Talk:Northfield railway line

Location of (The) Stockade

Hello. User:ScottDavis - you mentioned "guesstimating" the coords for the former Stockade station. Perhaps this link Map of Adelaide 1913 (click to zoom) will help. JabberJaw_JAPAN talk

It looks like my guess is a bit further along the bike path than that map suggests, but since the map also has Northfield Station in the wrong place, I'm not sure how reliable the crtographic representation of the end of the line would be. If the map is right for teh end of the track, the end of the line was very close to the original Northfield station east of Briens Road. --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:38, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Actually, the map confirmed what was originally mentioned on the Northfield station page (that it was formerly west of Briens road then moved east after 1961 when the Stockade station was closed). As for proximity, I'm sure that Stockade station was located within the prison precincts (as a freight or prisoner transfer point) and not in the same general passenger use that Northfield was. Please check out this 1949 Gregory's Directory (Index Map & Map 37) - download the file for best viewing. The Fullers 1940's Adelaide Directory map 8 shows another image of it as well. JabberJaw_JAPAN talk 14:34, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Verification required

Does anyone have access to the CatchPoint journal of May 2007? ScottDavis has suggested that the State Library or the National Railway Museum may have it. If you, reading this sentence, have access to it, please take a moment to verify this addition: Special:Diff/651881146.

The article currently relies on the integrity of an internet forum post at busaustralia.com, which is not a reliable source. Hoping that someone may be able to fix the issue, I'll wait a week before removing the link.

Previous discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:ScottDavis&oldid=890516331#Verifiability_at_Northfield_railway_line

~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:36, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

I have sent an "Ask a Librarian" request to the National Library of Australia:

To whom it may concern,

thank you very much for providing this service.

I'm a Wikipedia editor, currently trying to verify a citation in the article "Northfield railway line". Back in 2015, someone has cited a reliable journal, but they had no direct access to the journal article. Instead, they based their contribution to Wikipedia on an internet forum message that contains a manually typed copy of the journal article. At least it allegedly does.

We are not allowed to rely on user-generated content to create articles at Wikipedia. Citations must come from a reliable source.

Do you have access to the "CatchPoint" journal, issue May 2007, which contains an article named "A Brief History of the Dry Creek to Stockade Railway"?

If so, you could do Wikipedia a huge favor by verifying the following addition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/651881146

You may like to verify the citation directly and publicly at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Northfield_railway_line#Verification_required

To respond, no account is required. There is a "New section" link at the top of the page, and you can use it to add a comment. If you leave the "Subject/headline" field empty, the comment will be appended to the last section.

This may be an unusual yet interesting request. Of course, sending me a mail or e-mail with your verification is also possible, and I'll happily add it to the Wikipedia talk page for you.

Thank you very much in advance, for your time and work. Best regards

Tobias Frei (ToBeFree @ Wikipedia)

Let's see what happens. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:03, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Exactly what do you think could have been mis-transcribed in that post of a Catchpoint article to the Bus Australia forum? Do you think the closure dates are wrong, or locations of stations, or...? I notice the same reference has been used for the station articles along the line, so if there is something doubtful, it is probably doubtful in several places. It's also possible that the transcription to the forum is accurate, and the original article was wrong, so knowing what to attempt to verify from other sources will be helpful. Otherwise, finding the original Catchpoint article will only confirm the transcription is faithful, not that the information is correct. For example, Map 46 on page 107 of [1] (found from [2]) shows only Cavan, Pooraka and Northfield stations for passengers. The map is dated 1959 and the whole document 1962, but we don't claim that there was regular passenger service to Stockade anyway. --Scott Davis ^Talk 02:00, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

I have reformatted the citation to make it clear that the URL is from a discussion forum which quotes the original (unseen) source. I think this complies with WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT. --Scott Davis ^Talk 06:07, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Mistranscription can happen accidentally or on purpose; I am very hesitant to trust an internet forum quote as a reference for a Wikipedia article, even if it allegedly comes from a reliable journal. The verifiability policy plays an important role in preventing embarrassing citation loops and hoaxes from damaging Wikipedia's reputation.

Regarding WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT, thank you very much for doing that. I agree that we should quote what has actually been used as a reference. I am just questioning the practice of having done so in the first place, and the validity of the resulting article.
I have received a response from the National Library of Australia, confirming that the article "is indeed contained in Catchpoint, May 2007", and that it "can be found on pp 27-29.". Sadly, this response does not explicitly verify the integrity of the quote; it just confirms that the journal article exists. I am unsure whether to ask for further confirmation; I don't want to carelessly take advantage of other people's time. Ideally, I'd live in Australia and have the time to verify this myself. Sadly, neither currently applies.
I think we can leave the article as it is for now; your improvement seems to have solved the main issue. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:23, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

@ToBeFree: Thank you. I agree that reading the real article would be better than assuming someone else's transcription is accurate, but ultimately, it is no better to you than if I had read the article in hardcopy and assured you I have correctly written the Wikipedia article from it. I noticed that the Catchpoint article's author is the same person as the Meat Game history of the abattoir so there might be sufficient information in that book to confirm any doubtful key facts. I certainly recall the level crossings across two main roads and confirm the skate park is at the former Northfield terminus. --Scott Davis ^Talk 23:26, 6 April 2019 (UTC)