Talk:East Lancashire Railway

Rename

This article should be renamed to East Lancashire Railway(heritage) and an new East Lancashire Railway page created. To disambi between this and East Lancashire Railway 1844-1849.--MinedOutOffHisPiste 18:56, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Compromised, I assume people wanting East Lancashire Railway will be automatically wanting the heritage railway, so I moved the See Also section to the top and changed it as a common disambi. Any problems add to the this talk page. -Jrgnet 19:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

9F

The 9F I currently put as stored because for the forseeable future, and after what happened I do not think it will be moving anytime soon - Jrgnet Talk 17:18, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Wrong i'm afraid - technically on the wiki, stored is 'not being overhauled locos without a boiler ticket' - 92214 technically sits in the 'undergoing light work' area, as it NOT being stored. Talk 23:57, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

B Class article?

I can't agree with the assesment for this article as there is a lot that needs to be added to it yet. It the moment it consists of a couple of paragraphs of text and a long list of locomotives of interest only to railway enthusiasts. What happened between 1859 and 1987? How did revival of the railway come about? Who owns it and runs it? How many of the locomotives actually run on the railway and are they on show when they're not running? Where are the references? Richerman (talk) 00:35, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

agreed and downgraded to C on WikiProject Greater Manchester NtheP (talk) 18:18, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposals

What are people's thoughts on the proposals to include the ELR as part of Greater Manchester's train/tram network in the future? Are these proposals worthy enough to be included on this wikipedia page? Are they at all likely to come about?

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1079853_ccharge_steam_trains

I suppose the ELR would still exist, but commuter trains would also run along the route (during the week) and it would be possible for ELR trains to run further onto either the mainline or the Metrolink line..? (Probably not the latter.) David (talk) 02:05, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

As an update the feasibility study is ongoing but the project itself has not made it into the post C-Charge ballot revised funding plans, however its still on the list of funding prioritys http://www.gmpte.com/content.cfm?subcategory_id=103073&news_id=6114641 83.104.138.141 (talk) 22:24, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Poor image

What on earth is wrong with this image? Why do anonymous users keep removing it? Its fine, a little over-exposed, but I do this for a living and I don't object to its presence - in my opinion it only adds to the article. Parrot of Doom (talk) 19:45, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

[[image:]]

I suppose you're a member of the Phoenix too.

This is simply a poorly-composed snapshot taken by leaning out of a carriage window. It's the sort of shot a beginner would take.

Technically, the sky is overexposed, but that is nothing compared to composition which is awful. You get to see maybe a quarter of the locomotive, a bit of greenery and nothing else.

If you were genuinely experienced in railway photography (as a specialist genre of photography, (as opposed to just photography in general) with its own history and conventions), you will know that the stock shot is the front 3/4 view taken from somewhere on the lineside. That is the most effective and the most illustrative. A Wikipedia article should be illustrative. For a Wikipedia article on the railway line, the photographs really ought to be of a slightly wider angle so that they illustrate the line, i.e. a train within setting of the railway line, i.e. the features of the landscape, e.g. stations, signalling, bridges, hills, water, etc.

Here for example is a much better photograph showing the same locomotive in a station.

Keeping the photograph in the makes is poor quality control and makes the article look amateurish and shabby.

So what if it's a snapshot? Many images are, and so what if it was taken by a beginner? Yes the sky is overexposed (and the greenery for that matter), but I disagree that the composition is poor - the horizon is positioned correctly, and the railway line disappears into the distance to the left of the image as the line curves around. That isn't bad composition. You can cite as many conventions as you wish, but from that angle I would have framed it in exactly the same manner. This article is about the railway, not the locomotives, so locomotive photography conventions are probably irrelevant.

As for illustrative - the image illustrates the passenger view of the locomotive, including the driver, the line, and the scenery. Maybe you're just interested in looking at locomotives and their carriages, but maybe other people would find a 1st-person perspective such as this more interesting, and frankly its revealing in the sense that modern carriages do not allow passengers to lean from the windows.

What makes this article poor, amateurish, and shabby, is not a slightly over-exposed image — it is the almost totla lack of any reliable sources, the short lead section, and the list-like structure. It may be of interest to railway aficionados, but it isn't particularly engaging for people with a more general interest - and that, is why I feel the image should remain. By the way, I haven't the slightest idea what 'The Phoenix' is. Parrot of Doom (talk) 17:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, looking at the image in PS, the problem isn't really the exposure, its the degree of saturation, which I've now corrected. Parrot of Doom (talk) 17:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid you also misunderstood my point as to what an ideal illustrative image should be. Also, I was discussing railway photography in general. If we give the photographer any credit for composition at all, this photograph is (I think) supposed to be of the locomotive. So the conventions which have stood the test of 80 years should apply.

Furthermore, the coach is almost certainly a Mk 1 coach. Mk1s (and indeed Mk2 and Mk3s, Mk3s being still in wide use across the mainline network) all allow you to lean out of the window - it's just not advisable at high speed on the mainline or you might lose your head. You're not supposed to do it on preserved railways either, but with a 25mph speed limit, as long as you judge any bridges you'll probably be OK. It's not really illustrating that.

I wasn't commenting on the rest of the article either, so let's not get distracted by that.

btw, The Phoenix is what you're in if you're any good at railway photography. I'm not, I was just being a little sarcastic, and I didn't expect you to know what it was because I didn't expect that you had any experience in the area. The Phoenix do encourage artistic or unconventional shots, but they are unconventional shots that are carefully composed, as opposed to shots which just happen to be unconventional because they're poorly composed snapshots.

If you want to take photos of trains, don't travel on them. It's rather like trying to take photos of your own wedding - it doesn't work.

IMO, the image is better than nothing and I'm not convinced by the reason to remove it. If it was cluttering up the article, I wouldn't object to it too much (although the reasons given here are poor), however that's not the case. If the IP editor wants better images in the article they can find some that are compatible with wikipedia's creative commons policies or go and take some which, from their evident vast experience of railway related photography, I'm sure will be exceptional. Nev1 (talk) 18:48, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

"If you want to take photos of trains, don't travel on them. It's rather like trying to take photos of your own wedding - it doesn't work." - I hardly think the photographer in this instance was taking a picture of a train. They were obviously taking a picture of the journey, or the experience.

I think your argument has a rather superior tone, and frankly as a photographer I don't consider it a requirement to be a member of a 'club' to have my knowledge on the subject ratified. I recognise this image for the inherent value it has, not because it doesn't tick all the boxes in the 'perfection' category. Parrot of Doom (talk) 19:07, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Resident steam locomotives currently elsewhere

How long does it need to be before a currently away is permanent or semi permanent or homeless ? (Some items listed havent been back for several years and others have not declared intention to return) My thoughts are.. if it's not been in 6 months the move should be considered at least semi permanent and therefore a "has been" not a temporary. If this article is to be honest.. if it's not there it's not there. Maybe create a section on engines that have operated at the ELR ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.68.241.213 (talk) 20:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Flying Scotsman?

Was at the ELR last year, yes. But is that really a justification for including it in the "Locomotives" list, giving the impression that it's a "home" loco? 109.149.143.15 (talk) 00:47, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

The convert thing

last Friday I changed the miles to km conversion from the formula to plain text 'to improve screen reader accessibility' as I said in my edit summary.

Today I noticed it got reverted back by @Redrose64

I'm not going to change it back because that could start pointless edit warring, and none of us needs that.

Instead, as I'm a full time screen reader user (I use NVDA, but I have also tried it with JAWS) I'm going to explain my reasoning, so you can hopefully understand where I'm coming from.

Screen readers like JAWS and NVDA can read MathML, but only if a suitable plugin like MathPlayer is installed. I'm going to assume that most users who don't need to deal with formulas haven't got it installed. Personally I'm one of them. So, this is how NVDA on my system without MathPlayer currently renders that sentence with the conversion in it:

"East Lancashire Railway is a -mile (20 km) link heritage railway line in link North West England which runs between link Heywood, Greater Manchester and visited link Rawtenstall in Lancashire."

JAWS also gives a similar result.

As you can probably tell, it doesn't show the number of miles.

If I use a slightly more advanced navigation technique in NVDA, it reads it as "12+1⁄2".

Neither result is ideal.

However, writing it in plain text means that it can be read as intended by anyone regardless of if a maths plugin is installed.

I hope I have sufficiently demonstrated why I changed it. KaraLG84 (talk) 15:43, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

@KaraLG84: I would like to bring in Graham87 (talk · contribs) on this, who is one of our most experienced editors and who also happens to depend upon screen-reader software. Graham has used this template a number of times in the past. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:51, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Redrose64: I can indeed confirm that it doesn't read out the measurement with NVDA in its default state. JAWS has an in-built math viewer and reads it out as "12+1⁄2", which is not exactly ideal as @KaraLG84: said but is a lot better than nothing. I never thought to test this kind of syntax with NVDA. Graham87 14:53, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm a full-time NVDA user. As you've pointed out, either install MathPlayer or change your settings to output TeX. Codeofdusk (talk) 15:00, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

That's not something the average user should need to do to view an article like this. That particular template uses MathML markup directly so the user preference doesn't affect it. Graham87 15:12, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I thought as much. I tried all three options and nothing changed. KaraLG84 (talk) 19:25, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I had no idea this was an accessibility problem. To clarify, the issue is the use of {{frac}} inside the convert template? And that it doesn't read correctly unless you have certain plug-ins installed?--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 15:21, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Ineffablebookkeeper: The edit under discussion is this one; the markup is {{convert|12+1/2|mi|km|0|adj=on}} and it doesn't use {{frac}} - the convert template is entirely Lua-based, the primary module being Module:Convert. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:22, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Redrose64 I think it's safe to say that using plain text here is preferable. Another reason is that, as I discovered earlier, if you say to Siri "Tell me about East Lancashire Railway", it reads out the formula in the intro section rather than the result. KaraLG84 (talk) 19:19, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Redrose64: oh. I don't think I've ever actually seen that kind of markup before. Every time I've tried to input something like {{cvt|12 1/2|mi}}, it comes up with an error message, so I assumed it just wasn't possible, I think.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 11:16, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

It's described at Template:Convert#Input with fractions: 1+1⁄2 inches (38.1 mm). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:36, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Ok, the plot thickens.

I was just doing a bit of editing of Canary Islands] and noticed that it also uses Template:Convert. However, the way that article uses does in fact render text that's accessible with screen readers.

Rather than using a maths formula as it does in this article, the syntax would be like this:

{{convert|20|km|adj=on}}

Which generates 20-kilometre (12 mi)

@Redrose64 Would this be any good? KaraLG84 (talk) 19:55, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Using decimals rather than fractions makes the template output accessible using a screen reader, so I've changed it in the article.

Let me know what you think. KaraLG84 (talk) 21:21, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

And, much later, I ended up fixing the convert template and other related fractional templates. it turned out that the underlying problem with the convert template wasn't screen readers' mathematics support at all, but just the use of the ARIA tag role="math". The output of the number "12.5" is less verbose with screen readers so I'd still slightly prefer that, but if fractional values are really much more common/look much better, I'd be OK with using them here again. (I rediscovered this discussion by accident). Graham87 (talk) 03:34, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Checking in to this further, 45 chains is nine-sixteenth of a mile (a chain being an eightieh of a mile) which is 0.5625 miles, which is closer to 0.6 than 0.5. So saying 12.5 is false precision, as it implies that it's between 0.45 and 0.55. Therefore adding a half is more accurate (implying that it's somewhere between 12.25 and 12.75). I've just discovered that Template:Convert can spell out fractions and have implemented that functionality on this article, as that's ideal for screen readers. I hope it doesn't look too bad here. Graham87 (talk) 04:12, 4 February 2024 (UTC)