Template talk:Great Western Main Line diagram

Great Western Main Line diagram template
While reviewing today's TfD entries, I noticed Template:Great Western Main Line was nominated for deletion with the comment that it had been "effectively superceded by Template:Great Western Main Line diagram". However, upon checking them both, I see useful information in the former with a more complete list of stations starting from London, which is not fully duplicated in the latter. The former's textual layout seems clearer for me compared to the latter's graphical one. I have therefore copied it here in case the TfD proceeds. - Neparis (talk) 03:58, 9 February 2008 (UTC) Great Western Main Line London to Plymouth via Bristol London Paddington Slough Reading (for Reading to Taunton Line) Didcot Parkway (for Oxford and Banbury) Swindon (for Golden Valley Line and South Wales Main Line) Chippenham (for Westbury) Bath Spa Bristol Temple Meads Weston-super-Mare Highbridge and Burnham Bridgwater Taunton Exeter St Davids (for West of England Main Line, Avocet Line and Tarka Line) Newton Abbot (for Riviera Line) Totnes (for South Devon Railway Plymouth

Reading to Taunton Reading (for Basingstoke) Newbury Bedwyn Pewsey Westbury (for Wessex Main Line and Chippenham) Frome Castle Cary (for Heart of Wessex Line) Taunton

Cornish Main Line Plymouth (for Tamar Valley Line) Liskeard (for Looe Valley Line) Bodmin Parkway (for Bodmin and Wenford Railway) Lostwithiel Par (for Atlantic Coast Line St Austell Truro (for Maritime Line) Redruth Camborne St Erth (for St Ives Bay Line) Penzance

Express stations in Thames Valley
The four-platform stations in the Thames Valley which only usually see local trains (Ealing Broadway, etc.) were displayed with "xp" icons as WP:RDT/C states they are for "Express service; doesn't stop here", but has reverted them to ordianry icons with the coment: "Changed icons: 'xp-' icons should only be used on route maps of express train routes". I think the previous version better represented the service on this line and propose that it is reverted. Geof Sheppard (talk) 08:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Numbers
Would someone please supplement, which kind of information those numbers ahead of each station name, are supposed to indicate: hours, miles, kilometers?? In the example in Route diagram template hours are displayed, but with colon in the middle. The division of full units in quarters didn't help me either. KaPe (talk) 16:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The standard agreed for British railway routes is miles (except for modern lines built to metric dimensions) as this is how offical railway documents record the distances. The template mentioned does not show hours but kilometers in the european style as it is copied from German Wikipedia. Geof Sheppard (talk) 07:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wantage Tramway
I notice that the WT is shown as diverting to the west of Wantage Road station; an inspection of relevant maps shows that the junction was east of Wantage Road station. Accordingly, I have exchanged their positions. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * , fig.X
 * , figs.1,27
 * Wantage Tramway says that the line led to Wantage Road Sta. and displays that, but the map in this article would require a reversal. Was the "exchange" above done without inverting the connecting icon?--SilasW (talk) 16:53, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The diagram at Wantage Tramway is wrong. I wanted to replace it with something more accurate (because effectively there were two stations at Wantage Road, either side of the A338, linked by a pedestrian walkway), see my sandbox experiments. Still not sure which is best. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:07, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Uffington and the Faringdon Branch
I'm not happy with the position of the junction for Faringdon relative to Uffington; examination of a relevant large-scale map, and photographs, shows that the junction was east of the station. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:16, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * See suggestion at right --Redrose64 (talk) 12:29, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi, the 1947 OS map has the junction to the west hence why I changed the template. The present OS map suggests it too. A junction to the east of Uffington seems illogical as a train would have to reverse back along the mainline then go forwards onto the Faringdon branch.

Needs further checking.

Rsloch (talk) 12:44, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The 1947 OS map you cite is one which I have a physical copy of (New Popular [6th] edition sheet 156 "Oxford & Newbury"); the 1:63360 scale makes exact determination of layout difficult, since the station itself is shown as a simple red disc, no buildings or platforms being depicted. The disc covers the junction point so the exact position of that is impossible to determine.
 * Not sure what you mean by "the present OS map". The 1:50000 one (Landranger sheet 164) and the 1:25000 one (Explorer sheet 170) both show some of the station buildings but not the platforms. Whilst the route of the Faringdon branch is shown, there is not sufficient detail to determine its exact course south of about and certainly not the junction point.
 * The map reprinted by Mitchell & Smith is stated to be 25 in to the mile (careful measurement of similar large features, such as Oldland Copse, shown on both that and the present 1:25000 sheet shows that 25 in/mile is correct to within 5%); this is approx. 1:2500 or twenty times the linear scale of the "Landranger" series. This is of sufficiently large scale to not only show platforms and structures, but also the individual tracks (also structures such as signal posts). Further, it is contemporary (1912) as opposed to being surveyed several years after the line was lifted as a "present OS map" would be. The map in fig. XII shows that there were three platform faces; the up platform was a V-shape with the up main on one side, and the Faringdon branch on the other. Thus, no reversal was necessary.
 * I could photograph the map and upload it but that would put it on commons permanently, which I don't think is desirable. I can't really work out a track plan using BS symbols, mainly because of its relative lack of diagonal lines. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:23, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The 1947 OS map clearly shows the lines diverging west of the station. The 1883 and 1900 Berkshire 1:10,560 suggest the junction is at the station. I've looked at how junctions at stations are done on a number of templates and my original alteration seems to fit.

Rsloch (talk) 16:16, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I have Adrian Vaughan's book on the line and will have a look if it has anything which might help when I'm back in the UK in a few weeks time. Lamberhurst (talk) 16:07, 11 September 2009 (UTC)


 * There was no "junction" as such. In the words of the Board of Trade's report in 1864 cited by Vaughan: "The station and passenger platform [Uffington] have been constructed between the GWR and the new line to Faringdon, there being no junction for passenger traffic with the main line". In fact, the connection to the branch was via a shunt spur located just beyond the eastern end of the Up platform which connected with a goods siding running parallel with the main line. This it followed west before later diverging to the north-west at a point almost adjacent to the passenger footbridge situated in the middle of the two platforms. Lamberhurst (talk) 19:06, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Didcot East Junction
Didcot East Junction consisted of two junctions on the four-track GW main line:
 * where Didcot East Curve diverges (present tense: it's still there) from the relief lines on the northern side
 * where the Didcot, Newbury & Southampton line merged in to the main line on the southern side

The OS 1-inch map (1:63360 '1" 6th Edition Oxford & Newbury, Sheet 158, First Published 1940, Full Revision 1935 Roads 1947 with later corrections') shows parallel tracks as a single line, dotted black-and-white. There is a clear quarter inch between the divergence points, with the DN&S to the east (top) of the East Curve, which implies the upper layout shown at right. The actual junction points are not shown.

The large-scale maps (15 in:1 mile, reprinted in Mitchell & Smith, see below, and dated 1932) show individual tracks separately, and although the divergence points were indeed as described above, the actual junction points were much closer to each other: they were almost adjacent, with the DN&S junction being slightly closer to the station than the east curve junction. It was not possible for a train to run between the DN&S and the East curve without a double reversal (this was not an operational problem because trains between Oxford and Newbury could run via the station, West Junction and West Curve Junction with no reversal required), which implies the lower layout shown at right.

My question is: do we show route diagrams to reflect divergence points (go with a map that generalises because it cannot show fine detail), or junction points (go with the detailed map in the interests of accuracy)? My main objection to the former course is that it implies the existence of a direct route which was in reality impossible. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:49, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I would suggest that it would be better to not show through routes that did not exist. Geof Sheppard (talk) 13:54, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Dates
"Box (Mill Lane) Halt (1930-????)". It closed 1965 according to Butt; but do we normally put station opening/closing dates in RDT templates? Usually it's found in the article text (and also the infobox of the specific station). -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:28, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * There were several stations/halts thereabout whose links showed red. One link did not match the station/halt's article, the others had no articles; I put dates from the web to show that someone had thought about collecting material for those articles. I don't know what long distance folk do but templates around London usually give years (opening/closing/re-opening) if a station has closed eg Template:North London Line.--SilasW (talk) 21:14, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see a need for dates in the RDT unless there is a need to disambiguate two similar places. The icon shows the station as closed; anything else belongs in the text as history (or the infobox if it is really, really notable. Geof Sheppard (talk) 12:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I see no need for Infoboxes which inelegantly hog a large section of an article's page but I leave them. There is no rule as to where anything "belongs"; dates help give a better sense of a line's history than what might be garnered by Click Here/Click There. Some railway articles are full of the exact shades of sky-blue-pink the rolling stock was painted in various years but are otherwise singularly deficent in important details - eg right here GWR makes no mention of branch lines other than using the phrase "branch lines" 4 or 5 times. I've not seen any station articles distinguished by inclusion of dates, the case seems met by company affixes or by separate sections in an inclusive article (which in general should eventually be split).

Heathrow?
Should the small branch to Heathrow airport be included on this diagram or should it have its own separate page and diagram? Nathan A RF (talk) 16:06, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This diagram is used in the Great Western Main Line article so the details of the branch aren't relevant. It has its own article and diagram at Heathrow express. Geof Sheppard (talk) 12:51, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That is of the Heathrow Connect/Express rail services though, and if (I might in future) mileages are added, it would be useful to have the Heathrow stations on there. It would only be a couple more icons... Nathan A RF (talk) 19:46, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Already asked and answered and it’s still “No”, Useddenim (talk) 21:39, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually the word "yes" or "no" was not used in that reply. Nathan A RF (talk) 23:26, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * “details of the branch aren't relevant”. Did you actually read Geof Sheppard’s reply? Useddenim (talk) 00:56, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, all I was saying was that the words "yes" or "no" were not used in that reply. Nathan A RF (talk) 10:56, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * IMO it shoud be treated as it is now,with a junction and a link to the relevant article. This is the way that, for example, the branch to Windsor is treated. Britmax (talk) 11:15, 15 October 2016 (UTC)