Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Building the Virginian Railway


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. RL0919 (talk) 23:16, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Building the Virginian Railway

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

This isn't really an encyclopedia article, it's a personal essay in article space. Created in 2005 with zero inline citations, it remains essentially unchanged today. Much of this article simply duplicates Virginian Railway, and what doesn't is often more like a personal essay. Consider lines like:
 * "Gambling on that premise, the two big railroads saw to it that the "negotiations" were always unproductive, and Col. Page always declined to indicate the source of his apparently "deep pockets." By this time, Page must surely have been enjoying his newfound power in dealing with the arrogant big railroads. In fact, management of the funding Rogers was providing was handled by Boston financier Godfrey M. Hyams, with whom he had also worked on the Anaconda Company, and many other natural resource projects."
 * "If Col. Page and his Deepwater Railway scheme had met with an unpleasant surprise, as it turned out, the big railroads were in for an even bigger one. Page didn't give up his scheme, as most surely must have been anticipated. Instead, he stubbornly continued building his short-line railroad through some of the most rugged terrain of the Mountain State, to the increasing puzzlement of the leaders of the big railroads. They were unaware that one of Page's investors (who were silent partners in the venture) was the powerful Rogers. Henry Rogers was an old hand at mineral and transportation development, and his projects and investments seldom failed. His tenacity, energy, and organizational skills had led him to become one of John D. Rockefeller's key men at the Standard Oil Trust. Always ready to do corporate battle, Rogers wasn't about to have the Deepwater investment foiled by the big railroads."

The article goes off on a huge tangent about Booker T Washingtion which, while interesting trivia, is not relevant to the article's subject at all. There could potentially be a notable subject here, but what exists is so far from an encyclopedia article it merits deletion and starting over (at a title that doesn't sound like a self-published book written by a railfan. I suggest "Construction of the Virginian Railway"). Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:13, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Transportation, Virginia,  and West Virginia. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:13, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete Wow, how did this survive for so long in this condition? It's clearly a personally invested essay pusning one editor's synthesis. The main article already covers the main points. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 23:34, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete. Unnecessary content fork that is full of synthesis and essay-type prose. Even if there were enough content to break this section out into its own article, this would be a WP:TNT situation anyway, due to the writing style and haphazard/nonexistent inline referencing style. Likewise, there is nothing sourced that is worth backmerging, as far as I can tell. -- Kinu t/c 06:28, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete. A relic of a bygone era. That wouldn't (and didn't) stand out as a problem in 2006, but it was never really revisited and brought up to current standards. Also, the primary author sadly passed away in 2011. Mackensen (talk) 13:29, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per Mackensen. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 02:45, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment wikipedia has many of these early articles that are too long to be bunk, but unsourced so reliability can't be verified. I'd recommend either deleting it or draftifying until the proper inline citations can be created. Oaktree b (talk) 00:10, 28 June 2022 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.