Talk:Cross Country Route

message: DO they use turbostars on the Lickey? And are they any good for torque? I'd have thought (on the basis mind you of prejudice) you needed the flexibility of a diesel-electric to make a decent fist of the gradient?? Linuxlad 09:45, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes Central Trains use them on Nottingham-Cardiff services. (Our Phellap 13:36, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't know sorry. They go quicker than the old diesel locomotives from what I recall. This may be because all carriages are motorised? (Our Phellap 13:51, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: and this article talks about the second of Virgin's routes - that to Southampton. which certainly wasn't Midland: how to designate that? -  Plus the Midland only went as far as Leeds on this current route: what about the NER/Cal/NBR - and the GWR? Peter Shearan 08:55, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Old talk

message: "many older diesels were underpowered' - this is a bit questionable as a statement - they provided 2500 bhp, just like it said they would on the can (a fun sum, within the capabilities of a competent GCSE student at Y11 :-)). And this was significantly better than the steam locos of earlier year which only did (from memory) 600 bhp. What is possibly true (IIRC ) is that a nominal 3300bhp electric loco was capable of being _over-run_ for a period, making it very useful on eg West Coast Main line... Bob aka Linuxlad 14:41, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: bhp of 'older diesels'

message: There is nothing on this page which could be disputed or cited. I don't understand the tag at the top of this page. Everything here is backed up by other Wikipedia articles.
Mojo29 23:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources

message: Doesn't the cross country route go to Penzance, Aberdeen and Glasgow? Dewarw 09:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I had always thought of it in those terms - certainly when I first used to travel it regularly in the early 70s most of the big trains were going North beyond Sheffield and South beyond Exeter (and that's still true for VT3 I think). The Cardiff route was always a bit of a branch-line Bob aka Linuxlad 15:54, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Route? 

message: In the new Cross Country franchise this route does not even exist anymore, Mark999  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mark999 (talk • contribs) 21:19, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: CrossCountry

message: Would this route be part of the cross-country route? as most of its route is on the current ccr and will be operated by crosscountry very soon Mark999 13:12, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The section from Cardiff to Gloucester is GW rather than Midland, so probably shouldn't be on the map in the first place.  90.203.45.244 18:14, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Cardiff - Nottingham

message: This article confuses the "Cross Country Route", as in the Midland line from Bristol to Derby and beyond, with the "Cross Country Franchise", as in the long-distance services running across it, and "CrossCountry", the current franchisee.  The three need to be separated out somewhat.  90.203.45.244 (talk) 21:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Most lines have separate articles for their modern line and their historical constituents. For instance Midland Main Line is different from North Midland Railway etc. Here, for instance, Bristol to Gloucester Railway has acquired a template of lines which were never part of the original line. The actual modern line could be considered Derby (milepost zero) to Westerleigh Junction outside Bristol. I would suggest a separate article (though I cant think of a name) as it is today, and referring historically to its constituents: Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway, Birmingham and Gloucester Railway and Bristol and Gloucester Railway. 86.145.166.29 (talk) 13:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've drafted out something very roughly in User:Chevin/Sandbox. Any comments would be welcome. Chevin (talk) 15:32, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Separation 

message: Do we have a source to say Worcester is actually on the CCR? It seems like an odd diversion to me, especially given that the rest of it has no diversions whatsoever, and Worcester's hardly a big place. -mattbuck (Talk) 20:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Worcester? 

message: There are currently problems with template transclusion in this article, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways#Cross Country Route. --David Biddulph (talk) 14:58, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template transclusion problem 

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 
The result of the move request was: move to an as-of-yet undetermined destination. The consensus is clearly to move the page (removing the Title Case), but there is no firm consensus about where to move it. I suggest a new discussion (possibly an RFC) to determine the new location. Primefac (talk) 14:06, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Cross Country Route →  – Or possibly some better name.  I can't find any evidence of the current title, capped and punctuated thus, in sources. Dicklyon (talk) 15:59, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

text: Something has to be done to clear up this muddle. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:39, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Gotta love those spaced em dashes, too; fixed that. Dicklyon (talk) 18:58, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

text: Move - Cross country route is a generic definition, as per example. Suggesting Bristol to Leeds "something" (route/railway/rail link/...). --Robertiki (talk) 13:05, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

text: * Edit: just found this from CrossCountry themselves, referring to it as such - . Black Kite (talk) 16:26, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: But North East - South West route is also pretty generic.  That doc calls it "CrossCountry's North East - South West route".  The same description is applied in sources to various other lines. Dicklyon (talk) 03:25, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

text: The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move.  Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
 We never did finish picking a name after the consensus that this needed to move, about 5 years ago.  Any good ideas?  SMcCandlish had suggested CrossCountry North East – South West route which might be as good as any, though more concise might be nice.  I'm going to be on the road for a while; might check back and see if there's any further ideas, and if not maybe I'll just move to that one. Dicklyon (talk) 22:19, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

text: I am happy to move the article but CrossCountry North East – South West route sounds a bit too wordy for my liking. I would prefer "to" rather than the dash. Would NE to SW be allowed under wiki criteria? GRALISTAIR (talk) 22:39, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Years ago there was a consensus to use the dash instead of "to" in railway naming, for symmetry.  But I'd be happy with CrossCountry NE–SW route. Dicklyon (talk) 23:48, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems fine, and goes well with WP:CONCISE.  I think we can assume that the basic direction abbreviations are well-known enough to use them in titles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:39, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

text: Maybe the issue is that this route doesn't even exist. It might be a service route, but it's a whole lot of lines: Bristol to Gloucester, Birmingham to Derby, Midland Main Line, etc. -mattbuck (Talk) 09:39, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Given the 3 of us that are OK with it, and the consensus on the need to move, I went ahead and moved to CrossCountry NE–SW route.  If anyone disagrees and has a  better idea, go for it. Dicklyon (talk) 18:06, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

text: As far as I can see the main issue was with treating CrossCountry as a proper route title when it is only a franchise holder. I think we need to keep things simple; if the original title is still found intolerable, then pairing the franchise name with a capital R to avoid the possiblility of being confused with generic routes that could be anywhere to create Cross Country Route would seem best to me. But my first vote is to stick where we were until this has been resolved with more voices than the few who have contributed so far. It's a major route with a lot of inbound links and we ought to make a good and considered decision. Rcsprinter123 (interact) 22:35, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree it's a terrible convoluted title, and there was no attempt to notify a wider pool of editors before a decision was unilatterlly made to move it. G-13114 (talk) 00:18, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

text: The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The result of the move request was: no consensus; reverting back to previous stable title. The history of this article's title is a messy one, so before getting into my own rationale, I want to include a timeline of the titling history for reference:
* The article was created on 31 March 2005, originally under the title .
* On 8 February 2007, the article was moved to the title . The move was executed via technical request, so while it was not formally discussed, there was slightly more vetting than a standard WP:BOLD move.
* On 15 February 2017, an RM was opened, proposing that the title be moved to "Cross-country route". The RM was closed on 13 March 2017 with a result of "Move to an as-of-yet undetermined destination" (effectively a WP:NOTCURRENTTITLE close, though I don't know if that section of WP:RMCI had been written yet). The closer did not move the article to any title themselves.
* On 26 March 2017 (13 days after the RM closure), the title was WP:BOLDly moved to ; the choice of destination title was not discussed previously, and the mover identified it as an "interim title" in their edit summary.
* On 6 May 2017, the article was reverted to the title , after a brief talk page discussion showed that some users disliked the new title.
* On 10 April 2022, the issue of the article title was raised again informally. After Special:PermanentLink/1083214789#Requested move 15 February 2017#a brief discussion, the article was moved to  on 17 April 2022. Later in the month, other users who had missed the discussion expressed objections to the move.
* The current RM was opened on 17 August 2023.
Within the RM discussion, I've seen opposition to the current title and the proposed title, but little willingness to expressly support any given title. The main arguments that pertain to these titles seem to be as follows:
* Multiple users expressed that the current title fails WP:NATURAL, with one describing it as  and another calling it a .
* It was noted that proper names tended to be used for other UK train lines (e.g. East Coast Main Line, West Coast Main Line), suggesting that the proposed move would align with WP:CONSISTENT.
* It was argued that the title "Cross Country Route" is not used in sources, an appeal to WP:COMMONNAME.
* Concerns about WP:RECOGNIZABILITY were raised in several forms:
** One user argued that the proposed title was too vague to be applicable, arguing that readers unfamiliar with the topic area would be uncertain that the article subject was a train route in the first place. This line of argument was disputed by another participant, who argued for this topic being the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "Cross Country Route".
** One user argued that the "Cross Country Route" would be assumed by average UK readers to refer to the Plymouth–Aberdeen line (contra the article, which focuses on Bristol–York).
** One user argued that the current title being perceived as unnatural also speaks to its lack of recognizability.
In summary, the current title is regarded as a poor title and the proposed title is regarded as a poor title; alternate titles were raised in one comment, only to be shot down in the same message that initially proposed them. This discussion did not result in a consensus for any title.
However, one participant did make the argument that – in the absence of consensus – the best course of action would be . I find myself convinced by this argument, for two principal reasons. First, although the current title has been in place for nearly a year and a half, it is also true that "Cross Country Route" has been the title for approximately 15 years throughout the article's history, indicating a strong level of stability. Second, the discussion that led this article to be moved to its current title had little publicity and few participants, and opposition emerged not long after the move went through; thus, any consensus to adopt the "CrossCountry NE–SW route" title was a very weak one in the first place.
Finally, just as a reminder about RM norms: because this proposal ended in a no-consensus result, participants should not feel dissuaded from opening a follow-up RM if they would like to propose a not-previously-discussed title for the article. We may not have found the ideal title for this article yet, but one may still exist out there somewhere. (closed by non-admin page mover)  ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 16:12, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

text: CrossCountry NE–SW route →  – Per my comments of last April (above). The consensus was not there to move away from the old title, with no widely-publised RM and I happen to think the renaming was a mistake. Ping Dicklyon, GRALISTAIR, SMcCandlish, Black Kite, wbm1058. Rcsprinter123 (notify) 21:01, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: By the way, those pings did not work, even after being re-tried.  I check my notifications, and found nothing. Dicklyon (talk) 04:00, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: As I have explained on many occasions, there needs to be a new signed post that includes the links to all of the users that you wish to notify, and it all needs to be done in the same edit.  failed to notify wbm1058 because it's a modification to an existing post, and not a new post. As for , the only thing that I can think of is that  uses a templated sig (albeit one that is WP:SUBSTd), and not one where all of the wikimarkup is contained in the custom signature box. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:41, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

text: Note: WikiProject Trains has been notified of this discussion. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 13:52, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 15 February 2017 

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The result of the move request was: no consensus; reverting back to previous stable title. The history of this article's title is a messy one, so before getting into my own rationale, I want to include a timeline of the titling history for reference:
* The article was created on 31 March 2005, originally under the title .
* On 8 February 2007, the article was moved to the title . The move was executed via technical request, so while it was not formally discussed, there was slightly more vetting than a standard WP:BOLD move.
* On 15 February 2017, an RM was opened, proposing that the title be moved to "Cross-country route". The RM was closed on 13 March 2017 with a result of "Move to an as-of-yet undetermined destination" (effectively a WP:NOTCURRENTTITLE close, though I don't know if that section of WP:RMCI had been written yet). The closer did not move the article to any title themselves.
* On 26 March 2017 (13 days after the RM closure), the title was WP:BOLDly moved to ; the choice of destination title was not discussed previously, and the mover identified it as an "interim title" in their edit summary.
* On 6 May 2017, the article was reverted to the title , after a brief talk page discussion showed that some users disliked the new title.
* On 10 April 2022, the issue of the article title was raised again informally. After Special:PermanentLink/1083214789#Requested move 15 February 2017#a brief discussion, the article was moved to  on 17 April 2022. Later in the month, other users who had missed the discussion expressed objections to the move.
* The current RM was opened on 17 August 2023.
Within the RM discussion, I've seen opposition to the current title and the proposed title, but little willingness to expressly support any given title. The main arguments that pertain to these titles seem to be as follows:
* Multiple users expressed that the current title fails WP:NATURAL, with one describing it as  and another calling it a .
* It was noted that proper names tended to be used for other UK train lines (e.g. East Coast Main Line, West Coast Main Line), suggesting that the proposed move would align with WP:CONSISTENT.
* It was argued that the title "Cross Country Route" is not used in sources, an appeal to WP:COMMONNAME.
* Concerns about WP:RECOGNIZABILITY were raised in several forms:
** One user argued that the proposed title was too vague to be applicable, arguing that readers unfamiliar with the topic area would be uncertain that the article subject was a train route in the first place. This line of argument was disputed by another participant, who argued for this topic being the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "Cross Country Route".
** One user argued that the "Cross Country Route" would be assumed by average UK readers to refer to the Plymouth–Aberdeen line (contra the article, which focuses on Bristol–York).
** One user argued that the current title being perceived as unnatural also speaks to its lack of recognizability.
In summary, the current title is regarded as a poor title and the proposed title is regarded as a poor title; alternate titles were raised in one comment, only to be shot down in the same message that initially proposed them. This discussion did not result in a consensus for any title.
However, one participant did make the argument that – in the absence of consensus – the best course of action would be . I find myself convinced by this argument, for two principal reasons. First, although the current title has been in place for nearly a year and a half, it is also true that "Cross Country Route" has been the title for approximately 15 years throughout the article's history, indicating a strong level of stability. Second, the discussion that led this article to be moved to its current title had little publicity and few participants, and opposition emerged not long after the move went through; thus, any consensus to adopt the "CrossCountry NE–SW route" title was a very weak one in the first place.
Finally, just as a reminder about RM norms: because this proposal ended in a no-consensus result, participants should not feel dissuaded from opening a follow-up RM if they would like to propose a not-previously-discussed title for the article. We may not have found the ideal title for this article yet, but one may still exist out there somewhere. (closed by non-admin page mover)  ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 16:12, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: CrossCountry NE–SW route →  – Per my comments of last April (above). The consensus was not there to move away from the old title, with no widely-publised RM and I happen to think the renaming was a mistake. Ping Dicklyon, GRALISTAIR, SMcCandlish, Black Kite, wbm1058. Rcsprinter123 (notify) 21:01, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: By the way, those pings did not work, even after being re-tried.  I check my notifications, and found nothing. Dicklyon (talk) 04:00, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: As I have explained on many occasions, there needs to be a new signed post that includes the links to all of the users that you wish to notify, and it all needs to be done in the same edit.  failed to notify wbm1058 because it's a modification to an existing post, and not a new post. As for , the only thing that I can think of is that  uses a templated sig (albeit one that is WP:SUBSTd), and not one where all of the wikimarkup is contained in the custom signature box. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:41, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

text: Note: WikiProject Trains has been notified of this discussion. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 13:52, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 17 August 2023 

message: Why is the suffix of UK now added to the title? To me, that seems less like a railway line and more like a description of a bunch of lines. Could I have some context as to why it had UK added, as I can't find it in the section above. Nathan A RF (talk) 09:55, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the rail line(s) is/are in the UK. I don't think that country has a monopoly on the term "cross-country route" (whether that's a proper name or not), so "UK" is needed for disambiguation. Of course, one could argue that the UK has many cross-country routes, not just the one described in this article. The comments in the closed discussion above about the difficulty in clearly identifying the scope of the article are directly relevant to our difficulty in determining an adequate title of the article. – wbm1058 (talk) 12:03, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: So after a move discussion doesn't get anywhere,  decides to go to some random title which has never been used by anyone with a disambiguation which is unnecessary. I'm going to revert. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:34, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that was a truly terrible choice for a name. G-13114 (talk) 13:27, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: At the moment, I don't see any good choices for the title, so we have to settle for the best of the lot of poor choices. Really, the only way to solve this long-term is to focus on the content, and the title should then follow from that. Note that although I have this on my watchlist, I haven't checked in since the last discussion. wbm1058 (talk) 16:15, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case, probably best just to leave it where it has been for years. It's as good as anything. G-13114 (talk) 04:24, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

text: As the close noted, there was a clear consensus to move.  So moving back to the title with inappropriate caps among other problems can hardly be considered progress.  Do you not have any better ideas? Dicklyon (talk) 05:53, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  It says "to an as-of-yet undetermined destination". No destination was subsequently discussed; and yet you moved it to a name which you decided upon yourself, without first consulting anybody else, which was clearly in breach of your previous warnings about moving pages without discussion. Indeed, less than four days before you moved the page, you were given  by . --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:40, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  UK? 

message: "The Cross Country Route is a long-distance rail route in the United Kingdom that has in its central part superseded the Midland Railway." What does this mean? The Midland Railway ceased to exist in 1922. It was superseded by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, not by the Cross Country Route. What is this important first sentence trying to say? 87.75.117.183 (talk) 13:53, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right it was gobbledegook, I've removed it. G-13114 (talk) 18:29, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead 

message: This section was/is out of date. I have made a start updating it and will try and complete in next few days GRALISTAIR (talk) 20:14, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Electrification section update