Talk:Ffestiniog Railway

message: Keith has changed the first paragraph to say that (correctly) the railway runs from Port to Blaenau, rather than the other way round.
However, the station links, which show links to "previous" and "following" stations, are consequently now in the reverse order, and logically need changing.
Hogyn Lleol 16:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah but the first section built was the Cob. — Dunc|☺ 19:15, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Correction - The Cob was built first (full stop.)  The railway construction wasn't started for over 20 years later, and then the foundation stone was laid at Creuau 26/2/1833 by WG Oakeley (Creuau being above Tan-y-Bwlch).  Mitigation work was carried out on the cob at this time.  Keith 10:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Porthmadoc to Blaenau or v.v ? 

message: The entire railway from Zero at the Porthmadog buffer stops to 13m 56c at Blaenau buffer stops was measured in chain (66 feet) lengths in 1991 by volunteers who spent 617½ man-hours measuring marking and recording the route and a further 212½ man-hours moving the mileposts etc. The story is told in FR Mag 137 and includes an RPS Timing Log for a meticulously timed run from Porthmadog to Blaenau, complete with measurements. I will shortly change several that are significantly out. NoelWalley 22:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Current measurments

message: We're discussing some categories for both the FfR and WHR over on Talk:Welsh Highland Railway. Please feel free to join the debate there. Thanks, Gwernol 16:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:Ffestiniog Railway]] and proposed [[:Category:Welsh Highland Railway]] 

message: The picture of Taliesin shunting in the Old Loco Shed is not that of Boston Lodge Halt.
Pencefn 08:13, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is true. It was the closest decent picture I could find. If anyone has a picture of the halt itself they could upload, please feel free to replace it. By the way, that's me on the footplate on the left in that picture:-) Gwernol 12:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not entirely true! This must be very near the location of that celebrated frequent manoeuvre of 1955, sorry I never saw it, nor the subsequent recreations, with the aid of a tow rope or chain, that managed to get Mary Ann, in her petrol guzzling days, from the front of the train to the back for the return run to Portmadoc! NoelWalley 12:56, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was my understanding that the Chain Shunt was carried out at Pen Cob (avoiding the gate post!!), with the train being propelled from the Halt to shunt and then propelled back to the Halt for the return to Porthmadog. --Stewart 13:08, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Jolly Good, glad that's sorted out, never was sure, track was probably better there! Regards NoelWalley 13:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture of Boston Lodge Halt 

message: For some reason a North American Jeep enthusiast decided to write an article on the Frestiniog Dandy waggon.  This person has also been known to speak of himself in the third person.   After helping bring the article to it’s present state he finds a few questions answered (see Talk:Dandy waggon).  One of the seemingly simplest questions is, what is the longest continuous stretch of rail for a horse to ride the Dandy Waggon?  From what I gather horses on the Ffestiniog between 1844 (after the tunnel) and 1863 (before steam) are riding most if not all of the 21.5 km between Porthmadog and Blaenau.  To the best of my abilities to gather information I think this might be the longest stretch of gravity rail ever to exist and would therefore also be the longest continuous stretch for horse to ride on a wagon he pulled to the top of a hill.  If you can shed light on this I am sure the article would benefit from your knowledge and references.  Thanks :)
Jeepday 04:12, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ffestiniog Expert Help Please

message: Have added Category:Locomotive manufacturers of the United Kingdom as they have actually built at least 3 engines on site (1 by old company. and 2 under preservation)
Keith 15:16, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Keith, I've moved the category to the Boston Lodge page, since that article discusses the building of the locos and seems more appropriate. Hope that's okay, Gwernol 18:58, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dan,  I would have thought to duplicate, rather than move, as the company was responsible for the building, rather than the actual location.   Just like we'd attribute Brush building a loco, rather than Loughborough (???)  Keith 06:33, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Locomotive Manufacturer Category 

message: I am testing a route map using a wiki subset - copmment welcome
Keith 19:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, first off, Ffestiniog has 2 Fs, so name is wrong. Also, you appear to have repeated Harbour Station a few times. I have to say though, that it may be helpful to produce a simpler version as well, since I really don't feel that there's much need for most of that information. Also, is it possible to increase the font size slightly to be closer to the wikistandard? Good work though, it looks bloody hard to do to me. mattbuck 21:36, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please also note that Penrhyn is a disambiguation page and should not be linked to. DuncanHill 11:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I appreciate the hard work that's been put into this, but this really is far too detailed - the WP:RDT templates are for route diagrams, not track layouts, therefore it is not necessary to show passing loops and sidings. A simple straight line showing Blaenau Ffestiniog at one end and Porthmadog at the other, with intermediate stations and main line connections, is all that is required here. As this is already shown on :Image:FfestiniogRailwayMap.png, I see no reason for this template. – Tivedshambo (talk) 11:53, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Route Map 

message: I'm fascinated by maps and diagrams, and the route diagrams of wikipedia are an interesting way to experiment with templates, so I tried to make a diagram for this line. The result is here: User:Circeus/temp (permanent link). I wasn't too sure how to deal with the stations between Glan-y-pwll and Blaenau Ffestiniog, so I just left them out (though Stesion Fein should probably be there). Garnedd Tunnel is probably in the wrong place too, since the festwiki was sometimes highly inconsistent in listing feature order. Finally, I couldn't determine if the Minffordd crossing was a specific road. Any thoughts? Circeus 21:57, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Route map, take 2

message: Re some comments on this page about usage of the single or double F versions
Top of head, I said the 2F was adopted about 30 years ago.  Seeing the references quoted has made me look further, and read the relevant documents.
The company, which has always had a single F, looked at the matter around FRM 88, and thought of a cheaper way of changing to double without an Act of Parliament.  It was reported that the idea was dropped by FRM 90, Autumn 1980.
The FRS magazine did not change from single to double until issue 145, Summer 1994, so references as they stand are invalid???? Keith 17:00, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's all because of the Welsh. In Welsh, which is a phoenetic language, F is pronounced as V, while FF is F. mattbuck 17:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have now corrected the offending items - i.e. Pre issue 145 they are now Festiniog  Keith 10:43, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Festiniog v Ffestiniog 

message: This act doesn't appear to exist (Google can find very little evidence of it). Should it be the Land Compensation Act 1973?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.66.227 (talk) 15:57, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Land Occupancy Act 1973 

message: At the bottom is a small table with Preceding station, Heritage Railway and Following Station as headings. This makes no sense and I can't work out what it's for. --Tombomp (talk) 08:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have been bold and deleted it. --Stewart (talk) 16:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heritage railway - following station 

message: Been looking at the picture called "Taliesin and train crossing Cei Mawr".  Firstly, I think we can do better than this (sorry Gwernol/Dan, whose pic it is) because most of the pic is greenery, but more to the point I'd put good money on the fact that this isn't Cei Mawr.  Firstly, the trees (before they were cut) never reached that high, and secondly Cei Mawr has a low wall along its side. Hogyn Lleol (talk) 16:17, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I welcome you to edit the photos and update the geotags if you have any better idea of where they are. I just did the best I could :/ -mattbuck (Talk) 18:02, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The photo and caption is Gwernol's, so only he should edit the caption.  I've contacted him and asked him to confirm the location.  Hogyn Lleol (talk) 18:20, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cei Mawr photo in the gallery 

message: I posted the following comment on Talk:Ffestiniog Railway rolling stock, and Keith replied on my talk page.
Just a note that Wikimedia Commons has a ton of FR images now, so there may be some images better than the current ones we're using (at least for the steam locos - photos are thin on the ground for others). Anyway, take a look at commons:Category:Ffestiniog Railway and see if there are any that should be changed. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:42, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you, but no thanks.  Your attack, for there is no other word for it, on images and articles relating to the Festiniog has been without any consultation with the people who had been involved with the input over the past 3 years. At a point some 12 days ago 10th August infact, as can be seen on your own contribs log, you embarked on a "crusade"  You have moved images to a wiki subsite, albeit under apparent policy, you have marked for deletion images that were not tagged correctly, which has caused people some speedy additional work to correct matters before they disappeared.  You have added a varying number of your own pictures to this subsite, which dont "illustrate better", but make it more like your personal photo repository - and it nearly would have been, if you hadn't transferred other peoples pictures from wikipedia!.  This action, in itself, leaves a lot to be desired.    In your conversation with another contributor, the word demotivate has been mentioned.  I can assure you, from correspondence, that he is not the only contributor who is annoyed/demotivated by your actions, and those people who contributed prior to 12 days ago, and are directly connected to the railway.  You will find some will make the odd change, but nothing more.  Please do not bother to try and defend your actions, as we are quite aware of them.  --Keith 15:11, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Ffestiniog Railway rolling stock

message: OK, now that I've got that all out of the way, I would like a chance to explain myself.
Let me first deal with why I moved images to commons to begin with. Wikimedia Commons is a repository of free media files, and the images can easily be used on any wikimedia project. The files I moved from en.wikipedia to commons were all freely licenced, and so were eligible for moving so long as the terms of the licence were not violated. I ensured that this did not happen (all attribution information was retained, and the licence was identical), the captions retained and in some cases expanded, and I added geocoding to the images so that they can be seen on Google Earth. I marked the images I had copied with , and as Keith noted, they were deleted in accordance with the policy in such cases. This admittedly removed them from the en.wp :Category:Ffestiniog Railway, and they were instead part of the commons category. 
Now, let me deal with the Minffordd fiasco. As can be seen on , Wikipedia is not meant to contain galleries in articlespace. Such galleries should instead be on commons, under a similar name. It is my intention to create such galleries on commons, after I'm done actually uploading images. Anyway, the article on Minffordd station contained a gallery, and so I removed it as I did not feel it added anything to the article. I did not realise that there would be any objection to doing this, but I was obviously wrong. However, Wikipedians are encouraged to be bold, and thus I did what I felt was right. I would like to apologise to Stewart for appearing to disregard his contributions, and I in fact added several of his images back to the article, with their original captions. I did not realise at the time how much effort he had put into those photographs. 
On to the categorisation problem on Commons. As stated, it is commons policy to categorise images as best possible, and to remove images from parent categories. I personally take exception to this at times, but in general I agree with it. Currently, there are 350 odd photos in the FR subcats on Commons - putting these into a single category would make it extremely difficult to navigate. I want to try and create a "virtual ride" as a gallery - a complete trip from Porthmadog to Blaenau - so that images taken between stations can be properly included, and not just in the locomotive categories. 
Now, let me address this latest issue that Keith has put on my talk page. He refers to my "crusade" against the FR on Wikipedia. I resent this accusation. I put in this work because I like the FR, and I wanted to improve the way Wikimedia projects cover it. I have put more effort into Wikimedia these past few weeks than at any time in the previous year or two I've been here. I've been on Flickr, going through over 1000 images to find ones which are suitable, and then begging for them to be released under  or . Keith calls this my "personal photo repository" - I have uploaded about 50 of my own photos which seemed to make the cut. I've uploaded around 300 from other people. It's hardly personal. I then went through those to try and find images which best illustrated the subjects in question, cropping out extraneous details and the like. I don't do this to intentionally annoy people, I do it to try and improve the articles by providing images which better illustrated the subject.
There were some images which, yes, I tagged as lacking a source and/or permission. That's the way things are done - if we don't know the source of an image, if we don't have the permission to use it, we should not be using it. Images which lack source should have that corrected, and if it does not happen, they should be deleted. There is a seven day gap minimum between tagging and deletion, and the image uploader is notified, so it's not as if there was no warning. 
I have one final thing to say on this matter. To any other contributor I have annoyed, please accept my apologies. Nothing I have done has been out of malice, spite, or anything but the best intentions and love of the Ffestiniog. I had no idea that trying to get more photos, categorise the ones we had, and following policy would be so controversial, and that is why I did not bother to ask on talk pages before acting. If you feel I have trampled over your contributions, then I did not mean to - I don't own these articles, and I'm not trying to dominate them with my work. I'm just trying to be the best wikipedian, and Ffestiniog fan I can. Also, to those of you who I may have spoken sharply to, my deepest apologies.
Thankyou. 
-mattbuck (Talk) 17:17, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: My response and apology

message: Sladen's edit was dealing with only one of the future scenarios, whereas it previously gave the situation as it stands currently.  I have reverted it back, and reworded to make clearer.  --Keith 09:51, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Train Control 

message: Given the article is now rather large (51k), I suggest :-
a) the table containing stations be hived off to a seperate file, ala WHR where similar has been done
b) the table of slate quarries be hived off as well.  
I think this would reduce article to a more manageable size, and still keep relevant data to hand if required
Comments please
--Keith 13:13, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds reasonable to me. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be a good idea.  Hogyn Lleol (talk) 15:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I dont know how long I should give for comments, but I will wait a week fom the last comment, before proceeding as decided --Keith 07:46, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

text: One week mark is up and above changes have been effected. The page is still 41Kb in size! A new index page covering the main topics (and associated railways) has been created, amidst adversity from outside sources, at Ffestiniog Railway Index --Keith 08:40, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hiving off Stations and Quarry Tables 

message: Request for assessment on this new article.  Cheers.   Geaugagrrl  ☎    02:45, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Ffestiniog_Railway_Index]] 

message: Several FR-related images are for deletion at  -mattbuck (Talk) 18:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image deletion 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I want Princess and Welsh Pony to steam again and have Welsh Pony's tender added, so that they can both steam again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.1.122.96 (talk) 22:35, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 5.4 million articles and thought we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for discussion on how to improve the Ffestiniog Railway article. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:17, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  I want Princess and Welsh Pony to steam. 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
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Participate in the deletion discussion at the . —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:38, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion