Talk:List of abandoned railway lines in South Africa

The page is probably titled incorrectly.

As I understand it, (from a former member of Spoornet's legal department) it requires an Act of Parliament to close a line legally. This has the effect of returning all and any servitudes used to open the line in the first place returned to the properties from which they were taken. There appears to be no reliable record of what these were, and would require a horrendous undertaking to formally close a line. I'd be interested to know if this process was actually undertaken for any of the lines in the list. Certainly in the case of Hercules Magaliesburg, in which Damrail has a particular interest, the line has never been formally and legally closed. It's been unused, but never closed. TFR may refer to a line as being closed, but is that lazy shorthand for saying unused? How should we describe it on Wikipedia?

Also you get to the wikipedia page by a redirection from 'closed stations'. However, there is as yet no page listing closed stations, only the page that talks about closed lines. So the wording at the top of this page is confusing. If my understanding about how to close a line legally is correct, then we should edit the pages that refer to the process, talking rather about 'unused' lines, and create a page that refers to stations, as yet unpopulated.

I suppose a station can be closed, but not the line that passes through it. However, even formally 'closing' a station might raise the question of whether servitudes were created to form the station area, if this was wider than the servitude(s) needed for the rail track (~21 Mtrs.) A question then arises - how is a station closed? What in anybody's view does it actually mean to say that a station is 'closed'? Last train that ever stopped? A pronouncemnet by Spoornet/ TFR? The buildings have been pulled down? Shouldn't we say on the page what definition is being used for the (future) list?

We certainly need to get best value from all the work that's been done - it's a great job so far!! I see that you've done ALL the work so far!! I'd like to think that this helps, and I would be willing to help tidy up. Colinvlr (talk) 21:48, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Page was proposed for deletion, with the rationale, I am dealing with this by changing the title to "List of abandoned railway lines in South Africa, which seems a fairly clear thing to do, especially In view of the legalities mentioned  As for other objections, look for sources. If not found after an appropriate source, then and only then take it to AfD . The relevant rule is WP:BEFORE.    DGG ( talk ) 02:00, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Incorrect article title. The title states stations, but the content deals with lines.
 * Notability - Few of these lines are notable, those that are will be covered in other articles such as the Avontuur Railway and the Alfred County Railway
 * The only main namespace link to this article is from a redirect page. There are no link to that redirect page
 * Content is unreferenced and (except possibly for the few lines that might be notable) finding references will be extremely difficult.
 * The article contains very little information of encyclopedic value


 * * The list of closed lines and branch lines was sourced from the SAR Rail Fans list. There are no definitive lists of closed lines and I'm in a process of finding published works detailing the indivitual closes. The author of 'Tracks Across the Veld' - Boon Boonzaaier has given me permission to use the text of his book as a starting point for articles of the more important closed lines. I have his text in a set of word documents, how do I record his permission granting permission to use the text in Wikipedia?
 * * Many of the individual lines are NOT notible but a complete list of closed lines IS notable. Page carries warning that it is in progress.
 * * The list does not contain much encyclopdic content yet, but will improve. I believe the table/list is encyclopedic in itself.
 * I fully agree with the title change.
 * -- Firefishy (talk) 10:28, 16 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Very well, but I think you should better define the scope and inclusion criteria for the list as per Lists. There are a huge number of abandoned rail lines in South Africa if you including lines that used to serve now closed mines. You might want to exclude those and other similar lines--NJR_ZA (talk) 10:45, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Transnet List of Closed line
Transnet's National Infrastructure Plan 2009/2010 lists some of the closed lines. -- Firefishy (talk) 08:56, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Suggested Page Improvements
I think it would be great if this list could include the provinces for the various lines. I'm busy researching abandoned stations and something like this would help a lot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 105.236.42.232 (talk) 07:25, 8 August 2014 (UTC)