Talk:Sutton railway station (London)

--SilasW (talk) 11:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)== Requested Photo == Photo request tag added. Josh Holloway  17:18, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No longer necessary. Robin S 04:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Sutton (Surrey)
National Rail refer to this station as Sutton (Surrey), should we alter the article name to match? Railwayfan2005 (talk) 21:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Until the creation of Greater London by the London Government Act 1963, Sutton was part of Surrey, but it is now only in Surrey for postal purposes. The town and station are in the London Borough of Sutton so the title is correct. --DavidCane (talk) 22:40, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * But the name of this station as per National Rail is Sutton (Surrey). If this one is correct then Ashford (Surrey) railway station needs to be altered to match. Railwayfan2005 (talk) 09:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * But Ashford is in Surrey (Borough of Spelthorne), so there is nothing wrong with that name either. --DavidCane (talk) 12:37, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * IMV, the signage just says "Sutton" so maybe the short title would be more appropriate (retaining disambig. link to "Sutton railway station, Rep. of Ireland")? best, Sunil060902 (talk) 14:38, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think this article title and disambiguation page should be changed back to 'Sutton railway station (London)' otherwise it looks like it's saying that Sutton is in Surrey, which is not the case. It could be mentioned in the article that National Rail refers to the station as Sutton, Surrey. See the Reedham railway station (London) article for comparison.79.70.53.215 (talk) 20:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Surely the name of a WP article must match its subject. I've rewritten the article to explain to anyone who frets that Sutton is now not in Surrey how that came about--SilasW (talk) 11:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the article title is still wrong - it should be 'Sutton railway station (London)' and then in the article we should have an explanation about what it is called by National Rail. 'Sutton railway station (London)' could not be confused with any of the other Suttons. As the article stands it does look like it's saying Sutton is in Surrey, as the title is what most people will go by. The article is about the station, not what National Rail chooses to call the station amongst themselevs. As the signage says just 'Sutton', and Sutton is in London, then 'Sutton railway station (London)' would seem to me to be the most logical. How does one change the title of an article on wikipedia, or can only administrators do that? If so how do I alert them that I think the title should be changed?79.66.182.138 (talk) 18:47, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * To change the title of an article use the move option. Remember to move the talk page as well. Railwayfan2005 (talk) 06:25, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Please see Naming convention which says:

"Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject" and so if the railway authorities call it 'Sutton Surrey' that is the object's name and should be the name of the article. The article says quite clearly that the station site was in Surrey but is not now because Surrey has been altered. The matter of other Suttons is irrelevant to this point.--SilasW (talk) 14:29, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Surely the most reliable source, and one which is constantly being verified, is what is written on the signs at the station and on departure boards? That is just 'Sutton'. 'Sutton (Surrey)' may be used by National Rail but it isn't being used when communicating the name of the station to the public at large (unlike 'London Victoria' for example which is actually written on the signs at the station). Therefore I think it is right to consider the name of the station to be just 'Sutton'. Thus in my view the article should be moved to 'Sutton railway staion (London)', which would bring it in line with Reedham railway station (London). I can't seem to find the move command - perhaps it will be there once I have created my account? But I don't want to move it yet anyway until other people have commented.91.107.8.220 (talk) 17:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

WP article name
A no-home page, no user-talk page, editor has moved this article with a long try at justification in the edit summary. That is not the place for such mini-essays, moreover the name of the subject, whatever is chosen, should be the same as the article name, which it is not. Such disregard for WP conventions tends to lower the immediate evaluation of the edit/change/move.--SilasW (talk) 11:56, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Clearly I was trying to have the discussion above, but you weren't interested in replying, so I moved the article. So what if I haven't got a talk page yet - why don't you christen it with some sanctimonious negativity, though politeness will get you further? Where else do you suggest I talk about moving the page if not on the article discussion page and not in the edit summary? If you actually look at the platform signage you will see that the station (i.e. the name of the subject) is actually just called 'Sutton' ('Sutton Surrey' is only used internally by National Rail for distinguishing purposes). As plain 'Sutton railway station' is a disambiguation page, and 'Sutton railway station (London)' seems not to be an allowed name (this is what I tried to move it to but this is not succesful), then Sutton (London) railway station' is the only option. Have a look at Reedham railway station (London) for comparison - this is what the Sutton title should look like, if it were possible to move it to 'Sutton railway station (London)'.

Furthermore you've similarly given a strange article title to St Margarets (Greater London) railway station. Surely if National Rail calls Sutton 'Sutton (Surrey)' then they presumably call St Margaret's 'St.Margarets (Middlesex)' otherwise they would be calling Sutton 'Sutton (Greater London)'. All the more reason why that article should be called 'St Margaret's railway station (London)'. You don't seem to understand that National Rail uses shortened phrases such as 'Sutton (Surrey)' when they want to avoid having to use the phrase 'railway station' afterwards but don't want two stations with the same name to be confused (such as in long lists). Thus doesn't mean the station is actually NAMED 'Sutton (Surrey)' - it's actually named called 'Sutton' (look at the signs at the station). However there are other stations with Sutton in their names, so NR uses that handy system that predates 1965 boundary changes. Consider this example:

Two station share the name of 'Reedham'. There is Reedham station in London and Reedham station in Norfolk (subsitute London for Surrey for pre-1965). So we have:

Reedham railway station (London) Reedham railway station (Norfolk)

I'm writing a National Rail booklet and I want to distinguish betweeen the two stations called Reedham, but I have not got enough space/ink to write 'railway station' after each one. So instead I write:

Reedham (London) Reedham (Norfolk)

Clearly this does NOT mean that the stations are actually NAMED 'Reedham (London)' railway station or 'Reedham (Norfolk)' railway station, they are both named 'Reedham' railway station as per the signage at the stations themselves, but this is how I distinguish them for the purposes of this booklet, similarly the station named 'Sutton' railway station that is in London (i.e. it is 'Sutton railway station (London)') is written in such a booklet as 'Sutton (London)' or 'Sutton (Surrey)' to distinguish it from other stations named Sutton or with Sutton in their names (note that some stations - mostly termini - DO have 'London' in their names, such as London Victoria railway station), and this is reflected on the station signage.

However on wikipedia we have the clarity of writing 'railway station' after the name, so we CAN write the CORRECT station name with its correct location, i.e: 'Sutton railway station (London)' - if only I could get the move command to accept that variant, as per the correct Reedham railway station (London) page. Perhaps if you agree you would like to have a go, and maybe with St Margarets and Reedham (Norfolk) railway station too? It would save me the trouble. Uakari (talk) 22:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC).

Enough is enough
Moved to Sutton railway station (London), and you can argue amongst yourselves as to whether it's in London or Surrey. The Wikipedia convention is to have the disambiguator in brackets at the end of the article, and that's for a reason; if it's in the middle of the title, the Pipe trick breaks whenever someone tries to link to it. – iride  scent  22:50, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this move, as per my argument above, but I did not know how to achieve it, so thank you. Could you also please perhaps move the disambiguation page link to match your article move (I can't make that work), and perhaps you would find the time to format 'St Margarets railway station (London)' and 'Reedham railway station (Norfolk)' and their disambiguation pages in the same manner? (there may be other stations you come across too - the two Ashfords spring to mind) - I'm still struggling with the intricacies of the move command and I don't want to be accused of doing something wrong.This is user Uakari (logged out by mistake). Many thanks79.70.100.211 (talk) 23:05, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Wont this break all of the links using the stnlnk template? Scillystuff (talk) 00:00, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No it won't. – iride  scent  11:14, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't really understand what the above comment means but I'm getting a bit tired of this now. I wrote what I think to be right. I don't want to mess anything up regarding templates etc so perhaps others better take over from here.Uakari (talk) 01:56, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I should have explained. Sutton (London) railway station can be written as Sutton (London) Some route boxes (such as s-rail) also use this device. If there is a widespread move of the railway station disambibuator to the end of railway station then this and similar templates will not be found by the "move fairy" and will only ever point at the residual redirect, until converted back to simple wikilinks. I don't have any strong opinions on this, just thought I would point it out. NB, I'm only here as one of the changes was Reedham railway station (Norfolk), which I had an interest in. Scillystuff (talk) 11:27, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Moving automatically creates a redirect, so it shouldn't be an issue. For reasons already mentioned, disambiguators in article titles – either brackets or commas (e.g. Reedham, Norfolk) – should always be at the very end of the title. – iride  scent  11:32, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks like it created a few double redirects which were issues, but a bot is cleaning them up. I'll fix the redirects around Reedham railway station (Norfolk), if a bot hasn't already beaten me to it. Thanks for the explanation. Scillystuff (talk) 12:10, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Call it what you fancy, I could not trudge through the reams above. But does reading the namesboards count as WP's forbidden original research? WP has strict rules for sources, grossly ignored. Do the movers wish to attack Hanwell railway station where the boards on the platforms say "Hanwell and Elthorne"?--SilasW (talk) 18:17, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Number   5  7  20:35, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Sutton railway station (London) → Sutton (Surrey) railway station – This station is referred to as Sutton (Surrey) by National Rail, Network Rail and the service operators: This is a more WP:COMMONNAME for the station than the wiki-creation of "Sutton railway station (London)". Lamberhurst (talk) 20:43, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
 * National Rail
 * Network Rail
 * First Capital Connect
 * Southern
 * The Trainline
 * Oppose It is always announced as "Sutton" at the station itself and on the system not "Sutton (Surrey)". We have a choice between two different forms of disambiguation. The existing form is accurate. The new form is the railway database's way of disambiguating; we are not bound to follow it when it produces inaccurate locations. Timrollpickering (talk) 23:12, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support otherwise we will be having two different dab systems for stations where Network Rail, National Rail and the TOCs all show a disambiguator themselves. -- Red rose64 (talk) 06:12, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per Redrose64 and my comments at Talk:Rainham (Essex) railway station. The commonname "Sutton railway station" is ambiguous so it needs a disambiguator. The WP:Natural disambiguation is to use the unambiguous official name that is used by reliable sources and which matches the naming convention used for the vast majority of ambiguously-named railway stations in Great Britain or we can invent something ad hoc. Thryduulf (talk) 23:41, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support. As says, we have two possible ways to disambiguate. It seems roughly agreed that the proposed name is the better one, and that current guidelines support this, but perhaps not as clearly as they need to. We should fix the guidelines to make it quite clear. Andrewa (talk) 05:43, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Reference to MDR
There are 2 unclarified references in the article to MDR - which I assume to mean Metropolitan District Railway.

Well, I would put it right myself, but I would be basing that on reading the context, so I think it would be better for someone more knowledgeable to fix this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.32.68.244 (talk) 17:53, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, ✅ -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:35, 4 December 2014 (UTC)