Template talk:Railway line legend

I have updated this page and added some integral symbols so Im not sure whether it could do with further updates Gingerblokey 17:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Moving to the template namespace
Since we are linking this legend from various articles in the article namespace, I moved this page from the Wikipedia namespace to the template namespace as per WP:SELF. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 15:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * But this is not a template! It's not designed to be transcluded into other pages, but actually linked to from the article space. I suppose it ought to be within the article space (even though its subject matter is diagrams within Wikipedia?). --Dr Greg 11:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Move this Railway line legend (section)to the Help space this is a legend that help by telling what the sysimbles mean.**My Cat inn @ (talk)** 03:03, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if it would be useful if the help pages are not also included in most Wikipedia mirror. Instead, we could also treat this as sort of a navigation box. Zzyzx11 (talk) 18:43, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

.[.I AM USTINOV D S HOSTAGE,FBI TEL USA EMBASSY 011-7-3172-70-2100,MY 7-7774-91-3208,7-7079-11-6970,7-7076-84-4184,050000,TAX ID 791004300354,SATTY ZHULDYZ 369-984-143,QIWI 77079116970,SEND POLICE.]. Saintnotkvist (talk) 15:55, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Discussion of this template
I've started a discussion of the layout of this template at Wikipedia talk:Route diagram template – Tivedshambo (talk) 11:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

A test bed for your railway map experiments
Feel free to experiment here to test your rail map building skills before doing an official Wiki article map, like as on a sand board, because it is a very tricky thing to plan out A map symbol key is set below, followed by the test map.


 * This page is for discussion of the Railway Line Legend template, and is not really a suitable place for experimentation. I have therefore moved the test area to Railway line template/sandbox. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 22:17, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Be warned there are a very large number of different icons to download and opening the sandbox page could take a considerable time, even on a broadband connection.
 * You may find it quicker to copy an existing map to your own sandbox and play with it there.
 * EdJogg (talk) 13:09, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I've cleared it out, and added a note to that effect. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 14:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

BHF+BUE is poor as it doesn't distinguish where the level crossing is so it is not in this list I note
Can someone codify a symbol for HST minor station and similar for BST with a small level crossing x before and after it, otherwise we have two symbols to use in a row which seems overkill. An attempt has been made with BHF+BUE but is so counterintuitive as one X on top of a station it has obviously been rightfully omitted from this list.- Adam37   Talk  17:31, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Wrong page; indeed, wrong project. You need c:Talk:BSicon/New icons and icon requests. -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:46, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 12 December 2016

 * 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: not moved. There is a consensus that this is not in the ideal spot right now, but there is no consensus on where to move it. The Help namespace is not for articles such as this, and content-specific information usually doesn't go in Wikipedia namespace. Perhaps a larger conversation is necessary to determine where this belongs. (non-admin closure) Brad  v  05:04, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Template:Railway line legend → Help:Railway line legend – See discussion at Wikipedia talk:Route diagram template. As has been mentioned before this is not really a template, as it only transcluded into a very few user pages, and the main use is the links from many RDTs. Therefore it would make sense to have this in help space rather than user space. Optimist on the run (talk) 12:39, 12 December 2016 (UTC) to reply to me 13:04, 12 December 2016 (UTC) to reply to me 07:53, 19 December 2016 (UTC) to reply to me 15:34, 19 December 2016 (UTC) to reply to me 09:58, 20 December 2016 (UTC) to reply to me 10:49, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Support as nom Optimist on the run (talk) 10:47, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Support; maybe add Railway track legend, Bus route legend, Waterways legend, Roads legend and Trails legend to the nomination? Jc86035 (talk) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125;
 * Move to Route diagram template/Railway line legend to marry this page with its most related page as a subpage. I oppose the move as proposed since the "Help" namespace is not for pages such as this, but support the creation of Help:Railway line legend as a redirect to wherever this page is moved. Steel1943  (talk) 14:05, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Also, I oppose moving the pages referenced above by Jc86035 to their respective "Help:..." titles, but support them becoming subpages of Route diagram template in the manner as suggested in my previous comment. Steel1943  (talk) 14:19, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Additional comment: For the record, I also weak support no move per Zzyzx11's comment about the Wikipedia: namespace. (I support my option stronger than theirs, but IMO, no move is better than the proposed move.) Steel1943  (talk) 15:26, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose moving this page into the Wikipedia project namespace. See my comments above back in 2007 and WP:SELF -- Do not assume that the reader is reading Wikipedia, or indeed any website. Since we are linking this legend from various articles in the main namespace, I moved it OUT of the Wikipedia namespace in the first place because those pages do not generally show up in Wikipedia mirrors, or offline references that re-use this material. If you move it back into the Wikipedia namespace, readers who are seeing all these rail diagrams on a mirror website would likely not have access to this legend. Zzyzx11 (talk) 06:27, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, the optimal solution would be to keep this as a template, and tranclude the collapsible box on all affected articles. With the main use being just a link from articles in the main namespace, it could be argued that it violates WP:CLICKHERE, because it is essentially a "Click here to see the legend"; there is also no direct visibility to the legend when articles are printed out and read offline.. Zzyzx11 (talk) 07:02, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * There are probably some issues with transcluding this and the other templates everywhere, e.g. the three different formats for RDTs, and that some RDTs already have their own legends in addition to the link. Would it work if the pages were moved to the Help namespace? Jc86035 (talk) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125;
 * What sort of issues? I could modify BS-map, for example, change them from "Legend" wikilinks to actual template syntax, then move that entire  statement to the bottom of the table. BS-table and Module:Routemap could also be modified in a similar way. And the Help namespace is not really optimal. Again, as stated on WP:HELPNS, it is suppose to "contain information intended to help use Wikipedia or its software", not really for pages such as this. And some Wikipedia mirrors as a general rule may omit the entire Help namespace because almost all of it is relevant for only Wikipedia. The reason I chose to move it to the template namespace back in 2007 was that it was a compromise at the time: these mirrors needed to include templates or most of the articles would not render correctly. Zzyzx11 (talk) 08:47, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It might be a bit confusing to have the entire legend before the actual diagram in printed versions, but I guess that might work. your thoughts? Jc86035 (talk) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125;
 * No, the legend should be after the actual diagram. This is what I meant when I previously wrote, "move that entire switch statement to the bottom of the table". Zzyzx11 (talk) 08:27, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Not possible, for now. BS-table (several thousand uses) is just table row code, and diagrams using it end with just  and not an end template so it can't be added easily. If you want to go through all of those and convert them to Routemap or even BS-map, you'd probably have to review all of them manually because of things like noinclude tags, switch parser functions and Infobox RDT. You could just add the legend, I suppose, but it's probably not worth the effort just to do that, since BS-table has been deprecated for five years.  Jc86035 (talk) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125;
 * I do not think it is practical to transclude the legend. Printing it also sounds terribly wasteful of papers. I also have issue with catering mirror sites of Wikipedia when most of them are wrapper to earn some ad revenues or attempt to censor its contents, not to mention the sneaky 3rd party privacy mining via Google Analytics or alike. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 17:36, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * So you have issues with "catering mirror sites of Wikipedia" and other places that reuses Wikipedia's content? So "it's terribly wasteful of papers" is your answer to every reader out there who might wish to have printed versions offline? Apologies for being blunt and honest, but to me, that sounds like you either disagree with WP:SELF or the mere fact that Wikipedia's content is reused in many places. That is one of the Wikipedia's Five Pillars: "free content that anyone can use, edit, and distribute". And this includes the material being printed for offline use, or being posted onto third party sites with ads. That is why we have the WP:SELF guideline in the first place. The idea of having a link to a legend that is hard to access when Wikipedia's content is reused in other places has never been optimal. Not back in 2007, and not now in 2016. Zzyzx11 (talk) 07:53, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * So what practical solution do you propose? Useddenim (talk) 13:00, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think that it's a good idea to transclude this into RDTs, since it includes a large number of symbols (even though it's not an exhaustive list), several of which are not found in the average RDT. Most RDTs have perhaps one or two colours, two or three types of station, and two or three other kinds of principal feature (such as tunnels or viaducts). -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:56, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I thought about using Lua's string functions to search for icon names, but it doesn't seem worth the effort, and would be quite computationally expensive as well as impossible to implement in BS-table diagrams. Jc86035 (talk) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125;
 * I will concede that it may be difficult to tranclude the legend templates directly on all the articles. Therefore, as an interim solution, the legend links will be enclosed in  to disable them on mirror sites and printed versions. Zzyzx11 (talk) 08:15, 22 December 2016 (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.

One-way accessibility symbol
There should be a symbol to denote when a station is only accessible in one direction. I'm not sure how to do that, but it really should exist, especially for systems like the NYC subway, which has many stations that are only accessible for trains heading in a single direction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Henrygg98 (talk • contribs) 04:05, 6 May 2022 (UTC)


 * In terms of a station with a mix of accessible and inaccessible platforms, I would leave it labeled as inaccessible and put a clarification in the station's article. That should cause the least confusion, especially if we consider a reader with a physical disability looking to Wikipedia for information. Hotdog with ketchup (talk) 01:02, 18 November 2023 (UTC)


 * The only workaround to this I've seen is to display an accessibility symbol next to the line and station (at right). I can see it maybe getting a little unwieldy, but I imagine that most stations with limited services also have limited connections, leaving room adjacent to the pHST symbol. -MJ (talk) 22:17, 17 November 2023 (UTC)


 * oops, misread this as "limited service" for some reason. though this still seems like an appropriate solution for some applications. -MJ (talk) 22:23, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Non-readability
I have to say I'm not a fan of this system and it's extensive use. Often they are used in "route maps" for train systems and they end up being completely useless for Wikipedia articles as they don't help understand the relative routes to the surrounding city map. They should not be used in "route maps" and instead be reserved for whatever purpose they were originally used for. Ergzay (talk) 12:15, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

दिल्ली वाराणसी बुलेट ट्रेन प्रोजेक्ट
दिल्ली वाराणसी बुलेट ट्रेन प्रोजेक्ट का भूमि अधिकरण कब 2405:201:4026:2036:3C82:FDCF:891E:7539 (talk) 05:39, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Triangles (Wye (rail))
Could we please have an infographic added to include triangles or wyes. For clarity, the graphic would be similar to the switch-back, but include the continuous through line. There are multiple lines and articles where this would be of additional benefit in portraying the line structure. J.christianson (talk) June 29, 2024
 * There are a set of junctions already: see c:BSicon/Catalogue/junctions/3-way and similar pages. Bazza (talk) 10:28, 19 December 2023 (UTC)


 * This is the page I needed to locate! Many thanks for pointing me in the right direction. J.christianson (talk) 10:36, 19 December 2023 (UTC)