User talk:Ballinarail

31 Dec 1959 v 1 Feb 1960
Hello! Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. Several of your edits (including to Kenmare, County Kerry and other articles), while likely made in good faith, are unsupported by any references of any kind. Declaring that the existing sources (including the Irish Times, Irish Film Institute archives and other sources) are somehow unreliable or incorrect requires evidence or counter-sources. Removing cited and verifiable information, and replacing it with entirely uncited and unsupported information, is otherwise indistinguishable from a hoax or vandalism edit. If you have sources to support your edits, please provide them. Guliolopez (talk) 11:14, 22 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello, and thank you for raising this. The sources quoted are three: (1) Railscot; (2) Irish Film Institute, and (3) Irish Times. I have evidence of my changes from primary sources, namely the boardroom minute books of the railway company, and their official external and internal paperwork and plans, as well as the newspaper notice that they published. These indicate the date I mentioned. I am a prefessional railway historian, so I would happen to know this anyway. Where the confusion arises is that the Irish Times and IFI both draw their information from Railscot, which made this one initial error. I can see how and where and why they did so; the nearby Valentia line was closed on 1.2.60, but not the Kenmare line. They have used a date from a neighbouring line and published this as the date for Kenmare, which was a month earlier. The film clip referenced by IFI actually quotes the date I mention in their newsreel narrative, which is at variance with what is in their own caption. Any advice you can give me on how to correct this properly will be appreciated. I would be able to get a scan of some of the stuff I have. The reason I want to see this entry as correct is that as a railway author, I am currently doing a book on this railway, and I feel that if incorrect information is circulated as a result of two sources (IT & IFI) copying and repeating just one error, it would lead to doubts over whather "what it says in the book" (which will be very comprehensively supported by first-hand, rather than incorrectly copied evidence) is correct or not. Thank you for your help. Ballinarail (talk) 19:53, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Just chiming in a little here...let me just link this here: WP:PRIMARY. Take your time to read this thoroughly if you haven't done so already...sourcing can be a tricky thing. You mentioning that you are doing a book about the railway line makes you have at least a possible conflict of interest too. There will probably not an ideal solution for this, but just removing a source which is considered to be reliable definitely isn't it. Asking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains might be a good first step. Until this is resolved, I have reinserted the date and the source. Cheers and happy editing. Lectonar (talk) 10:59, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for contacting me. Far from a conflict of interest, it is my wish to have correct information portrayed everywhere. I have documentation in my posession - hard paper copies, not something I can "link". Thus, i have proof of the error initiated by Railscot, and copied by IFI and the IT. I will look into the WikiProject Trains link that you suggest. Ballinarail (talk) 22:52, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi. And thanks for your note. In the above you suggest that "The film clip referenced by IFI actually quotes the date I mention in their newsreel narrative". While this would certainly be contributory, I cannot seem to verify what you're saying here. If the clip/narrator, mentions a date, I do not hear it. At what time stamp does he mention a date? I have listened back to it several times now, and do not hear the narrator give a date. At timestamp 0:30, he says "dúnu sé líne bheaga an mhí seo". And he follows with a quote from CIÉ about bus replacements ("cuirfear busanna ina náit"). But he doesn't say which month is "an mhí seo". Where does he give the month, date or year? Guliolopez (talk) 12:40, 23 March 2023 (UTC)