Talk:Nashua and Lowell Railroad/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Bungle (talk · contribs) 10:33, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a look over this one. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:33, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Review

I reviewed each section in turn and have made my comments relating specifically to each section. In the process of fact checking, I have also ended up undertaking some research too and finding some information that would be useful (I have linked to these news clippings below). This isn't exhaustive research.

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
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Lead/Infobox

Should not have inline citations in the lead as this should already be in the prose and referenced there
Citations removed. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Lead too short - does it cover all aspects of the article?
It has been expanded now. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Would a route map be useful for the infobox?
I do not have the technical know-how to make a route map, unfortunately. I can look again on Commons to see if I can find any maps, but finding one specifically of the N&L is unlikely. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If not a specific route map, then what about old normal maps? I only know about old maps on the UK but assume there must be some for the states as well. Even if just showing where the line is/was relative to the local geography would be useful? Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:14, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I found [1] and [2] which show the N&L line, although it's only a small part of the maps. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:58, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Can we use convert template for length in infobox too?
Done. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:11, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As per MOS:ABBR, I think it would help to put the initial occurrence of the abbreviations after the names for which they relate. Currently, N&L and B&M first appear solitarily.
Good suggestion, this has been done (for the Boston and Lowell as well). Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:43, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Formation/construction

"serious talk.." - not sure I like this phrase. I understand it's to emphasise the fact that discussions were sincere, though expect there could be better phrasing
Reworded. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:09, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Can we link Charter?
Done. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:39, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Construction prose seems somewhat minimal. Would info here be useful to include as well?
Addressed, see below. There is not a ton to be said here in general, construction was very easy and straightforward thanks to the very easy terrain. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:23, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There is no indication on what this cost. This clipping gives some info though I am sure it could be expanded upon.
Cost has been added now, see below. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:23, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Would this clipping be a useful addition too?
In my opinion, the clippings here are routine coverage and not of enough significance to incorporate into the article. I was doing some research last night and saw an account from the 1900s which stated not much information on construction costs was available, though it did give some background which will be useful. I will find this and incorporate it into the article today. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 18:23, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There is certainly no harm in incorporating info from clippings or elsewhere though, especially if the info is already lacking in the article and could be useful. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:14, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have just made an edit incorporating information from a newspaper account about construction. However, much of the information in these particular clippings does not appear significant in my opinion. I don't have any objection to incorporating info from clippings, but these particular ones do not appear to be of importance enough to note in the article. One of the challenges of writing an encyclopedia is deciding what information not to include. Perhaps I am more exclusionist than some editors. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:22, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was able to find a source listing the construction cost at $380,000. This has been added to the article. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:40, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Operating history

Could the section name not just be "Operation" as it's already in the "History" parent section so seems unnecessarily repetitive
Renamed to "operations". Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:26, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure about the first part regarding completion/opening dates. The ref says that the line was opened "in its completed form" on Dec 23, but the interpretation on the article doesn't seem fully accurate. I also found this clipping which seems to suggest the line opened for passengers in mid-October 1838, two months before the article says? This article also agrees, saying it opened on Oct 8. I guess there is a difference between a line being in some operation and then latterly opening "in full". May need some more research?

The company opened partially on October 8, 1838, operating to a temporary station on the south side of the Nashua river. My copy of Karr's The Rail Lines of Southern New England states this. A bridge across the river and into Nashua proper was finished in December, which is when the railroad opened in full. Not sure how I missed this the first time. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:30, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- That's fine. I can't see the book myself but from the news articles I could see, it seemed like there was a partial opening of some sort. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:33, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Immediately successful.." - in what manner? I assume financially, but shouldn't be left to assumption. This clipping may have some relevance and useful facts.
Successful in that it quickly had a large amount of traffic, and therefore large amounts of income. I have reworded this now. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:26, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Some info regarding passenger numbers after the first year of operation are here and may be a useful addition
This has been added, thanks for clipping it. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:07, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"..to accommodate heavy traffic". This doesn't sound right, as you wouldn't "accommodate" heavy traffic, you would want to "alleviate" it. To accommodate suggests that heavy traffic was desired, which clearly isn't the case. You may accommodate additional/extra traffic though. A few ways of wording it I guess.
Heavy traffic was absolutely desired, because more traffic = more profits for the railroad. Adding a second track allowed for business to grow further. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:26, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think the point I was making is that "heavy traffic" is synonymous with "excessive traffic" and if that level of traffic already exists, you couldn't "accommodate" it as it's already there. By building an additional line, the intention is to alleviate that. If heavy traffic is desired, then you wouldn't want to do anything and thus be happy with the delays and reduced efficiency from an overcrowded line, which isn't the case. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:33, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I still feel that this is more like FAC level nitpicking, but I have made the change you requested. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 18:07, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Believe me, it's not an FAC level suggestion :) I would note though that GA should never be "barely over the line", but should entirely reasonably also be about making small improvements to compliment anything that is rigidly criterion based. If a suggested change would take seconds/under a minute, and isn't wrong, there isn't a reason not to want to improve. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:14, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"This arrangement ended in late 1877.." - why?
There was a fight among the company's leadership, which ended with a "Mr. Brooks" taking over and announcing the N&L would be ending the agreement in late 1878. This has now been incorporated into the article. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"..paying a 6% dividend.." - 6 percent of what? This sentence doesn't make much sense without some context.
A 6% dividend on the cost of the Manchester and Keene. I've added this to the text. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:58, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A report from this clipping suggests that severing arrangements were being made from around 1878, though the article has a gap between 1869 and 1880 so could be useful to fill in
Addressed in another reply. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:23, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think it may be appropriate to have consistency on the use of percent/%. On the sentence starting "The two companies agreed to pool..", I *think* these should be "percent" per MOS:PERCENT, even though visually the symbol "looks" fine to me. On the following paragraph, "6 percent" is written out. There is also "75% of freight" in a later section. This isn't a deal-breaker for me, but worth mentioning.
You are right, I have now made consistent use of the word percent instead of the percent symbol. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:43, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The article does well in keeping the prose ordered chronologically by date, however the last paragraph "In 1869, the Nashua and Lowell obtained a 20-year lease.." has an unexpected placement.
That is in an odd spot, I think I put it there because technically it was after the start of the joint operations with the Boston and Lowell. I've moved it just after the mention of the 1848 lease of the Stony Brook Railroad, which also helps that paragraph make more sense. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:43, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Lease by B&L

Circuit court can be linked.
Done. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:50, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe it would help to show modern day inflation value of the $208,086? I appreciate this is part of a quote, however that should not matter which is why it may not have been done already. Alternately, the quote can be ended after "July 1, 1872" and the claim amount can be an outside-quote sentence with the inflation value.
I've moved the dollar amount out of the quotes and added the inflation template (and rounded to 200,000).
- Rounding should probably have been $210,000 rather than $200,000, but I won't be fussy about it. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:46, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:43, 3 January 2022 (UTC) Boston and Maine era[reply]

This may be useful as some explanation as to why B&M chose to purchase the company in 1943-1944
Addressed in the article, I did not fully explain in my reply below but I added mention of why B&M bought the company. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:23, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
On the above, there are newspaper articles dated 1944 which suggest this was still in the planning, so maybe 1943 was the year this was decided but not implemented until 1944? If so, the article may need a rephrase. This article may be useful for that too, plus some figures. Also this news article has quite a bit too.
You appear to be correct that the purchase was in 1944, not 1943. Not proud of myself for getting that wrong. It has now been corrected. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:33, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The last two sentences are inline cited to the same reference, so this only needs to go at the end of the last sentence.
This is a reflexive reaction of mine to prevent the citation needed tagbombers from dropping tags on things that are in fact cited. Since you've requested it, I've removed the cite on the second to last sentence. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:43, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In the Guilford section, you could link Pan Am Railways as the first (and only) occurrence after the lead per MOS:REPEATLINK.
Guilford and Pan Am Railways are the same company, and are at the same article (Guilford bought the rights to the name and likeness of Pan Am after the airline went bankrupt). I didn't link Pan Am because technically that would result in a duplicate link. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:43, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also, is there a better section heading than just "Guilford", especially when other sections headers have some context (i.e. "Lease by..", "..era")
Good point, I've changed the section name to "Guilford and the Milford-Bennington Railroad" as the name neglected the latter company (incidentally, I made the Milford-Bennington article when doing research for this one and finding no article existed). Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:43, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Station listing

Any reason why there is no column to indicate distance relative just to the line itself (i.e. starting at 0 for one terminus)?
Good question, I wonder if User:Pi.1415926535 can answer this, as they're the author of the station listing table. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:45, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's how it's listed in the cited timetable. I'm inclined to keep it that way, given that the N&L had combined operations with the B&L for most of its lifetime, and that I don't have a source that gives mileages from zero (i.e, without the possibility of rounding errors from subtraction). Pi.1415926535 (talk) 03:44, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am quite sure that calculating from a starting point of 0 can be achieved using the existing data? If the first station is 25.6m and the second at 27.3m, then you know the second station is 1.7m in from the terminus. I'll leave this up to you, though as the line did have independent operations for part of its life too, this data would usually be expected. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:33, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Referencing

Newspapers references from google should be linked to google newspapers, not books (so news.google.com/newspapers?id=.. rather than books.google.com/books..)
I'm gonna have to push back on this one. How is this in any way related to the GA criteria? Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:48, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it wouldn't be a fail, but is there any reason why you wouldn't want them to be in the correct format? You are referencing newspapers here afterall, not books and it's not really much effort. I can sort this if you wish towards the end. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:02, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you wish to change the URLs, go ahead, once everything else has been addressed, so you only have to do it once in case I add more references. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:25, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusion

@Trainsandotherthings: Although it wasn't my intention, I ended up doing quite a bit of research myself which you may benefit from in expanding or cross-checking information. If you don't already have a newspapers.com subscription, i'd recommend applying via the wikipedia library as it's invaluable for articles like this - there is a wealth of info, far more than even I clipped. I don't tend to do quick reviews so I hope you don't mind the extent of my comments!

On the article, it does feel a little on the minimal side to me, at least compared to similar railroad articles of a similar length. I am sure it can be expanded further, so I am prepared to let you do that and revisit once done. The review can be held for the moment, but not indefinitely. I would then have to reassess the changes/additions. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:51, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My account is not old enough to be eligible for TWL (and will not be until near the end of this month). That has been a barrier for me unfortunately. I will look at your comments today. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:55, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ah I see, well at least it isn't too long to wait now. I hadn't recalled or taken much notice the account age limit thing as this doesn't really apply to me! Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:33, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Trainsandotherthings: On the matter of the clippings, feel free to use or not to use as appropriate (the inclusion was not an indication of expectation, but assistance). Even if it's a trivial bit of info, it can only benefit being included than not if it has relevance. What I would say though is that if a sole inline citation refers to a book for which there is no freely online accessible copy to the reader, and the same info is included in a clipping, use both in the citation (at least then the facts can be easily verified without having the book or other source material). This is fairly common practice, although many favour only including accessible citations. That is not in itself a strict GA criteria, but i'd strongly recommend it, especially when you consider why you wrote the article in the first place. Feel free to query anything with me! Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:14, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Bungle: How is the article looking now? I believe I've responded to all your comments. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:23, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Trainsandotherthings: Hi, thanks for the update. I'll take a look and update within the next 1-2 days. If I see anything that I am unsure about (factually) then i'll let you know. The article looks a little beefier than it did before anyway. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:40, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Trainsandotherthings, I have read through this again now and made some minor adjustments, as well as changed the books to newspaper formatting. On that latter note, although you seemed to think that exercise was pointless, you may not be aware that using the correct google newspaper format in these instances allows you to directly shortcut a link to a specific article within the newspaper itself by using the "pg" parameter in the url (for instance, this reference has a code in the "pg" part of the url instead of the page number which goes straight to the article in question - no need to search the page). Admittedly this doesn't work all the time, but I have done this on supported references. The other changes you can see in the edits (I wasn't sure about "uniquely", I linked to Pooling (resource management) and a few other tweaks). I'm sorry if you thought some (or one) of my review comments were unnecessarily pedantic, however hopefully on the whole, you consider the review fair and productive which also picked up some factual errors that you were able to correct. I'm happy to mark this for GA now, so well done on that, though do consider the google books/news thing on any other articles (especially if not using clippings). Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:46, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]