Talk:Highland branch

Extant commuter rail line claim
I don't think Allen's claim of this being the first active commuter rail line converted to light rail use is correct. The Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line was a very similar conversion - also in the Boston area - three decades before. Several earlier cases of privately-done railway electrification that used trolleys rather than conventional mainline stock - the Nantasket Beach Railroad (1895-1932), Newton Lower Falls Branch (1900-1930), and the Berlin-Middletown line in Connecticut (1906-1920) come to mind - could arguably also be considered. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:39, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The earliest I could look at Allen again is the middle of the week, but I don't recall that he qualified the claim. My notes show that he did discuss and dismiss other possible examples, such as the Blue Line in Los Angeles. I agree that Ashmont-Mattapan is similar, but the scale is different. Mackensen (talk) 14:36, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Okay, let me know when you do get a chance to look at it. (Any chance you could send a copy my way when you do? It sounds like it'd be very useful for the D Branch article as well.) Cheers, Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:45, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 16 May 2020

 * 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: Moved  buidhe 22:09, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Highland Branch → Highland branch – Not a proper name; sources often use lowercase branch for this. Dicklyon (talk) 22:22, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Background from nom
The GA review gave no indication that the article was looked at for style issues such as capitalization. Most branch lines don't cap branch, because sources don't mostly do so. So I lowercased it. But that got reverted, so now we discuss.

Some sources that use "Highland branch" and/or "Newton Highlands branch" without caps include:, , , , ,. Yes, capping has become more popular since the branch shut down service in 1958, but that doesn't retroactively make it a proper name. Dicklyon (talk) 22:42, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Survey
The only capitalize-it-all exceptions we should possibly be making are true proper names (evocative or honorary labels that are not descriptive, e.g. "MegaSpeed Line", "A. B. Ceesdale Memorial Station"). Even then an argument can still be made that the proper-name component is really just the label before the final type-identifying word; cf. similar debates about formal names of domestic animal breeds (Siamese cat, not "Siamese Cat"). I only offer this potential exception tentatively, because my argument to keep Olympic station capitalized in "Olympic Station" form (as an evocative name, because it has nothing to do with a street, facility, etc. name "Olympic", and it is not connected in any way to the actual Olympics, but named in weirdly non-specific honor of a local Olympic athlete) was eventually rejected, and the page moved to lower-case "station". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:00, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Comment. "Most branch lines don't cap branch, because sources don't mostly do so". It's difficult to see how this statement is relevant or helpful as far as the present article is concerned. It's a proper name, or it's not. We'd really be much better off with a bright-line rule that says, proper name or no, descriptors such as "line", "branch", "subdivision", or "district" are always capitalized or always lower-cased. This case-by-case approach creates a situation where title case is inconsistent between articles for reasons that aren't readily apparent, and I think that fact is causing folks' heads to explode. Allen (1999), a foundational source for this article, capitalizes "Riverside Line" and "Highland Branch" but not "Riverside branch". Does this mean anything? I can make a valid case that it does: "Riverside branch" refers to a branch line through Riverside, more properly called Riverside Line and before that the Highland Branch, which was no doubt colloquially referred to as the "Highland line" in some sources, being a railway line through Newton Highlands, but categorized as a branch and not a main line. Hilton (1962) refers to the "Highland Branch" but the "Old Colony lines" and "Chestnut Hill branches" (Branch as proper name versus lines as collective descriptor), and then a few pages later refers to the "Fox Chase branch" (the colloquial name for that service, but the actual physical line was the Newtown Branch, not named by Hilton). Hilton and Allen appear to understand correct usage, and both, separated by over 30 years, capitalized "Branch". Mackensen (talk) 23:15, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I think following the current guidance makes more sense than making up a new "bright-line rule" that's sort of arbitrary. Dicklyon (talk) 02:37, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * As you like. The two sources above contradict your position. Both are scholarly. One is written close to the replacement of the branch; one thirty years after the fact. Mackensen (talk) 03:27, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * "It's a proper name, or it's not." You mean like Longwood station? Tony (talk)  05:59, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:CONSISTENT, WP:NCCAPS, WP:MOSCAPS, and previous RMs about "line", "branch", "station", etc. If in doubt, use lower case. If sources are not consistent, use lower case.  This is what the guidelines tell us, and it's what RM consequently decides to do pretty much every day.  The "semi-oppose" above actually reads more in favor of consistency in our own material, and then highlights inconsistency in the sources (which are specialized sources anyway, prone to capitalization shenanigans as a class).  We cannot read minds here, but it appears that the cited authors are attempting to  something, to a specialized audience, by changing capitalization between various instances.  Our readers are not specialists, and one of the first rules of MOSCAPS, at MOS:SIGCAPS, is that WP does not use capitals for signification or other forms of emphasis.  Hell, we can't even tell for sure what they're trying to signify (or if they even are, rather than just being sloppy in their own writing; I suspect it's simply a matter of copying what some government documents were doing in their officialese). If it is signification, this is very similar to the habit of technical, medical, and other specialist writers to abandon hyphenation of compound modifiers when they are terms of art within the specialty and already understood as linguistic units by the narrow intended audience; WP still hyphenates them for clarity to our more diverse readership.  The supposed oppose above is entirely correct that veering back and forth between "branch" and "Branch" on a per-article basis for no clear reason will be confusing to our readers – and even our editors.
 * My point was rather that Hilton and Allen were making a specific distinction between a proper name and colloquial usage; that's most clear with the distinction between Fox Chase branch/Newton Branch and Highland Branch. This is admittedly a somewhat fine point, and as you say one that only a specialist source would make. While we do look to a specialist source for technical correctness, we also have to interpret that correctness for a mass audience. The cult of the A. B. Ceesdale Memorial Station style of station naming is the worst thing that has happened in transit and I would rename every such article if given dictatorial power. Mackensen (talk) 20:20, 17 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Support per WP:NCCAPS and WP:MOSCAPS. Arrived here via ANI thread. "Highland" is a proper name acting attributively to a common noun "branch", which is descriptive of what it is, and should be capitalised as "Highland branch". This appears to be borne out by the sources, even though the sample set is small. While I might empathise with the concerns of that the evidence based criteria used by WP for capitalisation can create inconsistencies, it is nonetheless the nature of the beast and the beast is unlikely to change its spots.  Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 02:13, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Support for consistency with other WP naming, and the style authorities in the US and the UK that say "minimise unnecessary capitalisation". Tony (talk)  05:59, 21 May 2020 (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.