Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains in Japan/Archive 6

Notability of station articles
One of the station articles I created recently has been slapped with a "this article isn't notable" label which threatens deletion. See Takatsuno Station.

Granted, it's not the most significant train station in Japan, but there seems to be an established system in place of creating station stubs for all existing stations on any given train line in Japan. Is there a precedent here? Has this issue of "notability" been discussed or solved before?


 * It's been discussed many times. One discussion is referenced at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains in Japan. There are some suggestions for writing articles that have some protection against deletion. I'm not aware of any overall conclusion on criteria for keeping or deleting articles on stations, but the deletion discussions I've seen have generally favored keeping stations with features like scheduled service, fixed platforms and buildings. There's less support for keeping articles on whistle stops in the middle of nowhere.


 * The template in the article you linked to says "This article may not meet the general notability guideline or one of the following specific guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please expand or rewrite the article to establish its notability." Note that guidelines more flexible than policies. There are actual guidelines for several things, but none related to railroad stations. Then there are proposed guidelines for some other subjects, and if you follow the link from the template, you can find Notability (Places and transportation), a proposal that is still in the early stages: it includes text like "my opinion is ... ." We have to take these proposals seriously, and one way all Wikipedia editors can do so is to participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (Places and transportation). Several editors have expressed opinions there.


 * Generally, if a station is the subject of third-party coverage in newspaper or magazine articles, books, or other reliable sources, and the article provides references to it, it's pretty safe from deletion (although nothing's safe from discussion for deletion). For train stations, a newspaper might run an article if service changes (the express starts to stop there), they appoint a celebrity to be stationmaster for a day, construction causes a change in platforms, it gains or loses a green window or ticket-takers, or any of a dozen other reasons. Also, there are thick guides in Japanese that list them. Looking at WikiProject Trains in Japan, I don't see them in the Resources section; if someone were to add them there it would help provide third-party coverage for lots of stations. I'm not referring to timetables, but to something with more specific coverage.


 * Another resource is the model stub article at WikiProject Trains in Japan/Station Stub. Fg2 (talk) 02:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Category:Signal Ground in Japan
The category is just a few days old. If anyone can come up with a better name for it, this is a good time, before it gets a lot of articles. Fg2 (talk) 08:12, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmmm... What to do with this one? First of all, my understanding is that the Japanese "信号場" (or "信号所") can mean "junction", "signal box", or "yard" depending on the location. Thus, unfortunately, there is no single English term that can be used here. "Signal ground" is obviously a direct translation of the Japanese and is totally meaningless in English. Secondly, while I would argue that all railway stations are inherently notable, and there might be one or two major railway junctions or signalboxes in Japan that are possibly notable enough to warrant their own articles (新鶴見信号所 near Shin-Kawasaki Station for one), the articles created so far seem to be really non-notable spots in the middle of nowhere. Junctions or freight yards can always be mentioned in the article for the line on which they lie. Anyway, two of the articles in this category are redirects to passenger station articles, and one (Higashi-Shiojiri Signal Ground) does not have an article on Japanese Wiki. I am inclined to put them all up for AfD as non-notable. --DAJF (talk) 08:49, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree with DAJF. Manmaru (talk) 10:24, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It is thought that these stations belong to one category in Japan. So it may be better to discribe them as Shingōjō without using English words. About the problem that there are few contents, it may be good for merging some articles. Though we can merge all of them, parhaps too huge article will be made. Please propose some good solution. Personally I am interested in some Shingōjō-s, so I want to describe them in a certain form.Penpen (talk) 15:17, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * (p.s.)I found the words Signal Ground in Iwanami Station. It can be a Japanese English.Penpen (talk) 15:28, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Can we split it into maybe Signal box and Siding? This would encompass both meanings (I think). Alex Sims (talk) 10:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is no suitable word that indicates whether passengers can use the station or not in English. So, how about to use Category:Signal Stations in Japan for 信号場s in Japan, Category:Signal Stations in South Korea for 신호장(信號場)s in South Korea and Category:Signal Stations in Taiwan for 號誌站s in Taiwan. Signal Station is a direct translation of 號誌站. Article name should be selected by its function.Penpen (talk) 15:31, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I am not aware of "Signal station" being used as a railway term in English to describe locations such as the Japanese "信号場", and again, it would not make any sense to me. If a category for such locations is really necessary, how about something like "Non-passenger handling railway facilities in Japan"? I know it sounds unwieldy, but it could then include articles for locations such as signals, signalboxes, junctions, sidings, depots, and freight terminals, which, unlike in Japanese, cannot be described as stations in English.
 * Whatever the name of the category chosen is, the term "signal ground" currently used in a number of articles translated from Japanese needs to be replaced with something more descriptive which actually explains what the location is (is it just a junction? a siding? a passing loop? is there actually a signal box there? etc). --DAJF (talk) 02:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Another suggestion for a category name is "Signal locations in Japan", provided that these articles are actually about signal locations, which I am not entirely sure is the case. --DAJF (talk) 02:18, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * How about to remove Category:Signal Ground in Japan and make article List of XX (like List of aerial lifts in Japan. In this way the article name will not be a big problem. Penpen (talk) 09:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That is certainly another option, although I think it would be a good idea to decide here exactly what term we use for the "XXX" in "List of XXX". "Non-passenger railway facilities in Japan"? "Signal locations in Japan"? --DAJF (talk) 10:01, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Question about rail interoperation
Hi. Does anyone know if rail interoperation between 2 different companies such as the one described in this article (in Japanese, I couldn't find an English version) occurs in any country other than Japan? Thanks in advance. Tbo 157  (talk)  15:38, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup
Currently, 655 of the articles assigned to this project, or 24.1%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 2008-06-18.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subsribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Railway stations in Japan by ridership
An editor has repeatedly added an Osaka station to the list in Transportation in Greater Tokyo. It would make more sense, though, to have a separate article listing railway stations nationwide in order by ridership. That would show both the Tokyo area and Kansai (and other areas) together in one place, making comparisons easy. Do we have such a list? Fg2 (talk) 08:24, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * More importantly, do we have a few good sources for that information? If so, we could make an article if one doesn't already exist. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:15, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It should be possible to compose such a list by scanning the Station Infoboxes in the Japanese Wikipedia which do contain ridership information. A good application for the Semantic Wikipedia! I'm working on a tool to align japanese station infoboxes between wikipedias to make this sort of thing easier. Alex Sims (talk) 07:49, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Category up for renaming
Members of this project may be interested in the discussion at Categories for discussion/Log/2008 August 18. - Neier (talk) 16:22, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Help determining which line this recording is from
I'm attempting to nominate the recording ja:画像:Kanku.ogg as a featured sound. I have reuploaded the sound at the commons Image:223 series train recording.ogg. Before I nominate, however, I would like to know what line this train is running on. Can anyone here help out and figure out the answer to this question? Thanks! --TorsodogTalk 19:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it's a Kansai Airport Line train (hence the file name). Would wonder if copyright is a problem. Fg2 (talk) 22:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm no expert on copyrights, but I think copyright might be a problem on this, unfortunately. I will check around however and see if I can get a definitive answer. And thanks for the help with identifying the Kansai Line by the way. --TorsodogTalk 00:05, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Looking at ja:関西空港線, I see a photo in the information box. It shows a 223 series train operating the Kankū Kaisoku service. Fg2 (talk) 00:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * And yes, the recording is likely a copyright violation as it is a recording of a recording owned by a company in Japan. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:14, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Archiving New Articles
Hello everyone,

We need some archiving work done for the New Articles template every now and then. It's getting to be humongous. -- Hirohisat (Talk) 03:32, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Done. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:20, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Translation Question
I started to translate the Fukuoka Subway Train Series 福岡市交通局1000系電車, 福岡市交通局2000系電車 and 福岡市交通局3000系電車. I started with the 2000 Series on my subpage User:R0pe-196/Subway_Fukuoka_Temp/. The problem is, I had to leave many technical details out (ie. Gate turn-off thyristor, Variable-frequency drive etc.), either because of my lacking knowledge of the subject or my bad Japanese abilites. So maybe someone can help here or please comment, whether the article is worth to make public or not. If not I will try to improve or delete it. Sorry, if this is the wrong place to discuss.--R0pe-196 (talk) 16:09, 28 October 2008 (UTC)


 * It looks OK. I'll be happy to tidy up the English and help expand it, so please go ahead and upload it. Thanks for your work creating new train articles. --DAJF (talk) 12:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for cleaning up my article and expanding it. I just uploaded Fukuoka Subway 1000 series, maybe you can have a look. My english is not good enough :) I can learn a lot from your changes. The next days I'll try to finish the 3000 series. Thank you again. --R0pe-196 (talk) 11:05, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Style of Fukuokakūkō Station name
In this template I just changed Fukuoka-kūkō into Fukuokakūkō because many pages I'm working on, uses the word without "-". Now I discovered some pages with "-" and I've read the Manual_of_Style_(Japan-related_articles) but I'm still not sure, what's the right style. I know, that Kūkō means airport and therefore a "-" would be ok. But for example ja:福岡空港駅 the station name is without "-" and offical romanization from the subway company is without "-" (example: and pamphlets I own). So, what is the right style? --R0pe-196 (talk) 11:51, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi again. Don't worry too much about small details like that. Sometimes there is no one "correct" style, as names can be written differently on stations signs and timetables. If the station sign says "Fukuokakūkō", then that is fine. "Fukuoka-kūkō" is probably easier to read for non-Japanese speakers, but if another editor feels strongly about it, they can always move the article later. No need to worry! --DAJF (talk) 12:07, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the answer. And thank you for re-editing my articles. I will do better in future (eg. Station opening date) --R0pe-196 (talk) 13:25, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * WP:MOS-JA discourages hyphens in general, but defers to the actual station signs. As this one is without the hyphen, the Fukuokakūkō Station title is correct. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:17, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Coordinates: Copying material from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan
Quote: I've used CatScan to generate a list of railway stations in Japan lacking geographical coordinates.

The articles are all marked with coord missing tags, which need to be replaced with coord tags that contain the location's latitude/longitude coordinates; or you might be able to add coordinates to an existing infobox, where appropriate. You can find out how to do this, and how to format coord tags, at the Geocoding how-to for WikiProject members. -- The Anome (talk) 13:19, 4 November 2008 (UTC) End of quote Fg2 (talk) 20:30, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Renaming Tenjin Ōmuta Line?
Is there any consent about the name of this line? An edit-comment in the text says " . The Japanese article is mixed with both names: in the adress and above the picture with Nishitetsu, in the article without Nishitetsu. I noticed it, when I heard an anouncement on the Fukuoka Subway for transfer to the "Nishitetsu Tenjin Ōmuta Line" (on the Nishitetsu Fukuoka (Tenjin) Station).　--R0pe-196 (talk) 17:26, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The official line name do not include Nishitetsu. This is why Japanese Wikipedia call the line "天神大牟田線" in the article body. The article name "西鉄天神大牟田線" follows the naming convention (ja:Wikipedia:記事名の付け方/鉄道) that provides that the line name of private railways should be preceded by the operator name or its abbreviation.
 * We at English Wikipedia do not have such a documented naming convention for line articles, although majority of the articles on Japanese private lines follow the naming at Japanese Wikipedia. Once I tried to change this tendency (or de facto standard) but failed to get consensus. There exist some articles that do not follow Japanese way, for example Hakozaki Line and Ishiyama Sakamoto Line.
 * Summarizing this, the present article name "Tenjin Ōmuta Line" is in no way incorrect and does not violate any naming convention, but changing it to "Nishitetsu Tenjin Ōmuta Line" should be also acceptable. --Sushiya (talk) 21:12, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your substantial reply. It's not a big thing, but a consensus would have been good. I've looked through various Private Railway line pages and even within one Railway Company, there are different styles (example: Odakyū Tama Line/Odakyū Enoshima Line - Seibu Shinjuku Line/Seibu Haijima Line and many others). But it's probably no big issue so I won't do anything. Nevertheless thank you for your help in this question. --R0pe-196 (talk) 14:05, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

The complete map of Greater Tokyo railways
Is there a map combining JR/Toei/Tokyo Metro and other railways, like this image? -- JSH-alive (talk)(cntrbtns)(mail me) 04:35, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Train Melodies
Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan for information on an article about train melodies. Fg2 (talk) 20:51, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Renaming Tokyu and Keio categories
I have proposed that a number of Tokyu and Keio categories be renamed to reflect the official English trading names of these companies as shown below, and have listed them at Categories for discussion/Log/2009 January 8. Keio Electric Railway was moved to Keio Corporation back in 2005, and Tokyo Kyuko Electric Railway was moved to Tokyu Corporation in 2007, so I think that there is no reason to continue using these fictitious names in the related categories, but any comments for or against the move would be welcome in the discussion.--DAJF (talk) 01:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Category:Tokyo Kyuko Electric Railway to Category:Tokyu Corporation
 * Category:Lines of Tokyo Kyuko Electric Railway to Category:Lines of Tokyu Corporation
 * Category:Stations of Tokyo Kyuko Electric Railway to Category:Stations of Tokyu Corporation
 * Category:Keio Electric Railway to Category:Keio Corporation
 * Category:Lines of Keio Electric Railway to Category:Lines of Keio Corporation
 * Category:Stations of Keio Electric Railway to Category:Stations of Keio Corporation

Infobox Station
I've received some flack for this, but I think we should implement Infobox Station into articles rather than the current one. Infobox Station is a standard that has more flexibility and displays information more clearly. On the left is the current ("correct") template and on the right is Infobox Station.

Geoking 66 talk 00:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * What are the advantages and disadvantages? Fg2 (talk) 02:10, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think as long as people link the line operators (as I've just done), the right one should work fine. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:50, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I admit to having reverted a couple of Geoking's edits which replaced the Japanese station infobox with the universal station infobox. The main reason was that I felt that there had not been any discussion, and we needed to iron out a few details before going ahead and using the universal station infobox in new station articles, and also to replace the previously used Japanese station infobox. Geoking, I myself have created a number of new Japanese station articles and edited/expanded many more, and there are a few Japanese editors (who might not even have the English language ability to join in the discussion here) who also beaver away steadily creating new articles, so if you could take the time to persuade me/us of the advantages of the universal station infobox, I will be happy to start using this in future, and to urge some of the Japanese editors to make the switch as well. Immediate comments/suggestions I have are that the station name and address should be written with the Romanized form first and the Japanese form below that. I have edited Kayabachō Station in this way. I also wonder how we tackle "Adjacent stations" in cases where these differ for the different services (e.g. Local or Rapid) on the same line. I think it is important to establish a standard format and style for use in Japanese station articles, so that we all know what we are doing. --DAJF (talk) 10:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll admit that I messed up in my first round of Japanese station editing, good intentions with poor planning you could say. I understand that some editors wouldn't be happy, considering that they designed a template the best they could to work with a system that really doesn't support any template 100 per cent exactly. The reason that I originally had in switching the templates was for an eventual standard world-wide (with some exceptions such as the New York City Subway which really does require a completely unique template) that was clear, concise, and aesthetically pleasing. I'd be happy to work with other editors to find a mix of all our ideas that fits Japan (and Tokyo specifically) whilst still adhering to a global standard. Geoking 66 talk 04:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Gulp! I am with Geoking66 on this because I have done at least 2 full lines worth last year using the Station template. I got tired and stopped but keep an interest. Can we determine (easily) how many of each are used (and how many stations are yet to be done)? Cosnahang (talk) 10:14, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It looks like close to 1,000 articles currently use "Infobox japan station". I'm not sure if there is an easy way of estimating the number of Japanese station articles that use the global station infobox, but I would hazard a guess that the number is less than 100. To put this in perspective, there are around 9,000 stations in Japan, of which I would guess (very roughly) that around half have articles on Wikipedia. --DAJF (talk) 10:34, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for a quick and helpful response DAJF! My estimate for the stations I edited would be around the 100 mark, some have since be re-graded to the Japan version (see Fukushima Station). Cosnahang (talk) 11:53, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I have just done a quick count by company's station category;
 * JR East 991
 * JR West 1016
 * JR Central 314
 * JR Hokkaido 196
 * JR Shikoku 200
 * JR Kyushu 144
 * Total 2861. Obviously these are just the JR stations. I have asked how to select infobox station use by category off the wikipedia village pump

About the display of the lines and adjoining stations. I would prefer (which ever template) to use this format:

I note that in the text of this station is the following: but I think that this looks the same but is neater and more consistent (as well as showing termini) as the color and termini are set up in the s-line templates.

Auto-categorization
Another point that may need to be addressed is that the Japanese station infobox included a function to automatically place station articles in the "Railway stations in XXXX" and "Railway stations opened in XXXX" categories - as can be see at the bottom of this talk page. This will no longer happen with the new infobox, so editors will need to be aware that these categories will have to be added manually in future. OK, it's not a big problem, but again it is something that we all need to be aware of. --DAJF (talk) 10:28, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

What do passenger counts mean?
Can someone clarify what the passenger counts mean? The information boxes shown above for Ochanomizu Station say 39.129 million passengers per day on JR. That does not seem to be the number of passengers who pass through the ticket gates at the station (it comes out to six hundred people every second of an 18 hour day). So what do these figures mean? Fg2 (talk) 10:51, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The correct number is 107,205. Thirty-nine million seems to be an annual figure. Incidentally, JR counts only entering passengers while Metro counts both entering and exiting passengers. --Sushiya (talk) 11:27, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. That makes much more sense. We should probably standardize on either entering or entering/exiting to make numbers comparable. What do other train projects report? Fg2 (talk) 12:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The per day problem stemmed from the original infobox. Generally, passenger counts are done per annum, not per day, in the same way that lines (and companies) use total figures rather than per diem figures. This problem arises with the NYCS as well since there is only a passenger count for those going into the system. There is no feasible way (apart form one of the companies to change their counting system) to make the numbers comparable. Rail pass box is meant for annual figures, but if need be it could be fixed. Geoking 66 talk 04:53, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Is there any reason why these have to be annual figures? I ask because the figures published by JR East and Tobu (not sure about any others off-hand) are for average daily passengers. --DAJF (talk) 10:37, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Check Narita Express Reference
Could someone who speaks Japanese please check the title of the first reference in the Narita_Express article? I added a cite web reference template which requires a title. With my meager Japanese skills, I'm not sure if I have put in the correct Japanese from the referenced PDF document.--papageno (talk) 23:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The text is transcribed correctly from the source. Did you need the cite to have an English translation of the title? --Polaron | Talk 00:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I believe I've most often seen the original language used in the titles of citations, so I think it's OK in Japanese.--papageno (talk) 16:31, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, that looks fine. Thanks for updating the citations. --DAJF (talk) 00:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks to everyone.--papageno (talk) 16:31, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

diesel and electric locos
Hello. I'd like to complete the set of articles that relate to diesel and electric locos eg the red links here : Japan_Freight_Railway_Company over the next few weeks...

Before I start I'd like to check to see if anyone else is doing this to avoid wasted work.. Or indeed to ask if anyone else wants to do some of these. Thank you very much.Carrolljon (talk) 19:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Please go ahead. Most of the existing articles on Japanese locos were started by me, and I would like to do more if I had the time, so any contributions you can make will be very welcome. You may have problems finding reliable reference sources in English, but I can probably help by adding some Japanese sources. --DAJF (talk) 00:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * ok. I too might have reference problems - but I'm sure I can get enough info for a respectable start. (japanese wikipedia already has articles which helps a lot..)

Carrolljon (talk) 14:38, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Template for rolling stock
I was wondering if a remplate for rolling stock would be appreciated - ie if it existed would people use it. Something like that used for sweden eg Template:Swedish railway stock. Usually these are put at the bottom of an article - they can be quite useful.Carrolljon (talk) 19:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. A template for locomotives (electric and diesel) would certainly be useful. --DAJF (talk) 00:19, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I got a list from JR_Freight of some more locos

How does this seem:

Please feel free to change the picture etc - it's the first attempt so I doubt it's perfect.

What about EMUs - a separate template perhaps - by the way I made the links to locos such as EF210 as JR Class 210 not JR Freight Class 210 -

let me know if that's wrong, (or just change it.) Hope you like it (I find these templates very useful)

By the way I've called it

Carrolljon (talk) 15:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I've added the template to the articles it links to.Carrolljon (talk) 16:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Do you have any criteria for listing? --Sushiya (talk) 12:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I would guess that any loco that has worked in japan would be included - not being an expert I don't know if their are any special lines - but if there has been a historically seperate line (perhaps of a different gauge etc) then perhaps it should have a different infobox.. Clearly the seibu locos are already included - perhaps they should be in a separate heading in the infobox - did you have anything in mind?
 * (The shikansen already have a separate infobox - so don't add those) Maybe the suburban emus should be added too?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.43.12 (talk) 03:40, 13 February 2009 (UTC)