Talk:Gippsland railway line

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Ballarat to Daylesford railway line, Victoria which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 07:01, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Requested move to Gippsland railway line

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

The result of the move request was: Moved. (non-admin closure) samee  converse  21:54, 20 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Orbost railway line → Gippsland railway line – I request that 'Orbost railway line' be moved to 'Gippsland railway line' since the former term is archaic, given the fact that Orbost station is no longer operational. Since V/Line and PTV themselves use the term 'Gippsland line' to jointly refer to the Traralgon and Bairnsdale lines, it would make sense that Wikipedia reflects this terminology in order to clearly convey such information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by  LeoC12 (talk • contribs) 05:58, 2 March 2019 (UTC) --Relisting.   SITH   (talk)   13:09, 10 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Move to Bairnsdale railway line. With only a few exceptions like South Gippsland railway line, the articles about Victorian railway lines are in the format "TERMINUS railway line". Breaking that convention is simply confusing. The V/Line rail services are a different matter. If anything should be moved to the Gippsland name, it should be Traralgon V/Line rail service. Triptothecottage (talk) 05:35, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Support. This rail line used to run to Orbost. It now runs to Bairnsdale with a coach line to Orbost. "Orbost" is now the historical name for the railway line. As per V/Line Stations & Stops "Gippsland" is the current name for the truncated line. Danielklein (talk) 13:57, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Support - I think given that the V/line itself calls it Gippsland, and as noted we already have a South Gippsland railway line, it seems reasonable to me to use that title. There doesn't seem to be a firm common name one way or the other. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 12:13, 20 March 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

July 2023
Today the article has been subject of some copy and paste moves that were not made in compliance with the moving a page process. Editors can’t just copy and paste text from other to the other. In light of the consensus reached in the section above, the only way the article will be able to be moved is by way of a consensus being reached at a new requested move. Bagufleat (talk) 03:43, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 11 July 2023

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

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) EggRoll97 (talk) 08:05, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Gippsland railway line → Orbost railway line – As per WikiProject Australian Transport/Naming convention and guidelines, the correct name should be "Orbost railway line" as that is the official name used by the then operator Victorian Railways. This would also require the current Orbost railway line to be swapped with this page. As was pointed out in the previous naming request "rail line used to run to Orbost", if we use this as a precedent changing article name to only reflect stations that are open, how do we go about naming closed lines? There appears to also be a bit of confusion between "Gippsland (Bairnsdale) V/Line service" and "Gippsland (Orbost) railway line".

In response to the last naming request: "Orbost railway line → Gippsland railway line – I request that 'Orbost railway line' be moved to 'Gippsland railway line' since the former term is archaic, given the fact that Orbost station is no longer operational. Since V/Line and PTV themselves use the term 'Gippsland line' to jointly refer to the Traralgon and Bairnsdale lines, it would make sense that Wikipedia reflects this terminology in order to clearly convey such information." "... no longer operational" are we to delete all historical references from Wikipedia just because something is no longer around? "Since V/Line and PTV...", this is discussion for Gippsland V/Line rail service not this page.

"Move to Bairnsdale railway line. With only a few exceptions like South Gippsland railway line, the articles about Victorian railway lines are in the format 'TERMINUS railway line'. Breaking that convention is simply confusing. The V/Line rail services are a different matter. ..." "TERMINUS railway line", the terminus is Orbost even if the tracks have been removed or should we also rename the South Gippsland railway line to Cranbourne as the tracks beyond have been removed?

"This rail line used to run to Orbost. It now runs to Bairnsdale with a coach line to Orbost. 'Orbost' is now the historical name for the railway line. As per V/Line Stations & Stops 'Gippsland' is the current name for the truncated line." Yes the line used to run to Orbost and now runs to Bairnsdale. Orbost is the historical name which this article should use. Again, "V/Line Stations & Stops...", this is for Gippsland V/Line rail service

"I think given that the V/line itself calls it Gippsland, and as noted we already have a South Gippsland railway line, it seems reasonable to me to use that title. There doesn't seem to be a firm common name one way or the other." Again, "V/line itself calls it Gippsland...", this is for Gippsland V/Line rail service

The previous comments re "V/Line rail services" have no bearing on the name of the physical railway track which this article is about. ThylacineHunter  (talk) 04:16, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Whether this RM is carried or not will solely be based on the consensus reached by participants in this discussion. Refuting points made in a closed RM from three years ago is fairly pointless. Bagufleat (talk) 22:25, 12 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose, key criteria are WP:COMMONNAME and what WP:RS use. Looking at a variety of articles, Gippsland appears to be universally used, e.g:
 * Railway Gazette - Improvements on the Gippsland Line (1957)
 * Railway Transportation - Gippsland Duplication Extended (1959)
 * Newsrail - Gippsland Line Electrification Part 1 (1978}
 * Newsrail - The Rise and Fall of the Gippsland Line Electrification (1987)
 * Track & Signal - Lack of rail grinder closes Gippsland line (2013)
 * Looking at some more contemporary cites, the ABC, Age, Big Build, Gippsland Times, Herald Sun, Public Transport Victoria, Rail Express and VicTrack all use Gippsland. Probably less reliable but worth noting, a Trove search brings up 500k of articles for Gippsland vs 80k for Orbost. While understandably Orbost isn't used today given that the line closed beyond its present terminus over 30 years ago, few appear to use Bairnsdale either. Bagufleat (talk) 01:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @ThylacineHunter: No one is deleting anything, it's just that the article title should best reflect conventions that follow Wikipedia policy. The articles can still reference historical names in the lead. Also, it doesn't matter if others disagree with Wikipedia policy or have written conventions that disagree with policy, the policy is the policy, no ifs, no buts. I will not definitively support or oppose this proposal. Fork99 (talk) 02:16, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @Fork99 I'm not saying delete content. I'm trying to say that according to LeoC12's comment:
 * the Oaklands railway line, New South Wales page should be renamed "Boree Creek railway line" as the line beyond Boree Creek is closed and "no longer operational"
 * South Gippsland railway line is "no longer operational" beyond Cranbourne, so it should be renamed "Cranbourne railway line"
 * These are just 2 example using this same logic that was used to support the original name change request. -- ThylacineHunter  (talk) 16:51, 12 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. --SHB2000 (talk) 09:16, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok, reviewing some old Newsrail magazines (1970's & 1980's), it appears that the line had 2 common names, it is alternately referred to as either "Gippsland", "Eastern" or "Orbost" line. To confuse matters more, the South Gippsland railway line is sometimes also referred to as "Gippsland" or "Eastern", (amongst other names like "Yarram", "South Gippsland", or "Korumburra" line). Then tere are:
 * "Albury line" & "North East line" appear to be used interchangeably.
 * "Port Fairy line" is used until that section is closed then it is the "Warrnambool line".
 * "Serviceton line", "Dimboola line" or even "Wolseley line" are all common names for the same line. These days "Ararat line" may even be considered as another common name for this line.
 * As shown, the use of WP:COMMONNAME may no longer be appropriate for some of these lines. Some common names are names of the station at end of the service at that point of time, some are the section of the state they are in (South Western, Western, Northern, North Eastern, Eastern) which derive from the way the Victorian Railways divided the state into different timetable books. While other common line names like "Bendigo line" & "Ballarat line" may now be considered by some Wikipedia users as individual lines with 2 other lines branch off each; the Swan Hill (Piangil/Yungera line) & Echuca (Deniliquin line), and the Ararat (Serviceton line) & Maryborough/Mildura (Yelta line); as most Wikipedia users may only be familiar / know of current rail operations. --ThylacineHunter  (talk) 12:07, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * In reading WP:CRITERIA...
 * Recognizability - As the common names for the lines could change every few years this will be inconsistent depending on who you are talking to (Eg. "Warrnambool line", while you and me only know it as that, people who grew up in the 1950-1960's know it as "Port Fairy line"). While a very weak argument on it's own, I do think it important to keep this in mind.
 * Consistency – "The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming conventions on article titles." No such naming convention for railway lines currently exists on Wikipedia, there have been talks in WP:TWP about possibly creating one, but to date none exist. WP:AUSTS has a draft, WikiProject Australian Transport/Naming convention and guidelines, that has tried to cover this gap in naming railway line articles. -- ThylacineHunter  (talk) 16:26, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * No one is disputing that multiple titles are frequently used, but the article can only have one. As as to which is should be decided in accordance with policy. Just because this line is named after the region through which it passes, rather than a terminal city or town as many others in Victoria are, is not reason enough to override the common name policy. If we followed the logic advocated in the aforementioned guideline, the Trans-Australian Railway would be named the Port Augusta - Kalgoorlie railway line and the North Australia Railway, the Birdum railway line. Bagufleat (talk) 22:35, 12 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose per the arguments made in the last RM. Most principally that the WP:COMMONNAME in sources appears to be overwhelmingly the current one. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 23:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose It still seems clear that the current page title is the WP:COMMONNAME. SportingFlyer  T · C  20:19, 13 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose for reasons outlined by others above, the common name should always be the preference and it doesn't make sense to name all rail corridors after the original names from the operators. I would suggest that draft article on naming conventions has not been well considered and needs better reflection before it is widely applied. Gracchus250 (talk) 07:59, 17 July 2023 (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.