Talk:List of defunct United States railroads

"Defunct" Railroads, or "Never-Constructed" Railroads?
There are, pretty clearly, a good number of railroads on this list that existed only as proposals, or paper entities, and were never actually built or even begun. It seems to me that this list should include only railroads that once actually operated, and that the "paper" companies should be removed, perhaps to a separate list of their own. I'm tempted to start weeding the "paper" lines out, but before beginning such a huge task I thought I'd see if there was any input on the subject. Pitamakan 21:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Redundant efforts?
This page may be redundant, given that there is a category for this topic as well as lists of defunct lines on many state railroad pages (I'm working on the Virginia page these days). Any suggestions for how to avoid duplicating efforts? - Thetrick 04:34, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Why should there be a list of all the railroads that used to exist? Some of the more notable ones like the transcontinental railroad, one of the seven wonders of the industrial world may be kept but what about all the others? --123.51.103.64 00:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Paper vs. Operating Railroads
I think that you almost have to keep all of the railroads on this page. Some of the railroads that I have added are obviously nothing more than paper roads, some started to build track and made land cuts but never ran any trains, some ran a few trains and died within a few months or even days, a couple existed for only a day but owned a lot of equipment just before they were bought by another road, and some operated for some time. I think it would be too difficult to get a cut off line between what was just paper and what was operating.

brianmcfa 01:30, 16 August 2006 (U.S.Central)

Breakdown into Eras
What do people think about breaking the defunct category down into the time that they went defunct or by the time they were started? I know it would take a lot more research to do but I think it might be better for people looking for railroads in certain times. I'm personally trying to find railroads and photos from 1985. Maybe a 'birth and death' page for railroads?

brianmcfa 10:32, 06 November 2006 (U.S.Central)


 * Sounds like something that could be integrated with the pages in Category:Timeline of rail transport. I've been adding charter, inauguration and dissolution dates as I find them, but if the data can be presented in a better format...  I'm less keen to change the format here so we can keep editing on this page simple. Slambo (Speak)  11:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

What next?
The AfD failed because a lot of alternate solutions were proposed. So, what do we do next? I favor making sure that everything worth saving is moved to state lists, and then turning this into a list of links to the state lists. Does anyone want to propose a different solution? -- Donald Albury 13:59, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I've already made sure everything was moved to state lists. Thus I support replacing it with US railroad lists. --NE2 15:34, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That'll work, but we can't just delete this for now. So, a redirect to the template, and try AfD again after people have a chance to see how it works? -- Donald Albury 15:54, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but I expect to see it reverted. --NE2 15:57, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

This list now has no incoming links. Anyone opposing the redirect, say nay. --NE2 16:36, 9 August 2009 (UTC)