# Talk:Rail transport in New Zealand

A History of rail transport in New Zealand would be a good idea. There is enough material out there for such an article. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 05:38, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

NZ's first railway was in Nelson - privately established and operated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dun_Mountain_Railway  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.57.174.252 (talk) 12:49, 30 August 2014 (UTC) 

Hi all, I've expanded the lede greatly and tidied up a lot of the citations. --LJ Holden 01:08, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

@Akld guy: Thanks for your edits --LJ Holden 06:59, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

I removed the above sentence because I'm not exactly sure what it means. CC @Hazhk: - it could mean:

More track than at any time in rail transport history in NZ is now closed (yes that's true, but that's always been the case since 1952)
More track has been closed under KiwiRail since 2008 than any other entity? I'm not sure this is true and it would need a citation because it's highly likely NZR 1880 - 1982 closed a lot of track, NZ Railways Corp 1982 - 1991 closed a lot (e.g. Otago Central line);
Actual lines have been closed but not removed (i.e. mothballed), which is certainly true as we now have a lot of branch lines mothballed which in NZ's recent history is unusual.
Overall the sentence is unclear and I don't think adds much. To my mind the should mention that the network reached its peak in 1952 and has declined in route length since then, mainly due to rural branchline closures. If there's a comment on lines closed under KiwiRail then that needs to be clearer --LJ Holden 23:49, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

I removed the part about track closures because it was not made clear where they took place. More importantly, this is the lead, and the full explanation that there were closures of rural branches while the urban passenger networks expanded (certainly in Auckland, dunno in Wellington) would be just too much detail in the lead. I've noticed that there's a trend toward putting more and more detail into leads, some of it very trivial. Every time an editor adds something he/she thinks is important, another comes along and fleshes it out, detailing all the exceptions and irregularities. To be honest, I think there's no need for the final sentence of the lead to be present in this article, and I nearly deleted it too. It's unreferenced. Akld guy (talk) 01:16, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Agreed, although the lead was ridiculously short previously. --LJ Holden 01:58, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

@LJ Holden: I recommend that you add more sources to cover every paragraph in this article, otherwise the GAN will likely not pass. Also, make sure to double check your use of dashes and fansites. SounderBruce 00:39, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, will do that. --LJ Holden 01:34, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Rail transport in New Zealand/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: John M Wolfson (talk · contribs) 00:39, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Hello, I'm User:John M Wolfson, and I'll be your GA reviewer. Here are the GA criteria and how I believe this article compares to them:

Well-written I see no issues with the prose. Y
Verifiable/no OR Quite a few statements need citaitons, IMO, including the entirety of the "Heritage rail" section.
Broad This covers quite a lot of the topic. Y
Neutral I see no editorializing. Y
Stable I see no vandalism in the past 50 edits. Y
Illustrated Well illustrated, with all images from the Commons. Y
The main thing you're missing is citations for quite a few statements. I can tag them appropriately if that helps you. John M Wolfson (talk) 00:39, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Great, thank you. I'll get to work adding citations. --LJ Holden 02:11, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
No problem, thank you! John M Wolfson (talk) 02:24, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Ok, additional citations now added, a few extra in the Heritage rail section, which I also re-ordered on reading. --LJ Holden 02:59, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Nice work, thanks. I guess I'll passY this article. John M Wolfson (talk) 03:06, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

This article very much needs a map of the rail network.  A map if its development would also be good. Minturn (talk) 00:09, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

There's the 1976 maps. Johnragla (talk) 04:45, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
Agreed, I came to the article because I wanted to see a map, only to discover that none is included. I've added {{Map requested}} above. Modest Genius talk 12:50, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
You could add the NZ Railway Network map. It has a Creative Commons 4.0 International Licence and was updated this month. Johnragla (talk) 14:28, 11 March 2024 (UTC)