Talk:Saint Petersburg–Hiitola railway

Regarding the history section
It should be rewritten in order to clarify the situation. Initially the article was about St. Petersburg - Sortavala railroad, which is pretty far from Joensuu, and I was going to create other articles for other Karelian railroads, but it might be a good idea to turn this into a single article about all the railways in the region (although I am not sure that there is enough space for this). However, now the section looks a bit misleading. Any suggestions? Colchicum 02:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The article should be renamed as Saint Petersburg–Hiitola Railway. The track from Hiitola to Sortavala is a part of the old Karelian railway from Vyborg to Joensuu (see Viipuri–Joensuu-rata and Luokka:Venäjän rataverkko). It was finished in 1894, whereas the railway from Hiitola to Saint Petersburg was built as late as in 1919. --Hippophaë 15:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I know, but the problem is that by now the Vyborg - Hiitola link has become obsolete, and this line is used as a whole. BTW, Hiitola - St. Petersburg railway was used already in early 1917. Colchicum 16:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The track had been completed by January 27 1917, and trains started running that very year, although some works had continued until 1919. Colchicum 16:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I have split this into Vyborg-Joensuu railroad and Saint Petersburg-Hiitola railroad. Colchicum 20:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Railway or railroad?
Someone should decide whether to use the term railway or railroad in this article as it changes back and forth throughout. As I was only browsing through this I decided not to tamper with it myself. Welkinridge 13:23, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Railway is used in Europe, Railroad for North American Railroads
This is the common practice in English language railway literature. This has been clear for me more than 40 years. North Americans have railroads, Europeans railways.

Pictures
There are nice pictures with expired copyrights at []. Colchicum 15:45, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

St.Petersburg - Hiitola Railway
The kilometres starts from the point where the line diverces from the so called Connection Railway which linked S.V.R. at Kuschelevka freight yard and Nikolai Railway at Nikolai Railway´s freight yard outside the Nikolai Railway´s passenger station. When built the lenght was offically reported to be 17 versts or 18.14 km. It was originally decided to build a new railway station on the east side of Neva (Neevaa) River, just below the narrow gauge (750 mm) Irinovka Railway station at Malaja Ohta (Pien Ohta), to a place which is just north of River Ohta. The terminal station would have been what is now Grasnogvardeiskaja pl, near the Bolshetinsk bridge. The lenght of the (St.Petersburg -) Border - Raasuli - Hiitola line when built in Finnish side was 108.758 km. There were also 2.605 km branch line and the lenght of side lines was total 23.443 km. The line had 33.48 kg / metre rails when completed. The line was railed on January 24, 1917. There was a strike which prevented the graveling on the Finnish side on 05.05.1917 - 16.07.1917 and all the 1455 railway builders left their work on 14.07.1917. They returned back to work only on 16.08.1917. There was no through traffic over the Russian / Finnish railways. The Hiitola - Käkisalmi was opened to traffic on 01.08.1917, the section Käkisalmi - Rautu on 01.11.1917. There was the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia just a week later, and then chaos. In addition, the temporary wooden Vuoksi bridge could not bear the typical Russian class Od / Ov D-n2v freight locomotives with their 13.4 tonne axle load. Only axle loads about 10 tonne. This prevented the use of the line for through traffic to Hiitola. However, during the Continuation War Finland´s Army advanced over the offical border at this part of the Karelian isthmus. The Army supply trains continued over the border to a sand pit side branch located at Russian km 67 from place from the kilometers begun. Little known fact. This situation continued to June 8, 1944. During VR time the locomotives used were of class H1, H2, and K5 from Elisenvaara sub-depot. There were six daily passenger pair of trains between Hiitola and Käkisalmi and three pair of passenger trains which continued to Rautu. From Rautu operated VR autobus line to Valkjärvi twice a day in both directions to make a shorter connection to Viipuri than via Hiitola by rail. One summer VR arranged even direct sleeping car from Helsinki via Viipuri to Käkisalmi and return. (Helsinki departure at 23.20 arriving to Käkisalmi at 11.36 Departure from Käkisalmi at 19.12 arriving to Helsinki at 7.48.) The rail distance from Helsinki to Rautu was 505 km, and from Viipuri 192 km. On November 30, 1939 the last scheduled passenger train (with 2-axle post wagon) H838 left Rautu at 06.55 and was at Käkisalmi when the Russians attacked over the border. Despite the Russian attack the train continued to Hiitola and Viipuri. The south bound freight train (with 2-axle post wagon and two passenger coaches) was just at Sakkola where it was stopped. Few hours later the train was allowed to continue only to north side of Kiviniemi bridge where it took refugees from the villages near by the border. This was one of the first evacuation trains in Karelian Isthmus during the Winter War 30.11.1939 - 13.03.1940. The Finns left Käkisalmi on 17.03.1940 when the last Finnish train left the town. The situation was the same in September 1944 and the Finns left the Vuoksi line and Käkisalmi after the Armistice had come to force on 19.09.1944. Since then the whole St.Petersburg - Hiitola line has been a Russian railway line. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.114.202.89 (talk • contribs) 23:03, 24 October 2008

Double transliteration!
I am reverting the page move, and restoring the page to Saint Petersburg–Hiitola railroad. WP:RUS does not appliy here: Khiytola is a double transliteration of the Finnish / Karelian name to Cyrillic alphabet and back to Latin alphabet. The town in fact does not have a name in the Russian language. The Finnish or Karelian name is used instead. The present constitution of the Republic of Karelia excludes Karelian and Finnish from the status of official language. The law however does not require that Karelian villages have Russian names. The Cyrillic for "Хийтола" is nothing more than a direct transliteration from the Finnish Latin script to Cyrillic. The reverse transliteration should restore the original.

While there may be valid reasons for moving the article on the Karelian village from Hiitola to Khiytola, the same does not apply to the railroad. Most of the content of the article is about the history of the railroad. It was constructed in Finland (and partily in Russia) by Finnish State Railways. Railroads retain their names, even when borders change. The double transliteration is nothing but WP:OR. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 21:03, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Hiitola became a part of the Russian Federation and its predecessors only in 1956. Before that it was part of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 21:30, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, I also resent that part of our naming conventions (because it is incredibly ugly and the original spelling of Karelian localities is still by far predominant in peer-reviewed publications, even though most of them are written by Russian authors), but this is hopeless, I am afraid, even though this is strictly speaking not a place. Still I insist that one should keep in mind that in some cases here Hiitola refers to the Finnish station of the 1910s-1930s, and WP:RUS has nothing to do with it. Colchicum (talk) 21:38, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Folks, every single place in Russia has an official name in Russian, be it genuine Russian or a direct transliteration from whatever other language common in the area. In fact, naming of geographic objects (which include, among many things, names of both populated places and railway stations) is the prerogative of the federal government which approves every change initiated locally, no matter how minor it is.  To say that Khiytola does not have a Russian name is simply a mistake; it is not at all true, and WP:RUS very much applies here.  That official Russian name is what's then used for transliterating into English (other languages are a different story entirely, but that does not apply here in the English Wikipedia).  We've already been through this with Colchicum&mdash;see this discussion (and the follow-up) where it was shown that Karelian/Finnish names are not used in English geographic sources at all.  Is that not sufficient?  I appreciate your perception of how this is "ugly", but that's just the way it is.  Please restore the article to its WP:RUS-compliant title.  "Hiitola", as any other historic name, should only be used in historical context, not as the main title of an article about an existing railroad on the territory of Russia.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:58, April 14, 2009 (UTC)
 * Ezhiki, this is about a railway, not a settlement. This particular section physically exists, but has no official status within the modern Russian Railways, that's for sure, so it is not immediately clear whether this can be considered an existing railway. Karelian/Finnish names are very much used in academic (geographic, geological, zoological, archaeological) journals (and double transliteration is not), atlases are not the only kind of reliable geographic sources on Earth. In fact, they are much less reliable in this respect, because they are much less specific and nobody really cares about the name of a tiny village in a large atlas. But I have already admitted that this is all "hopeless". Colchicum (talk) 22:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, I didn't know it's not an officially designated segment; thanks for clarifying that. In that case it makes sense to use the name that's prevalent in academic sources ("Hiitola"), although I would still argue that putting the "Khiytola" spelling in parentheses after "Hiitola" makes good sense, since the article about the place uses that spelling (in accordance with WP:RUS).
 * I do, however, disagree about academic journals being more reliable than quality maps and atlases&mdash;maps and atlases deal with names directly and primarily, while the journals usually only use them as the means to certain ends, which are often (if not predominantly) unrelated to issues of geographic naming.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:27, April 14, 2009 (UTC)


 * One argument for the "nonexistence" of the railway in Russian sources and Russian officialdom is the fact, that the corresponding article in the Russian Wikipedia, ru:Железная дорога Санкт-Петербург — Хийтола is a word-for-word translation of this one in English. On the other hand, I did manage to find a timetable for Санкт-Петербург — Хийтола. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 19:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not "nonexistence" (it obviously exists); it's the fact that it is a part of some other branch (it'd be great to mention which), and that it is not officially recognized as anything special on its own. From what the article says and Colchicum said, I gather that it used to be recognized on its own (well before 1956, I presume), which is why the "St. Petersburg–Hiitola" title makes sense&mdash;the railroad is a historical concept, not an existing/recognized entity.  With that in mind, I would recommend to tweak the intro to say that the railroad was an independent route, which later was incorporated into a modern branch, and currently exists as a part of that branch.  This way, it becomes clear why the historical name "Hiitola" is used in the title (because the article is about the historical railway), and yet no impression that the route completely disappeared since then is created.  I hope my clarification isn't too confusing :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:11, April 15, 2009 (UTC)
 * The railway was not incorporated into any modern branch; Khiytola is still the railway junction on the Vyborg–Joensuu railroad. Finland Station is naturally still the terminus in Saint Petersburg. Russians may however see this as part of the Saint Petersburg-Sortavala railroad. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually there are no trains St. Petersburg - Hiitola, there are trains SPb-Kuznechnoye (electric), Sortavala-Kuznechnoye (through Hiitola, electric? I don't remember) and SPb-Sortavala-... (through Hiitola, diesel), and the timetable is predictably empty. Colchicum (talk) 20:25, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Fi-wiki Rulez!
The coverage of Russian railways on the English language Wikipedia is awfull. The Finnish language category fi:Luokka:Venäjän rataverkko has almost twice as many article as Category:Railway lines in Russia!

I tryed to create a stub on the Ledmozero–Kochkoma Railway. This proved to be difficult, as we did not have an article on Ledmozero – nor on Kochkoma. In fact we did not even have an article on the Murmansk Railway. Two other major railways are involved. I will not even dare guess what they should be called in English. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 00:00, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll be happy to help with the populated places; just let me know. FYI, neither Ledmozero nor Kochkoma are urban-type settlements.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 01:47, April 16, 2009 (UTC)