Talk:List of locomotives

Early discussion
The purpose of this article is to keep track of the current state of Wikipedia locomotive articles and provide a central jumping-off point to go to other locomotive lists. &mdash;Morven 23:34, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * As all of the information on this article is now available at Category:Locomotives, has this article's purpose become moot? There are a lot more locomotive articles now than are listed in this article. slambo 02:18, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Yes, I see no need for this article anymore. It was introduced prior to categories being supported. &mdash;Morven 06:55, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

Note for the deletion discussion for this article see Talk:List of locomotives/delete -- Graham &#9786; | Talk 16:34, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Okay, since the consensus was no consensus, what is the next evolutionary step for this article? Do we add in links to all of the other locomotive articles that are already online, or do we completely refactor the list? Does this list now become a superset of all of the other "List of ... locomotives" articles or do we make this a list of links to the various "List of ..." articles plus a list of otherwise unclassified locomotives? Do we concentrate this list on locomotive types or specific locomotives?

I would argue against making this list a list of all specific locomotives because such a list would be enormous when we look at named steam engines, for example. I've got a very long list at home that I've compiled of named steam locomotives that have operated on North American railroads. It is by no means complete. I can upload a sample of about a page worth of data to one of my talk pages, but just looking at North America, the list is quite extensive. UK railroads kept using locomotive names through dieselization and many diesel locomotives are also named, so such a list could potentially increase in length exponentially.

Anyway, just some thoughts... slambo 16:36, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

neat pic - PD, too
I don't know my way around WikiProjext Trains well enough to know if there might bev an article on CNR locos, but this I found while looking for an image to illustrate Siska, British Columbia; eventually t here will be Siska CNR Bridge and Siska DCPR Bridge but for now that town is the CNR adn CPR cats. The picture I've linked has other applications re the history of New Westminster; I think that's a statioon there but if so there's not one there now (highway bridge abutment right there....); but it's a neat shot of the locomotive; ifanyone wants to use it click through to the main image, crop it of the white frame and logo and use PD-Canada.Skookum1 (talk) 02:28, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Multiple units and railcars
Should this list and its sublists try to include, or try to exclude, multiple units and railcars? I tend to think it should exclude them.--Doncram (talk) 19:12, 24 June 2022 (UTC) Shoulld

"preserved"
For defining sublists of preserved locomotives, what is the meaning of "preserved"? Can it include locomotives in use in heritage railways? Some heritage railways have a mix of locomotives, some listed on a heritage register like the US NRHP, and many not. How old does one have to be? The general guidelines for NRHP listing of buildings and all orher things is that they should be at least 50 years old.

List of British Rail Class 47 locomotives has color coding that classifies all into four types: in service, stored, scrapped, preserved. As if "preserved" means on static display, like at a museum. What about a restored, historic locomotive that us operated on a short tourist line? --Doncram (talk) 20:10, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

There is this archived discussion from 2009 at WikiProject Trains on "A definition for preserved"]. --Doncram (talk) 20:18, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Locomotive classes and models
Should the list be pared down to cover individual locomotives, and not locomotive classes? I tend to think so, although items that are locomotive classes could be moved to a new List of locomotive classes. There is weirdness in the related categories, e.g. Category:Individual locomotives of the United States includes Pennsylvania Railroad class FF1 which is a class and not an individual locomotive. In the process of developing the lists, the categories should be cleaned up too. --Doncram (talk) 20:15, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Also it has been noted by Mangoe in the ongoing AFD that locomotive classes are not necessarily the same as locomotive models, so if List of locomotives is restricted to individual locomotives, then should it be List of locomotive classes and models split out, or what? What is the distinction between classes and models, and is it really important? --Doncram (talk) 15:04, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Classes are as a rule specific to individual railroads and most often (but not always) signify locomotives built for the railroad to a single design. At least in the US it's a thing of the steam and early diesel era, but these days the models of locomotive from each builder are how things get described. There were frequently enough single engine classes, typically experiments like that FF1. Mangoe (talk) 04:19, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Splitting proposal
I still believe that this article should be deleted (it has shown little signs of improvement since the AFD), but if it is to kept it must be split. Trying to cover both locomotive classes and individual locomotives of encyclopedic merit is a fool's errand. Eldomtom2 (talk) 20:13, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I think it generally does make sense to distinguish between classes and individual locomotives. But ultimately, the "list of locomotives" should become a "list of lists" broken down by region, country, or manufacturer. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:22, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree with . A list/category wizard - which I am not - could do this in a few hours/days I reckon!
 * I agree there should be three pages - a List of locomotive classes, a list of individual locomotives (which could be at this title) and an index at Lists of locomotives covering the many lists we have (e.g. Steam locomotives of British Railways, List of Prussian locomotives and railbuses, etc. Category:Railway locomotive-related lists is only a subset) not just the two discussed here. If this title is used for the individual locomotives then it should have a hatnote to both other pages, if it isn't it should redirect to the index. Thryduulf (talk) 21:13, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with . --ThylacineHunter  (talk) 05:28, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Per Thryduulf, with the comment that the list of individual locomotives be restricted to those which have a stand alone Wikipedia article. Mjroots (talk) 19:26, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That was my intent; I was thinking of articles such as List of individual dogs.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 21:15, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree, the split would make both articles more useful and relevant to respective topics. Also agree that list of locomotives should become a list of listsVinay84 (talk) 13:26, 3 March 2023 (UTC)