Talk:Providence and Worcester Railroad

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Featured articleProvidence and Worcester Railroad is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on April 18, 2023.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
December 20, 2021Good article nomineeListed
January 11, 2023Featured article candidatePromoted
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on January 8, 2022.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the Providence and Worcester Railroad (train pictured) became independent in 1973 after 85 years of being leased?
Current status: Featured article

Map[edit]

It would be nifty if a map were provided which distinguishes between owned and leased lines. -- Beland 02:18, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Type of service[edit]

Was the P&W always a freight-only railroad? -- Beland 01:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

This review is transcluded from Talk:Providence and Worcester Railroad/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Whiteguru (talk · contribs) 19:47, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]


Starts GA Review. The review will follow the same sections of the Article. Thank you --Whiteguru (talk) 19:47, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 


Observations[edit]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
   HTML document size: 172 kB
   Prose size (including all HTML code): 30 kB
   References (including all HTML code): 59 kB
   Wiki text: 36 kB
   Prose size (text only): 18 kB (2980 words) "readable prose size"
   References (text only): 7985 B
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
  • WP:Proseline: Despite this, the company quickly began to make a large profit upon opening, thanks to the large amount of traffic it carried
  1. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):
  • Copyvio check picks up names of railroads; else, all is fine.
  1. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  • Page is "readable prose size";
  • Lead is crisp and sharp.
  • Founding section is good with the history and links to the Blackstone Canal.
  • Trains magazine not giving access to reference 17... Reference 21 does a lot of back-fill ...
  1. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  • Neutral point of view is presented.
  1. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
  • Page created 9 January 2005
  • Page has 309 edits by 127 editors
  • Majority of annual edits in October 2021
  • 90 day page views = 3249 views, with a daily average of 36 views
  • Other than bots reverting financial links, page shows very few instances of vandalism and steady improvement
  • page is considered stable.
  1. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  • File:P&W 4006 Baltic CT.jpg = Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
  • File:Providence and Worcester Railroad logo.svg = fair use claimed = fair use under the Copyright law of the United States.
  • File:Providence and Worcester RR 1909.jpg = is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer.
  • File:Route of the Providence and Worcester rail road (11839037763).jpg = Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
  • File:Providence and Worcester Railroad line within Salt Rock State Park, Sprague, Connecticut.jpg = Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
  • File:Middletown, CT - rail tracks east of Main St 01.jpg = Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
  • File:ProvWorc10.1.05.jpg = Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
  • File:Providence and Worcester freight train in Pawtucket, June 2008.jpg = Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
  • All photos have fair use rationales and are appropriately tagged.
  1. Overall:
  • The Ghoul Express? my, my, Halloween will never be the same.
  • Reference 17 is indeed referential to the expansion days; however Reference 21 gives significant backfill as well. Well sourced.
  • All clear apart from the minor prose matter mentioned above. --Whiteguru (talk) 05:19, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 

 Passed

 

Did you know nomination[edit]

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 09:38, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A Providence and Worcester Railroad train in Connecticut in 2012
A Providence and Worcester Railroad train in Connecticut in 2012

Improved to Good Article status by Trainsandotherthings (talk). Self-nominated at 17:17, 23 December 2021 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
QPQ: Done.

Overall: All hooks seem ok. My favourite is ALT2. I've done some minor copyediting of the article's text. Bahnfrend (talk) 05:40, 29 December 2021 (UTC) ALT0 to T:DYK/P7[reply]

FA[edit]

This is an excellent and entertaining article, and kudos to the editors who've worked on it. Ravenswing 01:15, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Accidents[edit]

The article mentions one accident, but there must be others. Most rail company articles have an "accidents and incidents" section. Mjroots (talk) 17:18, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In my research for bringing the article to GA and subsequently FA, I have been unable to find any records of serious accidents besides the 1853 collision, and several sources (including Karr's The Rail Lines of Southern New England) explicitly state it was the only major accident in the company's history. There have been minor derailments, of course, but overall the company has had an excellent safety record. One story was published last year about G&W's safety record in Connecticut, and notes several P&W derailments in 2022, but none were notable enough to merit inclusion in the article, in my judgement. The article also notes that overall, G&W's accident rate per hour worked is less than half the average of U.S. railroads. I am aware many articles have an accidents section, but this is not a Class I railroad with thousands of miles of tracks. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 18:21, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Edit requests[edit]

  • Specific text to be added or removed: Originally a single track, its busy mainline was double-tracked after a fatal 1853 collision in Valley Falls, Rhode Island... Key commodities carried by P&W include lumber, paper, chemicals, steel, construction materials and debris, crushed stone, automobiles, and plastics
  • Reason for the change: All this data does not have a relevant source to support it and is a lot of information that lacks credibility. Unless there is a more recent source supporting this information, we request this to be removed due to it being uncited.
  • References supporting change: Not applicable, I want this to be removed, not replaced.

Nick.deligtisch (talk) 17:14, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely not. You are proposing to remove 3/4 of the lead section based on lack of citations. Given most of the these are historical claims, they do not need recent sources (facts from 1853 probably haven't changed much in the past few decades). Lead sections do not need cites because they merely highlight or summarize parts of the article body: citing a reliable source in the body is sufficient. You should spend time reviewing our WP:V policy (and its WP:RS guideline) and lead section standard before filing any more requests similar to this one.
Note that this article was recently promoted to "featured article" status, which means it had many layers of scrutinty for content and sourcing quality.
As a specific example, the idea in the lead that double-tracking followed (in time, and also at least partially motivated by) the 1853 accident parallels content in the § Construction and operations section. The content in the article is cited to the Heppner book, and this book supports both the timeline and the accident as one motivating factor to get it done. DMacks (talk) 18:43, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All this data does not have a relevant source to support it and is a lot of information that lacks credibility. Unless there is a more recent source supporting this information, we request this to be removed due to it being uncited. In a word, bullshit. It's all well cited and documented in Karr 2017, Heppner 2012, and Lewis 1973, among other sources. I spent a month on getting this article to featured article status and did extensive research and checking with sources. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:52, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]