II, with fourteen trains daily in 1942, of which four were fast. There were seven trains on Sundays." - I'm assuming that these two sentences go together; a semicolon should be used instead of a period.
  •  Done Mjroots (talk) 18:39, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
• "A temporary signal box was commissioned on 5 May and the 6S units were introduced to service on peak services the next day." -> maybe better worded as "introduced at peak service the next day"
  • That implies they were in use all day, which is not the case. Mjroots (talk) 09:35, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Basically just the two uses of service come off as redundant to one another. Won't hold this one against it though. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 21:23, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
      • Reworded by removing "to service". Mjroots (talk) 03:31, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
• You use "From [date], yada yada yada" several times in this section. I'm not sure if this is something prevalent to British English, but it may be better worded as "Beginning (on) [date], yada yada yada"
• The final sentence of Electric Era needs a ref. As mentioned above, I also think the content of the Service section is better merged here.
  •  Done - referenced to recent photographs showing the stock in use on the line. Mjroots (talk) 08:59, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Other

• I notice that Tunbridge and Tunbridge Wells are overlinked several times throughout the article. You should check this for other major locations such as Hastings and Battle as well.
  • I've reduced the overlinking. Mjroots (talk) 10:25, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
• You mention "up" side and "down" side, which I assume refer to the two tracks and the direction trains flow along them. However, the article doesn't define this nor does it mention whether north is "up" or another direction.

  I linked up side and down side on their first uses. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:22, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

• You spell out most numbers up to twenty, so you should adjust your conversion templates. Use |spell=in to spell out the input value and |spell=on to spell out both the input and output values.
  • I've been thinking this one over and have reached the conclusion thet the conversions are better presented as figures. Mjroots (talk) 10:33, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Alrighty. I almost guarantee it'll come up if you take this to FAC down the road though, just a heads up

And that's all. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 00:22, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Striked out the resolved issues. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 21:23, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

More striked out. Of the remaining issues, my only major concerns are the self-published sources and the need for a ref at the end of "Electric era". - Floydian ^τ _¢ 14:32, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Self-published sources -

Kentrail - whilst I can't state that David Glasspool is considered an expert, IMHO, he is a reliable source. Much of what he states is verifiable by cross-referencing with other sources. Mjroots (talk) 09:42, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Sinfin - This is a little harder to argue the case for. There certainly is a pub of that name, but which came first. I've reworked this to eliminate that ref. Mjroots (talk) 09:42, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I did some searching and found this[1], which is an official historical society giving high credence to his website. For me, that meets the mark of an acceptable authority on the subject. Glad to see you worked the other SPS out. All that's left now is the railway ticket image, which just needs a fair-use rationale apparently (I won't judge it on whether it meets the historically significant criteria, that's for the legality ninnies to decipher). Other than that, consider the article passed, congratulations! Sorry to put you through the wringer, but I know I myself prefer having everything put under the microscope to improve the article. Let me know once you get the FUR on and I'll do the template thang. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 00:54, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

@Floydian: - I've commented out the image for now, pending clarification of the issue raised. Thank you very much for the review. I didn't mind you putting the article through the wringer. It it's going to be a good article, we'd better make sure that it is one! Mjroots (talk) 19:58, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

✓ Pass Good by me. Hopefully you can get away with FUR on it or find some other opinions. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 01:51, 24 September 2014 (UTC)