Talk:Flexity Outlook

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Merger from Flexity Outlook (Toronto LRT car)[edit]

  • Oppose - Not necessary for decent sized article that is unique from the main subject. Ng.j (talk) 11:10, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support merge with Flexity Outlook – There's only one Flexity Outlook type, just like there's only one Chevrolet Camaro made in the USA for the European market, you wouldn't have separate articles for each Camaro, as you wouldn't have separate articles for the Chevrolet Cruze built in five plants on four continents simultaneously. Let's keep it all in one page for clarity. —Moebiusuibeom-en (talk) 21:22, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a bad argument because some portion of the article will be devoted not to the design of the Toronto variant, but to milestones in the installation of infrastructure to run and service the vehicles. Some portion will be devoted to hickups and peculiarities of operating the vehicles. If the mergists succeed that material will be of very little interest to those interested only in the general design of flexity vehicles. Geo Swan (talk) 04:18, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - The Toronto LRT car article actually refers to two different Light Rail Vehicles. The "legacy streetcar" LRV is a highly customized Flexity built specifically for the Toronto streetcar system, while the "Transit City" LRV is pretty much an off-the-shelf LRV that will be used on the Crosstown LRT. As such, the above comment applies only to the Transit City LRV. The legacy streetcar has more significant differences from the standard Flexity Outlook than one would find between different continents' Chevrolets. To continue the car analogy, the difference between a "legacy streetcar" Flexity and a standard Flexity is greater than the difference between: Opel Astra, Vauxhall Astra, and Holden Astra; Ford Escort (Europe) and Ford Escort (North America); Chevrolet Uplander, Saturn Relay and Buick Terraza; Chevrolet Venture, Pontiac Montana and Oldsmobile Silhouette; Holden Monaro and Pontiac GTO; Cadillac Escalade, Chevrolet Suburban and Chevrolet Tahoe; Toyota Corolla Rumion, Daihatsu Materia, Scion xB and Toyota bB; Toyota ist and Scion xA; Honda Accord (Japan and Europe eighth generation) and Acura TSX, etc. In fact, many of these cars vary little more than by where they are sold (Holden/Saturn/Opel/Vauxhall Astra, for example).Reaperexpress (talk) 16:00, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The branding, variations in submodels and accessories, and often even the engine used can vary, as can the history of the generations, from brand to brand. Regardless, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. - Floydian τ ¢ 20:51, 22 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per reasons given by User:Reaperexpress, however, Toronto's Flexity Outlook aren't referred to two types. All of Toronto's Flexity Outlooks are to be used on the Toronto streetcar system and the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown line, except the latter will have multiple vehicles attached to form a light-rail/rapid transit train. However, Toronto's Flexity Outlook is significantly different from the standard ones. EelamStyleZ (talk) 01:39, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: IMHO it's still only a variant of a standard model. Give it its own section in the main article. Useddenim (talk) 04:38, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • How closely did you read the article on the Toronto vehicles? With only three vehicles delivered it is longer and has more than twice as many references as this article on the general design of flexity vehicles. What did you think should happen to the material in the Toronto article? Once the Toronto vehicles are operational and contributors start adding material on its operation, if mergist succeed, a Toronto section will dwarf the rest of the article.
  • Support - The Toronto Flexity Outlook is still a Flexity Outlook variant. And concerning above comments, the TTC's Flexity Outlooks will be used on streetcar system. The Proposed, more suburban LRT lines such as the Eglinton Crosstown, will use a vehicle called the "Bombardier Flexity Freedom". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.117.108.52 (talk) 08:31, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Oppose UK Rails wiki policy is that each should have their own page to allow more fidelity in detail and the recording of their own unique history but im not going to push for the policy to be adopted wiki wide. WatcherZero (talk) 13:34, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose -- A merge would very seriously undermine the usefulness of the wikipedia for the many individuals interested in the development, delivery and operation of the Toronto vehicles, who aren't interested in the Flexity model more generally. So long as the articles remain separate, I can leave Flexity Outlook off my watchlist, and keep Flexity Outlook (Toronto LRT car). But if mergists succeed I will be burdened by watchlist hits that are false positives. This won't happen once, it will go on for years. Geo Swan (talk) 03:32, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Merge the content into a new section of this article. Condenses separated details into a single article that will then have a more broad and comprehensive coverage of the topic. - Floydian τ ¢ 20:47, 22 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, but excessive and unnecessary merges are a grave disservice to readers. "Broad and comprehensive" articles were an important goal of old paper encyclopedias. This was a forgivable sin for paper encyclopedias. But, when we have bidirectional links at our disposal, narrow, focussed articles should be our goal. Why? Because navigating to content we might be interested in, through clicking on a link is orders of magnitude more convenient than navigating to that content through scrolling through a "broad and comprehensive" article. When one scrolls through a "broad and comprehensive" article, searching for other content one is interested in, and realize it wasn't what you were looking for -- there is no "back button" to return one to where you were prior to the distraction. Geo Swan (talk) 23:20, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • WP:WIAFA - I'm not sure what you're trying to insinuate, but broad and comprehensive articles are the ultimate goal of Wikipedia entries as well. Ctrl+F searches for you. WP:SPLIT also addresses this. - Floydian τ ¢ 16:55, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        You haven't addressed how this merge will inconvenience those of us who use watchlists.
        How exactly is WP:SPLIT, a howto on splitting articles relevant to this discussion over a suggested merge?
        And how is WP:WIAFA relevant? Geo Swan (talk) 21:09, 2 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Undue weight regards opinions and POV, not incomplete articles that have been split. Those who use watchlists are not inconvenienced, and we write for our readers not our editors. How is WP:SPLIT not completely relevant here? We're looking at two articles, one of which covers a particular facet of the other, larger, subject matter. The larger subject is a very incomplete article, while this facet topic is a little more detailed... I'm not seeing the benefit gained by splitting the small facet from the larger subject. As for those reading the Flexity Outlook article, the Toronto portion would be under its own heading and so those with no interest in that implementation would simply skim on. Right now we are unnecessarily fragmenting this subject. - Floydian τ ¢ 16:15, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          1. If we merged, as you suggest, most of the merged article would be about the Toronto implementation -- a disservice to those uninterested in the Toronto system.
          2. Those who use watchlists are inconvenienced. I am both a reader and an editor. What makes you think our most regular readers haven't established watchlists, without ever having made a meaningful contribution here. If I were an expert in some field, or even a keenly interested follower, I would establish a wiki-ID, solely so I could establish a watchlist, even if I never made a contribution.
          3. With regard to your point that we "write for our readers not our editors" -- who says omnibus articles serve our readers? Okay, you do, but you haven't really addressed the various points that show broad omnibus articles are a great inconvenience to readers. First, the editor who plans out a broad omnibus article has to rather artificially decide which aspects of the topics are the most important. This was forgivable in authors of old linear paper documents, but it simply does not make sense for non-linear branching documents -- like wikis. Readers should be free to choose their own paths when reading about the related topics that interest them -- and skip those related topics that don't interest them. This is much harder when someone thinks they are smarter than our readers and takes the power away from them by artificially amalgamating perfectly fine useful articles on a single topic into a mish-mash omnibus article on multiple topics
          4. You write: "We're looking at two articles, one of which covers a particular facet of the other, larger, subject matter." No, that is not what we have. To someone with no no real interest in trams, per se, and thus no real interest in Flexity trams, the Flexity Outlook material is not a larger, broader article, with information they should also read -- it is a bunch of irrelevant, peripheral distractions. To a reader whose real interest was transportation in Toronto, or the history of electrically powered transportation in Toronto, the Flexity Outlook (Toronto) material is the main article, and the Flexity Outlook article is a vaguely related peripheral article, of much less importance to them, than the Toronto article.

            Sorry, I am not trying to be unpleasant here, but you have one single approach to the information in these article, and you are trying to force all our readers to read the information we offer in the order you arbitrarily decided was the right order.

            You are not the boss of me. You are not the boss of our readers. Why should we ask our readers to be restricted to reading the information we can provide here in the order you decided they should read it in?

            If we retain small, focused, stand-alone articles, those readers who actually do want to read the information in the order you prefer can do so, and all the other readers who want to read the information, or portions of it, in other orders, that make sense to them, can do their thing just as easily.

          5. You still have not addressed a point I consider important. Our readers encounter passages where they have a choice of following one path, and reading the very next sentence or paragraph, or navigating to somewhere else, and reading about something related. I pointed out that when they go to that other place via clicking a wikilink, returning to where they left off requires only a trivial click of their "back" button. I pointed out that there is no convenient way to return when everything is packed into an omnibus article, and they have to scroll, or use a search mechanism. That big omnibus article may contain the related information they want to look for, and they won't be able to find it because they didn't search for it under the right phrase, or they misspelled the phrase, etc. Going to a smaller stand-alone articles, through clicking on wikilinks, has strong arguments in its favor. I am frankly frustrated you aren't addressing this point. Geo Swan (talk) 20:47, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Stale?[edit]

This merge proposal is almost three years old. Most of the comments date back to 2011. The strongest recent advocate of merging hasn't offered any counter-arguments for almost 9 months.

So, I suggest the discussion is stale, and the merge tags should be removed. Geo Swan (talk) 16:52, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think waiting four weeks is long enough. I removed the merge tags. Geo Swan (talk) 23:05, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Heritage designs, and the Flexity article[edit]

Bombardier is now, apparently, the most significant manufacturer of trams, world-wide -- or if it isn't there are lots of RS that say it is so. After reviewing more than a dozen related articles I think the entire hierarchy needs some rearrangement. It seems some of the Bombardier trams were originally designed by other firms, that were subsequently bought by Bombardier. It seems those trams were rebranded, to give the appearance that all Bombardier's brands have an underlying plan for their design differences. I suggest that, for some of those designs it would be better if they remained known by their original names, or at least the articles on them should make clear that they are heritage designs.

Flexity Flexity Swift Flexity Classic Flexity Link Flexity Berlin Flexity 2 Flexity Outlook (Toronto LRT car) Flexity 2 (Blackpool) Flexity Freedom Alstom Citadis Adtranz Eurotram Cobra (tram) Cityrunner Bombardier Guided Light Transit ADtranz low floor tram List of Bombardier Transportation products EsTram

  1. Although Flexity Outlook doesn't explicitly say this, it looks like Eurotram and Cityrunner are legacy names for legacy designs.
  2. I see no RS that confirm the Toronto design is derived from the Cityrunner design
  3. Other than using a slightly broader gauge, old-style trolley-poles, and being unidirectional, and having a tighter turning circle I see no other documented changes for the Toronto design. I still think a separate Flexity Outlook (Toronto LRT car) article is merited, because otherwise it would overwhelm the Flexity Outlook article.
  4. Flexity Berlin and Flexity 2 (Blackpool) are also articles about the version in a single city, so the Flexity Outlook (Toronto LRT car) article is not unprecedented.

I think the Flexity article should be updated, and should point to all subarticles on Flexity trams. Geo Swan (talk) 19:48, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Eurotram and Cityrunner[edit]

The 2nd sentence of the first paragraph currently says:

Part of the larger Flexity product line (many of which are not 100% low-floor), Flexity Outlook cars fall into two distinct sub-categories with dramatically different appearances, the Eurotram and Cityrunner.

This assertion is unreferenced, and I think it is questionable. I've waited three months for someone to reference this statement. If it remains unreferenced I will remove it. Geo Swan (talk) 02:19, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Best I can find is mention by some transit authorities that they use the Flexity Outlook Cityrunner[1]. Eurotram only seems to come up on Flickr, message boards, and Wikipedia. Cityrunner seems to be a variant of other Flexity models as well, which leads me to believe it may just be a design option, rather than a submodel of the Flexity Outlook itself. - Floydian τ ¢ 02:45, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at the revision history for Eurotram, expecting to find that there had once been an article at Eurotram that had been merged here. Instead I found it had been redirected here in 2005. That is troubling.
Near as I can determine the Eurotram design was the work of ABB Transportation in the early 1990s. ABB merged with another firm to form Adtranz
Near as I can determine ABB and Adtranz sold Eurotrams to 3or 4 citiies before the firm was acquired by Bombardier in 2001. Near as I can determine Bombardier has not tried to sell any vehicles under the Eurotram brand, since then. Is it possible that any of those original buyers would want Bombardier to restart the Eurotram production line, and build them additional Eurotram vehicles? It is possible. But I found no references to support this. After a dozen years or more it is more likely they would want vehicles that incorporated the improvements, since then.
I also found no references that said Bombardier incorporated any Eurotram technology in any of its other brands.
There is absolutely no justification that I can find for Eurotram to redirect to Flexity, and I think the wikipedia allowed a disservice to readers for the last 8 years by implying there was a connection. Geo Swan (talk) 13:59, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since I found no references that supported a design or marketing connection between Eurotram and Flexity I moved the Eurotram material to a standalone article. Geo Swan (talk) 03:46, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

bogey arrangements?[edit]

At some point someone introduced the terms bobo2bo and bobobo2bo to described the wheel arrangements for the Eurotram. I can find no references that use these terms. I am guessing that whoever introduced them thought they were meaningful obvious terms for referring to the arrangments for a vehicles' bogeys. I added a {{cn}}. Geo Swan (talk) 10:37, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The B's should be uppercase, e.g. BoBoBo means a vehicle with three two-axle bogies. The B, second letter of the alphabet, means two axles; similarly, a CC locomotive has two three-axle bogies. I think the o's have something to do with how the traction is brought to the wheels but I'm not sure. — Tonymec (talk) 21:53, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
See Bo-Bo-Bo (usually written BoBoBo) and UIC classification of locomotive axle arrangements for details. — Tonymec (talk) 22:18, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
TL;DR BoBo2Bo means 4 two-axle bogies, the third bogie unpowered, all other axles with their own individual electric motors. — Tonymec (talk) 22:53, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Cityrunner[edit]

This article is now quite confusing. It has a section entitled 'Cityrunner' with no explanation of what Cityrunner is. Then it starts in:

The more common Cityrunner, which has a more traditional tram design

which rather begs the questions:

  • More common than what?
  • More traditional than what?

Given that previous contributors (above) seem to have determined that the Eurotram has no relationship to the Flexity Outlook (a determination that I have no view on), I think there now needs to be some sort of explanation as to what the relationship is between a Cityrunner and a Flexity Outlook, and some tidying up of the text. Does the info you discovered in making the determination help here?. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 14:05, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cityrunner (Toronto)[edit]

The part about the Cityrunners to operate in Toronto is obsolete, see http://transit.toronto.on.ca/streetcar/4506.shtml . In particular, the contract now concerns double-ended standard-gauge vehicles with doors on both sides. They will also temporarily be fitted with trolley poles in addition to a pantograph, until the TTC overhead lines are made pantograph-compatible. — Tonymec (talk) 21:41, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The "double-ended standard-gauge vehicles with doors on both sides" are Flexity Freedom vehicles ordered by Metrolinx for the Eglinton Crosstown line now under construction. Unlike the Flexity Outlook vehicles ordered by the TTC for its legacy system, the Flexity Freedom vehicles will have no significant customization. (TheTrolleyPole (talk) 23:25, 7 September 2014 (UTC))[reply]
Metrolinx plans to use the Flexity Freedom vehicles on the Ion rapid transit system, in Kitchener-Waterloo, scheduled to be complete before the Crosstown, and in Mississauga and Hamilton, if their LRTs are built, and on the Finch and Sheppard LRT lines, in Toronto.
I can believe that they aren't significantly customized. I will note that Bombardier's material about the FF vehicles touts them as if some modern features, like titanium dioxide antigraffiti paint, were customizations for the North American market.
WRT trolley poles, the bright side in Bombardier's terrible delivery delays is that each route may be pantograph ready by the time there are new vehicles to run on it. Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 14:30, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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