Talk:Heavy rail

What's here is already covered in regional rail, so there is no reason for it to be more than a disambig. --SPUI (talk) 21:40, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No it isn't. Heavy Rail refers to the entire standard rail system, eg the entire national mixed use system for transporting passengers long distances/freight etc, as opposed to localised urban light rail systems. It doesn't just refer to commuter networks operations. Or at least that is how I have always heard it defined. G-Man 22:02, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This article needs disambiguation. Mutually exclusive terms are used in the definition.

Hmmm, I may be a bit off on my terminology then. I guess it would be a combination of intercity rail and regional rail?

The problem with having any content here is that heavy rail means different things in different places, so there should be a disambiguation between the different meanings. The problem is in deciding what the intercity+regional should be called. Then there's also the organization of those - should those be merged into one, or should the heavy rail disambig link possibly go to intercity rail, which could cover all non-metro/tram rail, and regional rail just covers the suburb-to-city aspects?

Sorry about the knee-jerk reverts; this is a rather complicated area. --SPUI (talk) 22:14, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There's also freight, which is another thing which seperates Heavy and Light rail.

The thing I'm getting at is that heavy rail generally refers to the mixed use rail system, covering entire countries. Whereas light rail generally refers to lightweight rail systems used to transport passengers in urban areas. G-Man

Unfortunately this is something that differs between countries. For instance, the first few Google matches for heavy rail refer to subway/metro systems in the U.S. --SPUI (talk) 22:47, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well in that case I'm sure it should be possible to explain the different definitions of the term in the article. I agree this terminology thing is complicated. G-Man 22:53, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It might be useful to have a passenger rail terminology article, specifically for regional differences between passenger lines. I believe firmly that articles actually describing the lines should not be at locations like this, due to the different meanings in different areas. That of course gives the necessity of finding nice neutral names. I'll bring it up on WikiProject Trains once the current brouhaha dies down. --SPUI (talk) 22:59, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)