Talk:Cornwall Railway viaducts

Cornwall Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Cornwall, an attempt to improve and expand Wikipedia coverage of Cornwall and all things Cornish. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project member page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.CornwallWikipedia:WikiProject CornwallTemplate:WikiProject CornwallCornwall-related articles

Mid

This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

See drop-down box for suggested article edit guidelines:

Be bold - if you know something about Cornwall then put it in! We value your contributions and don't be afraid if your spelling isn't great as there are plenty of spelling and grammar experts on clean-up duty!
Articles on settlements in Cornwall should be written using the standard set of headings approved by the UK geography WikiProject's guideline How to write about settlements.
At WikiProject Cornwall we subscribe to the policies laid down by Wikipedia - particularly civility and consensus building. We are aware that the wording on Cornish entries can sometimes be a contentious topic, especially those concerning geography. You don't have to agree with everything but there is no excuse for rudeness and these things are best solved through consensus building and compromise. For more information see WP:CornwallGuideline.
These pages are not platforms for political discussion. Issues relating to Cornish politics should be restricted to those pages that directly deal with these issues (such as Constitutional status of Cornwall, Cornish nationalism, etc) and should not overflow into other articles.
Most of all have fun editing - that's the reason we all do this, right?!

Trains Low‑importance

Trains Portal

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Trains, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to rail transport on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. See also: WikiProject Trains to do list and the Trains Portal.TrainsWikipedia:WikiProject TrainsTemplate:WikiProject Trainsrail transport articles

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Bridges and Tunnels Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Bridges and Tunnels, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of bridges and tunnels on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Bridges and TunnelsWikipedia:WikiProject Bridges and TunnelsTemplate:WikiProject Bridges and TunnelsBridge and Tunnel articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Untitled[edit]

I've decided to create an article charting all of the railway viaducts and bridges in the UK. as it is just started it needs heavy expansion etc. I am not sure what to do with individual articles listing railway viducts and bridges etc. See: List of railway viaducts in the United Kingdom. I hope the scope is not too big. Simply south 12:55, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is an important topic. Brunel's timber engineering accomplishments are highly significant. It would obviously be improved by illustrations. Are the "Binding" illustrations ruled out by Copyright problems? What about the National Archive photos? Copyight problems too? If not, we should certainly put a selection of them on here.

Cheers, Dendrotek 17:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Formatting[edit]

Something's up with the formatting of this article; if the Contents box is visible there's no text going to the right of it, which results in effectively a blank page. Not good! Graldensblud 17:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How's that? (following intro tweaks...) -- EdJogg 22:06, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

History section[edit]

"The lease precluded the conversion of the broad gauge line to standard gauge, and the Cornwall Railway refused to pay for the widening of the viaducts during rebuilding to accommodate a double line of standard gauge tracks (it had been built as a single-track line)."

I'm confused by this. Replace "standard" with "broad" and it begins to make sense but as it stands it doesn't. I'm not sure enough of the facts to do the edit but here's my reasoning. The line was built as a single-track in broad gauge. The bridges and viaducts needed replacing and the Cornwall Railway wanted to take the opportunity to double the track but didn't want to go to the extra expense of a broad gauge double track, preferring a standard gauge double track, though the lease didn't allow the proposed gauge conversion. Comments? 83.104.249.240 (talk) 02:22, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Constructional Features section[edit]

In the description of the Class D structures there's an incomplete sentence - an incomplete word, even. Has some previous edit gone wrong? 83.104.249.240 (talk) 02:26, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well spotted! I've put it right now. Geof Sheppard (talk) 08:10, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Calstock?[edit]

Should the Calstock viaduct be on this page? Talskiddy (talk) 22:18, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is not a Cornwall Railway viaduct; it was built by the Plymouth, Devonport and South Western Junction Railway. Geof Sheppard (talk) 13:50, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see now. 'Cornwall Railway viaducts' not 'Railway Viaducts of Cornwall' :) Talskiddy (talk) 21:31, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Typos and references, and scope[edit]

This is now a much better article than most of the railway oriented ones, congratulations to the editors hitherto.

There are still a couple of typos which I will deal with tomorrow.

I was startled by reference 12 simply referring to Brian Lewis and a page number and date. Presumably this refers to his excellent book Brunel's Timber Bridges and Viaducts? If so, oughtn't we to say so? And in fact doesn't he deserve to be in "Further Reading"?

Finally, unless I've missed something all the viaducts here happen to be timber. Didn't the CR build any masonry viaduct at all, anywhere? If not, for the benefit of a less-informed reader, we ought to say so, and if they did we should say that the scope of this article is confined to timber viaducts. (In view of the query about Calstock, I wonder if the scope should be spelt out more explicitly anyway .... ?)

I'll delay blundering into edit mode for a couple of days in case any wiser heads than mine are watching this and can steer me.Afterbrunel (talk) 11:20, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The first paragraph is a bit cumbersome; the "however" clasue isn't really justified. I propose to rewrite the intorduction, keeping all the logic but (I hope) improving comprehension. I'm still worried about whether this page covers all the CR viaducts or just the timber ones (plus that large metal one across the Tamar). I'll try to rationalise that too. Afterbrunel (talk) 15:59, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article is inended to cover the viaducts built (and rebuilt) by the Cornwall Railway Company, that is between Plymouth and Falmouth but not Truro to Penzance or elsewhere. It does cover non-timber structures such as Par. The structure at Saltash is technically the Royal Albert Bridge and so I think is outside of scope - anyway, it already has its own article.

The reference to Lewis is expalined in what is currently cite-note 50 (relating to Lostwithiel being reconstructed at an unknown date). WP style doesn't need a cited work repeated as "further reading".

Any help to make this all clearer is always welcome. Shout if there's anything that doesn't make sense. Geof Sheppard (talk) 12:48, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is an excellent article; I am going to try to build on it, enhancing the introductio nfor the general reader who might find this a biut daunting. For the same reason I am going to see if I can do an overview map ... not sure if it will be feasible without being impossibly complicated ... I'll see.Afterbrunel (talk) 10:45, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gangers[edit]

I see that someone has reverted my edit about gangers. Could he help me to understand why?

I don't know if this comes from Mike Holgate's book -- the citations have all gone haywire at present -- but it is a common fallacy to equate "ganger" with "member of a gang". It is nothing of the sort, it means "working leader of gang of workers". Obviously it is possible that there were two actual gangers on the bridge when the fatalkties took place ... Mike Holgate seems to write sensational accounts of hair-raising events, and his understanding of the subtleties of railway work may, or may not, be complete.

Happy to have this clarified, and I hope to see a response in a few days time, but if not I shall re-revert it. Afterbrunel (talk) 17:59, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have found some original reports from the newspaper archive; I will edit the page so as to avoid any conflict about "gangers". Afterbrunel (talk) 19:36, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You replaced the correct term "ganger" with "gang [member]". A ganger is effectively the foreman of the gang, not merely a member of it. For safety matters like this, it would have been that foreman who carried the responsibility (even if it hadn't been their mistake, it was their responsibility to check it). So this was specifically a criticism of the gangers in charge, not the general gang navvies. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:33, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not exactly; I agree "ganger" means "person in charge of gang" -- that was the point I was making in the first place. I have used the original text from the Times -- Holgate's book is just a lurid version based on that -- which said that the [single] ganger and the supervisor were culpable. That is the edit I made. Afterbrunel (talk) 18:11, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Citations gone wrong[edit]

Nearly all the citations have gone haywire at present, with red error reports everywhere. None of the cited books has a title. (I always find the Harvard citation system jolly hard work anyway.) I tried going back to earlier versions from months ago in case someone had inadvertently done this, but no joy. It may self rectify tomorrow ... but if not, has anyone any suggestions? Afterbrunel (talk) 18:02, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The following day: this is still a problem; I don't know how it has happened. If iut doesn't rectify soon I will try to retrieve the proper references.Afterbrunel (talk) 08:47, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Has anyone got a solution to this (short of reconstructing them all one by one)? Afterbrunel (talk) 18:12, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Mr Dingley Afterbrunel (talk) 20:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Cornwall Railway viaducts. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150402150934/http://rememberfalmouth.co.uk/view/278/ to http://rememberfalmouth.co.uk/view/278/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 07:41, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]