Talk:Goat Canyon Trestle

Change to redirect
I see that a stub of a project I began to work on already existed. As my work has more content I have made the sandbox work go live, and have changed this article to a redirect. For us to meet WP:DYKRULES, we have 5 more days to increase the content five fold from 623 characters (including spaces) & 94 words of prose. As of this notice, my work has created 2478 characters (including spacing & 396 words of prose. Therefore, I can use your help.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:41, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I just found this page abandoned. The railway page has some coverage of the structure too. Legacypac (talk) 04:44, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Railway damage date
I believe the fire damage in the border tunnel leading to the most recent closure of the line occurred in 2009. I must say, I added to the SDAE article that it occurred on January 2010, and someone corrected it to Christmas 2009. Some internet pages say the fired occurred on 2009; I presume that back on 2011, the Ramona Home Journal used my erroneous January 2010 fact to their news article "On Memory's Back Trail: The Impossible Railroad", which is cited in this article. The PSRM said the fire happened mid 2009. Can we change the fire date to 2009? TheGGoose (talk) 20:07, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * , that is perhaps better off on the article you've already edited (according to the diff you provided). While it is related it may fall outside of the scope of the article, unless it directly impacts the section about the disuse of the bridge, which is cited to the 2011 Arcadia Publishing book.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 06:32, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I figured out the border tunnel fire didn't impact the operations over Goat Canyon Trestle, but remembered that the 2008 embargo did so I replaced the fire info with the embargo info. TheGGoose (talk) 15:08, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * , the book used as a reference did not verify the content, at least not on the page the url links to. I have added a new reference which does.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:51, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Civil Engineering Landmark
A reference, Times of San Diego, states that the subject of the article was designated a Civil Engineering Landmark, like the Sweetwater Dam. It is further stated in In Flight USA on page 18. I looked at the website of the ASCE website and did not find anything on the subject of this article. Thoughts on the matter?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 02:50, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Nominate it to the San Diego chapter of the ASCE History & Heritage Committee and this . I agree with your assessment ... Cheers Risk Engineer (talk) 21:47, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestion. I have emailed them.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:26, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, found some information, though I don't recall receiving communication back from ASCE. It was designated back in 1986, as indicated in this plaque on the following source:
 * -- RightCow LeftCoast ( Moo ) 21:29, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
 * -- RightCow LeftCoast ( Moo ) 21:29, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Class-A review
''This review is transcluded from WikiProject Transport/Assessment/Goat Canyon Trestle. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

World's largest claim
The lead makes the claim that this is the "world's largest curved wooden trestle" but the cited source says it's the "world's largest wooden trestle". However, that source is the North County Times, a small local newspaper, so I'm not sure how reliable that is. Not only that, but I'd like to understand what exactly does "largest" mean: longest? most building materials used? most space taken up? Further Googling reveals the following claims from reliable sources (emphasis mine in all quotes): Even so, those are all media companies. I'd prefer a citation to something more authoritative, like ACSE, if possible. — howcheng  {chat} 21:07, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
 * San Diego Union Tribune: tallest curved wooden trestle in the world
 * San Diego Reader: the longest, tallest curved wooden trestle ever built in the United States
 * KCET: highest existing curved wooden trestle in the U.S. (and "highest" is confusing, because it could mean the bridge at the highest elevation above sea level)
 * North County Times, was bought by SDUT a few years back, which itself was bought by the LAT. Therefore, since NCT archive has been taken down, this falls within WP:OFFLINE in a way, although the NCT has been preserved/republished on another webpage (which this article utilizes). I don't believe that ACSE has content about this, as most of the documentation about the Goat Canyon Trestle (that isn't online) is OFFLINE at Pacific Southwest Railway Museum in their library.
 * Additionally this SDUT article is quoted as
 * "What is the largest curved all-wooden trestle on Earth? If you guessed the Goat Canyon Trestle in southeast San Diego County near the Mexican border, you get a double gold star."


 * Are there any other claims refuting what has been verified?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:14, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
 * So then we should cite the "world's largest curved wooden trestle" claim to the SDUT article you just linked then. Otherwise, it's kind of confusing why the article says one thing but the source says something different. Both the SDR and KCET pages I linked to might just be hedging their bets because they only did enough research to confidently state that it's the largest in the US. — howcheng  {chat} 23:15, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I will change the reference then. Here is the diff.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:30, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It would be a good addition if we can add links to some of the other world's largest trestles in the "See also" section. — howcheng  {chat} 21:01, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Inaccuracies
I have been contacted by the archivist at the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum, who is concerned about the accuracy of the article. He cites some offline primary sources which are within their collection, originally created by the San Diego and Arizona Railway. The article has passed GAR, and most everything is referenced to a primary source.

Here is the conversation I have had so far, with names redacted per WP:OUTING: "Greetings, I am writing you as a member of the San Diego Wikimedians User Group ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_Wikimedians_User_Group ), and as an editor on Wikipedia. I am seeking information on the Goat Canyon Trestle, in relations to content improvement on the article about the subject ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Transport/Assessment/Goat_Canyon_Trestle#Goat_Canyon_Trestle ). I am wondering if your organization has information on the designing, and construction of the Trestle, and whether I can view it, with the goal of using it as citations on the Wikipedia article. I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience."

"Hi ; we have tons of information on the Goat Canyon trestle but none of it is online. If you like, I can look at the existing article and suggest additions as I get time to do the research and provide citations from the archive. It would help if you can suggest the areas you think most need improvement., archivist home email"

"Mr., Any assistance would be appreciated. Here is a link to the artlce ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_Canyon_Trestle ) and I did the best I could with everything I could find online. If need be I would be willing to travel up to Campo, but would need to plan ahead to figure time and gas, and coordinate around my work schedule."

"Hi ; Between problems with the library email and opening the new addition to our library I am now falling behind in many areas, so i apologize for not getting back to you with more info sooner. Addressing some of the errors in the page: The trestle is indeed curved 15 degrees, but it is to align the existing tracks from the east through tunnel 16 with the new approach to the canyon through a new tunnel 15 and has nothing to do with wind resistance. When a large section of Goat Canyon slid down the hill in 1932, the old tunnel fifteen entrance was left well below the grade, about 30' to the "north" and in unstable ground. A new right of way was created around the hillside from the old west end of tunnel 15 and a new shorter tunnel 15 was bored through the more stable portion, emerging at grade level but 15 degrees "south" of where the previous entrance had been, hence the curvature. The bridge is a five-pile open deck wooden trestle built to common standard drawing CS-33 and SP maintenance of way drawing MWD-13260. It is constructed primarily of redwood with pilings adapted from Douglas fir originally intended for ships masts and shipped from Oregon by the SP. It was planned by SD&A Chief Engineer Carl Eichenlaub and is 633' 32" long and 186' high at mid point as originally built. A map best showing the bridge in relation to the old and new track alignments is SD&A# V-2/13 and the fire prevention system drawing is on SD&A H-285. Two tank cars were connected to the fire system, one permanently connected to an automatic detection system and sprinklers and the other on a siding above the trestle which could be tapped for hose use or moved to some advantageous position. The trestle was constructed under SD&A work order WO-1111 and is the largest and curviest example of its type ever shown in Southern Pacific records. It may or may not be the largest wooden trestle still standing in North America. That should address most of the problem points. If you want to take a stab at re-writing the article with the new information I can do a proof read for you before any release. , PSRM archivist"

"I believe what you write, but is there a source which I can site. It need not be online, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Offline_sources"

"Until someone writes that book or publishes a manuscript, you will have to accept the original source material cited- work order#, map# and such as found in the San Diego & Arizona collection at the Southwest Railway Library division of the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum. There are two published books, neither of which I used, and you might be able to back up some of the information in Robert Hanft's "San Diego & Arizona: the Impossible Railroad" which was published in 1984 and has been out of print for some time. It has a number of errors, but is probably the best so far. The other book is an Arcadia picture book by Reena Deutsch with a similar title. It is current and she checked sources as far as it goes, but it is primarily a picture book and short on text.I don't like to use books for the reason that some untruths have been promulgated for years by authors who are unable or just too lazy to check the actual primary source material."

", Primary sources can still be reliable sources; please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research . As such, the entire article is sourced to various secondary and tertiary sources, and thus if there are errors they are unintended and are based on what can be verified to those cited sources. Perhaps a good forum to discuss use of the primary sources would be at the talk page of the article, and notifying the talk page of Wikiproject Trains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains"

Therefore, the question I have is can the primary sources from the archive at PRSM be used to cite changes requested by the archivest and be integrated into the article? Or, does that fall outside of what can be verified to the non-primary sources, and those non-primary sources (which may not have the same information as the primary sources) take precedent as is presently the case? The archivest has provided designations of various drawings and plans; are these sufficient to reference for offline sources, even if they are primary?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:16, 9 August 2018 (UTC)