Talk:Southwest Chief

"Kansas Downgrade" clarity
The last sentence in this section needs help. Is it "they" meaning Amtrak or BNSF? You can read it either way.76.120.66.57 (talk) 23:48, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Accidents
I added today's derailment to the article, which removed as non-notable. As we disagree over this issue, it is only right that it is discussed here.

My position is that, on current evidence, the derailment is notable enough to be mentioned. It probably isn't notable enough for an article given that there were only 20 injuries and no apparent outside factors that caused the accident. Mackensen states that it is not the first derailment to affect the Southwest Chief, citing one involving the Southwest Limited in October 1979. To me, this says we need to be adding the information in, not removing it or keeping it out. Discuss. Mjroots (talk) 15:35, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * That's my position, more or less. It's a one-day disruption in service which will receive WP:ROUTINE coverage, nothing more. I don't see what makes it notable; perhaps you could explain further? If the NTSB determines that the derailment was caused by poor trackage then maybe it rates a mention in the Kansas downgrade section. IIRC the 1979 derailment was caused by overspeed because the engineer was unfamiliar with the route (this came after the discontinuance of the Lone Star). Conceptually this information should be covered in the History section, in the non-existent part discussing said re-route. A standalone "Accidents and incidents" section, unmoored from context, doesn't make sense to me. The 1979 derailment could possibly support its own article, pending availability of sources. Mackensen (talk) 19:49, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * - the twenty injured is what makes me think it is worth a mention, but not an article. So far there is nothing to indicate any overspeed or other driver action that has caused the derailment, meaning a track defect is likely. Agree that the earlier accident you mention could be worthy of an article, exactly what details do you have? Mjroots (talk) 20:10, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * 20 injuries is pretty minimal for a train carrying 142. All I know about the earlier incident is what I read scanning the NTSB report, which was issued in 1980. No idea about secondary source coverage, or any tangible outcomes. Mackensen (talk) 20:45, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * 20/142 is almost 1/7. Bit like saying Monday is pretty minimal this week. Mjroots (talk) 20:51, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I could have gone for this Monday being pretty minimal (sigh). Okay, I'm sold, but let's incorporate it into the History section, or the Kansas downgrade if it proves appropriate. Mackensen (talk) 21:14, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The NTSB report for the other accident is NTSB-RAR-80-4. Mackensen (talk) 21:18, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Contemporary news coverage. Mackensen (talk) 21:21, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Accident report
Hi! About this edit: I now realize that the accident report was in fact cited, from the NTSB website. Anyhow, in my opinion, it might be good to note that the same report is on the ROSAP site (ROSAP - Repository and Open Science Access Portal, is run by the U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics, which houses rail accident reports from federal agencies from 1911 to 1993). WhisperToMe (talk) 00:13, 1 August 2023 (UTC)


 * @WhisperToMe: Whether the report is hosted on ROSAP or the NTSB website shouldn't really matter to readers; we don't need to have both linked from the article. Either link is fine to use for the citation. I would recommend adding these reports as an inline citation rather than an external link, especially for articles like this where the incident is only a small portion of the article text. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:53, 1 August 2023 (UTC)