Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Intermediate station

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to Train station. Daniel (talk) 17:51, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Intermediate station[edit]

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Unnecessary WP:NOTDICDEF. Perhaps quite telling that the links to other types of stations (through station, branch-off station) also don't link to articles about that type of station, but to vaguely related articles which don't really explain these terms anyway. Anyway, not really a necessary or enlightening article, basically (also according to the source used in the artice[1]) intermediate stations are all stations between end stations. Well, yeah, that's quite obvious. Fram (talk) 08:44, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language and Transportation. Fram (talk) 08:44, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, article feels like a written version of Just a Minute: see how long you can write, without repetition, deviation or hesitation, on what is ultimately a plain and simple dictionary definition. Elemimele (talk) 13:14, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is not a dictionary definition - you won't find it in a standard dictionary - but it is a very common railway term and a very common railway facility. In fact, the majority of stations are intermediate ones and that means they are different in significant ways from others such as termini, transfer stations and junctions. The fact that English Wikipedia is underdeveloped in this area of railway business, which is why some of the links don't yet have their own articles or article sections, is not a good reason for deletion; otherwise the subject area will never get covered. This article needs to grow and the links need to be developed; that's how Wikipedia gets improved. I'm willing to work on that with the cooperation of other interested editors. And taking the mick as per Elimimele is hardly a good encyclopaedic argument and fails the dictionary test as well. Bermicourt (talk) 13:22, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm well aware of our deficiencies in this area, as I'm the one who made Passenger train, Freight train, and Maintenance of way into standalone articles, created a number of articles that were missing for railroad maintenance of way equipment, and am responsible for the only such article to reach GA status (Train). I'm not saying this to brag, but to show that I am familiar with the topic area and feel confident in saying this doesn't need its own article, and instead should be incorporated into our existing train station article. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:07, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry that this was seen as taking the mick. But it is a dictionary definition. It just says, in an incredibly long-winded way, that an intermediate station is a station that's intermediate between other stations. It's possible to write a useful history of such concepts as a passenger train, while maintenance of way is a subject that cries out for an encyclopaedia article, but it's impossible to write anything about intermediate stations that isn't just general stuff about stations. Intermediate stations are an inevitable feature of a rail system, and no more interesting as intermediates than a bus stop half way along a route. Articles that rely on extremely pedantic mini-distinctions between near-identical items don't improve the encyclopaedia. Elemimele (talk) 09:48, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For example, one source that could be used to expand this to a decent sized article has an entire chapter on the "Organization of Intermediate Station Operations" which covers their definition, responsibilities, passenger and freight operations, safety operations, train-receiving and dispatching and car-marshalling, operational plannning, equipment management and and personnel. So we're being a bit hasty condemning this as nothing more than an "dictionary definition" when is in fact a broad topic that easily merits an article. Bermicourt (talk) 13:43, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean this Communist China manual? Fram (talk) 14:52, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, but the text is the same as the British source it drew on. Try googling "intermediate station" and "train" and you'll get a gazillion hits, many related to the features of an intermediate station and how it's used. Here's another source that describes, among other things, the main operations at intermediate stations. And here are some university course notes that make frequent mention of intermediate stations and give a typical layout, so it's reached academia. In this source the modelling of intermediate stations is presented to the European Conference on CIS. It's pretty clear that there is a vast amount of material on the topic that could be used to expand the article. Bermicourt (talk) 17:19, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Of course if you're an academic or engineer you should know the principles of station design, but stuff like how to calculate track lengths, design of basic platforms and intermediate platforms for passengers in a station, that a passageway connecting them should be "no less than 2.5 m" wide, design of ordinary platforms and high platforms for freight, tables of parameters, etc. are too intricate for an encyclopedia (WP:NOTTEXTBOOK). What I'm reading in this chapter can still be covered in some ways at Train station, Railway platform, Freight yard, Catch siding, etc. There are also chapter sections on how to design high-speed stations, district stations, etc. that don't need separate articles either. Reywas92^Talk 20:34, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete/merge Seems like a few sentences could be merged to Train station or maybe Railway stop, but this is a pretty basic definition that wouldn't inform anyone who's been on a train before of anything new. I don't think there's a word in the manual linked by Fram that's actually specific to intermediate stations – dealing with lines, passengers, and freight applies to other stations too, and everything in here likewise seems kind of obvious that you should have safety procedures, communication equipment, shift plans, etc., all generic stuff perhaps for Rail transport operations. Reywas92^Talk 15:25, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Merge or redirect to Train station. I note that the term "intermediate station" is not present at either train station or Glossary of rail transport terms. There is no need for a standalone article when this can easily be defined in the train station article. Essentially anything you could say about intermediate stations would be redundant with the train station article, as the vast majority of train stations are intermediate stations. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:02, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Merge into Train station. Intermediate station is a preliminary and unjustified WP:SPINOFF. It belongs under Train station, under the same category as Terminus, though with a significantly lesser propensity to justify a WP:SPINOFF one day. When fitting Intermediate station in, please make note of the partial overlap of Intermediate station with Railway stop, belonging to another category. gidonb (talk) 21:16, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merge into train station. I'm sympathetic to the existence of this article but it can't stand on its own; an additional complication is that the German language has specific terms for concepts that are recognized in English but don't have specific analogues. Keilbahnhof is a good example of this, and one where an article is justified. Mackensen (talk) 12:45, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.