TfD not CSD |
Proposal |
||
Line 105: | Line 105: | ||
==TfD== |
==TfD== |
||
As putting the {{tl|db}} tag on this template marked all the articles it was included in for speedy deletion I have removed it - I also disagree that it should be deleted. Instead I have nomianted it at [[Wikipedia:Templates for deletion]]. [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] 22:21, 6 April 2006 (UTC) |
As putting the {{tl|db}} tag on this template marked all the articles it was included in for speedy deletion I have removed it - I also disagree that it should be deleted. Instead I have nomianted it at [[Wikipedia:Templates for deletion]]. [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] 22:21, 6 April 2006 (UTC) |
||
== Proposal == |
|||
Now that things seemed to have calmed down a bit, I suggest the following version: |
|||
{| class="toccolours" style="margin:0 auto; clear:both;" |
|||
|- |
|||
! style="background:#ccccff" colspan="2" | [[List of companies operating trains in the United Kingdom|Passenger train operators in the United Kingdom]] |
|||
|- |
|||
!style="background:#ddddff;" colspan=2|[[Rail transport in Great Britain|Great Britain]] |
|||
|- |
|||
!style="background:#ddddff;" valign="top" align=right|'''Domestic:''' |
|||
|[[Arriva Trains Wales]] - [[c2c]] - [[Central Trains]] - [[Chiltern Railways]] - [[First Capital Connect]] <br /> |
|||
[[First Great Western]] - [[First ScotRail]] - [[First TransPennine Express]] - [[Gatwick Express]] <br> |
|||
[[Great North Eastern Railway|GNER]] - [[Heathrow Connect]] - [[Heathrow Express]] - [[Hull Trains]] - [[Island Line, IOW|Island Line]] - [[Merseyrail]] <br> |
|||
[[Midland Mainline]] - [[Northern Rail]] - [[one (train operating company)|one]] - [[Silverlink]] - [[Southeastern (train operating company)|Southeastern]] - [[South West Trains]] <br> |
|||
[[Southern (train operating company)|Southern]] - [[Virgin Trains]] |
|||
|- |
|||
!style="background:#ddddff;" align=right|'''International:''' |
|||
|[[Eurostar]] |
|||
|- |
|||
!style="background:#ddddff;" colspan=2|[[Rail transport in Ireland|Northern Ireland]] |
|||
|- |
|||
!style="background:#ddddff;" align=right|'''Domestic:''' |
|||
|[[Northern Ireland Railways]] |
|||
|- |
|||
!style="background:#ddddff;" align=right|'''International:''' |
|||
|[[Enterprise (train)|Enterprise]] |
|||
|- |
|||
|} |
|||
The rationale behind this version goes like this: |
|||
* Upon the privatisation of British Rail, there were clearly three types of franchise: InterCity, London & South East (i.e. the old [[Network SouthEast]]) and Regional. Nowadays, it is much less clear cut, especially with the creation of 'one' and the new First Great Western franchise (which was formed from one of each of the three types!). It's only going to get worse, with the creation of the new West Midlands franchise etc. I have therefore grouped all of them together as "Domestic" operators. |
|||
* Grand Central Trains doesn't need to be there, as (as far as I know) it's still not 100% clear that they will be operating services at all. If (and when) they do, they can be added into the table. |
|||
* Stansted Express doesn't exist as (and is not branded as) a separate operator, it's part of the 'one' franchise. |
|||
* While it is true that Eurostar has three shareholders (Eurostar UK, SNCF and SNCB), the three don't need to be mentioned individually on the template, as its ownership is explained clearly in the [[Eurostar]] article. |
|||
* The same can be said about the joint IE/NIR Enterprise service. |
|||
* Complications over which operators are franchised and which are not can be better described in the articles themselves, not on the template. After all, people who are not experts in the precise workings of the railway industry won't know what this means anyway (and we need to remember that such people may be ''reading'' these articles!). |
|||
As you can see, I've added a bit of colour. Also, if someone could explain what's wrong with the line spacing in the first box, that would be good. |
|||
On some other pages, such as [[Talk:List of companies operating trains in the United Kingdom|here]] and [[Template talk:UK Major Railway Stations|here]], there's a mention of a possible UK Railways [[Wikipedia:WikiProject|WikiProject]]. I'm willing to support this. --[[User:RFBailey|RFBailey]] 20:23, 10 April 2006 (UTC) |
Revision as of 20:23, 10 April 2006
Division
Is there any reason that the franchises are arranged as they are? There seems to be some bias in terms of the London and South Eastern section - it could be seen to imply that thats the only places where these operators are - should South West trains be here?
Also is this being undermined by the move to multi service level franchises? Should the new Great Western franchise be listed as an InterCity operator given the scale of local services it will have inherited? Ian3055 23:21, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
- Would London Commuter be a better title - and for Greater Western, when First Group make up their mind about the sector names we might not have a problem - I know the original idea was 'First Great Western Express' for the current FGW, 'Great Western Link' remaining as is, and 'Great Western Local' for Wessex. Still leaves the problem of where to put 'one' Enotayokel 12:12, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
- Without knowing the franchise map like the back of my hand, the particular one which causes me problems is Chiltern, it strikes me that their business is going to be pretty well spread accross their route London-Birmingham-Kidderminster/Malvern. I dont know what the answer is just the the current is a bit misleading. Ian3055 20:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
- Why is 'one' in that list three times? And why is Virgin, which is two franchises, only represented once? And if 'one' is listed under the same name twice, why not FGW under two different names (FGW and FGW Local)? bz2 20:54, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
British or UK
Now that the train operators in Northern Ireland have been added should the title of the template not be Trains Operators in the UK, not British train operators? --Achmelvic 23:44, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
Iarnród Éireann/Irish Rail
I think it is somewhat questionable that this entry should be in the template as Iarnród Éireann/Irish Rail services within the United Kingdom, i.e. Northern Ireland, are offered jointly (Enterprise) with Northern Ireland Railways rather than exclusively by Iarnród Éireann/Irish Rail?
Djegan 20:29, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- DART certainly has no place here, and I think Iarnród Éireann’s operations in the U.K. are adequately covered by the Enterprise link in the International section. David Arthur 22:32, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Railtour operators
There's been some reverting back and forth over the inclusion of railtour operators, so we'd better reach some sort of conclusion over them. Should they be listed in this template? If so, someone better write some decent articles on them. bz2 21:09, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- I must say I can’t really see any great justification for them to be included, since they aren’t really part of the serious railway system or committed to long-term operations. This template seems to have gone a bit critical in the past few days; I think it’s really a bit excessive to mark open-access operators on the template, since it doesn’t affect their service from a passenger’s point of view and is explained in the articles. David Arthur 22:50, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Template redesign
This template is getting rather unwieldy, and will only become more so with the coming reorganisation of the railway franchises, since First Great Western will be operating in three separate categories (four if you count Heathrow Connect as an airport service). I also think that the details on which are, for example, open-access and government-owned railways do not belong on the template; indicating the sorts of services that companies provide seems useful, but beyond that, the template’s function is to list the companies, while their respective articles give the more involved information.
I also wonder whether Grand Central should in fact be listed, since at present they only have provisional approval, which remains subject to discussions between their managers, the Office of Rail Regulation, and other train operating companies using the East Coast Main Line. What are other people’s views?
This is my proposal for the new template for after 1st April; does anyone have any comments? David Arthur 23:07, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- My impression is that it's a lot more crowded and difficult to read, and so it's not really an improvement over how the existing template would be post-changes. --Fuzzie (talk) 23:38, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- I would say its more difficult to read too. Part of the solution to this maybe to only include operators which are actually running services at any given time, all these forthcoming operators are just getting in the way. The other major problem we have to get over is the division of franchises, First Great Western provides an immediate problem, but with the forthcoming changes to the map its going to get ever more difficult.
- London and South Eastern has to go in my view, really it is just a subset of Regional, but with an incredible London POV, IMHO. Can we really put Chiltern and Silverlink in that section when they take up parts of the Central franchise? There must be some sensible way to organise these - thinking cap time. Ian3055 00:14, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- By the time Central gets axed, the only London suburban operators will be pretty much Southern and c2c. All the others will have significant long-distance offerings. What about just splitting out the airport and intercity operators (Virgin, FGW, GNER, TPX, Hull and MML), lumping the rest (including FGW local) into a 'regional' or 'local' group? Oh, and Grand Central and the railtour operators can go. What about this? bz2 12:45, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- London and South Eastern has to go in my view, really it is just a subset of Regional, but with an incredible London POV, IMHO. Can we really put Chiltern and Silverlink in that section when they take up parts of the Central franchise? There must be some sensible way to organise these - thinking cap time. Ian3055 00:14, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- One thing that has always struck me is if First TransPennine should really be classed as an intercity operator as much as they market it as one. I've always viewed it as an inter-regional service and not actually more high profile than say Scotrail or Central's express routes, after all the rolling stock used is no more impressive, and Scotrail's sleeper service is often classed as intercity. Plenty of other examples of the problem with classifying into the current structure exist, such as SWT services to Exeter or Southern's express trains to Brighton which would surely be called intercity if were not in the south-east. And since Greater Western is going to include both intercity and local services in the same way that ONE/Anglia already does maybe we should just have a simple list of all TOCs plus international and airport links like this? --Achmelvic 14:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- Looks good. We might as well restore the split between government-run and open access... there's tonnes of space for footnotes. Also, "London airport links" (single capital) looks better, IMO. bz2 14:50, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- That looks great. --Fuzzie (talk) 14:56, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- That looks nice, except that I would remove the 'not franchised' note - I don't think it really contributes enough to the template to justify the extra space it uses. David Arthur 17:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- That version as it is looks great, there is no need to separate them any further, the numbers of franchises are falling anyway. All I'd say is re the airport links section, should we illiminate the word "London" so as to make provision for any other services? And do we want to include parts of franchised operators separately in the airport section (eg one Stansted or Gatwick Express if its merged into Southern)? But yes, this is a vast improvement. Ian3055 17:51, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- I would list the airport links separately only if they are at least branded separately, if not actually separate companies/franchises; even one’s Stansted Express seems a bit borderline to me. David Arthur 19:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- Happy that people like my attempt at the template here, have tweaked it a bit. How abouts we go with it after 1st April once the franchise changes have happened? --Achmelvic 10:25, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
- I would list the airport links separately only if they are at least branded separately, if not actually separate companies/franchises; even one’s Stansted Express seems a bit borderline to me. David Arthur 19:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- That version as it is looks great, there is no need to separate them any further, the numbers of franchises are falling anyway. All I'd say is re the airport links section, should we illiminate the word "London" so as to make provision for any other services? And do we want to include parts of franchised operators separately in the airport section (eg one Stansted or Gatwick Express if its merged into Southern)? But yes, this is a vast improvement. Ian3055 17:51, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- That looks nice, except that I would remove the 'not franchised' note - I don't think it really contributes enough to the template to justify the extra space it uses. David Arthur 17:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- One thing that has always struck me is if First TransPennine should really be classed as an intercity operator as much as they market it as one. I've always viewed it as an inter-regional service and not actually more high profile than say Scotrail or Central's express routes, after all the rolling stock used is no more impressive, and Scotrail's sleeper service is often classed as intercity. Plenty of other examples of the problem with classifying into the current structure exist, such as SWT services to Exeter or Southern's express trains to Brighton which would surely be called intercity if were not in the south-east. And since Greater Western is going to include both intercity and local services in the same way that ONE/Anglia already does maybe we should just have a simple list of all TOCs plus international and airport links like this? --Achmelvic 14:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I'd definatly agree that something needs to be done to make the template both simpler and also less open to change, ie so we don't get the situation that have had in the last fortnight or so of it changing almost every few hours, esp as it now appears to have railtour operators included! As it seems that there are enough ppl to keep it up-to-date anyway I'd agree should only include companies actually running trains at that moment, so for dates like 1st April when which franchises change (which don't happen very often anyhow) it can be changed then. Whilst London and South-East does carry much more passenger traffic than rest of the UK, as has been mentioned, the divisions that are used will increasingly become useless for classifying companies. Afterall they are a hangover from the time of the BR sectors which were used for privatisation. --Achmelvic 00:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Northern Ireland
Regarding the current revert war, I can understand the reasoning behind removing Northern Ireland Railways and as a consiquence Enterprise (train). As the template is currently based it s clearly a "Train Operating Company" rationalisation and this terminology is only applicable to the post-privatised companies (of British Rail) and not Northern Ireland which is still public and unfranchised and has a distinct system. Category:Post-privatisation British railway companies has about as much relevence to Northern Ireland as Category:Transportation companies of Ireland has to Britain.
Djegan 14:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- And in case anyone doesn't know, not only are they regulated separately, they are of different gauges and there are a multitude of other differences. It therefore makes more sense to talk of the British system and an Irish system. If you want a template, put NIR in a template with Iarnród Éireann and Enterprise. — Dunc|☺ 19:34, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
I’m inclined to agree to the separation — though in terms of national boundaries Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, as far as the railways go, the systems are British and Irish, and it only confuses things if Wikipedia treats them as a combined unit. David Arthur 21:01, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Compromise
As a compromise, I have seperated the GB and NI services on the template. That way, all views are maintained equally - NIR and Enterprise remain on the template (which I think they should), while staying seperate from the GB companies. However, it should be noted that there are a handful of individual branded services listed (Eurostar, Enterprise, Stansted Express) which are owned by other companies and, as such, the two Sleeper services (Caledonian Sleeper, Night Riviera) should also be included. Hammersfan 23.25 BST, 29 March 2006
- The problem with putting this template in NIR and Enterprise articles is that it assigns Category:Post-privatisation British railway companies to every article that it is placed in and this category is irrelevent (for reasons explained under Northern Ireland above) to those two articles. Djegan 22:35, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- Have you considered simply removing the categorisation from the template and adding the category to the individual articles? Seems like a logical thing to me Hammersfan 09.10 BST, 30/03/06
- Firstly, I have added Category:Post-privatisation British railway companies individually to the relevant articles and removed it from the template, which therefore means that the template can now be added to the NIR and Enterprise pages without adding them to the category. However, I have also noted that someone has added Iarnród Éireann to the template. This is incorrect, as IE's only operation in the UK is Enterprise, in conjunction with NIR. Enterprise should be treated the same as Eurostar - that is a train service operated by three companies (LCR, SNCF and SNCB). If Iarnród Éireann is to be on the template, perhaps SNCF and SNCB should be too? Of course they shouldn't, because they aren't British, and neither should IE, because it isn't a British company. Therefore, IE should be removed and just Enterprise listed. Also, someone has rearranged the Stansted Express as one (Stansted Express). If this is acceptable, then why not under the sleeper category First ScotRail (Caledonian Sleeper) and First Great Western (Night Riviera)? Hammersfan 09.35 BST, 30/03/06
- To take both this discussion and the one above about template redesign into account how about this layout here as a compromise for both? Have to wait until Saturday (1st April) when the franchises change before using my design. --Achmelvic 08:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
- That looks ok, but I at least think that the intercity services (GNER, Virgin, First Great Western etc) should be split from the regional services and that Grand Central Trains should also be included (as it has been definatively announced, unlike the new franchises due for 2007). I also think it would look better if it wasn't centred. Hammersfan 15.45 BST, 30/03/06
- The problem with splitting companies into types is that some belong in more than one, e.g. First Great Western (after 1st April) will be an intercity and regional and London & SouthEast operator, as one already is, so should be in all three groups, hence it'd be better to just have one group for all regular operators IMO. Also there is the arguement that First TransPennine Express doesn't run proper intercity services like, say, GNER but simply a more marketed version of the type of express services run by First Scotrail or Central, basically unlike at the time of privatisation where do you could draw the line between intercity and regional now the former BR sector operations are being broken down and re-merged. --Achmelvic 15:07, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
- Don't forget though, FGW, although all part of one company, will still have three seperate brands, which can easily be considered seperate operators. As for 'one', although all services except Stansted Express are branded simply as 'one', it would be possible to categorise their services as one (Anglia) under InterCity, one (West Anglia) under London and one (Great Eastern) under regional. I agree that First TransPennine Express is a borderline case for being classed as an InterCity service (possibly for the main reason that it doesn't use sleek fronted high speed trains :-P), but you could compare it perhaps more to Virgin Cross Country than either Central or First ScotRail, as it doesn't seem to operate any local services. Hammersfan 16.40 BST, 30/03/06
- However from the announcement on their website [1] they aren't now going to go with the original idea of having three brands, from tomorrow it'll all just be First Great Western. There will be only one article for FGW so we'd have three links in different categories going to the same place, simply adding more clutter to a template that looks over burdened as it is. One only have one One website and there's only one One article on Wiki so should only have one One entry here ;-). And it'll only get worse, for example when the DfT let the proposed West Coast franchise that combines commuter services from Silverlink we'll have the same situation. I'd repeat that the idea of different categories is a leftover from the BR sector days which isn't appropriate to the system we've got today, afterall at privatisation instead of giving it more thought they simply sold off companies in the structure that was in place in at the time. If we start dividing up franchises into sub-groups it's going to become a very cumbersome template. --Achmelvic 08:03, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
- Don't forget though, FGW, although all part of one company, will still have three seperate brands, which can easily be considered seperate operators. As for 'one', although all services except Stansted Express are branded simply as 'one', it would be possible to categorise their services as one (Anglia) under InterCity, one (West Anglia) under London and one (Great Eastern) under regional. I agree that First TransPennine Express is a borderline case for being classed as an InterCity service (possibly for the main reason that it doesn't use sleek fronted high speed trains :-P), but you could compare it perhaps more to Virgin Cross Country than either Central or First ScotRail, as it doesn't seem to operate any local services. Hammersfan 16.40 BST, 30/03/06
- The problem with splitting companies into types is that some belong in more than one, e.g. First Great Western (after 1st April) will be an intercity and regional and London & SouthEast operator, as one already is, so should be in all three groups, hence it'd be better to just have one group for all regular operators IMO. Also there is the arguement that First TransPennine Express doesn't run proper intercity services like, say, GNER but simply a more marketed version of the type of express services run by First Scotrail or Central, basically unlike at the time of privatisation where do you could draw the line between intercity and regional now the former BR sector operations are being broken down and re-merged. --Achmelvic 15:07, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
- That looks ok, but I at least think that the intercity services (GNER, Virgin, First Great Western etc) should be split from the regional services and that Grand Central Trains should also be included (as it has been definatively announced, unlike the new franchises due for 2007). I also think it would look better if it wasn't centred. Hammersfan 15.45 BST, 30/03/06
- To take both this discussion and the one above about template redesign into account how about this layout here as a compromise for both? Have to wait until Saturday (1st April) when the franchises change before using my design. --Achmelvic 08:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
How about then thinking outside the box - rather than the traditional categories we've been assigning (which stem from the old sectors of British Rail), why not come up with some new categories? For example:
- International: Enterprise, Eurostar
- Mainline: Chiltern, GNER, Grand Central, Hull Trains, Midland Mainline, Virgin West Coast
- Integrated: First Great Western, one
- Cross-Country: First TransPennine Express, Virgin Cross Country
- Regional: Arriva Trains Wales, Central Trains, First ScotRail, Island Line, Merseyrail, Northern Ireland Railways, Northern Rail
- London Suburban: c2c, First Capital Connect, Heathrow Connect, Silverlink, South Eastern, South West Trains, Southern
- Airport Express: Gatwick Express, Heathrow Express, Stansted Express
- Sleeper: Caledonian Sleeper, Night Riviera
Then, as more integrated franchises are created, they can be added to the integrated category. Hammersfan 11.00 BST, 31/03/06
Fair enough with adding the template to NIR/Enterprise, I have no problem with this as long as no inappropriate/misleading categories or terminology is used. One thing I would say is that a separate Northern Ireland section maybe unnecessary and just clutter. Djegan 17:42, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
- In that case, both NIR and Enterprise should be reinstated to the main template, but shown in such a way as to make it clear they are not part of the National Rail network; the same should go for those operators on the National Rail network that are open-access and not franchises, beyond simply putting an asterix by them. This is what I had in mind. Hammersfan 16.45 BST, 31/03/06
- Whilst I'd still prefer a simpler non-divided template if we were to go with your idea I've slightly adapted your proposal here to make the layout a bit simpler and use less page space, what do people think? I wouldn't bother with the Cross Country section meself, esp as it's a repeat of entries above under Mainline, plus not sure what order the categories should be in? I think the title should make it clear that is only for scheduled service so doesn't include Railtours and in theory heritage lines etc. One problem is that people will keep editing it to what they see as the right structure, have noticed someone has already changed the 'live' version for tomorrow. Ultimatly it needs to come under the remit of the Wikiproject I proposed in the Rail operators article discussion to look into all the UK rail articles and their structure as IMHO they need to be majorily overhauled, all brought up to date and given a more logical setup but that's a much longer term concern. --Achmelvic 19:11, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
- That actually looks pretty good. On the Wikiproject idea, I think I can safely say we are in complete agreement, otherwise this whole saga will, like the river, just keep rolling along. Hammersfan 20.20 BST, 31/03/06
- Whilst I'd still prefer a simpler non-divided template if we were to go with your idea I've slightly adapted your proposal here to make the layout a bit simpler and use less page space, what do people think? I wouldn't bother with the Cross Country section meself, esp as it's a repeat of entries above under Mainline, plus not sure what order the categories should be in? I think the title should make it clear that is only for scheduled service so doesn't include Railtours and in theory heritage lines etc. One problem is that people will keep editing it to what they see as the right structure, have noticed someone has already changed the 'live' version for tomorrow. Ultimatly it needs to come under the remit of the Wikiproject I proposed in the Rail operators article discussion to look into all the UK rail articles and their structure as IMHO they need to be majorily overhauled, all brought up to date and given a more logical setup but that's a much longer term concern. --Achmelvic 19:11, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Latest revert war
Thanks to the latest revert war the template is even more of a fiasco than previously. Iarnród Éireann/Irish Rail has no place in the template as discussed above, nor does London and Continental Railways, SNCF or SNCB. If one anonoymous editor is messing with consensus and common sense then protection rather than compounding the fiasco is the way to go. In any case the template should be kept simple. Djegan 12:08, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
- In that case, perhaps the anonymous editor, who ever he or she is, should think about things a bit more before simply reverting. The template does not feature train operating companies, because the majority are owned by a handful of companies, or are integrated franchises covering more than one sector. What in fact are listed are brands - Virgin Trains is a brand, First Great Western is a brand, one Railway is a brand, GNER is a brand. The "individual train services" that our anonymous reverter seems to have a beef about are also seperate brands - operated by TOCs yes, but branded seperately, and, as such, provided that there is an explanation that they are operated by FGW, one Railway or whoever, should be individually included on the template. That way, we prevent single articles being listed in multiple categories, as we have with FGW (four times) and one Railway (three times). Surely that's better? Hammersfan 20.15 BST, 02/04/06
- Exactly, we have to stick to brands to a big extent and not start listing owners/operators. After all Virgin Trains is partly made up of Virgin Cross Country which is officially Cross-Country Trains which is owned by Virgin Group and Stagecoach Group, but passengers (oh sorry customers) just know it as VT. Where would we stop? The template as it is now seems the best compromise that we'll get. I'm starting to think we should add a big line at the top asking people not to edit it without discussing reasons here first otherwise we'll just be going round in circle every few hours! --Achmelvic 19:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
- Precisely. Actually, I'm glad you brought up Virgin Trains, as I had a thought about that - seeing as Virgin operates two franchises under a single brand name, wouldn't it be more logical to include it in the "integrated" category? (even though it strictly isn't an integrated franchise) Hammersfan 11.55 BST, 03/03/06.
- The current version of the template is realy messed up! It's titled 'train operating companies' and includes several individual trains that are operated by companies wich are listed as well. There should be no trains only companies.
- Since when are sleepers train operating companies?
- The current version of the template is realy messed up! It's titled 'train operating companies' and includes several individual trains that are operated by companies wich are listed as well. There should be no trains only companies.
- Precisely. Actually, I'm glad you brought up Virgin Trains, as I had a thought about that - seeing as Virgin operates two franchises under a single brand name, wouldn't it be more logical to include it in the "integrated" category? (even though it strictly isn't an integrated franchise) Hammersfan 11.55 BST, 03/03/06.
- Exactly, we have to stick to brands to a big extent and not start listing owners/operators. After all Virgin Trains is partly made up of Virgin Cross Country which is officially Cross-Country Trains which is owned by Virgin Group and Stagecoach Group, but passengers (oh sorry customers) just know it as VT. Where would we stop? The template as it is now seems the best compromise that we'll get. I'm starting to think we should add a big line at the top asking people not to edit it without discussing reasons here first otherwise we'll just be going round in circle every few hours! --Achmelvic 19:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
And since when is it the task of templates to explain to us the differences between the legal frameworks under which various companies operate, or their ownership structures? My recommendation: get rid of the sleepers; move Northern Ireland to a separate template for the Irish network, since the railway boundaries are different from the national ones; move Eurostar back into InterCity (sorry, ‘Express’) since that leaves it the only entry in ‘International’; remove Grand Central until they start actually operating trains; and eliminate the footnotes. David Arthur 23:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
- I Agree I will remove all individual train wich belong them selves to train companies and remove NIR. Plus i would suggest to rename 'London & suburban' since Southern, South West Train & Southeastern are more than just suburban Operators.
Delete this template
This is getting us nowhere; nobody is ever going to agree to anything regarding this template, because people are not willing to compromise, discuss, agree, with the cosequence that we end up with the farce of having three foreign rail companies listed with the UK (not, I hasten to add for the benefit of certain people who won't take no for an answer, British) operators. I say we just delete this template and start all over again with an agreed set of ground rules that people stick to. Hammersfan 11.25 BST, 04/04/06.
- To be honest I'm coming to the same conclusion, this is just getting annoying, dull and repetative. How abouts we just don't have a template and simply use categories which certain companies/services can be added to like Current Railway Passenger Operators in the United Kingdom, Current Railway Passenger Operators in Great Britain and Current Railway Passenger Operators in Northern Ireland? --Achmelvic 12:19, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
- I think that's probably the best idea - having a "current UK passenger operators" category means that "certain" people can't keep complaining. Hammersfan 14.15 BST, 04/04/06
- Yes this current version is past its used by date. How about listing all operators as listen on the national rail website [[2]] and then grouping them. On way of grouping could be by type, franchise, open access operator, etc.
- I think that's probably the best idea - having a "current UK passenger operators" category means that "certain" people can't keep complaining. Hammersfan 14.15 BST, 04/04/06
Certainly it appears to be going towards a deletion as the refuseniks will not accept that the template should be a series of brands/services and not companies — their not willing to discuss and only do unilateralism. Iarnród Éireann/Irish Rail keeps going back in when it has no business in the template as discussed previous. Djegan 18:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
TfD
As putting the {{db}} tag on this template marked all the articles it was included in for speedy deletion I have removed it - I also disagree that it should be deleted. Instead I have nomianted it at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion. Thryduulf 22:21, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Proposal
Now that things seemed to have calmed down a bit, I suggest the following version:
Passenger train operators in the United Kingdom | |
---|---|
Great Britain | |
Domestic: | Arriva Trains Wales - c2c - Central Trains - Chiltern Railways - First Capital Connect First Great Western - First ScotRail - First TransPennine Express - Gatwick Express |
International: | Eurostar |
Northern Ireland | |
Domestic: | Northern Ireland Railways |
International: | Enterprise |
The rationale behind this version goes like this:
- Upon the privatisation of British Rail, there were clearly three types of franchise: InterCity, London & South East (i.e. the old Network SouthEast) and Regional. Nowadays, it is much less clear cut, especially with the creation of 'one' and the new First Great Western franchise (which was formed from one of each of the three types!). It's only going to get worse, with the creation of the new West Midlands franchise etc. I have therefore grouped all of them together as "Domestic" operators.
- Grand Central Trains doesn't need to be there, as (as far as I know) it's still not 100% clear that they will be operating services at all. If (and when) they do, they can be added into the table.
- Stansted Express doesn't exist as (and is not branded as) a separate operator, it's part of the 'one' franchise.
- While it is true that Eurostar has three shareholders (Eurostar UK, SNCF and SNCB), the three don't need to be mentioned individually on the template, as its ownership is explained clearly in the Eurostar article.
- The same can be said about the joint IE/NIR Enterprise service.
- Complications over which operators are franchised and which are not can be better described in the articles themselves, not on the template. After all, people who are not experts in the precise workings of the railway industry won't know what this means anyway (and we need to remember that such people may be reading these articles!).
As you can see, I've added a bit of colour. Also, if someone could explain what's wrong with the line spacing in the first box, that would be good.
On some other pages, such as here and here, there's a mention of a possible UK Railways WikiProject. I'm willing to support this. --RFBailey 20:23, 10 April 2006 (UTC)