Talk:Eurasian Land Bridge

2004 redirect
I've temporarily deleted the redirect to the Asian Land Bridge because I'm not sure that's the same project. Another user redirected this to something else: forget the name. So I'm going to do a bit of research to see whether this Eurasian Land Bridge ever existed except in the minds of LaRouchies. Slim 08:43, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)


 * I can't find any references to this that aren't directly or indirectly linked to LaRouche, but the history shows that others have researched this (e.g. AndyL) and have decided to redirect, so I've re-inserted it. Slim

2009 expansion
I've expanded the article and removed the redirect. I did not use any sources linked to the LaRouche organization. A few areas of the topic need additional detail, but I was unable to find further information in English sources:


 * Which railway in Kazakhstan is China using to connect through to Europe?
 * Has Kazakhstan started the narrow gauge railroad project?
 * What's the status of the Bering Strait tunnel?
 * What's the status of the Korean peninsula rail link?
 * How much trans-continental freight and passengers are actually using the Trans-Siberian or Chinese routes each year to go from the Pacific to western Europe? Cla68 (talk) 10:20, 21 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The much older "2004 redirect" comments are strange because there are clearly numerous articles on the European Land Bridge and New Silk Road independent of and even predating LaRouche. It was utilized in the 1940s by the British to refer to connections between the Middle East and the Balkans. MajorStovall (talk) 19:29, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Title question
Hello. I did a search on Google. There are 34,500 hits for "Eurasian Land Bridge" and 13 million for "New Silk Road." Shouldn't the title of this article be "New Silk Road"? MajorStovall (talk) 18:33, 21 November 2009 (UTC)


 * You may be right about the name but I think you should check your search terms. I suspect you searched for New Silk Road, not "New Silk Road". I get 153,000 and 567,000 for the two terms you mention. 80.65.247.36 (talk) 19:09, 21 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I get 155,000 for ELB in quotes and 5.08 million for NSR in quotes. MajorStovall (talk) 19:13, 21 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Strange. I'm googling from the UK but using google.com. I consistently get 567,000 for "new silk road". Very peculiar. Using google.co.uk (but searching all web, not just uk sites) it drops to 176,000. while "Eurasian land bridge" gets the same as google.com at 153,000. 80.65.247.36 (talk) 19:20, 21 November 2009 (UTC)


 * That is odd. I'm googling from the U.S. MajorStovall (talk) 19:25, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was consensus against move.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:48, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Eurasian Land Bridge → New Silk Road — Google indicates that "New Silk Road" is the more common expression for this. MajorStovall (talk) 16:11, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak Support. Google is not the most reliable tool for determining the common name of an entity, but I think the proposed new title is the better one - "Eurasian Land Bridge" suggests a geological feature, rather than an actual bridge constructed to carry a railway. Tevildo (talk) 20:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It's neither - see Land bridge (rail). It's a sort of "bridging" of freight over land between ports. --NE2 19:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The reason I titled this article expansion "Eurasian Land Bridge" over "New Silk Road" was because of the sources I found.  The vast majority of sources that come up under a Google search for either term do not meet our definition of a reliable source.  So, I turned to ProQuest's NewsStand, which contains articles from about 350 major English-language newspapers and news services stretching back to the 1980s.  Within NewsStand, "Eurasian Land Bridge" returned 31 articles.  "New Silk Road" returned 229.  However, while almost all of the articles for the former search term contained information relevant to the subject of this article, the majority of the "New Silk Road" articles did not.  The term "New Silk Road" is applied to a variety of topics in addition to the rail links between Asia and western Europe, including sea, road, and air trade, stock and securities trading in Asia, manufacturing, textiles, and raw material production and trade, internet and computer network connections, and even the exchange of ideas between Asia and the West.  For example, I just did the search for "New Silk Road" in NewsStand again and retrieved article titles such as:  "One-time foes linked at 20GB per second", "Cable link a new Silk Road for China, India", "QualityStocks: QualityStocks - The New Silk Road - 6/15/09", "News Analysis: China's New Silk Road shines in Africa", and "South Korean president vows increased support for Uzbek students".  I checked all of those articles and none of them have anything to do with the rail links covered in this article.  That last article I listed is particularly illuminating, it refers to building a data link between Uzbekistan and Korea called the New Silk Road.  And the list goes on.  In summary, I do not believe that enough of the hits coming back in Google for the "New Silk Road" are actually referring to the topic of this article.  "Eurasian Land Bridge", on the other hand, appears to almost always refer to the rail links covered under this topic.  So I think Eurasian Land Bridge is the better title.  I might be wrong, of course.  If someone can show that the number of hits for "New Silk Road" and referring to the railroad still outnumber "Eurasian Land Bridge", then I'll support the move.  I think that's quite a task, though. Cla68 (talk) 23:27, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The important thing is that there is an article on this fascinating subject, and I want to thank and commend you for doing the hard work involved. In my brief time onwiki I've seen such dross, such flotsam, that it boggles my tiny mind. I do think more thought needs to be given to the title. The second google hit for New Silk Road is http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_46/b4108046852388.htm, which has nothing to do with the Eurasian Land Bridge. Meanwhile, back in the day, the Eurasian Land Bridge was used for something different than you're talking about. How about maybe thinking of a third title like "Europe-Asian Rail Links" or something that can describe what you have here in a way that's not ambiguous and can also work? Does this make sense? MajorStovall (talk) 03:01, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm open to that. In fact, if someone moved this to "New Silk Road" in spite of my objection I wouldn't protest.  Most of the sources that I used for the article did use the term "Eurasian Land Bridge", which appears to be the preferred term in China, Japan, and elsewhere in south and central Asia.  Nevertheless, it doesn't really matter, I guess, since we can just redirect all the alternatives to the title we choose.  Perhaps someone else will jump in and give us a third or fourth opinion.  Thanks for the kind words, by the way. Cla68 (talk) 04:14, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'd like to see what others think. I guess this doesn't get much attention because it doesn't pertain to a rock star or video game. See? Already I'm jaded. MajorStovall (talk) 15:46, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose per Cla68 - "New Silk Road" has too many different meanings to call it the primary name for this. --NE2 19:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose. As Cla68 has already stated, the term "New Silk Road" is much too ambiguous to serve as the article's title, as it could refer to multiple things. However, the current title, "Eurasian Land Bridge", clearly relates to the topic at hand and has only one meaning. Therefore, this article should retain its current title. Laurinavicius (talk) 09:50, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose There is also Trans-Asian Railway with 105,000 Google hits, but this is a multi-threaded proposal, unlike the ELB which is confined to more or less one route.


 * Oppose There is also Saudi Landbridge Project (note one word) which is another use of "Landbridge" for a railway.  There might be some sense in making the names of the various landbridges more consistant. Tabletop (talk) 05:56, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose I've just reviewed this for Did you know and got slightly confused by the different names used for this subject. I don't think a move to New Silk Road as per the proposal is correct or particularly helpful, but would support a move to "Europe-Asian Rail Links" or something similar as suggested by MajorStovall above. Choosing a more descriptive name rather than a potentially misleading "marketing" term would, I think, benefit the article. If keeping the present title is preferred, would it be better to use "Eurasian Land-Bridge" which seems to be a more common result on Google? Nick Ottery (talk) 13:20, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The topic isn't rail links between Europe and Asia in general, but this specific corridor. --NE2 22:21, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * This is just my opinion, but it appears that the two major countries involved, Russia and China, want to use names for the corridor which favors their route- "Nothern East-West Corridor" for Russia, and "New Eurasian" or "Second Continental Land Bridge" for China. Both routes currently combine with each other, however, so it's problematic to treat them as separate topics.  "Eurasian Land Bridge" appears to be a generic title, supported by the RS, which encompasses both routes adequately.  If Google supports changing it to "Eurasian Land-Bridge" with the hyphen, I think that may be ok. Cla68 (talk) 22:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment Land Bridge does sound to me like the name of natural isthmus of some kind (e.g., Beringia). I admit that the Land bridge (rail) is relevant (e.g., as a description of a rail service that takes shipping containers brought by boat from Japan to Nakhodka or Lianyungang, and takes them to Saint Petersburg, Hamburg, or Poti for transhipment further west by boat), but, first, the term is fairly obscure, and, second, most through traffic on the rail routes described here would actually go from an inland point of origin somewhere in China or Korea to an inland destination somewhere in Europe, thus diminishing the applicability of a "bridge" metaphor.


 * Now, I think that the New Silk Road is even worse - it sounds very kitchy and journalistic. (The very term, Silk Road, is too overused and imprecise in my view. Admittedly, the TRACECA people use the expression "New Silk Road", but it seems like they have not built much of anything in their 10 years of existence).


 * If I were to pick a name for this article, I'd use something more descriptive, something like "Transeurasian Rail Routes", or "Transeurasian Rail Corridors" (since it's focussed on rail, it does not talk much about highway), or maybe "Transeuraisan transport corridor". After all, the main topic of the article seems to be about the [existing and potential] ability to run thru shipments from Eastern Asia to Europe or SW Asia via several countries' railway systems, rather than about individual railways (such as Transsiberian, Lanxin railway, or Trans-Aral Railway), which already have articles of their own. Vmenkov (talk) 09:43, 27 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Land Bridge is a term used elsewhere... for example these two academic articles The CONUS Land Bridge: A Panama Canal Alternative and The North American Landbridge (by a professor at the Army War College and a professor at Hofstra University, respectively) use the term to refer to Panama Canal avoiding routes. There are many others out there. Your comment about what Land Bridge sounds like thus isn't germane, since the term is used with this meaning for other routes as well. ++Lar: t/c 13:43, 27 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the two interesting references! Nonetheless, Darlene F. DeAngelo in the first article defines a "full land bridge" as follows: The land bridge supports the movement of cargo containers ... from vessels in one ocean to vessels in another ocean using overland transport by rail, .... This ocean-to-ocean traffic is referred to as the full, or "maxi," land bridge. So a "full landbridge" is a rail line that sees substantial use from containers that enter the content via seaports on one side, and leave it via ports on the other side. A railway across Panama isthmus would be the best example for that. On the Eurasian route, however, traffic like this (e.g., from Japan or Taiwan or South Korea to Britain or Scandinavia via Russian/Chinese railways) would only be a small fraction of all cargo. Routing cargo  from Japan or Taiwan to the East Coast of North America via Eurasian railways and the Atlantic, while possible, seems not too likely.


 * Somewhat expanding the definition, the author proceeds to less "bridgy" bridges, viz. Variations of this concept (referred to as "mini" or "micro" land bridges) are the movement of cargo by rail from one water port for loading aboard a vessel at another water port (mini bridge), or the movement of cargo between an inland point and a water port (micro bridge). So I guess that the Eurasian railway could satisfy at least the "micro" definitions for a larger percentage of its traffic (e.g., from Japan/Taiwan/S Korea/Chinese port cities to anywhere in Europe; or from Britain or from European port cities to anywhere in China), and, basically, matches the definition in the lede of the article. So I would agree that the "land bridge" is indeed a suitable term to stay in the name of this article. At the same time, I think that restricting the definition to traffic that originates and/or terminates in port cities is somewhat artificial, since, if you do have a set-up for smooth transcontinental cargo transport, it can just as well be used for shipping stuff from Wuhan to Vienna or from Hannover to Hanoi, without regard to existence or non-existence of port facilities at the points of origin and destination. In a sense, points on both ends of the continent that are somewhat inland would benefit more from such a trnasport connection than the two seaboards' port cities. Vmenkov (talk) 05:53, 29 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose - New Silk Road is not the best name for this article. ++Lar: t/c 13:43, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

So my idea went down in flames since last I looked in. Overall I'd say the arguments for keeping the title the same were persuasive, so I'm not sore and I'd say that all's well that so ends. MajorStovall (talk) 21:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Mention of LaRouche Movement
This is inappropriate per WP:UNDUE. This is a very minor bit of trivia which adds nothing to the article.  freshacconci  talk talk  02:41, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Type "Eurasian Land Bridge" into Google and five of the top six links mention LaRouche. None of the sources used for the text on LaRouche in this article are linked to the LaRouche organization.  Saying that two sentences in the body of an article of this length is "undue" is stretching the Undue provision to the breaking point.  If you look at the threads above, you'll see that several other editors have reviewed this article, including one for the DYK submission, and didn't have a problem with it.  I'm going to revert it back and invite the other editors who have this article on their watchlists to comment before we consider removing the material again. Cla68 (talk) 08:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment: I'd think that there is nothing all that wrong with mentioning what a particular political movement or a pundit says about the project. But in my view, regardless of how vocal this particular organization is, it has remarkably little ability to influence government or business decision-makers in countries such as China, Kazakhstan, Russia, or Iran - so if we bother saying what LaRouche people happen to say about this set of infrastructure projects, then we also ought to mention views of influential (or wannabe influential) figures and organizations in the Eurasian countries involved, or in organizations such as World Bank or EBRD. Of course, I have other things to do, and probably never will bother doing that :-) Vmenkov (talk) 10:01, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Some validity to that view but this seems to be one of the Larouche signature issues/initiatives. Hence it seems to merit mentioning (although personally I'd rather give them no credit for anything at all ever). Further, I think there might be some citable basis for the assertion that the organization did have some influence, enough to support mentioning the view they hold while not mentioning other orgs. I suppport retention and oppose edit warring to remove it. Tag it if you must. ++Lar: t/c 13:35, 27 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm a bit concerned about the second para in this section - it seems to imply that the UNDP is endorsing the LaRouche Movement's goals, when this is very unlikely to be the case. Nick-D (talk) 06:02, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a valid concern. I didn't place the two paragraphs in separate sections because of the writing standard that a section should have at least two paragraphs or else be combined with the preceding or subsequent sections.  It may be necessary to do that here, however, in order to avoid what you describe. Cla68 (talk) 12:24, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Does this work? Cla68 (talk) 21:14, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I've removed this. It's absurd to mention the LaRouche movement. This project has nothing to do with LaRouche, despite his efforts over many years to claim credit for it. All the sources mentioning him are foreign-language and stem entirely from LaRouche's own claims. If we're going to include him, let's find a mainstream English-language source that agrees he's involved. SlimVirgin 05:40, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I've seen other references of LaRouche connections to the land bridge in U.S. media, in the context of candidates for office advocating it. I'll look around again. MajorStovall (talk) 14:58, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * SlimVirgin: You have been reverted for now. You were cautioned by ArbCom about misuse of minor edits, your removal of the category in this contenxt is not a minor edit by any stretch of the imagination. Also, this has been subject of discussion, after a previous reversion sequence. Please seek consensus for your changes before you make them. Thanks. ++Lar: t/c 20:01, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd be more comfortable with my position if I could locate the clip that I recall seeing, in which the land bridge was mentioned in passing in an article on a LaRouche candidate. Can we see a link to the press clip where it is mentioned? MajorStovall (talk) 21:25, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I used three articles to source that paragraph. The Egyption newspaper reports on an inteview with LaRouche in which he promotes development of the Eurasian Land Bridge.  The two print articles (Boston Globe and Virginian-Pilot) mention LaRouche candidates and speak to their advocacy for the Bering strait crossing, and, from the Virginian-Pilot article, that the candidate "promotes a longstanding LaRouche plan for construction of a land bridge across the Bering Strait to link Alaska to Russia. The bridge would be the critical link in a series of international transportation corridors that would reach every continent save Anarctica." Cla68 (talk) 22:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * There's no question that the LaRouche movement has promoted a Eurasian Land Bridge and Bering Strait tunnel or bridge. The question for this page is whether their support is significant. A list of common platform items is at Views of Lyndon LaRouche and the LaRouche movement. In articles on those issues, like gold standard or Colonization of Mars, we don't have any mention of their advocacy. Is LaRouche mentioned any articles about the ELB that aren't about or by him?   Will Beback    talk    03:08, 6 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Adding this is in violation of the LaRouche ArbCom cases (the spirit, if not the letter, but possibly the letter too), and probably also in violation of the ArbCom ruling that Cla68 not follow me around. This is one of the first articles I had a problem with HK on, a banned user, and Cla68 discussed the creation of this on Wikipedia Review with HK. It's really out of order that anyone is supporting this.


 * We do not go around adding to articles that LaRouche has expressed an interest in the topic. We can add those issues to articles about LaRouche, but not about the object of his interest. We don't add to articles about the Queen that he has accused her of being a drug dealer, or to articles about the Royal Family that he has accused them of trying to kill him, though there are multiple reliable sources for both those edits. But they are about LaRouche, and they are in media reports about LaRouche. They have nothing to do with the Queen, and they do not appear in media reports about the Queen, or in Wikipedia articles about her. The same principle applies here.


 * Take another area in which I edit as an analogy. It's clearly notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia somewhere that the Animal Liberation Front regards meat eating as wrong, and there are multiple reliable sources to support that edit. But we add it to articles about the ALF. We don't add it to our articles about meat.


 * To include LaRouche material in this article, we would need mainstream, English-language sources who are writing about the land bridge and who include LaRouche's involvement, not who are writing about LaRouche&mdash;or who write about both to the point where the article topic is both the bridge and LaRouche interchangeably. But we can't rely on sources who are writing about the LaRouche perspective only, because the LaRouche perspective is only notable in articles about LaRouche. SlimVirgin  03:46, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Relevant policies and ArbCom rulings
1. WP:V:

"Just because a source is reliable does not mean it should be included. All articles must adhere to Wikipedia's neutrality policy, fairly representing all majority and significant-minority viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in rough proportion to the prominence of each view. Tiny-minority views and fringe theories need not be included, except in articles devoted to them."

2. WP:NPOV:

"In general, articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more widely held views; generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all. For example, the article on the Earth does not mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, the view of a distinct minority ... Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views ... Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject ... (and quoting Jimbo): If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article."

3. LaRouche 1:


 * "Original work which originates from Lyndon LaRouche and his movement may be removed from any Wikipedia article in which it appears other than the article Lyndon LaRouche and other closely related articles."


 * "Supporters of Lyndon LaRouche are instructed not to add references to Lyndon directly to articles except where they are highly relevant, and not to engage in activities that might be perceived as "promotion" of Lyndon LaRouche."

4. LaRouche 2:

" Herschelkrustofsky is banned from editing any article relating to Lyndon LaRouchefor up to and including one year. If he edits any LaRouche-related article, he may be blocked for up to one week by any administrator. Administrators may use their discretion in determining what constitutes a LaRouche-related article. The prohibition against inserting La Rouche material into other articles remains in effect." (my bold)

5. Cla68/SV:

[T]he parties are admonished and instructed to avoid the following ... Unnecessary interaction between Cla68 and SlimVirgin ... provided that this does not preclude legitimate involvement in formal dispute resolution procedures where necessary."

Regarding this last point, Cla68 was well aware that this was a contentious article that I had previously been involved in, yet arrived here to strike up the opposite position to me, after extensive discussion with a banned user on Wikipedia Review. There could hardly be a clearer violation of the ArbCom ruling. This was done after Cla was asked by me recently to respect the ArbCom ruling, something I had to request because he was regularly commenting on me again, and he seemed to agree to do that. SlimVirgin 04:12, 6 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Consensus on this talk page is that the material is properly cited and is not undue. None of the sources used are linked to the LaRouche organization.  If you would like to have further input on the material in question from uninvolved editors, I suggest opening a content RfC. Cla68 (talk) 04:44, 6 December 2009 (UTC)


 * There is no talk page consensus here, and anyway no talk-page consensus can overrule the content policies. What is on show here is a fundamental lack of understanding of the policies. Also, please explain why you coming to this article&mdash;which you know is a controversial one that I was involved in earlier&mdash;is not a violation of the ArbCom ruling that says we're to try to avoid contentious interaction with one another. SlimVirgin  05:13, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Source request
As the two English-language sources being used for this are not linked to, can you please paste here the exact text that refers to LaRouche's involvement with the bridge? They are Joe Sciacca. "Race for 9th District; As races go, Joe would've loved this one," Boston Herald, September 10, 2001 and The Virginian-Pilot. "Three Candidates Face Off In Bid For Incumbent Warner's Senate Seat; All Virginia Voters Will Decide Who Among The Candidates Will Begin Serving A Six-Year Term In January," November 3, 2002.

Also please address my point about adding tiny-minority sources per UNDUE. Do you think we should add to the article about the Earth that the Flat Earth Society says X, if we can find a reliable source who reports that the Flat Earth Society says it is flat? Should we add to the article on Autism that Scientologists say there is no such thing, if we can find a reliable source who reports that Scientologists say this?

If not, what is the difference here? SlimVirgin 05:32, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

RfC: LaRouche movement
The RfC question is: Should this article include that the LaRouche movement supports this project if a reliable source says they do, or would that be a violation of UNDUE? 05:54, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by SlimVirgin

 * Violation of UNDUE. UNDUE, part of the NPOV policy, exists precisely to prevent the views of tiny minorities being added throughout the encyclopaedia. We do not add to Earth that the Flat Earth Society believes it is flat, or to Autism that Scientologists believe it doesn't exist, even if reliable sources can be found that tell us those groups hold those views. We may add that material to articles about those groups, but not to articles about the topics they comment on, because their views on those topics are tiny-minority ones. Similarly, we do not add to Eurasian Land Bridge that Lyndon LaRouche, the head of a political cult, claims to be involved in it, or is supportive of it, just as we do not add to Elizabeth II that he once accused her of being a drug pusher, even though multiple reliable sources have reported the latter, including the BBC. This is one of the most fundamental principles of NPOV. SlimVirgin  05:54, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Cla68

 * Reply to SlimVirgin
 * Type "Eurasian Land Bridge" into Google and five of the top six links mention LaRouche. None of the sources used for the text on LaRouche in this article are linked to the LaRouche organization.  Saying that two sentences in the body of an article of this length is "undue" is stretching the Undue provision to the breaking point.  If you look at the threads above, you'll see that several other editors have reviewed this article, including one for the DYK submission and Good Article assessment, and didn't have a problem with it. I'm going to notify the editors who previously commented on this issue about this RfC. Cla68 (talk) 06:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Reply to Cirt
 * Actually, there are more sources which mention LaRouche than mention the United Nations, which is why I put the information on LaRouche first. I used several search terms when looking for sources for this article including "Eurasian Land Bridge" and "Bering Strait Crossing", both of which are related to the topic.  These terms produced several hits mentioning LaRouche.  I used about 30 articles as sources for this topic.  Three of them mentioned LaRouche, or 10%.  The amount of text explaining the LaRouche connection is around 10%. Cla68 (talk) 06:49, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Vmenkov
I was asked to comment by one of the participants, so I will comment as follows. From my point of view, the presence or absence of the paragraph about LaRouche is an absolute non-issue. That is, I can't imagine bothering to find out about, or to write about, LR's opinion on these set of project any more than I would about the opinions of Boy Scouts of America, LDPR, Archbishop Diomid of Chukotka,  Ayatollah Khamenei, Dalai Lama,  Yasser Arafat, or Sun Myung Moon. On the other hand, if someone had put an effort into finding out and writing (with appropriate sources) about any of those parties opinions... well, I would be a bit amused (as I am now), but I would not consider removing the text either.

Incidentally, I have the same opinion about having a section on the "trans-Bering-Strait" projects in that article. Any plans for such a fixed connection are obviously so "pie in the sky", due to the simple geography (look at a map of the existing roads, railways, terrain, and populated places on both continents!) that I can bet 1:10 that nothing like that will be built for at least a century to come. Nonetheless, I certainly don't see why I'd want to actually argue for removing that little section.

To be honest, I feel that wasting efforts arguing about the presence of LR's (or SMM's, etc) opinions in this article is a bit like spending hours choosing a doormat for a house being built while the house does not have half of its roof yet. What I think this article sorely does need, is a map that actually shows the existing railway lines connecting the countries in question, as well as any possible serious projects. Another thing that ought to be added is some statistics about how the existing lines are currently used. (There is plenty of information about Russia-China links at the Transbaikalian Railway site that's used as one of the sources in the Zabaykalsk article, but I only used a small part of it for that article. I've seen articles in Chinese press about the matter as well, though don't have links presently. There certainly should be data about the usage of the "Nakhodka to Europe via Siberia" route as well. And of course it would be even nicer to unearth actual stats for the existing China-Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran connection; after all, the line has been in operation for 19 years already... someone ought to have the data!). Those are 2 main things that I would do to improve this article if I had a couple days to spend on it, plus a suitably strong motivation (I don't). I think one of the authors has mentioned a few things along these lines in his wish list elsewhere in the talk page, but I think he is now too busy with this LR discussion to do that real work. Which, I think, is quite unfortunate. Vmenkov (talk) 10:52, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Lar
To the question asked: Yes, if reliable sources exist that show that the LR movement has had influence. It is not enough merely to show this is their position, they need to have influenced the discourse. The reliable sources need not be in English. ++Lar: t/c 15:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by MajorStovall
Not sure if I'm "involved" or "uninvolved," as my feeling had been that I just didn't know. Seeing the actual articles quoted, my feeling is that it depends on the question of how important it is that a minority party candidate feels a certain way. Do we talk about Ron Paul's views of the Fed in the article on the Federal Reserve, for instance? I just checked and I see that we don't, and he wrote a whole book on the Fed. So I guess my initial view is that no, LaRouche doesn't warrant a mention in this article. That's just based on my own personal opinion and I'm not familiar to any great extent with how Wiki policies are applied. MajorStovall (talk) 16:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Nick-D
I pretty much agree with SlimVirgin - the LaRouche movement is at the fringe of politics, and there's no need to include their views in articles without a strong reason. That doesn't seem to be the case here, as the sources attesting to the importance of LaRouche's views are pretty weak. Nick-D (talk) 10:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Cirt
What amount of a preponderance of independent reliable secondary sources that discuss Eurasian Land Bridge; also give significant discussion to Lyndon LaRouche? The proportion of weight should be proportional to this analysis. Cirt (talk) 06:18, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Will Beback

 * A reposting of a comment made prior to this RfC which never received a response.

There's no question that the LaRouche movement has promoted a Eurasian Land Bridge and Bering Strait tunnel or bridge. The question for this page is whether their support is significant. A list of common platform items is at Views of Lyndon LaRouche and the LaRouche movement. In WP articles on other signature issues, like the gold standard or colonization of Mars, we don't have any mention of the movement's advocacy. Is LaRouche mentioned in any sources about the ELB that aren't about or by him?  Will Beback   talk    10:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Yaris678
Mentioning LaRouche at all is undue weight. The way it is currently put is even more odd because it says "LaRouche movement and the United Nations" as if the two were somehow affiliated. However, that doesn't really matter because references to LaRouche should be removed, whatever form they are in. Yaris678 (talk) 21:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by JoshuaZ
I have to agree with Yaris. I simply don't see anywhere near enough sourcing to justify even mentioning LaRouche here. The comparison made by Will seems accurate. From my reading of LaRouche material this particular idea seems to be a perennial proposal among the LaRouchians. However, there's simply not anywhere near enough independent sourcing to justify its inclusion here. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:19, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Kaldari
I haven't seen anything to indicate (in light of WP:UNDUE) that LaRouche should be mentioned in this article whatsoever. Please see my comments below in the source analysis section for more detailed discussion. Kaldari (talk) 03:53, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Mackan79
I think this probably should be mentioned, but that the current description makes LaRouche sound too important. It needs to be more arms-length, to reflect the fact that LaRouche is not generally considered a reliable or influential source, and rather is widely considered the opposite. You could add as a sort of aside that the development of a Eurasian Land Bridge is an element of the political platform of the LaRouche Movement, but it needs to be given this kind of explanation, which conveys that this is an important issue to LaRouche, but not that LaRouche is important to the project/series of projects/concept itself.

In terms of policy, it's about the respective notability of these topics. LaRouche shouldn't be mentioned on a very prominent topic even if the issue is important to LaRouche, because it would be undue weight. But if it's an obscure topic, and it's important to LaRouche, then it isn't inappropriate to mention that fact. If enough reliable sources that discuss LaRouche also discuss this as his proposal, for instance, then you could have a subarticle on this LaRouche proposal. We don't have that, but considering this isn't exactly a wildly high-profile topic, I think a few reliable sources would support a brief mention if done correctly. I agree with the comment above that the association with the UN goes too far, and I think the introductory sentence doesn't adequately convey the nature of the relationship between LaRouche and the "bridge." Mackan79 (talk) 03:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Hipocrite
I see no reason whatsoever to mention LaRouche on this article used to describe an actual route for moving things from point A to point B. If it were instead an article about fringy proposals to create some non-existant route from point A to point B, perhaps, but this is an article about "a term used to describe the rail transport route for moving freight and/or passengers overland from Pacific seaports in eastern Russia and mainland China to seaports in Europe." LaRouche has no involvement with this topic at all that I can see. The opinions of a tiny minority (LaRouche thinks X about this topic) should not be included per WP:UNDUE - LaRouche cannot have a significant viewpoint about anything except his own personal ideology. Just because he has a big internet presence does not mean that he's represented in reliable sources - rather that his supporters widely publicise him. Hipocrite (talk) 14:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Ngchen
I agree that inclusion of LaRouche would be a violation of WP:UNDUE. He is, after all, only one of many fringe thinkers out there. His views belong on his page, and/or the pages of his movement. Ngchen (talk) 14:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Nwlaw63
Agree that any significant mention of LaRouche, barring his verifiable participation in the bridge, violates WP:UNDUE. Including his name in a list of people supporting the project, as the article currently does, seems harmless enough. I would like to criticize the idea that he should be mentioned merely because his name comes up a lot when googling the bridge. The flaws in this logic should be obvious. Nwlaw63 (talk) 02:25, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Further discussion

 * Even if we had multiple reliable sources for this, it would not be appropriate to add it to this article (unless they were confirming independently of LaRouche that he was involved), but we don't. There are three sources, all dependent on LaRouche's claims about himself. There are two English-language ones that seem to mention LaRouche in passing, but we don't yet know what they say: (1) Joe Sciacca. "Race for 9th District; As races go, Joe would've loved this one," Boston Herald, September 10, 2001 and (2) The Virginian-Pilot. "Three Candidates Face Off In Bid For Incumbent Warner's Senate Seat; All Virginia Voters Will Decide Who Among The Candidates Will Begin Serving A Six-Year Term In January," November 3, 2002. And (3) a story about LaRouche, also dependent on his claims about himself, in Asharq al-Awsat, a Saudi Arabian, Arab-language, newspaper, with a translation by Google.  SlimVirgin  06:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I've just noticed that the Arab source doesn't even connect LaRouche to the land bridge. All it says is: "In keeping with the approach represented by this heritage, the government invited the U.S. to adopt a foreign policy based on economic cooperation with countries in the developing world, by actively participating in building the Eurasian land bridge and infrastructure projects including roads, bridges, irrigation channels and the transfer of energy to link Africa and Asia and Europe through the Middle East ..."  SlimVirgin  07:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)


 * To reply to Cirt's point above, no English-language sources devote any significant discussion, or any discussion at all really, to LaRouche's claimed involvement in this. He has been writing in his own publications for years that he is somehow pivotal to the project, in ways that no one can understand, and no reliable source has picked up on it. He similarly claimed to be behind Star Wars, as I recall. SlimVirgin  06:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * This assertion is untrue. I found two English-language, reliable sources which mention that the Eurasian Land Bridge is connected to the LaRouche movement.  Also, what's wrong with using non-English sources?  If you look at the sources I used, most of them are from non-North American sources, basically because the object of this topic is outside of North America and the Commonwealth.  Even the two Newsweek sources I used are from the international edition. Cla68 (talk) 06:53, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You have found no source about the land bridge that mentions LaRouche. Only two sources about LaRouche that mention the land bridge. Can you not see the difference? SlimVirgin  07:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Again, not true. The Virginian-Pilot source clearly states that development of international, linked rail transport routes throughout North America, Asia, and Europe is a key element in the LaRouche platform.  The Boston Globe article mentions a LaRouche candidate attending a political debate in Massachusettes and speaking about the Eurasian Land Bridge.  The Egyptian newspaper article confirms from the reporter's interview with LaRouche that the Land Bridge is an important element in LaRouche's political agenda.  The sources are solid. Cla68 (talk) 07:08, 6 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Cla, you keep missing the point here, and I'm going to assume good faith and accept that this is a genuine misunderstanding. The sources you are citing are writing about LaRouche and his claims. They are not writing about the land bridge. I can supply you with multiple, high-quality sources (BBC etc) that show LaRouche says the Queen is a drug pusher, and LaRouche claims the royal family is planning to assassinate him. Are you arguing we should use those sources to add LaRouche's claims to those articles? SlimVirgin  07:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment: Let us please keep this formatting. And please, no threaded comments within individual users' sections. Cirt (talk) 07:12, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

If I were looking to discuss LaRouche's involvement, I think the most appropriate way would be in a more general section on political advocacy for further development. If I did it, LaRouche would probably get one sentence, not mentioned in the lead, something to the effect that expansion of the "Land Bridge" is an important part of the political platform of Lyndon LaRouche and his followers. This is, after all, if we go by Google, probably why a good portion of readers will arrive at this page. Mackan79 (talk) 04:30, 7 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure about that. See the Federal Reserve analogy in my solicited comments. Having read WP:UNDUE and the other comments, I can't see how LaRouche can be mentioned at all. MajorStovall (talk) 15:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Let me show my work, at least. A search of "Federal Reserve" returns 35,463 books on Google Books.  "Eurasian Land Bridge" returns 175.  "Lyndon LaRouche" returns 766 books, while "Ron Paul" returns 1049.  Thus, one informal survey of Google Books suggests that the "Federal Reserve" is 202.65 times more notable than the "Eurasian Land Bridge," while "Ron Paul" is only 1.37 times more notable than "Lyndon LaRouche."  I haven't thought of any good analogies, but the point is that unless there is other more notable material that should go in a decent-sized article, then any material covered by reliable sources is generally fair game.  I'm guessing the real concern is people don't want LaRouche supporters to be able to point to an article like this on Wikipedia and say "Look, this was our initiative, it says right there."  Or, they don't want people funneled to articles on LaRouche from something that looks like a real policy concept. If we word this correctly, something like I suggest above or Will Beback suggests below, I don't think those need to be a concern.  It strikes me as more strange not to mention it at all, where people will either be confused about whether they're in the right place, or call it a shut-out.  Serving the encyclopedic purpose in my view is to cover it briefly as we deem appropriate, based on the reliable sources available. Mackan79 (talk) 04:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Source analysis
I think what is needed for help with the above RFC is a source analysis. Can someone help to please provide full formatted cites below in this section, with quotes from the relevant portions about LaRouche? Cirt (talk) 07:17, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, here's the sources:



I'll quote the articles below:
 * Sciacca- "And purists might say Joe Moakley would be rolling his eyes at the race to succeed him. I say he would have loved it, right down to listening with bemusement as LaRouche fringe candidate Bill Ferguson touted a Eurasian Land Bridge. That's because Joe loved a political fight, and for those of us in Massachusetts who would actually spend summer days paying attention to something like this, the 9th District congressional scramble actually had a lot going for it."


 * Virginian-Pilot- Nancy Spannaus is a longtime associate of perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche and has run various campaigns for the Senate and governor essentially as a stand-in for LaRouche. Though she calls herself a Democrat, state and national Democratic leaders have repudiated her and LaRouche repeatedly.

Spannaus is running this year on what her campaign literature describes as a "Road to Recovery" for the state and national economy. She argues that the current economic slowdown actually is a breakdown and that the federal government should impose financial and trade controls, reorganize the banking system and pump billions into rebuilding and enhancing the nation's infrastructure, particularly railroads.

"What this (financial) system does, and has done since the mid 1960s, is to promote speculation and looting, while sucking money away from necessary infrastructure, living standards and industry," Spannaus argues in a campaign newsletter

In particular, Spannaus promotes a longstanding LaRouche plan for construction of a land bridge across the Bering Strait to link Alaska to Russia. The bridge would be the critical link in a series of international transportation corridors that would reach every continent save Anarctica.

I retrieved these two articles from ProQuest NewsStand. Tomorrow I'm going to get access to Academic OneFile, which has access to more sources, and do another search which may turn up more mentions of the Land Bridge project and its connection with the LaRouche movement. Cla68 (talk) 07:27, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll wait to do an analysis based on that. Cirt (talk) 07:32, 6 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The Asharq Al-Awsat article doesn't tie LaRouche to the bridge at all, so that should be removed as a source.


 * Cla, remember, you need to produce mainstream articles about the bridge, not about LaRouche. In the same way, if you wanted to add the Scientology view to Autism, you would need to find mainstream articles about autism that mentioned the Scientology view. We need the sources to show that the LaRouche view of the bridge is notable, not simply that he has a view. SlimVirgin  10:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree that the Egyption article doesn't tie the idea to LaRouche. It does tie it to him.  Again, a google search for the term returns LaRouche in five out of the top six hits.  And I'll repeat again that previous discussion on the issue on this page reached a consensus that the material was fine. Cla68 (talk) 11:26, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * They talk about the "silk road," which is the same thing. Question is whether we care that they do. MajorStovall (talk) 17:02, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Academic OneFile did not return any further articles which mention LaRouche and the land bridge. I believe the articles I found do show that the LaRouche movement is an outspoken advocate of the project. I think the question is whether we feel that it should be included or not. This RfC appears to be getting fairly good participation and hopefully will help resolve the question. Cla68 (talk) 00:06, 7 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I have to agree with SlimVirgin, the Eurasian Land Bridge may be notable to LaRouche, but that doesn't mean that LaRouche is notable to the Eurasian Land Bridge. You'll need to produce a source that is primarily about the Land Bridge that mentions LaRouche rather than a source about LaRouche that mentions the Land Bridge in order to establish his notability to this article. Kaldari (talk) 03:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Some stuff
You folks may want to take a look at some other article. Including "CEC calls for progress on train technology" from the Townsville Australia Northern Miner of 19 June 2001, from which I excerpt the following: Mrs Harris said Australia was faced with the same challenge of development as China and high-speed maglev train technology should be embraced as the best opportunity for Australia to interact with the exciting development projects being undertaken in our region of the world.

China's 'new silk road' is the centrepiece of the broader Eurasian land bridge proposal put forward by US physical economist Lyndon LaRouche as an engine driver for worldwide economic development and the only way for the world to build out of the current global crisis conditions of economic depression.

``That Eurasian land bridge proposal has arteries that extend down through South-East Asia and the Malay Peninsula into Indonesia, which in turn will stimulate other major development projects like the Kra Canal in Thailand.

So far as the fringey LaRouche fans go, that seems to be the best article out there. It's more about the bridge than LaRouche, but he gets a mention. You may also want to see "Candidate for Governor Takes the Broad View - LaRouche Protege Challenging McGreevey" from the Newark Star Ledger of June 14, 2001 by John Hassell, which discusses LaRouche and the bridge in depth in the context of Elliot Greenspan's unsuccessful run for governor.

The Bridge in the context of the LaRouche movement also comes up tangentially in "Senator Has Test Tuesday" from the Aberdeen American News of May 31, 2002 written by Scott Waltman. Anyway, victory seems to go to the LaRouchers, for whatever it's worth. Good day to all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ItMayBeWorthNoting (talk • contribs) (Note: this is this account's only edit.) (Second Note: So, what about it?) (Third Note: So, it's a sock account. Nothing new on articles with a connection to the LaRouche movement.)


 * OK, we now seem to have six English language sources which confirm that this topic applies to LaRouche. Most of the commentators in the RfC above, however, are concentrating on the weighting of the inclusion of the text, and the consensus so far seems to be leaning towards exclusion.  I'm going to proceed with developing the article, which will probably increase its length, and, if consensus remains the same, revisit the issue here on the talk page at that time. Cla68 (talk) 04:41, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, the topic applies to LaRouche, which is why it's included in the article on LaRouche's proposals. None of those sources show the opposite: that LaRouche is significant to the topic of the Eurasian Land Bridge. I have seen one source which is about the ELB and which contains LaRouche material, but among many others. I think the right way to handle this is in a single line along with other notable or significant supporters, something like "Proponents of an ELB include the president of Khalakistan, the transportation bureau chief of China, Sun Myung Moon, and Lyndon LaRouche."    Will Beback    talk    10:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The Citizens Electoral Council is aligned with the LaRouche movement, so comments by its candidates published in a minor newspaper in a small Australian city (the Townsville Bulletin is by far the city's dominant newspaper) don't imply any particular notability. Nick-D (talk) 10:29, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Leader of the Moonies
Yesterday I removed a reference to the leader of the moonies, citing WP:UNDUE. I received the following message on my talk page, but would like to continue the discussion here. Yaris678 (talk) 16:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)


 * There was a specific reason that I had that sentence, with that source in the article. The map showing the route of the Bering Strait crossing was created by someone to show the route of the proposed bridge.  The sources I used for the Russian government's proposed project, however, only discuss a tunnel.  So, in order to be able to use that image in the article, I had to show, with a reliable source, that a bridge was also being proposed for the crossing.  The Washington Times is the only reliable source I could find and it mentions the Moonie leader.  I plan on nominating the article for FA eventually.  The FA reviewers are very particular about having every detail correct.  If they notice, and they probably will, that the image discusses a bridge, but no bridge is mentioned in the article, they may object. Cla68 (talk) 01:14, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I assume the Washington Times article you are refering to is this one

The Washington Times is run by the moonies. You can probably find all sorts of things on their website about the wonderful opinions of their leader, but that doesn't mean the opinions are notable in relation to the subject of the opinion. Where did the bridge map come from? Does that source have any credibility? If not, it may be best to drop the concept all together. Of course, this does not stop the concept of a bridge being mentioned as a theoretical option on Bering Strait crossing. Having said that, the current text on that article seems to devote far too much time to Moon too. Yaris678 (talk) 16:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)


 * FYI, the Wikipedia article "Bering Strait crossing" contains a paragraph on Dr. Moon, although he is not mentioned in the two sources cited. Questions: 1) Should he be in that article? 2) Should that article be mentioned here? MajorStovall (talk) 16:38, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if the image of the Bering Strait crossing can be kept in the article without some supporting text. I'll try to find another source which talks about the bridge idea.  If I find one, I'll add the source to the image file so that the image file won't appear to be OR. Cla68 (talk) 22:42, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Moon's support for a link across the Bering Sea is mentioned in other sources found on Proquest, including:
 * "Sun Myung, Boris and Neil Bush"; RICK CASEY. Commentary Houston Chronicle. Houston, Tex.: Dec 16, 2005. pg. 1
 * On the tour, Moon is promoting a revolutionary idea for bringing about world peace. He calls it the "World Peace King Bridge-Tunnel" and ... well, let him tell you in his own words: "For thousands of years, Satan used the Bering Strait to separate East and West, North and South, as well as North America and Russia geographically. I propose that a bridge be constructed over the Bering Strait, or a tunnel be dug under it, so that it will be able to connect the world super highway starting from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa to Santiago in Chile, and from London to New York, making the world a single community."
 * "VISITING REV. MOON PROMOTES SPIRITUAL `U.N.' ; RELIGIOUS LEADER PREACHES ABOUT PEACE AND A TUNNEL"; GREGORY ROBERTS P-I reporter. Seattle Post - Intelligencer. Seattle, Wash.: Sep 29, 2005. pg. B.1
 * Rev. Moon also renewed his call for the building of a 51-mile bridge and tunnel over the Bering Strait to enhance cultural and commercial trade between the United States and Russia. "Some may doubt that such a project can be completed," the 85- year-old evangelist said. "But where there is a will, there is always a way - especially if it is the will of God."
 * It appears he favors a combined bridge and tunnel.   Will Beback    talk    22:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * That's very helpful, thank you. We have the sources, now, does it fail UNDUE, as the current consensus feels that the LaRouche content does?  I was using the Moon mention simply to prove that some notable person or organization, somewhere, was proposing the idea of a bridge.  Is a one sentence mention ok? Cla68 (talk) 23:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * As I suggested above, I think that the lesser proponents can be summarized in a sentence, such as "Proponents of an ELB or a Bering Sea link include the president of Khalakistan, the transportation bureau chief of China, Sun Myung Moon, and Lyndon LaRouche." (The titles are made up - insert the relevant supporters.)   Will Beback    talk    23:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Certainly, it'd be a good idea if this fringe views about this real world concept was treated in the same way that fringe views about the comuziojew Federal Reserve Bank are treated. Nevard (talk) 03:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey, is that a misprint? I'm either poorly educated or your fingers slipped. (or both) ;) MajorStovall (talk) 04:19, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Will's idea makes sense to avoid UNDUE by simply listing all of the arguably notable, albeit fringe, proponents of the bridge/tunnel in a single sentence. Cla68 (talk) 05:00, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * has it right here, I as well agree with that idea. :) No worries, Cirt (talk) 07:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea. Yaris678 (talk) 13:14, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Great! I'll do a search sometime in the next few days in Academic OneFile to hopefully gather the names, with citations, of the organizations/people who are promoting the Bering Strait crossing and list them all in a single sentence, unless someone else gets to it first. Cla68 (talk) 22:31, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I've added the sentence. I may be away from this article for awhile because I'm going to try to improve the Bering Strait crossing article over the next week or so. Cla68 (talk) 02:05, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Featured topic?
I think that this article could be the lead for a featured topic consisting of, besides this article, Trans-Siberian Railway, Bering Strait crossing, Trans-Eurasia Logistics, Trans-Asian Railway, Northern East West Freight Corridor, and, perhaps, New Eurasian Land Bridge. In order to do so, I believe at least two of the articles need to be featured and the others at Good Article level. I think there are enough sources readily available to take this one, the Trans-Siberian, and Bering Strait crossing articles to featured level. It's a project that will probably take six months to a year to complete, but I'm game. Cla68 (talk) 01:04, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Apparently you aren't aware of the impending change to the FT criteria next year which would require 50% featured (see WP:FT? 3.a.ii) and all else would be a Good Topic. -MBK004 05:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, okay. I think half of these articles can be brought to FA-level and the rest to Good. Cla68 (talk) 06:44, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Bogie exchange times.
This seems excessive: "Changing the bogies on a rail car takes 5-6 hours". Surely Bogie exchange is more like 10 minutes per wagon, and several hours per train, depending on the number of waggons?

The plain BX ""facility at Dynon, in a typical year (1981-82) 24,110 wagons were bogie exchanged, an average of 66 per day. This was done by one shift of 18 men, compared with the 100 men required if the same amount of freight was transferred wagon to wagon."

66 wagons in 8 hours, is 7.3 minutes per wagon.

Presumably, the more efficient BX facility at Dry Creek would have taken less time.

It is not known if the 18 men were all working on the one waggon, or more than one waggon at a time.

Neither the Dynon or Dry Creek BX facility still exist, which makes it hard to confirm these details.

Tabletop (talk) 03:59, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "Amen" to Tabletop's comments. Peter Horn User talk 17:04, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's not overestimate the efficiency of any process involving RZD. When I last passed through Zaibaikalsk I think it took 3-4 hours for a whole passenger train, despite there being far more than 18 workers. We also need to distinguish between time-per-bogie and time-per-train; I think the latter is more practical. bobrayner (talk) 12:25, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Maps
For whoever feels like spending an hour with Inkscape and drawing a decent map in SVG format that shows some of the major rail lines involved, all on a single map: this is how the resulting map may look: http://www.seat61.com/SilkRoute.htm (The map there is quite realistic, since it comes from an actual travel agent familiar with existing passenger services. Obviously, for our purposes (cargo transport), the BAM should be added, as well as the connections from Kazakhstan via Central Asia to Iran, and maybe also the new connection from Pakistan to Iran (Kerman-Zahedan). -- Vmenkov (talk) 09:29, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Variable Gauge Axles cost
Is this correct: It has been suggested that on some lines variable gauge axles would achieve significant time savings in comparison to bogie exchange. Their implementation however would involve a much higher capital cost, requiring either retrofitting or replacement of existing rolling stock.
 * Get real, get real, one does not need to replace the existing rolling stock, only the bogies or perhaps replace only the wheelsets with variable gauge wheel sets on the bogie, not the whole railroad car if the latter axle will fit. Peter Horn User talk 17:28, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

With VGA, the train runs through at say 20km/h. A few minutes are lost if the locos have to be changed.

Variable Gauge Axles fails to mention costs, so who knows how expensive it is?

Tabletop (talk) 11:49, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Surely some rail journals somewhere address this issue? Cla68 (talk) 13:33, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Variable Gauge Axles appear to be cost effective in Spain and on the border with France, otherwise they would not be used. Peter Horn User talk 17:28, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Russian gauge/Indian gauge direct connection
58.138.25.165 (talk) 05:23, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Afghanistan will use mainly Indian gauge,  Russian gauge in the north part.
 * Alaska, Canada and the continental United States should convert to Indian gauge and double track electrification 25kV alternating current before they have their high-speed trains.

HIGH SPEED TRAIN
HIGH SPEED TRAIN At 400 Km/h a high speed train can make the travel from Moscow to Beijing (6,000 Kms) in just 15 hours. And from Berlin to Beijing (7,500 Kms.) in just 18 hours...So less than one day.--88.24.241.95 (talk) 04:11, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * At the moment, only a 30 km stretch of train in Shanghai travels routinely at similar speeds. Aside from the gauge issue, it's likely that much of the route would require new track, and perhaps even new routes. Still, it's nice to dream about.   Will Beback    talk    04:35, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The Shanghai 30 km maglev line cost $1.33bn. 6000 km of line at the same price would cost $266 bn. Compared to air travel, it's hard to see how that would be economically viable. A single 747 costs about $260 million, so a thousand could be purchased for the same costs. Each plane holds about 500 people, so with one flight a day with each plane it'd be possible to move 500,000 people a day. I doubt that more than a few thousand people now travel between Europe and China daily.   Will Beback    talk    04:49, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The great circle from Moscow to Peking is 6000km. A real railway would follow a longer route. The current route is more like 10,000km; the USSR spent decades - and a significant proportion of GDP and a lot of slave labour - to build it, after which the journey takes only 1 week. I suspect that any proposal for a 400km/h railway is founded on an underestimate of the engineering difficulties and an overestimate of RZD's competence. bobrayner (talk) 05:19, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Re Bering Strait link
'The project, as envisioned, would connect the Trans-Siberian via Komsomolsk-on-Amur/Yakutsk in Siberian Russia with the North American rail network (gauge to be widened) at Fort Nelson, British Columbia, Canada, a distance of 3,700 miles (5,950 km).'

'Gauge to be widened'? The american network is in standard gauge. Standard gauge on a worldwide basis is 3 times the length of the russian gauge. Look on a map and you will see: Russian gauge is little more than a large stumbling block in northern hemisphere railway relations.

Almost everything talks in favour of constructing this line in 1435. In general, russians should start on the long journey to gradually convert their network, instead of drivelling about a so-called 1520 strategic partnership, which is a euphemism for attempts to enforce their undesired gauge on more countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.120.231.38 (talk) 16:39, 6 April 2012 (UTC)


 * USA and Canada should be converted from standard gauge to broad gauge. 101.128.196.252 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:11, 24 May 2012 (UTC).


 * Rail networks in USA and Canada have bad quality tracks and non-electrified now. Bering Strait tunnel link is originally proposed as 1829 gauge. (which is a broad gauge can be 3-rail dual-gauged with 1520 gauge) 101.128.196.252 (talk) 06:38, 24 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Possible 3-rail dual-gauge: 1435 and 1676, 1520 and 1829
 * Impossible 3-rail dual gauge: 1435 and 1520, 1520 and 1676
 * 101.128.196.252 (talk) 06:57, 24 May 2012 (UTC)


 * 101.128.196.252:


 * Of the world's 1.2 million km of railway, 60 % = 720 000 km is in standard gauge. The length of the russian gauge is 220 000 km = 18 %. The tendency for standard gauge is growing: Europe is predominantly standard and growing (Spain), so are Northern and Central America and Australia, plus many parts of Asia (the west and the east, including China, Korea and much of Japan) and northern Africa.


 * The further outlook for standard gauge is good, as Africa is formally committed to standard gauge, and South America seems to follow this same course. China is pushing for standard gauge in its regional railway ventures.


 * Last not least: All the groundbreaking technical developments have been made in standard-gauge countries.


 * You display post-soviet thinking. Get used to western thinking, you're fighting a loosing battle.


 * PS The US standardised its network to standard gauge - from BTW russian gauge, where it was necessary - after the Civil War. Why should they revert - just to please your narrow-minded imperialistic ambitions? There are worldwide railway maps. I suggest you get one and have a close look at it, to finally become aware of your country's embarassing position. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.120.231.38 (talk) 12:24, 7 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Civil War is in the 19th century. Very long time ago. Current North American (USA and Canada) network is too bad. Standard gauge is too narrow, linking to Bering Strait is too long distance and too harsh climate for standard gauge railway, should be built at broad gauge with concrete sleepers sometimes ballastless tracks. USA and Canada should be converted from standard gauge to  Indian gauge and electrified at 25kV AC overhead lines. (see Indian gauge)


 * While standard gauge (1435mm) network is growing, Cape gauge (1067mm) network is rapidly shrinking. Narrow gauge railways are bad, rather than standard gauge is good. In Africa, Cape gauge networks are rapidly converted to standard gauge. 180.199.55.183 (talk) 08:54, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

180.199.55.183 (talk) 08:54, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Track gauges:
 * Russian side - Norilsk/Yakutsk/Okhotsk: Russian gauge and 25kV 50Hz AC overhead lines
 * Norilsk/Yakutsk/Okhotsk - Fairbanks (Alaska): Indian gauge and 25kV 50Hz AC overhead lines
 * New lines Fairbanks (Alaska) - Canada and Lower 48 States: Indian gauge and 25kV 60Hz AC overhead lines
 * Rail network in USA and Canada: Track gauge should be converted from standard gauge to  Indian gauge
 * Mexico - Bolivia: standard gauge
 * Argentina and Chile: Indian gauge

Enough! Don't post anymore. 180.199.43.152 (talk) 04:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

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Needs Updating tag
Lots of references to “current events” that are a decade old. Little information about actual current status of the route. Article needs cleaning up and updating. Added tag. alaskanjackal (talk) 07:20, 16 May 2024 (UTC)