Talk:Deansgate railway station

Football Specials
Hey all, If your wondering the source of this statement, I have seen it repeatedly on journeys into Manchester, I have also found it | here, and | here also, though only a minor variation in the route, I believe it is still relavant to the route. Thanks DannyM 11:04, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Passenger stats
I've added the increase/decrease symbols as these are a common way of showing such movements in infoboxes - not just rail ones. The argument that not many other stations have them doesn't make sense - they have to be added sometime! DrFrench (talk) 22:43, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If there was some sort of initiative from UKTrains then maybe but because you think so doesn't make it right. 22:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I could argue that just because you don't think so, doesn't make that right either... but let's not get personal. In any event it's not a thing for UKTrains, it's all about getting information across in infoboxes. That's why you see these symbols used in a variety of infoboxes (e.g. companies showing profit & assets, etc). Some people consume information (especially raw data in different ways. When presented with a list of stats, the symbols help to show trends at-a-glance. DrFrench (talk) 22:53, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Then why isn't there some taskforce or bot to add these wedges to all infoboxes? 22:58, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't see how a bot could do it and I guess it doesn't really need a taskforce... it's just a case of adding them as you edit articles anyway (as I did to this one). Have a look at Template:Increase, you'll see how many articles use it&mdash;both those that are railway-related and those that are not. DrFrench (talk) 23:07, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

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Was it ever officially called just Knott Mill ?
At the moment, according to the article, the station was twice christened 'Knott Mill and Deansgate' when surely once was enough. Looking at old Manchester papers the station was always known informally as simply 'Knott Mill', but was that ever its official name ? An L&NWR Bill of 1883 is still talking of the 'Knott Mill and Deansgate Station' of the MSJ&AR : what evidence is there for an official renaming after 1883 and a reversal of this some time after 1896 but before 1900 ? Rjccumbria (talk) 19:42, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The first was "Knot Mill and Deansgate" with one "t". But as for whether the official name was ever "Knott Mill", without "and Deansgate", how about the station facade? You get a great view of this when looking east from trams on the Altrincham line. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 23:11, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Guilty to missing the different t-count (but it seems to have been silently corrected within a few years ). I'm afraid the sightseeing tip is wasted on me; it is extremely unlikely I will ever use the trams on the Altrincham line. I regularly took the train there 40-50 years ago, but my reasons for doing so are sadly now all gone. From those days I too was aware of what it says on the station facade (in a decorative moulding (Coade stone?), rather than brick, from a quick confirmatory peek on Google Street). Where I differ from you is not in awareness of the facade, but in what we think it shows. Without documentary confirmation, I don't think the station facade decisive evidence of the full/formal name ever being other than 'Knot(t) Mill and Deansgate'. As it is, the Butt timeline for the station name seems suspect, given the double t in the station name in the 1883 Bill, but it does not seem to support 'and Deansgate' ever having been formally discarded. That's basically why I asked what the evidence was, but more as an idle query than a challenge. Rjccumbria (talk) 19:12, 25 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I am a little concerned that the way in which adverts from newspapers were introduced into this article last year might constitute a form of original research because we use them to deduce things/reach conclusions that are not explicitly stated in them. I'm also at a loss regarding the paragraph mentioning fairs and other local events, which already existed before 2017 but was expanded then - I don't really see the relevance.
 * For what it is worth, the buildings constructed in the 1890s are not direct replacements for those which preceded that time: the old station was situated elsewhere. I'll find a source for this. - Sitush (talk) 21:05, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Knott Mill from 1849-1900, Knott Mill and Deansgate from 1900-1971 and just Deansgate since 1971 WatcherZero (talk) 22:23, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Anbd your reliable source is? I'm not even going into the other issues where original research may be involved. I am often in this quandary because outside of Wikipedia I am very much a primary sources etc sort of person (currently spending far too much time wading through the diaries etc of people related to Sudley House with the intention of writing something that, for reasons of COI, as the putative author, I will be unable to use here) but there are policies and guidelines on Wikipedia, and they exist for reason. Yes, it can be bureaucratic and it can be frustrating but we cannot ignore all of the rules all of the time. - Sitush (talk) 00:46, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * As the apparently guilty party responsible for trawling the British Newspaper Archive last year, my excuse would be that whilst it is clear that railway histories such as Butt are secondary sources, it is not so clear that they are so reliable that they should not be checked against contemporary newspaper reports. I thought that my additions had been careful not to 'deduce things/reach conclusions', nor even to suggest such deductions or conclusions. Once you start to do so, it is of course remarkably easy to make or suggest the wrong deduction, even when using secondary sources. When built the old station was not accessible from the north because of the Rochdale Canal; hence it would be logical to access it from Hewitt Street (a short street parallel to the railway immediately south of the current station) and - as far as can be determined from available maps - the old station was not "situated elsewhere", but lay within the footprint of the current one. Rjccumbria (talk) 02:01, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * No, sorry but you are engaging in original research again. Daft as though it may sound, we have to reflect what reliable sources say and any modern source published by a university press is going to pass the reliability test even if we can deduce from primary sources that it may be wrong. It is not our role to question reliable sources. Having found the source, after my first comment above, I have tried to do just that, which is why the article doesn't say Hewitt Street was another place. - Sitush (talk) 10:22, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * 'No, sorry but you are engaging in original research again.' Well, I would see it as simple (and advisable) fact-checking of your statement that the station was originally elsewhere. And if that ammounted to OR, it would be explicitly allowed by WP NOR: "(This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards.)"
 * 'It is not our role to question reliable sources' but even Homer nods: reliable sources are not infallible, they just have an error rate much lower than unreliable ones. "Best practice is to research the most reliable sources on the topic" says WP NOR. It is therefore prudent to subject all sources to some degree of fact-checking ("trust but verify"), especially if/where what they say is unexpected ("the original Knott Mill station was at Hunt's Bank" would, I hope, not be mechanically imported into the WP article without some form of sanity check).
 * 'Daft as though it may sound we have to reflect what reliable sources say ... even if we can deduce from primary sources that it may be wrong' Where is that requirement identified ? If what they say is wrong, it is not the role of WP to have the article argue against them on the basis of the fact-checking (which would be OR), but to either find a different reliable source which gets it right or (if no such source can be found) to at least not repeat 'information' suspected to be incorrect. Rjccumbria (talk) 16:53, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Did you read what I wrote in the article? I did say I would find the source. I am going to be stripping out your original research - read WP:VNT. - Sitush (talk) 17:37, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * "Did you read what I wrote in the article?" Indeed I did. Having made an erroneous statement on the talk page, with the promise that a source would be provided (I personally prefer sources to be sought pre-statement (for illumination) rather than post-statement for support), you have added a statement on the position of station buildings on the strength of a statement in a 21st century architectural guide. Your basis for doing so would appear to be "Daft as though it may sound, we have to reflect what reliable sources say and any modern source published by a university press is going to pass the reliability test even if we can deduce from primary sources that it may be wrong. It is not our role to question reliable sources." with a subsequent instruction to me to read WP:VNT, presumably in the belief that it supports your view.
 * I can see two problems with that immediately. Firstly, there would seem to be an assumption that primary sources are unreliable. That by no means follows, and I fear you go astray in assuming that it does. Secondly, WP:VNT does not take quite the ipse dixit position you advocate. I recommend to you that you read the following portion of WP:VNT, relating to what truth means on geographical questions: the penultimate sentence would seem to be apposite here
 * "By 'natural science' is here meant a science such as for example geography, anatomy, physics. In natural sciences, there is a degree of factuality that is hard to dispute, as well as more disputable attempts at factuality. Besides factuality, natural sciences also have conventions or customs, and speculation and opinion. Consequently, some judgment and comparison of sources is needed in order to identify reliable sources. Reliable sources respect truth. A source that is untruthful is not reliable. A source may be partly or more or less reliable. Concurrence of possibly reliable sources may help in identifying reliable sources, and editors should seek it. Conflict between truth as a criterion and reliable sourcing as a criterion may nevertheless be a matter of opinion. Reliable sourcing and truth ought to coincide, at least to some degree; such is to be sought by Wikipedia editors. Wikipedia should avoid untruth, even if it appears in otherwise apparently nearly reliable sources. Only reliably sourced material should be posted in Wikipedia articles."
 * A number of 19th century street directories for Manchester can be found here; all give the address of the station as Deansgate, all show the booking office to be on Deansgate, none show railway premises on Hewitt Street, although in the 1883 Slater's directory there is a rubric 'Railway Arches' before the occupied odd-numbered premises; in 1850 there were no occupied odd-numbered premises.
 * It might perhaps have been prudent to find more sources and evaluate them before adding to the article the statement that the original buildings were on Hewitt Street. Rjccumbria (talk) 19:18, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It might be useful if you tried to understand our policies and stopped using primary sources as the crux of your original research. I am well aware of the location of street directories etc - I, too, do primary research for a project and, yes, I have a certain amount of expertise in historical research etc - but I do not import it into Wikipedia. - Sitush (talk) 22:19, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * No one is arguing the permanent station was built on Deansgate, the history books are quite full of references to the original temporary station location that took longer than planned to be made permanent, the question is if the road name was ever appended to the station name before the 20th century and so far no one has produced any evidence to suggest it was while they have produced newspaper articles calling for it to be renamed as such. WatcherZero (talk) 06:02, 8 February 2018 (UTC)