Talk:Southampton Central railway station

Central?
It currently says
 * Despite its name, Southampton Central is in fact situated some distance from the centre of the city (a central area served by Southampton terminus station until 1967) though it is now the closest station to the centre.

Even if the terminus station was still there, Central station would be nearer to the modern city centre. Terminus station was about 600m from the nearest point of the High Street - but that part of the High Street has no shops (did it ever?). Central station is about 600m from the middle of Above Bar - far more convenient for shopping etc.

I'd suggest something like "Although it is 600m from the main shopping area, Southampton Central is the closest station to the city centre (and particularly since Southampton Terminus station closed in 1967)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mnb20 (talk • contribs) 15:33, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Interchange figures
Why has the edit which added the passenger interchange figures been reversed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.78.95.153 (talk) 19:12, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I have started a discussion on this at WT:UKRAIL. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  21:34, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Bus services
This article is about the railway station not the bus services. Long lists of individual bus routes are generally deprecated and in this case include a number of services that will cease to operate in a couple of weeks. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 12:51, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

If they shouldn’t be present here, then you should too remove them from other stations like Bristol Temple Meads, since they also have large amounts of bus services listed Class444SWRail (talk) 14:59, 22 January 2023 (UTC)


 * We are not editing Bristol Temple Meads Murgatroyd49 (talk) 15:03, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

True, but if you want this page to not have information that is ‘depreciated’, then surely you should also want other pages (which probably have more traffic) to be held to the same standards, so perhaps if you want this changed, change other stations too Class444SWRail (talk) 16:28, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm starting with this one. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 16:36, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

No one has cared apart from you for quite a while evidently, since there’s plenty of other stations with similar information displayed that hasn’t been removed for a very long time Class444SWRail (talk) 17:39, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * And your point is? Murgatroyd49 (talk) 18:00, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

That it’s something people are perfectly fine with on the whole on the page, since otherwise such pages wouldn’t survive that long Class444SWRail (talk) 05:30, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to pay the WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument above all the attention it deserves by ignoring it completely. I agree with User:Murgatroyd49, a more simplified list of destinations served should suffice and would be a bit more future-proof. We don't need to go into all the detail of route numbers, operators, etc. Wikipedia is not a directory. Waggers<small  style="color:#080">TALK  14:00, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

@Class444SWRail: your assumption that no one has cared is incorrect, and based on nothing other than your own opinion. I agree with @Murgatroyd49, and have in the past removed such lists from other railway station articles, particularly London ones. Wikipedia is neither a timetable nor a WP:TRAVELGUIDE. Bazza (talk) 14:08, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

WP:NOTDIR drives a lot of what I do on Wikipedia. Compare any UK fire service articles now with how they looked two years ago and you'll see an absolute mess of unreferenced detail to do with fire stations, fire station call signs, every single vehicle owned and which stations they were assigned to, and the callsign of each vehicle (as if the other detail wasn't enough) - and nearly all was original reseach, put up by enthusiast fire engine spotters and/or employees. Sure this was also covered by WP:UNREF and WP:OR, but WP:NOTDIR was the one that really mattered - just because we can list everything in Wikipedia, it doesn't mean that we should. We can list it, we can reference anything so nothing can be classed as original research, but I believe we have to draw the line. This is a rail article, it's about railways and methods of rail transport. Any form of travel that interscts/interchanges with rail should be listed but only brieftly because it is not the subject of the article. I wouldn't expect to see all the trains from Bristol Temple Meads listed in the Bristol Bus Station article - but of course it would be reasonble to expect mention of the service to the railway station and at a push to say which lines ran through the station, but not each individual train service and destination. So here it is reasonable to expect a Transport in Southampton (although there isn't one funnily enough like Transport in Bristol) summarising all transport modes, including rail air bus and road, but not in any detail; followed by more detail in each of the rail air bus and road articles; but only brief details in each about how each transport mode interacts with another mode. You could get obsessive of course, but that's why WP:NOTDIR pulls us back - just enough detail to be useful but not more. What we have here is simply too much detail about buses in a train article and it needs to be pared back to a minimum. --10mmsocket (talk) 14:59, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

b.t.w. Here is the *entire* bus section from a couple of London stations There's a definite pattern. Large terminus railway stations in one of the largest cities in the world and the buses that serve those stations merit just a sentence each. --10mmsocket (talk) 17:33, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * London Paddington railway station "Several London Buses routes, including Nos. 23 and 205 serve the station." plus a reference. That's it 10 words plus the two bus numbers.
 * London Waterloo railway station "London Buses routes 1, 26, 59, 68, 76, 77, 139, 168, 172, 176, 188, 211, 243, 341, 381, 507, 521 and night routes N1, N68, N171 and N381 serve the station." Fewer words, more buses but still only one sentence.
 * London King's Cross railway station "Several London bus routes, including 30, 59, 73, 91, 205, 390 and 476 pass in front of or to the side of the station."

b.t.w. #2. As previously mentioned Wikipedia is not a travel guide WP:NOTTRAVELGUIDE. However, Wikitravel actually is a travel guide, and the bus section(s) in the Southampton article look like they could do with being expanded. I'm not being fascetious, it really is a good resource and I use it a lot, but like any Wiki it's only as good as the community behind it and the contributions that they make according to principles on which the wiki is run. --10mmsocket (talk) 17:47, 23 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Yep - on the same note, all of these bus routes should in theory exist as Wikidata items. Great job on trimming it down! Personally I think we need to reduce the "Services" section a bit too, but that's a slightly different subject I guess. <b style="color:#98F">W</b><b style="color:#97E">a</b><b style="color:#86D">g</b><b style="color:#75C">ge</b><b style="color:#83C">r</b><b  style="color:#728">s</b><small  style="color:#080">TALK  12:43, 24 January 2023 (UTC)