Talk:Herne Hill railway station/Archive 1

Future: Thameslink
"will remove the need for them to cross in front of trains to/from Denmark Hill at Loughborough Junction" -- actually they don't cross at Loughborough Junction in normal running, but remain separate from those coming from Denmark Hill until somewhere between Elephant and Blackfriars. Thus, the trains from Sutton/Wimbledon are generally seen at platform 1 at Elephant while those from Denmark Hill come into platform 3. Could we say "will remove the need for them to cross in front of trains to/from Denmark Hill and trains to/from London Bridge at junctions south of Blackfriars".? -- Alarics (talk) 12:26, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestion, change made.Tommy20000 (talk) 15:23, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Removed platform
If anyone has any additional information on the removed platform (accessed directly from the main building) - what it was used for, date of closure, etc, - please add it to the article.Tommy20000 (talk) 15:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

TS amendments & comments
Here, FYI, are some notes on the amendments I've made and, who knows, questions I have for you. I'm working through the article top to bottom. Okay, that's probably all for the night. See what you make of it all. The lead and description are the weakest parts. History and Future are much better. That tells you where to concentrate your effort. There's much more that could be said about or done to the article; I have probably just scratched the surface. Have fun. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:40, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Amended title "the station today" to "Description". Today is a word we should avoid. It could as easily be called ==Station layout==. Just avoid time, against the possibility that no-one edits the article for years...
 * P1. Defined it as a railway station. An obvious thing to overlook in an encyclopedia definition is a link to the page that, err, defines what this thing called Herne Hill railway station actually is. We can't assume that people know. I have, btw, six or seven other railway station articles open in my browser for comparison. I don't know if you've compared the HH article with other railway station articles, but it'd probably be a good thing to do. There's quite some inconsistency but there may be ideas to be had from them.
 * Removed the inline grid reference to the infobox. Don't think inline links to geo-stuff is a good idea. 99.9% of readers get nothing from the grid ref.
 * P1. Remove England. They can click on London if they're unsure.
 * direct services -> direct rail services. Don't assume people know what service is being offered.
 * Would be nice to get some detail in the body about the listing ... ideal to move the listing ref (currently ref 3) down into the body. It kinda sticks out in the lead. Ideally the lead will summarise the article. Right now it is introducing a fact which (I may have missed it) is not in the body.
 * On which score, you might want to read WP:LEAD and consider whether to redo the lead as it suggests (tl:dr: "introduction to the article and a summary of its most important aspects."). Is it currently a summary of the most important aspects? Too soon for me to judge ;). But I am having problems with P2. Two sentences. No connection between the two concepts. Who cares, in the lead, that it has step free access? Is that such an important thing?
 * Still on the lead "The future of the station and its passenger services are uncertain beyond 2017". Is that really true? The connections might change, but will that change the station? I tend to doubt it. Well okay, grade separation might somewhat. I think the thing is that the phrase "is uncertain" tends to convey the concept that the station is under some threat of closure. And that's certainly not the case. We probably want to be more along the lines of "Options for the future of the station are under consideration by network rail, which ...."
 * I would relegate services, not least because you start telling us that this service is on platform 1 and that on platform 2, before you've told us that the station has four platforms. IN general, from my straw poll of stations, Services tends to be lower down the pecking order.
 * Deletion of repeated instances of "service" in the Services section
 * Description: I don't like the start. I want a description of the station. It starts by telling me the four platforms are above road level. I'm thinking more along the lines of, say Leeds_railway_station which starts by locating it geographically (more than just saying Railton Road ... where is it in Herne Hill? The centre? West? And then Leeds goes on to define it. "It has four platforms, all above road level" works better than "The station's four platforms are above road-level" since the latter is describing the platforms not the station. "The station serves an elevated railway, has four platforms and a large brick-built 1862 station building". I'm just throwing ideas around here, but the nub of the issue is, you need to paint a picture of the station, not launch into a technical aspect of its platforms. "serving a north-south railway route" (not good phrasing. You talk in the history about sidings being added to the west ... I thought it might be wise to try to fix the orientation of the station in description before we start talking about the east or west in history.
 * So, in short, I'd like you to redo the first two paragraphs of the description section, preferably making them longer. (Sorry, I'd have a go, but I'm really quite tired. I can cope with making criticisms but less well with fixing the issues. Put any crabbiness down to the proposition that I really should be asleep :)
 * Where you first mention flat junction I think you might as well at the end of the paragraph mention again the congestion issue arising out of the two junctions.
 * In description P4 you tell us that "Moorgate Thameslink branch was closed". If we can put names to lines, we should probably earlier in the description section put some names to the lines that currently go through it. (i.e. you are naming a closed line and neglecting to name two open lines. Don't seem right. Not sure what names to use. "On the First Capital Connect Sutton Loop" or "serving the Southeastern Victoria - Orpington line."
 * History. I removed LCDR: from the title. Who knows what LCDR is until you;ve read the article. The two years will do fine.
 * History. Did some copyedits. See history for details. You're free to disagree with / revert my take on any of these
 * "The configuration of the station's platforms and tracks changed considerably in the decades after it opened. It initially had only two platforms..." This is backwards. We need to say "it initially had 2 platforms" and later say "the config got changed". Always say the first thing first, avoid rhetorical flourishes which mangle basic temporal order.
 * "their alignment is now used ". Their what? That sounds like jargon. Either provide a link or use a different word or phrase
 * "The station's signal box, elevated a.." Presumably the signal box predates 1924? But we fist learn of it in the 1924 section, 'cos it was demolished in 1956 or whenever. Introduce it in the right chronological section. You can still demolish it in the 1924 section
 * Image move: left sided images one pages with short sections can push a section title out to the right, which looks a bit crap.
 * "south junction involving an EMU and a steam train" I grant you link EMU (to the wrong place - should be to Electric multiple unit not Multiple unit), but the average reader does not know what an EMU is, and it will bring to mind the bird, and that's just not good. This could be better phrased to something like "contemporary electric passenger train". By all means shoehorn an EMU link in, but describe in plain language
 * "there will be 900 more passengers attempting". Per day?
 * London Overground. The first time this is mentioned is in the ==Future== section. If HHRS is part of LO, then that should be mentioned in the lead and the description, imo. Certainly, at the moment I don't know what the relevance of the LO paragraph is to HHRS.

Ref 7, Ref 3, John Taylor and missing ref
This British History online ref says that Cubitt and Turner were the engineers, but makes no mention of John Taylor (architect), whose article likewise makes no mention of his having built any railway stations. Where did Taylor's name come from? If he really was the architect, we need another ref that says so. Ref 3 (English Heritage listing) only mentions Cubitt, incidentally (and there's no mention of any architect at all in the description of the station in Pevsner's London 2 (South), p.363, either). --GuillaumeTell 18:01, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi, John Taylor is referenced in the Herne Hill Heritage Trail (a local history book; see the refs), but I can't find any mention of his involvement elsewhere. I'll remove his name until I can get confirmation. Tommy20000 (talk) 00:10, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Here's a ref for Taylor, together with a couple of facts and an opinion about the architectural qualities of the station. Not very Ruskinian, apparently. - The Lamp of memory: Ruskin, tradition, and architecture - Page 180 --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:53, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for digging that up. I'll put him back in and reference the book.Tommy20000 (talk) 12:20, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

LCDR's City Branch (in red)
I question whether the LCDR's City Branch image is useful on this page. Not least, and standing out by a mile, it does not seem to feature HHRS on it. That's probably trying to tell us that it should be illustrating the article about the line not the article about the station. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:59, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * And so I've removed it, and moved the images around somewhat; and just to see how it looks, put Services lower down. I'm not precious about any of these changes should you disagree; just trying things for size. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:11, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The lack of a map made understanding of the "1860 to 1923" section a bit difficult, so I've restored the RCH Junction Diagram which seems to have gone missing somewhere along the way. It has the benefit of showing Herne Hill close to the centre, and the lines in the area are shown at their maximum extent. I've also put in a bit about the South Eastern and Chatham Railway. This was previously not mentioned at all, which I found mysterious considering that they operated the majority of the services through Herne Hill for 24 years (1 Jan 1899 - 31 Dec 1922). -- Red rose64 (talk) 10:21, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Missing disused railways template?
I looked back to the point where you picked up, and found this disused railways grid ... I don't know how, but it would be good - if it is relevant - to get it back into the current article.

If you then check out Services there's another grid missing - Southeastern Bedford - Beckenham Junction (Mondays-Fridays only) - what's the story there? Does that service no longer exist? (I know: I could read the article and find out...) --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:40, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The Southeastern service is long gone. FCC do operate one train a day between Bedford and Beckenham Junction, but I don't think it's worth including in the grid (it and other peak-hour only services are summarised immediately before the grid).
 * I'm not sure about adding the disused railway. It is relevant in that trains from the City once terminated at HHRS and passengers had to transfer to travel onwards, but the exact same route is still in use today, so including a disused railway might suggest to readers that HHRS has lost a route when it hasn't.Tommy20000 (talk) 12:17, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Lead suggestion & other comments
Reading the led just now, I recognised that the Thamelink was mentioned there but not linked. That led me to wonder if HHRS was part of Thameslink; and in fact the top of the article (lead & description) does not specify, unless one clicks on Sutton Loop, presumably.

I think the first para of the lead might be redone to link mentions of stations with the lines they are on, something like


 * "... direct rail services to destinations including London Victoria and Dover on the Chatham Main Line, and London Blackfriars, Farringdon, St. Pancras International and Luton Airport railway stations on the Thameslink route".

(Okay. I se you introduced its membership of Thameslink at ==1924 to present==. THat's a bit too late for me. I leave a decision on the change to you. Other points listed below. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)


 * We say "The two island platforms, not listed, were rebuilt in the 20th century." The first mention of platforms should say how many there are (i.e. 4). So. "The station has four platforms composed of two island platforms". Which is very clumsy. But you see where I'm going. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:21, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * And, if there are 4 platforms - as the infobox tells us, we need help untangling this: "Situated on the northbound platform are a coffee bar, information office, waiting room and toilet facilities. The southbound platform ...". In relation to Platforms 1 to 4, which is "the northbound platform". Which is "the southbound"?
 * "and railway engineers Cubitt and Turner" - would be good to have the first names of both of these, as John Taylor has his first name.
 * "the Abbey, a large residential estate at 70 Herne Hill." You need to link the Abbey to the railway station. Currently it's not linked, it's just a think that Vyse happens to own. "the Abbey, a large residential estate at 70 Herne Hill on which the station was constructed"?
 * What is a a large residential estate in the 1850s?
 * several such residences. Such? But this is the first mention of "residences".
 * The arrival of the railways. Or the arrival of the train station? Which?
 * the residences and their grounds were cleared to make way for new streets and many smaller houses. And to make way for the railway? And the station? So, all in all, I'm very confused by that whole paragraph ... it's not drawing a picture I can understand.
 * We don't specify when the station, or perhaps station building (as opposed to the line), was completed.
 * The Sutton Loop link is not very satisfactory. Thameslink and the whole of that article does not mention the Sutton Loop by name. Also decide if it is Sutton Loop or Sutton loop - you had both. Currently they're both SL.
 * "The upper floor is now rented office space, the public stairway for accessing it has been replaced with a private steel stairway " does not belong in ==1860 to 1923== unlerss it happened in that time period. Ditto the rest of that para.
 * "The cross-London service from Herne Hill was discontinued". I've kinda lost the plot. Which is the cross-london service? Either identify earlier on that (presumably the Farringdon link) us the cross-ondon service, or else use a different phrase here - e.g. that when the service to farringdon was withdrawn when...
 * "Work began on electrifying the former LCDR suburban routes in 1924.[13] By 1929, a 660-volt third-rail system had been installed on the lines from Victoria to Orpington, via Herne Hill, and Holborn Viaduct to Herne Hill.". It's hard to relate these to the lines we introduced in the preceding section. Not sure if we can be clearer about these lines. Right now it's all so much spaghetti.
 * I changes a sentence: "Eurostar services linking London Waterloo to Brussels and Paris". You can change these to the station names, or link the cities. As it was the claim was only made for one direction of the journey.


 * Thanks Tag, I've made most of these changes. I will see if I can find out when the upper floor was closed and move the relevant para if appropriate - it was definitely before 1947 (the accident report for that year has a drawing of the station's layout - the associated platform had already been taken out of service/demolished at that point). Tommy20000 (talk) 22:44, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

GA PASS
I have decided to pass the article as a good article. Well done to everyone who has made contributions to help pass it. --Chip123456 (talk) 10:19, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Pevsner
Just a couple of small nitpicks in the second para of the Description section:
 * Cherry & Pevsner's South London was published in 1983 but Symes's came out in 1973 if the ref is to be believed, so "later" probably isn't correct - either the sentence needs rejigging or "later" could be replaced by "earlier" or whatever.
 * It's not entirely clear to me that it was Pevsner himself who described the station as a handsome group. On p.14, Cherry says that he contributed the section on the new public buildings on the South Bank but that "ill health prevented his further active involvement" (and he in fact died in 1983). South London is based on "London except the Cities of London and Westminster", published in 1952.  I used to have a copy but discarded it when the 6 volume London set was completed and it's possible (but, I think, probably not all that likely considering how slim the book was) that he made the remark about the station there.  Unless someone here has access to a copy it might be safest to say "Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner" rather than just NP.  (If someone does have access and the remark doesn't appear there, then we could just say Cherry.)  --GuillaumeTell 10:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've changed that sentence accordingly. Tommy20000 (talk) 12:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

History
I've reorganised the History section so related paras are grouped together: Construction, services, etc. I think this is more readable than a chronologically correct mass of information. Tommy20000 (talk) 17:13, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Cross-platform interchange
The article does not at present seem to mention that the current platform layout facilitates cross-platform interchange in both directions between Victoria-Bromley(-Orpington) trains and Blackfriars-Sutton (etc.) trains. Particularly now that both services run every 15 minutes all day, this provides some easy local connections (e.g. Blackfriars or Elephant to Penge East or Kent House), and I am inclined to think that this is a significant fact about Herne Hill that perhaps should be included in the article, though I am not sure how you would source it. -- Alarics (talk) 10:23, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * National Rail's layout graphic shows there is cross-platform interchange platforms 1 & 2 and 3 & 4, so the difficulty then is showing which routes serve which platforms. The diagrams in the 1947 and 1957 accident reports both clearly show that one island platform is Up and the other is Down, which hasn't changed (the last rebuild was in 1925). We could just avoid saying that particular trains call at platform X and refer instead to Up and Down. Combining sources (particularly one that is 55 years old) to indirectly prove an extremely simple point isn't ideal, but cross-platform interchange isn't mentioned anywhere that I can find.Tommy20000 (talk) 11:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)