Talk:Goods wagon

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Expand this article[edit]

This article is based largely on European history and practice. Please expand it to cover other parts of the world as desired. Bermicourt (talk) 21:47, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the article is still predominantly German based. Could the text please be edited? MGD11 24 September 2009 (BST)

The German history section has been annotated. Most of the article is now about European and international (UIC) practice, but it still needs fleshing out. --Bermicourt (talk) 10:59, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There could perhaps be an additional section about the history of North American freight cars? Other than that,there is a lot of overlap / duplication between Goods wagon#Types of goods wagon and Railroad car#Freight cars. Perhaps the two could be consolidated in the former and the latter eliminated? Peter Horn User talk 17:26, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The notes below suggest a separate article for N. A. freight cars. Could be a text under Railroad car#Freight cars. A jolly good idea. In that case, all duplications in the lists, etc, could be eliminated. Peter Horn User talk 17:36, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no move. I suspect this is going to end up as a battle between dictionaries and sources and parts of the world. However, I may be wrong and I am open to better solutions.(non-admin closure) jcc (tea and biscuits) 14:09, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Goods wagon → Freight car – .

  • Comment. WP:GOOGLEHITS need to be used with care. TheFreeDictionary is based on the American Heritage Dictionary, a US dictionary. Yes Wikipedia does have many railway articles under US terminology because of WP:ENGVAR, but the UIC is the worldwide authority in this area and they often (but not always) use non-US specific terms. One day, Wikipedia may take a leaf from the United Nations and specify an international dictionary as its spelling standard, but that day is some way off. --Bermicourt (talk) 12:15, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • American usage will dominate internet results, but we don't move article names just because the American variety is most common, that's not what WP:COMMONNAME is about.
  • Different dictionaries will list either depending on location. i think referencing TheFreeDictionary here is rather arbitrary. dictionary.com has entries for both. [1] [2]
Fascinating--how on earth is there a plural title for snow tire? WP:TM, here we come! Red Slash 18:50, 19 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, Dictionary.com defines goods wagon in the same manner as TheFreeDictionary.com: as the British term for a "freight car". --Xiaphias (talk) 18:01, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It may be worth noting that "goods wagon" isn't the most common name even in British English. Red Slash 18:50, 19 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]


  • Oppose because 1) the international word is "goods wagon" as per the International Union of Railways (UIC) of which most leading transport nations (including the US) are members, 2) this article is primarily about European practice and UIC categories anyway and 3) the move contravenes WP:ENGVAR. However, there might be logic in covering US practice and categories under a separate freight car article with links between the two. Bermicourt (talk) 12:08, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support because of the passenger car and railroad car articles; the three should have similar titles. I'd suggest closing this RM and making a centralised proposal for all three of them (and any other articles that might be affected) at which we could simply discuss what the best name format would be, rather than saying "Move one" or "Don't move one". Nyttend (talk) 20:41, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary Jones, Roach, & Setter - 2011 p.xxii "Because the majority of the world's English speakers are non-native — there are thought to be up to two billion non-native English speakers contrasted with 550 million native speakers ..." so we shouldn't adjust the English language for usage in less populated countries like the USA. Per Srinivasan, Tiwari, & Silas Our Indian Railway: themes in India's Railway history 2006 p62 "There were also shortages of goods wagons during the 1900s as traffic densities climbed." This is correct Indian English usage, therefore per WP:COMMONALITY to be preffered. Plus India still uses railways for goods significantly, unlike most other English speaking countries. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:24, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are you going to propose that we move the other two? If so, no objection; if not, why not? Consistency is basic, in part because it confuses readers. Nyttend (talk) 05:22, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nyttend, whom are you asking? If myself, then I personally like horizontal consistency, as per buried in WP:AT though I have taken criticism for suggesting a shortcut be made to allow users to find it. So if you propose the other two to move to more international English titles then I'd probably support. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:28, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In ictu oculi, I'm not so sure 1 quote really proves the dialectic habits of a billion people. Here are some articles from the Times of India that use the term "freight car", including one in a quote from an impoverished Bokaro resident. Australian sites favor "Freight Car" over "Goods Wagon" by a margin of 21-to-1. I don't think you can break this down into an issue of 'US-versus-rest of world'. --Xiaphias (talk) 19:04, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support a goods wagon is also a road vehicle, while a freight car is just a rail car. -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 06:15, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Bermicourt. Junior Lightfoot (talk) 09:18, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment as Nominator: I know for me personally—as someone wholly unfamiliar with railroads and their nomenclature—I have found the railroad articles to be very cumbersome to navigate because of the fluctuating terminology, and the Railroad Car article's section called Freight car corresponding to an article called Goods wagon is one of the more dizzying examples. See other "car"-named articles like Flatcar, Boxcar, Coil car, Well car, Hopper car, Milk car, Refrigerator car, Schnabel car, Stock car (rail) and Tank car. All of these articles defy UIC-sanctioned terminology, which recommends (for example) calling a "stock car" a cattle wagon—a page that doesn't even exist as a redirect yet. This may help illustrate that an endorsement by an international institution does not necessarily indicate a word to be the common international term. Indeed the dictionaries I have checked suggest that "goods wagon" is an idiosyncratic British term for "freight car". --Xiaphias (talk) 18:01, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It may also be enlightening to do a search in the UK-based Cambridge Dictionary. It returns a result for "freight car", which is defined as a US term for "a large wheeled container [...] pulled by train: a goods wagon." But if one were to search for "goods wagon" one would find there is no result other than a suggestion that perhaps you'd misspelled "paddy wagon". --Xiaphias (talk) 18:18, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. In many cases the articles don't match UIC terminology because they were originally created using US-specific terminology and under WP:ENGVAR, Wikipedia doesn't encourage us to alter the original author's spelling from one version of English to another, unless the article is regionally specific. The difficulty is that you will never persuade American editors to accept an international authority if it doesn't use US spelling and, equally, the rest of the English-speaking world will never be persuaded to use exclusively US spelling. One way round this might be to have parallel articles: one set covering North American history and practice (which is often different) and the other covering the rest of the world, with links between them. But even suggesting that would probably set off a heated debate. So we live with what we have, imperfect though it is. A separate article e.g. on "Freight cars of the USA" might be a way forward, with a link from this page... Bermicourt (talk) 20:22, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Have both- Actually a separate article called Freight car that covered North American practice would be a good idea. It would help untangle the present mess where the Freight car section of Railroad car deals mostly with NA types while Goods Wagon deals mostly with European types. Of course each would have a headnote referencing the other. There are enough differences to justify two articles.--agr (talk) 19:37, 19 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Good find!! I wish Google had an option for Indian and Australian English too, it'd be nice to see where those East-Hemisphere Anglophiles came down on the issue!--Xiaphias (talk) 06:44, 20 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per WP:ENGVAR, specifically WP:RETAIN: "An article should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one valid use of English to another.". There are no strong ties between the subject of the article and a particular variety of English, and "goods wagon" is correct in at least one variety of English, so there is no justification to rename. Thryduulf (talk) 22:07, 19 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support' per Red Slash and the supporting data and the long established trend. WP:ENGVAR and WP:RETAIN are not really in play given that the usage has changed. So this is simply an issue under WP:UCN. Vegaswikian1 (talk) 00:43, 20 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Red Slash's statistics are interesting, but this article is international and primarily about the UIC's classification, not about narrow British usage, even if we trust google. But if someone wants to create a freight car article on North American usage, crack on.Bermicourt (talk) 05:30, 20 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment I think the takeaway from Red Slash's findings is that "freight car" isn't just a North American idiosyncrasy—but that said I think you might be right about keeping the concept of "freight cars" separate from the the UIC concept. That way "Goods wagon" could refer exactly to what the UIC decided it should ("Goods wagon is a UIC classification for rolling stock that..."), and Freight car could be about railcars designed for freight. For example, maybe baggage cars are normally considered to be "freight cars" because they haul goods rather than people, but perhaps the UIC doesn't count them as "goods wagons" because they have bathrooms and normal passenger-entry doors. If we had separate articles this wouldn't be a problem: the scope of each article would be clear. --Xiaphias (talk) 06:44, 20 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Comment. And I think we need to be slightly cautious about WP:GOOGLEHITS because the stats don't tell us anything about the sources. How reliable, credible and authoritative are they? Are there multiple copies of the same thing? How accurate is the "British English" filter? "Freight" is certainly used in Britain by the railways, but "freight car" - I'm not sure how widespread that is and don't have access to my British railway reference books. And what about the other dozen or so varieties of English which ngram does not recognise? Remember UIC is an international organisation embracing many countries including e.g. India, which most people would not realise is an English-speaking country, but where English is the engineering language used especially by their railways. So IMHO there is definitely an article around the UIC concept and then there is a debate around which countries are covered by "goods wagon" and which by "freight car". Indeed, if there is enough material there may well be scope for separate country/region articles e.g. "Freight cars in North America" or "Goods wagons in India" etc... Food for thought. Bermicourt (talk) 16:38, 20 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (dictionaries): American Heritage (AmE) and Canadian Oxford (CanE) only have entries for freight car, with no regional labels; the Oxford Dictionary of English (BrE) labels freight car as "North American". Collins English Dictionary (BrE) labels freight car as "US" and goods wagon as "British". The Macquarie Dictionary (AusE) has freight car labelled as "US" and goods wagon without a regional label. SSR (talk) 06:39, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

New article?[edit]

In order to take this forward constructively rather than engage in a "battle" over sources and regions, is there mileage in creating a new article entitled "freight car" or "Freight cars in North America" or similar that covers US and Canadian practice? The 2 articles could then refer to each other e.g. in hatnotes. Unfortunately I'm not expert enough to really start it myself but would be happy to support others who are. Bermicourt (talk) 20:27, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There could perhaps be an additional section about the history of North American freight cars? Other than that,there is a lot of overlap / duplication between Goods wagon#Types of goods wagon and Railroad car#Freight cars. Perhaps the two could be consolidated in the former and the latter eliminated? Peter Horn User talk 17:26, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The notes above suggest a separate article for N. A. freight cars. Could be a text under Railroad car#Freight cars. A jolly good idea. In that case, all duplications in the lists, etc, could be eliminated. Peter Horn User talk 17:36, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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