Talk:Mokai Tramway

Requested move 26 May 2024

Mokai Tramway → Taupo Totara Timber Company Railway – The proposed title makes this article easier to find. Many readers will have heard of the "TTT", the tourist town of Taupo, or Lake Taupo. Few people will be familiar with the sawmilling village of Mokai, which today has only a few houses and a marae. The name also distinguishes the main Putaruru to Mokai line from the bush tramways radiating from Mokai. Many of these tramways were accessible only to selected TTT Railway rolling stock. In contrast, all TTT locomotives including the Mallet and the four-wheeled locos were able to run through to Mokai, where the company had its main mechanical workshop. The proposed new title also distinguishes the TTT Railway from the Kinleith Branch, which covered only part of the route and was built on formation that was largely new. (The original TTT formation north of Tokoroa is still visible in some places). I have a large collection of source material on the railway and the company and I hope to add more info and true primary citations as time permits. I will also propose that a separate page be set up covering the TTT company itself Kbwc56 (talk) 00:09, 26 May 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 00:45, 2 June 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 10:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 21:21, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Oppose - it seems the more sensible option would be to split the information on TTT into its own article, much like the Wellington & Manawatu Railway Company and Wellington - Manawatu Line were --LJ Holden 03:33, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Support: I will create a separate page for the TTT company. Mokai Tramway is not an appropriate title for the railway page. Everyone I interviewed in the South Waikato described it as the "TTT Railway" or "TTT Tramway". The same terminology is used in primary references. Two of the any hundreds of sources. The proposed title, "Taupo Totara Timber Company Railway" meets Wikipedia's guidelines for Recognizability and Naturalness.

"Mokai Tramway" does not. Very few people know that Mokai is even a place. However, plenty of people are interested in the "Taupo Totara Timber Company Railway".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_titles

Some online examples of typical useage:

Waikato Indepedent, 1911 https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAIKIN19110822.2.22

NZ Herald, 1922: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19220908.2.34 Kbwc56 (talk) 03:58, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I have struck the above support to avoid double-counting: closers of RM discussions presume nominators to support their own proposals. I myself support some kind of move. As of this comment, I am still browsing the sources, but a DuckDuckGo query for -wikipedia tramway Taupo Totara Timber yields several NZ encyclopedias and no "Mokai Tramway" in any of them, which seems to rule that out as WP:COMMONNAME and article title. However, I have not seen "Taupo Totara Timber Company Railway", whether upper- or lowercase "r". for example, the sources nom linked above respectively use the projected [as of 1911] Taupo Timber Company's railway line to Taupo and (in the headline only) Taupo Totara Railway. Some descriptive title instead may be needed; am still thinking on this as I review the sources. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 03:25, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Note: ealand Wikipedians' notice board has been notified of this discussion. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 00:45, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I wasn't sure what to do about that. No evidence has been provided supporting "Mokai Tramway". I did some formal analysis as a separate talk topic (TTT Railway Title: Recognizability, below) which I hope will add some value to the article. Kbwc56 (talk) 03:55, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Final relist, to allow additional discussion between the proposed title and Taupo Totara Railway BilledMammal (talk) 21:21, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

I would support Taupo Totara Timber Railway, but I oppose "Taupo Totara Railway", and I strongly oppose "Mokai Tramway".

The title must have three "T words".

This makes it clear that this article is about the Taupo Totara Timber Company's Railway. Locals abbreviated that to "TTT Railway". Almost all of the freight cars, and most of locomotives, were sign-written "T.T.T. Co". The Two people who were born and raised in Mokai told local mythology held that "TTT" stood for "Terrible Twisting Tramway" (a reference to the concept of a "contour railway"). Newspaper compositors omitted one of the "T"s to fit stories into their column layouts. So you find stories headed "Taupo Totara Railway, for example. My search analysis on Papers Past showed that "TTT Rsilway" was preferred within the South Waikato district. However, "TTT" seldom appears in newspapers outside of the Waikato, and the company seems to have strictly avoided abbreviating its name in advertisements. Also, I think it's important to note that this railway never ran to the Taupo township. I can provide screeds of evidence supporting a title containing, "Taupo Totara Timber". Kbwc56 (talk) 22:46, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Proposed sale to NZR

The 1911 proposal to extend the TTT Railway to Taupo followed a board shake-up in 1907. Two of the original promoters, Tudor Atkinson and James Fulton, resigned from the board and Atkinson resigned his position as General Manager. F.G. Dalziell took over as chairman. Dalziell promoted the extension, which was discussed by a Parliamentary Committee in late 1911 (AJHR1911). Fulton's concept of light "contour" railways reflected his enthusiasm for "opening up the country". A 1902 circular to shareholders mentioned the possibility of extending the railway to Taupo. The circular reproduced a report from James McKerrow, which suggested that the NZR could be persuaded to reinstate the Putaruru Lichfield line, and that the TTT should haul government rolling stock over its line to a mill at Ongaroto. The original business was structured as a pair of companies. The Wellington Industrial Development Company, and the Taupo Totara Timber Company Limited. Personal communication suggests the WID's role was to operate the railway. Potential clientele included the "Selwyn Settlement" on land at Lichfield acquired from the Thames Valley Land Company. Dalziell consolidated the two companies into a new company (The Taupo Totara Timber Co, not "Company") in 1913. In light of this situation, the sentence, "This reflected the company's ultimate intention to sell the line to NZR" appears to speculate on the motivation of the original directors. Is there hard evidence that the TTT directors set out to build a railway they could sell to the Government? The circular to shareholders suggests an opportunity to develop a private railway serving Taupo, alongside the operation of the sawmilling company. It is impossible to know the true motivations of the TTT directors. I have deleted the sentence. Later we can add factual information the railway and its operations. Kbwc56 (talk) 23:15, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

TTT Railway Title: Recognizability

The TTT Railway was well-known in the South Waikato district, as an important mail, freight and passenger service from about 1907 until 1944. People searching for information about the TTT railway can be expected to search for words and phrases that were commonly used during the time when the TTT railway was operational. Evidence for the appropriate words and phrases will be found in newspapers and other documents published between 1900 and 1950.

The NZ National Library's Papers Past website has a large collection of relevant source documents, which have been digitised and OCR'd.

A search on Papers Past shows an overwhelming preference for names such as "taupo totara timber company railway" and "ttt railway".

The search found a total of 1277 results (hits).

Across all sources, phrases with synonyms for "taupo totara timber company" found 1162 hits, 91% of the total. In the local South Waikato newspaper, Putaruru Press, phrases with "ttt" yielded 98 (84%) results out of a total 117 hits in this newspaper.

There is a very clear preference for "railway" or "line". Across all sources, phrases containing "tramway" found only 56 hits, 4% of the total. "Tramway" is even less popular in the Putaruru Press. None of the search phrases containing "tramway" found any results in the Putaruru Press.

"mokai tramway" ( the existing title of this article) yielded only one result.

Only a very small minority of sources use "mokai railway", "mokai line" or "mokai tramway" (115 hits, 9% of the total). Phrases containing "mokai" were even less popular at the Putaruru Press. Of the three "mokai" search phrases, only "mokai line" found any results: 4 hits (3%) out of a total 117 Putururu Press search results. One of these 4 search results was a story about a game of rugby.

I searched in newspapers and parliamentary papers covering the period from 1 Jan 1900 to 31 Dec 1949. I used an "exact phrase" search, with fifteen separate search phrases. The search phrases and results are listed in the following table.

Search Results

Search Phrase	Newspapers (all)	Newspapers, Putaruru Press only	Parliamentary Papers	All Sources
Totals	1123	117	37	1277
mokai line	49	4	4	57
mokai railway	54	0	3	57
mokai tramway	0	0	1	1
taupo company line	18	0	3	21
taupo company railway	5	0	2	7
taupo company tramway	1	0	1	2
timber company line	306	2	8	316
timber company railway	368	13	4	385
timber company tramway	43	0	7	50
totara company line	25	0	2	27
totara company railway	12	0	2	14
totara company tramway	2	0	0	2
ttt line	128	63	0	191
ttt railway	111	35	0	146
ttt tramway	1	0	0	1

Subsequent to the initial search, I did an additional "exact phrase" search on all newspapers for "totara line" (38 hits, most TTT), "totara railway" (236 hits, mostly TTT), "totara tramway" (8 hits, 2 relevant to TTT). These results are not included in the above analysis, however, they support my conclusions.