Talk:List of characters in The Railway Series

Page move
I have moved this page from Railway Engines (The Railway Series) because it allows the other major, non rail characters to have a 'base link' - somewhere where they will most likely be found and can have a link to. It keeps them in one place.

Mdcollins1984 14:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Pictures

 * The pictures on this page shouldn't be from the TV Series...


 * Yeah we know - it's work in progress! See WikiProject Thomas Mdcollins1984 10:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

As per my comments at Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Thomas, I have hidden the images in this article. This has been done simply by adding the   tags around them, rather than removing them completely at this stage.

The reason for this is simple - this article is about the Railway Series, not the TV Series. To have the TV Series images is confusing, misleading, and goes against one of WikiProject Thomas' main objectives - to clearly deliniate between Railway Series, TV Series, and Movies. If pictures from the books cannot be provided (for copyright reasons, perhaps), then it would be better to have no pictures at all on this page, than have TV Series pictures.

Kind regards, Gonzerelli 10:32, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Anchor points (see edit summary)
Hi IP,

I think you have misunderstood User:EdJogg. The for2 links are not the "anchors" themselves. The "anchor" is the section header, not the template itself. For example, if you search and type in "Oliver the Great Western Engine", this is a redirect to Major characters in The Railway Series per it's primary usage (fully discussed when WP:THOMAS did a major overhaul of all the articles a couple of years back. It maybe that somebody was searching for Oliver because they have been watching Thomas & Friends, so the want the TV series perspective; hence why the option is given immediately to click through to that. The section headers serve as anchors for links from elsewhere; the "hat note" as you like to call it is not the "anchor link", it follows the where an anchor destination ends up. anchor serves no purpose here.&mdash;MDCollins (talk) 01:39, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * So then why did you revert me. Those hatnotes should be integrated into the paragraphs.174.3.99.176 (talk) 01:54, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Er no. As explained to you ad nauseam elsewhere, they provide a link to different but related information. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THESE LINKS. Please go and find something USEFUL to do instead. EdJogg (talk) 14:46, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

As I explained, quite clearly (before you requested my explanation via my talk page), there are differences between the portrayal of certain characters between TRS and T&F. It could give false information, especially if the reader isn't aware they are looking at a page on one perspective, in this case, the books, because they have arrived at the section via an anchor/piped/redirect link from elsewhere. It is therefore prudent, in their best interests, to make it clear, from the outset, that there may be differences by giving them the option, immediately, to cross reference to the corresponding article before potentially reading (or correcting) what is to them, incorrect information. We have had plenty of edits that change valid information because of these differences (between TRS and T&F - for example, Donald and Douglas who are blue in the books, and remain black on TV), because editors were changing things in good faith. It does no harm to prevent this by using these templates.

This should be obvious why I reverted you; there is existing consensus, from many editors, when these pages were created, to do it this way, for good reason. There is nothing wrong with them; they could (not should) be integrated, but it is not a neccessity and they are fine as they are, for the reasons explained above.&mdash;MDCollins (talk) 15:55, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

In case you're wondering, as far as I recall, the "hatnotes" were used for consistency with the rest of the article. The first 10 or so sections (characters) point to a "main article:..."; it looked consistent to use the same formats, albeit changing the text slightly to take the opportunity to point readers elsewhere, if they choose to go there.&mdash;MDCollins (talk) 16:09, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The lede of each article states EXPLICATLY the scope of the content in each article. If these changes by goodfaith editors, occured, we shall insert hidden comments to deter them from changing locationally incorrect information.  These hatnotes are too blaring and inappropriately flagging the content of these sections.174.3.99.176 (talk) 22:20, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Which is all very well if the link takes you EXPLICATLY (explicitly?) to the lead, and not to a subsection. What purpose do hidden comments serve here?&mdash;MDCollins (talk) 22:52, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * So we don't even need disambiguation links at all. Just comments reminding people to not put mislocated information in the wrong sections (on whichever articles, including this one).174.3.99.176 (talk) 06:26, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The sort of editors we are usually dealing with wouldn't recognise a hidden comment if it came out and bit them. Besides, it's not editors we are really trying to help here, it's the readers. Dunno what you've got against them...


 * "These hatnotes are too blaring..." -- blaring? Have we integrated media clips into the links? (boy, wouldn't that get annoying!)


 * "... and inappropriately flagging the content of these sections". You know what, the only person who might think that is someone who decided to open the section for editing, found out which template was used, went to the template page and looked at its source, saw that at its heart it is a version of and then didn't realise that it was actually being used to create text to disambiguate between two equal-importance descriptions of basically the same basic fictional character, appearing in two parallel fictional worlds, and whose characteristics and development were sufficiently different that they needed describing in two separate articles. (wow, that's a long sentence!) I suspect that 99.99999999999% of readers would simply follow the link and not realise that they were doing something 'illegal'.
 * -- EdJogg (talk) 02:37, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * If both sections (on either article) are important, then the sections should be combined, and these combined sections turned into their own article.174.3.99.176 (talk) 06:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Put very simply, NO. Please see WP:THOMAS/FAQ -- that should answer this question. -- EdJogg (talk) 11:45, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * These articles are lists, and do not need this frivolous disambiguation pseudotemplate.174.3.99.176 (talk) 04:56, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * They are a kind of list, which is precisely why they do need the template (a purpose which is not frivolous). Incidentally, I think you mean "pseudo-disambiguation template". A 'pseudotemplate' would probably be wikimarkup that produced an effect resembling a template, which is the route you are trying to force us towards, which is a backward step. -- EdJogg (talk) 10:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No, just don't use that template. And no, that template is not used on ANY list.174.3.99.176 (talk) 01:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

RFC
(This editor: 174.3.99.176 (talk) 06:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC))

Merge from List of Thomas & Friends narrow-gauge engines
Inspired by a recent comment by User:Devonian Wombat, one list of characters for this show should be enough. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:46, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. YorkshireLad ✿  (talk) 14:33, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The nom is good faith mistaken, these are not two shows, one is a book series and the other is a television series. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:11, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Support merging verifiable content. Although I'm okay with trimming some of the least-important material and anything that would overlap. Hog Farm Bacon 20:56, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose, these are two different topics (the characters of the TV series overlap somewhat but differ from the characters of the books in The Railway Series, which is directly covered and described in the lead of this article. Plus the two television series character pages are covered in the hatnote). Both articles contains pertinent information throughout and, besides being two different topics, they seems too large to merge anywhere without losing much of the data. Best to leave these two pages as they are for full topic coverage. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:55, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose, as the merged article would be excessively long and the narrow gauge engines are something of a separate cast from the standard gauge ones. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 13:29, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose for the reason given by Randy Kryn – such a merge would hopelessly muddle up the book and television universes. However a merge from the history of the inappropriately redirected Culdee Fell Railway would be helpful. Thincat (talk) 16:34, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose The TV characters are different from the book characters. TV characters have actors and accents. The book characters have a more detailed history that differs from TV. Rusty (book), for example comes from Lincolnshire whereas Rusty (TV) has a West Country accent. OrewaTel (talk) 00:15, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Multiple Issues?
A template at the start of the article declared it has multiple issues. Some, at least, have been fixed. I believe that all the issues have now been addressed and am removing this tag. If there are any issues then please, address them, report them here or put a specific tag on the article. (Such as "This article needs more xxx" etc. rather than "There is an issue but I'm not telling you what it is.") OrewaTel (talk) 01:37, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Please do not remove the tag. There are two specific issues listed, neither of which have been addressed. The first tag says "This article needs additional citations for verification". The article is woefully under referenced and the vast majority of it is unverifiable. The entire first section has zero citations, for example. Only four statements are sourced at all. The second tag says "This article relies too much on references to primary sources". This tag could be removed. In its place it would be necessary to add tags for the Tone of the writing, which is highly inappropriate, the fact that it is overly detailed and that it is written from a fan point of view. This article is far, far below Wikipedia's core requirements for quality and sourcing, and I doubt very much it would survive an Articles for deletion discussion, cf Articles for deletion/List of Thomas & Friends narrow-gauge engines. Laplorfill (talk) 02:08, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed! I thought I had reverted my edit complaining about the Tags. They are appropriate. OrewaTel (talk) 12:16, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Recent edits by unnamed users
This article has been subject to unhelpful edits by IP users. These edits present 'facts' without citations. Many of the facts are obviously incorrect and the others are not cited. Generally these are simply reverted. Because the IP users make a whole raft of small edits in one go, it is reasonable to revert the whole slew of them at once. However in a recent round of edits, Henry's lineage was changed from 'LNER A1' to 'GNR A1'. Although this change lacked a citation, it appears to be correct and so has not been reverted.OrewaTel (talk) 23:58, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Mavis wheel arrangement
Mavis'' is described as 6wDM. This implies that the 3 driving axles are connected internally with chains or shafts. The BR Class 04, on which Mavis is based, has siderods driven by a jack shaft. That is a 0-6-0DM wheel arrangement. Could someone check please. OrewaTel (talk) 23:02, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Creating more individual character pages
The characters from the Railway Series and Thomas & Friends are very iconic and well known. But currently the only characters from them to have pages are Thomas, James, Toby and the Fat Controller. Could we create more? Thomasfan1000 (talk) 12:38, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Problems with redirects
Numerous characters in the series from Series 5 onwards have pages that redirect to the page "list of characters in the Railway Series". In every case, this is wrong, since these characters did not appear in the Railway Series ever. The obvious solution would be to re-insert blue links with the correct redirects (hypothetically redirecting to "List of characters (Thomas & Friends)".

I myself have only gone so far as to remove the blue link to the redirect for "Derek", on the page specifically about "Series 5". If this is wrong, or if there is some usefulness to this redirect that I'm not understanding, then please revert my edit while understanding that this was done in good faith. If it is right, please indicate this so that the blue links can be corrected for the rest of the characters. R23$94ACQ3R (talk) 20:32, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Are Donald and Douglas 812s or 652s?
In the section discussing Donald and Douglas, they are said to be based on the 652 class instead of the 812 class, when really Rev. W. Awdry explicitly stated that they were 812s. --Magnatyrannus (talk &#124; contribs) 22:21, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * When did he say that? OrewaTel (talk) 22:43, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Well basically, 652s are just revamped versions of the 812 class, so calling Donald and Douglas 812s would still be correct. Visually the difference is just the cab cutting, reverse rod and the middle splashers being a little different while the boilers, cylinders and tractive effort etc were the same.
 * Some notes on their differences near the bottom of Section 2 https://caley.com/assets/pdfs/cl2pn.pdf --Magnatyrannus (talk &#124; contribs) 23:19, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This site https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Donald_and_Douglas_(RWS) states clearly that they were 812s but their original numbers should belong to 652 engines. The illustrations in the books look very similar to preserved 812 class, No 828. OrewaTel (talk) 02:26, 17 November 2022 (UTC)


 * However, it should not be used as a source stating whether Donald and Douglas are 812s or 652s, and again, as stated above, 652s differ very little from their 812 counterparts, so depicting Donald and Douglas as 812s or 652s would still be accurate. Perhaps the evidence leaning towards them being 652s are their numbers. --Magnatyrannus (talk &#124; contribs) 20:58, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Other, Privately Owned
The article contains two sections for additional characters. These are Privately Owned and Other Railway Engines. There is a degree of overlap with Neil appearing in both lists. Stepney seems to be in the wrong list. Rather than Privately owned perhaps the heading should be renamed Other Sodor Railways and all visitors from the Mainland should be listed under Other Railway Engines. OrewaTel (talk) 11:57, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Inappropriate Links
Recently a number of good faith but wrong links have been made. they broadly fall into two classes. OrewaTel (talk) 22:39, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) A link to a similar word with a different meaning. For example linking a general goods engine to general good.
 * 2) A link to a common word that needs no explanation such as bull. See WP:OL