Talk:London King's Cross railway station/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: The Rambling Man (talk · contribs) 22:48, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

General

• Check captions for fragments, e.g. the infobox image caption needs no full stop.

Should be all fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:03, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Not quite, infobox caption needs no full stop. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:21, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "Location of King's Cross in Central London" there appears to be different uses of either "Central" or "central" in the term "C/central London". I'd pick one and stick with it.

Since our article is called Central London, and uses caps throughout I'll go with that. I think this is just residual paranoia from Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/The Beatles Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:03, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• Is there a reason why "King's Cross St. Pancras tube station" has a full stop in the title whereas all other references to St Pancras have no full stops?

Our articles seem to use a mix. However, I think the definitive source would be Transport for London] which uses the full stop. So I'm going with that. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:03, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Lead

• "the Flying Scotsman and" shouldn't that be "the Flying Scotsman and"?
• Query: you have "as Mallard", why wouldn't it be "as the Mallard"?

  Mallard is the name of a specific locomotive; unlike ships, these conventionally do not take the definite article unless it actually appears on the locomotive's nameplate (such as LNER class A1 no. 2559 The Tetrarch). Named services are sometimes given the definite article, sometimes not - it primarily depends upon the whims of the railway's publicity department, cf. Flying Scotsman and The Coronation). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:32, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  Or, in the more prosaic case, our articles on Flying Scotsman (train) and LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard have "the" and no "the" respectively. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  Ok, then I think that's done slightly differently on the Marylebone article. Better keep an eye out on that one. Or at least the italics are... The Rambling Man (talk) 15:18, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• " Services are currently" last thing I recall about this kind of stuff is we stick with {{as of}}...

Done, also I think the word "services" is mentioned too often in the lead, so I've reworded that while I'm there Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:14, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• " work occurred in" I loathe Wikipedia's fixation with things "occurring", far too passive for me.

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:14, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "is King's Cross St. Pancras on the London Underground, " I get this, but it's potentially confusing, perhaps it's something like emphasising that "King's Cross St. Pancras" is a tube station on the LU?

I've changed it to "King's Cross St. Pancras tube station"; the general convention is to use {{lus}} which leaves the "tube station" bit out, but that's more for articles about tube lines that link to stations all over the place. I don't think that's correct in this context. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:14, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "London & North Eastern Railway" in the infobox should be "London and North Eastern Railway".

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:14, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• Underground fire is pertinent to the Underground station, less-so the railway station, did improvements take place there as a direct result?

Not directly, but the mainline station entrance was a key picture in the news (eg: File:KingsXfire.jpg), and I think people particularly outside London might associate King's Cross with the fire above all else. Still, I could be wrong. After discussion below, I've removed this. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:14, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Location and name

• "or at the side" -> "or to the side".

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:38, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "on the tube map " we typically capitalise Tube, don't we?

A quick look at TfL says, we do Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:38, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "was used on them only very rarely before then" reads ugly. Any chance of an elegant re-phrase?

Yikes, must have forgotten to copyedit this bit (I don't believe I wrote it) - fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:38, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "other National Rail railway pages," what pages? Web pages?
• Thetrainline.com is a redirect now, and as it's a private company, why are we specifically talking about it?

Since these last two aren't actually cited to a reliable source, I've removed them. I can only guess the original reason they were put in is to back up the punctuation differences, but I think we can get the message from the sources we have. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:38, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

History

• "the British Iceni" British is a piped redirect, a pet hat, so please pipe it to Celtic Britons instead.

Fixed (my excuse is you can't easily tell when looking at the parsed page) Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:59, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• Boudica is overlinked.

Fixed (blame section merges) Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:59, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "terminus of the East Coast main line.[12] " Main Line.

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:59, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "name from the area of London, named after" name, named... repetitive.

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:59, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• Could be worth linking fever and smallpox, perhaps not all our readers get the real meaning of fever here, nor may have been troubled by smallpox.

I don't have the source used here, but a quick search for others suggests that the hospital was mainly known for smallpox, plus "fever" is a generic term (what sort of fever?) We have a Smallpox Hospital article, but it's a specific one that's irrelevant here. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:59, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Not to worry, leave as-is. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:52, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "which today includes platforms" see previous "as of" comment.

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:46, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "Midland Railway services ran from King's Cross on 1 February 1858.[22]" to where? And I suppose you mean " Midland Railway services commenced from King's Cross..." because it wasn't just on one day, right?

  The source doesn't say where. This is important to get right because MR services diverted to St Pancras about ten years later, and their "heyday" to the northwest dates from that period. From context I think Birmingham New Street is correct; Redrose64, can you check this? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:46, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  Birmingham New Street is unlikely (remember that although the MR did serve Birmingham New Street from 1854, its route to Birmingham was from Derby via Tamworth, which creates a circuitous route from London). MR services from Kings Cross ran over the GNR to Hitchin, where they picked up the Midland's own route thence to Bedford, although the services on this line probably didn't terminate at Bedford until after the route opened between Bedford and St Pancras via Luton and St Albans. As for where the northern terminus actually was... there are several possibilities. It's easier to decide which cities were served directly from Kings Cross via Bedford in those days: Leicester is a 100% certainty, Derby and Nottingham 99% certain, Sheffield and Leeds are highly probable too. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:06, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Okay, let's go with "Leicester via Hitchin and Bedford", which is what sources tend to agree on. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:19, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "which is platforms 9-11 today " are, 9–11, and "today" again.

Done, though platforms 9-11 have been numbered as such for 45 years, and thanks to Harry Potter are probably not going to change. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:46, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "during World War I" archaic Brit speaking, would prefer "during the First World War"

I've had this argument before; I personally have got more comfortable with World War I over the years. Indeed, BBC Schools are calling it "World War One". I think it's just the English language changing and old gits bemoaning how things just aren't the same anymore (usually by Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells on pen to the Daily Mail). See related discussion in Talk:Bow Street/GA1. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:46, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "1922–4" per new daterange MOS, that would be "1922–1924".

  I can't see the text "1922-4" anywhere in the article :-/ Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:46, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  It's gone. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:20, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  I fixed it earlier. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• Got the Flying Scotsman and Mallard issues I noted in the lead here again.

See earlier reply Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:46, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "during World War II" see above, I don't really see the world wars as original/sequel movies.

As above, this increasingly seems to be the common name on both sides of the atlantic. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:46, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• " occurred at another day and time" could be more specific, I guess it was on a slow moment.

Reworded to "during a busy period", the emphasis here is that not many people were around to be killed by the blast, which was fortunate. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:46, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "British Rail (1948–96)" again, MOS now says "British Rail (1948–1996)".

Fixed, though I'm sure I have seen somebody edit warring over this Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:46, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "through the Gas Works Tunnels" prior to this, three times it was just "Gas Works tunnel".

  Originally there was just one tunnel, but a second parallel tunnel was brought into use in 1878 (and then a third in 1892) - the name is shared, so chronologically later mentions are in the plural. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  Also I meant you capitalised the Tunnels, but I've de-capped it. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:52, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• Why link Royston only?

Wasn't sure which station to go for for Hertford (though reading the articles it must be North) and I probably linked Welwyn, previewed, found it was a redlink (as it should be Welwyn Garden City railway station) and left it out to come back to later. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:46, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "late 1970s Labour government." bet there's a link for this.

indeed so Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "was seen as an opportunity to modernise the station"

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• " Grade I-listed[40] façade of the original station" that ref can go at the end of the end of the sentence, plus facade is anglicised enough now that we don't need the cedilla.

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "75,000 sq ft " you've converted everything else to metric so far, this can go to.
• "at 12.24," do you mean "at 12.24 p.m.,"?

Yes, I probably assumes it was obvious from context but best to mention it anyway. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "King's Cross was a major terminus for the InterCity 125 high speed services. By 1982, almost all long-distances trains leaving the station were 125s." do we know when they started?

The source doesn't say; the best I can find at the moment is this source that says "between 1976 and 1981". That sounds about right, but I can't pinpoint a specific date for when they were introduced to King's Cross. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "The King's Cross fire of 1987 started in... " fine, but I'm not seeing the "improvements to the network" piece that was mentioned in the lead.

While I can easily find sources for changes on the underground network, including a complete smoking ban and phasing out of wooden escalators, I can't actually find any reliable sources that specifically pinpoint changes to the main station concourse around this time, so I'll take it out of the lead. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "four for Thameslink trains" link Thameslink.

Done Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "the Privitisation of British Rail in " typo and no need for capital P.

fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh " the is part of the first wikilink but not the second...

fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "questionable businesses i" this could be considered POV.

I've trimmed this down to just "prostitution services", I can't remember anything else that stood out like a sore thumb from this time Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• " the ORR approved" who?

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• " The service would begin" you will "is scheduled to begin"?

Rewritten Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "Accidents and incidents" section, most of these are trivial. Could they not be summarised into prose?

I tried that, but then (IMHO) the prose looks as exciting as watching grass grow, so in this case I think a list is more suitable. Alternatively, we could move the major incidents in 1881, 1945 (those with fatalities) into the prose and nuke the rest. How's that for a plan? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that would be much better. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:52, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Alright, done Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:01, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Other stations

• "to Farringdon, Barbican and Moorgate" Barbican here is the Tube station, is that intentional?

I think so in this context, because Barbican was historically an overground station as well as underground, but has not served a conventional "overground" service since the Thameslink shuttle to Moorgate closed in 2009. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:12, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "main line" or "mainline" or "main-line"? Even the hat note at the top of the article should be made consistent.

  All the prose I wrote used "mainline", so let's go with that for consistency. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:12, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  Over the last year or two we have been going the other way, towards "main line" (adjective, noun) in many articles. This is because "mainline" is not just a verb (meaning "to inject", esp. with heroin); but is also slang. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:22, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Services

• "inter city routes" would have thought that was "inter-city routes".

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:23, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "Virgin Trains East Coast operates"... no bold links please.

I didn't notice they were bold ... fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:23, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "Half hourly" hyphenated?

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:24, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "1 train per hour departing at xx:05 " is this stuff stable enough? Do we really need this level of detail? Train routes, stations served etc I can buy, but regularity and departure times seems a little too much.

  I think having the main King's Cross - Waverley service on the hour is significant (though I can't quite pinpoint why), for the rest - meh. However, if I take it out, an IP or a user with a redlinked userpage will put the whole lot back in without an edit summary. (example) For some people, casual editors really like all this detail being in here and occasionally turn up to fiddle with the route tables. I've left it like it is for the sake of keeping the peace, and it is all verifiable to the timetables (though last time I tried actually verifying the information in that manner, I decided watching grass grow was a more pleasurable activity). Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:23, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  Ok, it's not harmful to have this, although I would consider it a little WP:UNDUE. For the sake of harmony, let's leave it. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:57, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  I agree, but the next question is - what you would you trim out? There's nothing obvious; you could cut out detail in the Edinburgh and Leeds services, but those are easily the most important ones in the station, so that would make the section even more undue. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:02, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  At the very least I'd trim out the times past the hour. I seem to recall that the Marylebone article just has number per hour rather than that minutiae. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:06, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  Okay, I've got my shears out and had another go. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:13, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  We don't need specific times, see WP:NOTTIMETABLE; except where a particular service has left at the same time of day for decades. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:39, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "Hull Trains Route" route.

  Huh? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:23, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  Capital R in Route is unnecessary. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:57, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  That's the name on a template, and requires a move. Should we do that? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:11, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  Such capitalisation changes (Route/route; Line/line) have recently (that is, over the last five or six months) caused much debate on pages like WT:UKRAIL. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:41, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  That's a "no" then ;-) Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:28, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• Seems to be a substantial crossover in the Services and Routes sections.

See above Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:23, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "Tube Routes" not sure this is necessary in this article, but if it is, then it should be "Tube routes".

No, I think this should come out as it's technically wrong - you can't get a tube from "King's Cross" itself, you need to go via "King's Cross St. Pancras" tube station first. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:23, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Cultural references

• "Margaret Schlegel" who?

I've copyedited this to make it a little clearer Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "E.M. Forster" should have a space after the first .

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "platform 9-11" en-dash.

Are you sure? My old standby of User:GregU/dashes.js doesn't touch this when I run it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

The script is flakey, at best, but sometimes it's clever enough to look at the preceding word, which in this case is singular. Perhaps it should be platforms 9–11. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:57, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Should be sorted now. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:14, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "a mile to the north of the station." could use a ref.

Done Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "The Pet Shop Boys released " The isn't part of the name of the band.

Well I never .... it appears I've been getting it wrong for over 30 years :-/ .... fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• Actually doesn't need dismabiguation.

So it doesn't. That's me being over-cautious and thinking "actually's a word, of course it's not going to have the album as its primary topic!" Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Refs

• "pp. 76–7." vs "pp. 78–79." consistency please.

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:48, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• Refs 42, 47 and 49 are all "BBC News" but are all formatted differently.

Fixed (my preference is cite news|title=[title]|work=BBC News|date=[date]|accessdate=[today]) Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:48, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• Refs 59 & 60 are bare URLs.

Fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:48, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• "Gourvish, Terry; Anson, Mike (2004). British Rail 1974 – 1997 :" unspaced en-dash here.

I think I've fixed this, though dashes make my head hurt :-/ Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:48, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Overall

Nothing major, a minor heap of small issues, so it's on hold. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:41, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: Right, I've addressed all the issues, though some need further and clarification and work. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:49, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Looking good. I still see consistency issues with Tube and tube, although that appears to be a Wikipedia issue more than anything. I think there are only one or two points outstanding above now, let me know when you think you're done. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:59, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: Okay, everything has been addressed; I've come up with a solution for Midland Railway services, the "Services" section has had another trim, and I think all the other stuff is uncontroversial. If I've missed anything, shout! Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:21, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Well we both missed the fact that Monopoly should have been in italics, which is somewhat ironic given the project you're trying to complete, but I've fixed that, and I'm happy to pass now. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:24, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Just the "mainline" / "main line" thing mentioned above, but I can't see that being a showstopper for GA; somebody can just do it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:32, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Just done it. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:37, 11 April 2017 (UTC)