Deletion of Central station

Comment: I think deciding what to do with this Central station page is connected with the wider question of how to treat the proper names of railway stations. It is unclear to me what purpose the Central station page currently serves, other than being used as an attempt to push "Central station" as a new English-language term meaning something like ''the main station in a city, whether or not it is actually called that outside Wikipedia or whether it is actually central; and for certain stations in the benighted lands on the wrong side of Dover the name which Wikipedia should use instead of the  found in -language reliable ''. Take the opening phrase "In many countries, a central station is generally the primary railway station in a large town or city", which gives no source, and doesn't reflect UK or Irish or US or French or German practice (whereabouts is it true?). Or look at the hoops someone is jumping though to try to define "Hauptbahnhof" as meaning Central station (perhaps Wikipedians have never been to Karslruhe or Vienna? And why aren't we renaming anything else with a German name, only the Hauptbahnhofs - why not a Tempelhof as well?) with the circular arguments between the station articles which have been renamed and this one. Meanwhile, other people are using this article to point out that such an agenda does not actually reflect the non-Wikipedia real world as it stands. A "list of stations named Central" is fundamentally incompatible with a "list of the main stations in various places" (see Brussels, Liverpool, Exeter, Prague etc, not to mention the Paris, London, Moscow etc question). This page has become part of the same debate
Stance: comment
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Article titles (WP:COMMONNAME||WP:ENGLISH||WP:SOURCES)

Comment: If "central station" meant simply "a station that is central", as the nominator assumes, then of course there would be no reason for an article of this type. But in fact "central station" is the common name for a type of station, as is evident from http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Central+Station%2Ccentral+station%2Cmain+station%2CMain+Station%2Chauptbahnhof&year_start=1950&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share= this ngram. This usage derives from the fact that, for whatever reason, the principle station of certain cities was named in the form "Foo Central Station." But the usage is now part of the English language, independent of the formal name of any particular station. The drive to delete this article appears to stem from opposition to the practice of translating station names. |Translation is not original research! Let's not lose sight of the forest for the trees: Our purpose is to write reference material that English-speakers can read. ''http://dictionary.reverso.net/german-english/Hauptbahnhof Collins German-English Dictionary'' defines ''hauptbahnhof'' as "main or central station”. I did not make the translation up, and I don't appreciate the repeated accusations to this effect. Here is ''http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-74063.html Spiegel Online'': “Travelers at Berlin's central station faced disruptions after a series of petrol bombs were discovered along railway lines in the German capital last week.” Here we see the phrase "central station" used to refer to a type of station, a type that is understood to include the main railway station in Berlin. ''http://www.dw.de/europes-biggest-station-to-open-in-berlin-in-time-for-world-cup/a-2032338 Deutsche Welle'' has a full-length English-language article on the Berlin station which refers to it as a "central station" and as a "central railway station" several times, but not once as a "hauptbahhof." I ask those who oppose translation this question: Should the main station in Beijing be called  "北京火车站" or ''Běijīng huǒchēzhàn
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:No original research (WP:TRANSCRIPTION)