Talk:Wood River Branch Railroad

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by RoySmith (talk) 01:00, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

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• ... that the Wood River Branch Railroad was once sold for $301? Source: "Five-Mile Railroad Sold For $301". Popular Science. December 1938. p. 92. Retrieved October 31, 2022. [1]
  • ALT1: that the Wood River Branch Railroad was saved from abandonment when a railroad executive had doughnuts with the owner's mother? Source: "Abandon Rhode Island's One-Man Six-Mile Railroad". The Lewiston Daily Sun. April 14, 1937. p. 11. Retrieved November 1, 2022. [2]
  • ALT2: ... that a Rhode Island resident bought the Wood River Branch Railroad "so his mother wouldn't feel lonely" and then personally ran it for 40 years? Source: "Abandon Rhode Island's One-Man Six-Mile Railroad". The Lewiston Daily Sun. April 14, 1937. p. 11. Retrieved November 1, 2022. [3]
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Bir Hakeim rescue
  • Comment: Requesting the quirky hook slot for this article. QPQ coming soon.

Created by Trainsandotherthings (talk). Self-nominated at 02:34, 2 November 2022 (UTC).

• Hi Trainsandotherthings, review follows: article created 31 October and exceeds minimum length; article is well written and cited inline throughout to what appear to be reliable sources; there's a discrepency between the infobox (which states 5.6 miles) and lead (6.0 miles) on the length of the railway and the length is note cited anywhere, neither is the fact that it was standard gauge; hook facts are interesting, I am not sure about ALT1 as the source seems to say that the talk with the mother did most of the work, but the other two check out; awaiting a QPQ - Dumelow (talk) 10:18, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

  The length is 5.6 miles. Sources often rounded it up to 6 miles or down to 5 miles, but the 1947 article in The Day lists the exact length of 5.6 miles. This has been cited, explicitly stated in the body, and made uniform throughout the article. The fact that the railroad is standard gauge is not generally something that needs a citation in the U.S.; the national rail network has been standard gauge for 150 years, but if you insist I can probably track down a cite. Multiple FAs on standard gauge railroads do not directly cite the track gauge. I know ALT1 is editorialized, but generally some editorializing is allowed with hooks, and I really don't think this is an issue to the point the hook needs to be rejected. The source does indeed state there was a box of doughnuts involved. I am open to rewording ALT1. QPQ will be done today and I will post it here when it's done. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 12:53, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Trainsandotherthings, thanks for replying. I am happy with your explanation on standard gauge. Not sure about ALT1. The source states "it was preserved only by Watrous bringing the railroad executive who wanted to abandon the system to see his mother. 'I gave him some doughnuts, a glass of milk, and let him talk to my mother.' Watrous said, 'We decided not to abandon it'". The first sentence seems to make it clear (to me) that it was the discussions with the mother that were important. Happy to refer this for a second opinion if you like and ALT1 is your strong preference - Dumelow (talk) 13:11, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Would you be open to a rewording of ALT1? Such as "that the Wood River Branch Railroad was saved from abandonment when a railroad executive had doughnuts with the owner's mother?" Also, I just completed QPQ. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 13:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Yep, that works for me. I've amended ALT1 and approved - Dumelow (talk) 16:01, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Wood River Branch Railroad/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs) 23:04, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

All aboard the hype train or whatever. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:04, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Nitpicking on the assumption that this will go to FAC in the future.

• "only one or two at any one time" - sub "any given time" to avoid repeating "one" in the same sentence?

  Agreed, changed. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:25, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• "(The New Haven)" - "the" shouldn't be capitalized here since it's not capitalized elsewhere, no need to capitalize the first letter in a parenthetical interruption

  Capitalization changed. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:25, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• Do we know why they tried to abandon it in 1937? (body doesn't say either)

  I added information on this to the article. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:40, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• The donuts and milk, I cannot

  I was surprised the hook I proposed using that at DYK wasn't picked, personally. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:25, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• I'm being a little fussy but the Hope Valley Advertiser box quote feels redundant to the text in the body about how the Hope Valley Advertiser says the railroad is barely independent

  Replaced with a quote from Watrous I find funny. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:40, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• I love the detail about the loan default. "Uhh just ignore it and maybe our own mounting debt won't get worse ha ha ha"

  As it turned out, the New Haven went bankrupt in 1935, and didn't emerge from it for over a decade. Then it went bankrupt again in 1961, which it never escaped from until being merged into Penn Central at the end of 1968. Then Penn Central went bankrupt in 1970. It's bankruptcies all the way down. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:25, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• "repair the line" & "the entire line" - using "the line" twice in one sentence, bit repetitive

  Changed to "Faced with major expenses to make repairs". Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:25, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• The box quote from Rawlings is really funny but why is it in the next section?

  Because I use visual editor and miss things like this. Moved. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:40, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• Also generally for box quotes, it's nice to include the ref after the source

  Done. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:40, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• Can "Demise" and "Legacy" be combined into one section? Legacy is so weeny

  I don't see any reason not to. Change made. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:25, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• It feels weird to me to have a section that's just a table above the final prose section, but that may just be me. If it's typical for railroad articles, ignore me here

  There's no particular reason it has to be in that order. I've moved the station listing to the end. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:25, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

That's basically it, mostly nitpicking. As usual a solid and serviceable article. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:02, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I think I've addressed everything, @Premeditated Chaos:. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:25, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Looks good to me! I made a small tweak of the box quote placement to (sort of) fix sandwiching. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:35, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Locomotive #5

Locomotive number 5 was not a Forney, as by definition Forney locomotives do not have a pilot truck (they are 0-4-4T, not 2-4-4T). That parenthetical comment should be removed. Beyond that, the LIRR never had any 2-4-4T locomotives. It's possible the locomotive was originally a 0-4-4T Forney, which the LIRR did have, and a pilot truck was added by the Wood River (which would make it no longer a Forney, of course). Even further, the dimensions given in the Hope Valley Advertiser (ref #75) are nonsensical for a Forney locomotive (15" x 29" cylinder), suggesting that the entire description in the newspaper is inaccurate. The LIRR Forney locomotives were Vauclain compound, which you would think would be notable enough for the newspaperman to mention (altho if the #5 did come from the LIRR, that would support the idea it was built by Baldwin, since the Vauclain design was proprietary to Baldwin). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.229.227.37 (talk) 19:08, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Prove it. Otherwise, we go with what the sources say. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:18, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Prove what? Any book on locomotives (including Forney's own) will tell you a Forney doesn't have a pilot truck. The LIRR locomotive roster is on-line, you can see they had no 2-4-4T types, altho they did have 0-4-4T Forneys. And if you don't understand why a 15" x 29" cylinder is silly, then you know little about locomotives. When you speak of "sources say", you need to be intelligent enough to judge the credibility of the source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.229.227.37 (talk) 23:14, 15 August 2023 (UTC)