Talk:Stock car (rail)

Corrected meaning
A railroad stock car is not one that hasn't been modified, it is one that is designed to carry livestock. My guess is that this article was first stubbed by someone who may be familiar with stock car racing but not railroads. slambo 23:40, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

GA Re-Review and In-line citations
Members of the WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. LuciferMorgan 00:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Ive started to create inline citations using templates. Please let me know if I am in the right direction. Rob110178 07:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks good so far. I had some extra time this morning before work to look through one of the two White refs and add page numbers and inlines as appropriate.  I've got the other White ref in my collection as well as the Railroad History issue mentioned (and many more refs as well) that I intend to look through again later this week for more details and inlining. Slambo (Speak)  12:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * There's a bit more referencing and a little more info from my reference collection. I don't have Volume 2 of The American Railroad Passenger Car in my collection, but it is listed as on the shelves at my local public library (where I now have it on reserve to pick up tomorrow).  My copy of Railroad History volume 177 is handy, and I'll be going through that again soon too. Slambo (Speak)  23:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Peer Review Bot Suggestions
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Globalise
This article is far to US specific. -- PBS (talk) 06:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

The reason this article is so focused on the US and North America is because in terms of volume of animals shipped by rail and sheer quantities and varieties of rolling stock and the size of stock car operations throughout the history of stock car use, no other country or continent even comes close. Stock cars in North America numbered in the hundreds of 1000s. Herds numbering in the 10s of millions were loaded into trains hundreds of cars long and transported over thousands of miles. The use of stock cars is mainly a North American phenomena. Watching one or two documentaries about the Chicago Stockyards, the rise of Swift and Hormel and the battle over herding on the Great Plains should dispel any misconceived notions you may have that the primary focus of any article dealing with moving livestock and the meatpacking industry should be focused anywhere other than North America. 1.229.130.160 (talk) 09:28, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Great primitive derping there bub, your ignorance is truly patriotic. Now what about a real article with for instance the dimensions of a car in it and less uhmerican nonsense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.7.66.170 (talk) 07:06, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Real cause of HOGX termination
The HOGX service was not ended because of superior service from trucking. HOGX shipped the equivalent of 30 truckoalds of hogs from the Midwest several thousand miles to Southern California at one time. The onboard cooling/heating and feeding/watering systems were not and still aren't found on highway based haulers. Hauling that quantity of hogs over that distance through the Rocky Mountains and across the Mojave Dessert could not be done by truck at all which is why the HOGX service was started. HOGX was not a relic, but a new service started because modern trucking cannot efficiently and safely haul large numbers of live animals more than a few hundred miles. Live animal shipments on rail did not end because of the trucking industry, but because of improved refrigeration technology that allowed stockyards and packing plants to move closer to the herds. In the 80s and early 90s, California still had a shortage of pork producers and because the Farmer John brand wanted to maintain a high quality, fresh never frozen, product they chose to have hogs shipped live from the Midwest. However, once local hog production was increased, they decided to use local hogs and stopped the shipments from the Midwest entirely. They did not switch to shiping hogs thousands of miles by truck from the Midwest, so it is inaccurate to claim that trucks providing superior service as the cause for ending the rail service. In fact, rail continues to provide the best and safest means of hauling large quantities of smaller animals or smaller quantities of huge animals over great distances in all weather conditions which is one of the main reasons the circus continues to travel by rail to this day. 1.229.130.160 (talk) 09:07, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

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External links modified (January 2018)
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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
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 * Live Poultry Car.jpg

Merger discussion
A merger of this article with cattle wagon is being proposed. I've now had a look at both articles in detail. This one is a mature and well researched article that covers the development and use of railroad stock cars in considerable detail. It is clearly a good regional article, focussed on US practice. That is entirely reasonable since American railroads developed quite independently and differently from Europe and other parts of the world. Meanwhile "cattle wagon" is focussed on European practice and vehicles  classified by the International Union of Railways as part of Class H. There is virtually no overlap between the two articles: they cover different regional aspects of covered railway vehicles used for animal transport. There is little overlap in naming either. "Stock car" is an American term for such vehicles and "cattle wagon" or "livestock wagon" is the European and international term for this sub-group of Class H.

In summary, this is a nice article that is well developed and, with further inline citations, could be considered for B-class status. "Cattle wagon" is different regionally, historically and technically; but needs further work to provide good coverage and to tie it in more closely with the UIC classification system. Merging the two articles would be to the detriment of both and would add confusion because the term "stock car" is not commonly used outside of the US and "cattle wagon" is not used within the US. My conclusion is to keep them separate, but linked, and focussed on their different regions, while developing "cattle wagon" at least to the standard of this one. Bermicourt (talk) 11:42, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I am in agreement with Bermicourt. They cover different usages. We generally maintain two articles for each class of car/wagon; one on North American practice, and one on European/UIC practice. There's more than enough distinction to justify separate articles in almost all cases, and I see no reason to change that practice here. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 14:26, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree too, although the two articles should probably link to each other via hatnotes. Thryduulf (talk) 23:57, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That's a good point, I've gone ahead and implemented this on both articles. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:28, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks well done; that makes sense. Bermicourt (talk) 18:44, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * As there has been no further comment, I'll make the changes proposed and remove the merger hatnote. Thank you for engaging. Bermicourt (talk) 16:10, 9 December 2022 (UTC)