Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Keolis / SNCF West Coast


 * 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 REDIRECT to InterCity West Coast. Nobody in favour of keeping these as standalone articles. Very little content that could potentially be merged but if anyone wishes to do so the details can be retrieved from page history. Michig (talk) 18:18, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Keolis / SNCF West Coast

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Non Notable Company formed for the purpose of bidding for a franchise which it failed to win. Only passing mentions in sources and only temporary coverage not permanent notability. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 21:32, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I am also nominating the following related pages because they are also shell companies formed as part of the bidding process with only trivial mentions in sources:

Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 21:38, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:30, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:31, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:31, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Merge or redirect all to InterCity West Coast, which directly deals with the award of this franchise. Not much you can say other their bid existing, but they are all plausible search terms. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 09:10, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I considered whether they were plausible redirects before suggesting deletion; Google Insight shows no searches for any of these companies. Our own web traffic statistics show little activity beyond web crawler for these articles (except yesterday when all spiked due to my tagging) - Searching is more likely to be directed either at the franchise or at the relevant parent company rather than at any of these shell companies. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 13:51, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Delete Notability is not temporary. There is nothing worth merging and now that the usefulness of these entities is past they will be unlikely search terms as far as our general readership are concerned. Anyone with a specialist interest in finance and franchises will be looking to other specialist sources and they will get more from a google search anyway.--Charles (talk) 14:06, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Redirect all to InterCity West Coast - redirects are cheap, and redirecting actually takes up less server space than deleting the articles does. At the risk of invoking WP:OTHERSTUFF, Predator plane is considered a valid redirect for General Atomics MQ-1 Predator, but I doubt it gets very many hits at all; hits should not be considered a measure of whether or not to keep or redirect or delete. - The Bushranger One ping only 01:52, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yet Predator plane is far more plausible redirect if someone can't remember the exact designation of the plane but does remember it was called Predator, these have more complicated names than either the franchise or their respective parents and are unlikely to be used as a search term. Also As an exact search term "Predator plane" averages 40-50 searches per day on Google - and that search takes them directly to General Atomics MQ-1 Predator rather than the redirect where as these shell companies get none. Additionally it seems odd to suggest that an very obscure company name should be a redirect to a franchise they had no other interaction with other than submitting a bid. These names are very obscure synonyms for parent companies and would probably be eligible for speedy deletion as a redirect in that capacity let alone as a redirect to the franchise. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 09:42, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Merge and Redirect all to InterCity West Coast -- However, the article does not indicate who has been the successful bidder. The article needs to be updated to make that clear.  Whether we should retain the redirects or delete them I am not sure.  They are almost certainly single purpose companies that will either be dissolved or mothballed.  Some groups have dormant subsidiaries which they will rename and reactivate when they need a new company, rahter than forming one from scratch, but such a mothballed company will be non-trading and thus NN.  Peterkingiron (talk) 14:58, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It was retained by the incumbent Virgin Trains which makes these other single purpose companies irrelevant to the actual franchise itsself or bidding process. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 15:20, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * As far as Wikipedia is concerned, nothing happens that makes something irrelvant to an article that was previously relevant. All four companies were relevant to the bidding process before the successfully chosen, so they stay relevant to the bidding process now. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 18:30, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually WP:UNDUE and also WP:RECENTISM Should have been taken into account in assessing their relevance within the article which clearly hasn't happened - that taken into account it would be quite appropriate to decide that they were never relevant outwith the current (just passed) event and may have little historical significance. That said - the InterCity West Coast article isn't (yet) up for deletion it's these Permastubs that have exceptionally minor relevance to the subject of the West Coast franchise - despite the undue weight they are currently given in the article's current state. On that basis I believe using them as redirects to it simply adds further undue weight. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 20:25, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't see how listing the four applicants for a rail franchise in an article about that specific rail franchise constitutes either undue weight or recentism - at the most, it's an argument for renaming the article to something with the year in. If you don't think the Intercity West Coast article should be in Wikipedia, by all means list that as AfD, but insisting on having no redirects to the article just in case it influences the outcome towards keep isn't grounds I'd accept for outright deletion. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 22:23, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Then let me explain how the intercity name had been used for services on the WCML since the 1960s how those services have been named "Intercity West Coast" since the 1980s, how Virgin Trains won the right to operate the service as a franchisee from 1996, how it operated that service including major incidents such as a derailment resulting in a fatality, how it again bid for an extension to it's position of franchisee and how it intends to run that franchise for the next 15 years through to 2026. Given that is the subject of the article in question, can you not see how it is undue weight or recentism to focus solely on a tendering process that lasted a few months of the 40-60 year lifespan of that service?  There are grounds for deletion of the current Intercity West Coast article under NPOV, that does not make the subject non-notable simply focused on the wrong thing and correctable with re-writing.  That said again we are here to discuss these  shell companies and their AFD if Intercity West Coast were to be neutrally rewritten with the full 60+ year lifespan of the service then these companies would recieve no more than a trivial mention and would still be implausible redirects to that article. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 23:21, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That's an argument for renaming the existing article to reflect what it covers. If you or anyone else wants to create the article you describe, I would be happy to support that, but we do not delete articles just because the title doesn't properly describe the contents. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 08:12, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * In that case the renamed article would probably be suitable for deletion as in itself as the franchise renewal has little coverage in reliable secondary sources (most coverage seems to be unreliable such as SPS, Blogs, and Primary Sources) - basically it is likely to fail on notability grounds when assesed by on it's own. But again you seem to miss the point that this does not give good grounds on which these company stubs should be redirects to a franchise that they happened to bid on and where they are not going to be covered in any detail beyond a trivial mention no matter what happens to the article. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 13:13, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I found coverage in reliable sources that names all the bidders here:, , , , , , and . And this is just stuff available online - one can reasonably assume that in the (mostly offline) trade press there will most likely be more substantial coverage. The successful bidder of a franchise of huge consequence to many passengers no matter which franchise is up for grabs, so dismissing the significance as not even meriting a redirect (and, let's face it, an insufficiently notable redirect is of microscopic consequence to Wikipedia) doesn't really make sense. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 22:09, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, and by the way, the contract has not been won by Virgin. They have been given an extension to their old franchise. According to the latest news, the decision is now going to be made next summer. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 22:15, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I already said there was little (some not none) coverage however even at that this does not constitute significant coverage, there is 1 interview with Branson and perhaps 3 press releases that are repeated virtually verbatim by multiple media organisations with no real analysis of the franchise, bidding process, or bidders. This is why Wikipedia is not a news report about the press releases being shown here (whether directly from the dft or via a media organisation.) The Burden for showing that sources exist in trade materials is upon those wishing to create/retain these article s rather than a presumption that significant coverage might exist. It's also worth noting that nearly every page associated with the (supposedly) simultaneous Greater Anglia franchise bid (all created by the same editor as these ones) has now been speedily deleted (rather than redirected). Oh and thanks for the information on Virgin; it just goes to show that these articles are significantly errant, badly sourced, and shouldn't have been created in the first place until the bidding process was completed and a winner announced. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 23:30, 20 December 2011 (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.