Talk:California/Railroads
Some information for UP Industrial
Chino Industrial Lead former owner was Southern Pacific.
Fullerton Industrial Lead former owner was UP.
Irvine Industrial Park? I have no knowledge of any UP trackage in Irvine. That particular track is a BNSF industrial track.
Ontario Industrial Lead former owner Southern Pacific
Stanton Industrial Lead former owner Southern Pacific
Tustin Industrial Lead former owner Southern Pacific
Patata Industrial Lead former owner Southern Pacific
4CatsMom (talk) 19:26, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
OK, 4CatsMom, thank you for these corrections. I have incorporated them into the wiki. Stevea (talk) 22:09, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
Restructuring
USA rail mappers: As this wiki grows, I believe it has gotten to the point of "too big and unwieldy" as it nears completing late(r) beta and heads to a finish line of "about 1.0." I've been considering re-structuring this for some time, but as it would be a first (for USA rail wiki pages) I'd like some feedback in case there might be a better way to do this I haven't thought of.
There are currently a dozen major headings, which clump into four or five groups.
My idea is Active Rail + Other Rail where Other = [abandoned, disused, razed, railtrails, transitways, yards, color semantics, et cetera], while Active remains (less Other, that being split into another wiki), keeping Active as it is presently structured in 2020: Freight (Main, Branch, Industrial, Short) and Passenger (Two Amtraks: national and regional, High Speed, suburban, urban and local "and the rest" of preserved, tourist, museum, heritage, miniature, narrow_gauge, amusement parks...). So, compare what we now have to this:
California/Railroads/Active 1 Active Freight Lines (Mainline, Branch, Industrial and Short) UP BNSF Short Lines Private Railroads 2 Active Passenger Trains Amtrak (passenger=national) trains serving California Amtrak California (passenger=regional) trains California High Speed Rail (passenger=regional) trains Commuter (passenger=suburban) trains City, Light Rail (passenger=urban) trains Airport-style Monorail, People Mover, Automated Guideway Transit (passenger=local) trains Tourism, museum, heritage and historic (usage=tourism), amusement park, miniature trains California/Railroads/Other 1 Editing Railroads starting from TIGER data 2 Current State of the Map (California/Railroads) 3 Suggestions 4 Disused Lines 5 Abandoned Lines 6 Railtrails and "Transitways" 7 Yards 8 Color semantics (status, branding, Amtrak)
As I look at how big each of Freight and Passenger are, I even consider breaking these up into two separate wiki, making three total: Freight, Passenger, Other. Any feedback (here) is quite welcome. Stevea (talk) 01:04, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks for working on this! I agree, this page is getting lengthy and hard to maintain. Though I quite like the structure we're working with already. One thing I would consider is splitting it up geographically, with San Luis Obispo and the Tehachapi Pass being the dividing points between North and South (roughly the boundary between UP's Roseville and L.A. Divisions). Hopefully that could help pare down the Short Lines section. clay_c (talk) 00:53, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
- I never thought of geographically, it is an excellent idea. I find the SLO/Tehachapi split drop-dead easy, as it's a "clean break" for just about everything. And while the tables show us where the UP "Division" boundaries are for Northern and Southern, it looks like a bit of effort to find exactly where the boundaries would be, though "around there" (maybe Bakersfield finds its way in as a boundary, too) seems right. That leaves still-to-discuss (and please, others are welcome to join the dialog here!) how "Freight, Passenger, Other" (3 instead of simply the 2 of "Active + Other") and/or "Northern + Southern" might blend together. It may be that combining those yields too confusing a mix of too many wiki. While one big, unweildy one has its problems (long load time, massive scrolling...) splitting one up into too many with differing logical break-apart reasons is likely worse. Let's ruminate a while and possibly collect more discussion. Stevea (talk) 01:23, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
- Additional note: It appears that CP Kern Junction in Bakersfield (not necessarily Tehachapi Pass), delimiting BNSF Mojave Subdivision and UP Mojave Subdivision to "Southern" (should we decide to split/restructure geographically) and Fresno Subdivision to "Northern" is correct. This would seem to replace CP Kern Junction for Tehachapi Pass, along with an unknown-named CP (or it may not be a CP, though there is a switch there) in SLO where Santa Barbara Subdivision (Southern) and Coast Subdivision (Northern) join: node/2503121352 as the dividing node between Northern and Southern. Clay, if you have further data (a specific CP or node?) why you think "Techachapi Pass" might be a better choice (than CP Kern Junction), that would be welcome information here. Thanks, Stevea (talk) 19:20, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
- I thought about CP Kern Junction. It makes sense in terms of the Class I railroad subdivisions (though BNSF actually divides at CP Bakersfield), but one worry I have is that it would split the local shortline network (SJVR) in two. That leaves the question of whether the Arvin/Buttonwillow/Sunset subdivisions belong in the North or South.
- I think both of us are not only allowed to get railfanny, but anybody here who doesn't think that about both of us isn't really paying attention! Yes, keeping SJVR "whole" (one railroad in one division) makes sense, along with my initial consideration of your suggestion we use Techachapi Loop as a dividing line. That would seem to put both UP and BNSF Mojave Subs into "both" north and south, am I getting that right? If we include that node in SLO on Coast/Santa Barbara, it would seem we have a sensible geographic rail split for the state. However, then there is the "logical" split I originally started with. Do we have three wiki: Other, North, South? The amount of both freight and passenger in each of N and S still seems large, but then if we further split those, it seems too complex if we have FIVE wiki: Other, N-Freight, N-Passenger, S-Freight, S-Passenger. I'm still ruminating, but good dialog so far. Stevea (talk) 02:19, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
How about:
California/Railroads/Active Links to Main article (California/Railroads), California/Railroads/Passenger 1 Common Carrier Lines (Mainline, Branch, Industrial and Short), Northern UP (Roseville Division) BNSF (Northern California) Short Lines (Northern California) 2 Common Carrier Lines (Mainline, Branch, Industrial and Short), Southern UP (Los Angeles Division) BNSF (Southern California) Short Lines (Southern California) 3 Private Rail (all of California) California/Railroads/Passenger Links to Main article (California/Railroads), California/Railroads/Active 1 Passenger Trains, Northern California Amtrak (passenger=national) trains serving Northern California Amtrak California (passenger=regional) trains serving Northern California California High Speed Rail (passenger=regional) trains (under construction) Commuter (passenger=suburban) trains City, Light Rail (passenger=urban) trains Airport-style Monorail, People Mover, Automated Guideway Transit (passenger=local) trains 2 Passenger Trains, Southern California Amtrak (passenger=national) trains serving Southern California Amtrak California (passenger=regional) trains serving Southern California California High Speed Rail (passenger=regional) trains (proposed) Commuter (passenger=suburban) trains City, Light Rail (passenger=urban) trains Airport-style Monorail, People Mover, Automated Guideway Transit (passenger=local) trains (under construction) 3 Tourism, museum, heritage and historic (usage=tourism), miniature, amusement park, trains and trams (all of California) California/Railroads 1 Structure descriptive text, /Active and /Passenger "sub-wiki" (subordinate wiki) links 2 Editing Railroads starting from TIGER data 3 Current State of the Map (California/Railroads) 4 Suggestions 5 Disused Lines 6 Abandoned Lines 7 Railtrails and "Transitways" 8 Yards 9 Color semantics (status, branding, Amtrak)
?
This makes three wiki in a restructure, Active, Passenger (both preceded with California/Railroads/) and the "original root" which remains California/Railroads with "all the rest." The first two (subordinate) wiki have an internal section split, duplicating existing structure across a N/S division. With the existing UP N/S division (in both real world and wiki) we're partly there. There'd be some new descriptive-of-structure text and linking of this-to-that, not difficult. Still, a geo N/S split seems artificial. I can say that, as I've lived in Southern and in Northern and know them both; a split like this feels like, well, a split. Though, (UP, Clay...) I do see the point in splitting a thing so large. California feels "single-glom" (it seems to act like that a lot). For the formal division points (node above, Santa Barbara / Coast Subs junction), and as Milepost 351 seems arbitrary, say, CP Walong? (Is that a CP?). So, we'd put both UP Mojave Sub and BNSF Movaje Sub into both Northern and Southern (BNSF has a brief discontiguous Bakersfield segment). Follow this by "being bold" (Step 5). Stevea (talk) 02:06, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
- The split / restructuring is largely done (and slightly different than noted above, for example, Passenger didn't split geographically), minor tweaks might continue as some text contexts update. The original document was 225K of source text. Current totals are 45K for the original root (8 screen-scrolls), 87K for Active (13 screen-scrolls) and 83K for Passenger (8 screen-scrolls); screen-scrolls are defined by a 5K (Retina) display at 5120×2880 pixels. The latter two wiki pages are still quite large and may themselves split (fully distinct Northern and Southern wikis would be easiest). Stevea (talk) 06:48, 9 February 2020 (UTC)