Talk:Red Line (MBTA)

message: It wouldn't be such a bad idea to merge all of the red line station articles into this article. I doubt that any of them will grow beyond a few paragraphs or so. jdb 08:18, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The usual Wiki alternative is to create an article such as "Red Line blah-blah-blah Stations" and put all the station info into that. But I certainly agree with your point.  Atlant 23:11, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Some of the station articles may eventually be quite significant, but the the real problem with merging them into an article on Red Line Stations is that many of these facilities serve transit other than the Red Line.  South Station, Porter Sq., JFK UMass, and Braintree, also are commuter rail stations.  Park St., Downtown Crossing and South Station also are used by other underground mass transit.  Harvard is a major bus station, etc.  Putative consolidation in the manner suggested would result in multiple entries for many articles on the various routes they serve.  I think separate station articles is preferable.  --DRTïllberġTalk 16:40, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Station articles

message: A tour guide once told me that this particular line was selected to be red because it passed by Harvard, a bastion of liberalism. If there is any truth to this anecdote, should it not be mentioned? --Adoniscik 23:36, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Harvard's school color is crimson (red). The MBTA claims that as the reason for the color. --SPUI (talk) 20:57, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genesis 

message: A nice addition to the page would be a section describing the rolling stock of the Red Line.  This should include the current older mainline trains, the newer Bombardier mainline trains, and maybe the PCC streetcars run on the Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line (although that's probably better left to the sub-article).
Atlant 16:33, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea. There's a table of the car quantities at at http://members.aol.com/rtspcc/roster/MBTAroster.html jdb ❋ 20:47, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm confused about the photo, which the article describes as aluminium-bodied (1969-1970) equipment. I rode the Boston subways a lot in 1970-71-72, and recall that at that time, there were old cars and new cars both in service. The new cars were unpainted and I thought they were of stainless-steel construction. The photograph shows a painted car, and it resembles what were the old cars at the time --- judging by the lists on the MBTA roster page and the links from it, 01400 series. Can you clear up my confusion?
The 1970s unpainted cars were painted the old 1400 series red colors after a rebuild, and new stainless-steel cars were introduced in the 1990s. --71.124.173.134 (talk) 01:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rolling stock 

message: I added the trivia item (which has now been expanded to):
:* At the Harvard station, the electronic voice used on the newer (Bombardier-built) trains makes a special announcement: "No smoking, please!"
I haven't checked in the last few months, but it was definitely true the last time I've been the distance between Alewife and JFK/U.Mass that the announcement was only made at Hahvud. I always found it amusing; the synthivoice is *SO* emphatic about it.
Atlant 20:58, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Odd that it's only at Havahd. The only other place I've heard it was on a B-line Type 8 Green Line car entering Boylston inbound. jdb ❋ (talk) 16:39, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: I wonder if the Mass Eye and Ear announcement got installed on some train cars but not all of them.  JNW2 (talk) 04:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "No smoking, please!" 

message: A recent editor added this image and caption.
The caption led me to wonder whether, during the construction of the Alewife extension, there was a time when the trains reached Davis but not yet Alewife? This would explain the roll sign.
Atlant 11:10, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, between December 8, 1984 and March 30, 1985. --SPUI (talk) 11:44, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I remember being on an older Red Line train earlier this year with really old roll signs - one of them read "Harvard/Park Street".  I have a feeling that they don't pay much attention to what these older signs inside trains read anymore.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.181.19.252 (talk) 18:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Right. I've no doubt that the sign was printed correctly, but it was certainly set incorrectly, since I took the photo this year. jdb ❋ (talk) 17:10, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect roll signs? 

message: A map showing the complex geography of the historical portions and expansion of the line would be very helpful. -- Beland 05:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map request 

message: *There's a listing of train stations on the Red Line.  The so called "Stadium" exit?  Was that actually exiting on the *Boston*(Allston?) side of the Charles? As in near Harvard Stadium  CaribDigita 19:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My mother says if her memory serves her correctly, she believes the stadium exit came out at the current positing of the Charles Hotel.  Just beyond the current alley where the trackless trolley buses go now to turn around.(Close to the Harvard Square Post office.) CaribDigita 20:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Under header 'Station listing' 

message: I have changed the  template to a new  template (which is identical to the old  template) so that  can be used for , in the same way that  can be used for  —Mets501 (talk) 22:23, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: <nowiki>{{mb}} to {{MBTABus}}</nowiki>

message: I tend to doubt that the song "Boston" was written in 1944: Lehrer would have been pretty young at the time, and he started performing about a decade later. Perhaps that was 1954? -- BRG 19:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 1944? for Tom Lehrer song

message: All the "time to park street" info is WP:OR and should be removed. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 00:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like the talk of "Stadium Station" is also OR. Grandmothers, while generally WP:RS, are still WP:OR. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 00:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ride times 

message: According to the book Boston's Red Line: Bridging the Charles from Alewife to Braintree, Shawmut existed as a Shawmut Branch Railroad station. The book has pictures of the station prior to the conversion, so I'm inclined to believe it. --71.124.173.134 20:38, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shawmut Station 

message: I've removed the trivia heading, but other than cleaning up the advertising stuff a bit, I haven't gotten rid of text that was under that section.  And I think this article might benefit from a little bit more work in that area; the exact set of things that are in this article don't feel like they quite match the most important things to know about the Red Line.  In some cases, expanding on those points may be a good way to end up with something that's reasonably well balanced.  JNW2 (talk) 04:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Trivia heading removed

message: Regarding Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district (PDF), it's over 300 pages.  If it has information to support claims in this Wikipedia article, it would be helpful for specific page numbers to be mentioned next to specific claims, rather than just having a general mention at the end of the article.  However, Wikipedia:No original research also suggests that self-published sources are less likely to be reliable, and Changes to Transit Serivce in the MBTA district appears to be self published, so it would probably be best to find other sources that substantiate any claims.  JNW2 (talk) 23:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Citations

message: Someone put in the edit, without reference, that claimed that the MBTA would probably replace some Red Line cars with Orange Line cars.  The substitution with the latter would not be possible, as the Orange Line cars are narrower than the Red Line cars.  See Brian Cudahy's book.  The writer was assuming that many transit cars are replaceable, line to line, as with the interoperability of the IND cars with the BMT cars in the New York City transit system.Dogru144 (talk) 01:01, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That's not what it said. It said that the new orange and red line cars will share some elements. This is a true statement because procurement for both replacements are being grouped under a single contract for one manufacturer. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 01:06, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Train width

message: The Cambridge Tunnel was built entirely by private capital. This fact should be mentioned in the article.
(see: Cheney, Frank. (2002) Boston's Red Line: Bridging the Charles from Alewife to Braintree. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, page 7).
This was one of only three U.S. subways to be built entirely by private capital (the others were the Market Street Subway and Elevated, Philadelphia, and the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, now Port-Authority Trans-Hudson, aka PATH).
In 1920, shortly after the beginning of the period of public control over the Boston Elevated, the Cambridge Tunnel was sold to the Commonwealth.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.208.114.61 (talk) 17:40, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cambridge Tunnel built by private capital 

message: , you sure that isn’t worth a sentence? Qwirkle (talk) 02:19, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't personally think so, and certainly it's not worth a top-level heading. At most it's a minor historical curiosity (here's a source for the installation); I don't believe the ads are still there. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:43, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree on the top-level heading, but I suspect this is a bit like the neonized moving walkway connector between O’Hare’s United terminals in terms of noticeability. Qwirkle (talk) 02:56, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

text: It's an interesting story, but the cited source doesn't mention the Red Line. Dicklyon (talk) 02:14, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Yet the one just 7-8 lines up does. Qwirkle (talk) 03:46, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: True that.  Could be worth a mention. Dicklyon (talk) 04:26, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zoetropic ads 

message: We should not lose sight of the overall educational goals of Wikipedia, which prioritize clarity and readability over rigid adherence to unchanging rules regardless of context and meaning. For a global English-language encyclopedia, Wikipedia's Manual of Style (MoS) has been the locus of many disputes among British, American, Canadian, South Asian, Australian, South African, and other native speakers, who naturally tend to prefer their own styles of expression. To prevent such disputes from becoming endless tugs-of-war for symbolic dominance among different cultural subgroups, the overriding goals of clarity, readability, and simplicity have taken precedence over parochial arguments to the effect of "we've always done it that way", or "the majority of people in important country So-and-so do it this way". Compromises in historical "purity of style" are constantly made in Wikipedia writing in the interests of advancing its educational goals; clarity, readability, and simplicity are among the best ways to communicate effectively with a world-wide audience of readers.
Turning to the immediate question at hand here, The  Little, Brown Handbook recommends "Capitalize common nouns used as essential parts of proper nouns". The Prentice Hall Handbook for Writers recommends capitalization of "Common nouns used as an essential part of a proper noun". The key word to note in these guidelines is essential.
A useful test for whether a given word is essential is to delete it or substitute another equivalent word for it, and note if this transformation changes substantially the meaning of the expression or the overall sentence. For example, look at the factual sentence, "Harvard Square Station is located near the center of the Harvard University campus." To test whether certain words are essential, let us delete them to produce, "Harvard Square is located near the center of the Harvard campus." Either of these deletions radically changes the meaning of the sentence, so the deleted words are essential. In this example, Harvard may denote a certain exurban town west of Boston, so University is an essential component of Harvard University, and should never be uncapitalized or omitted from its first usage, even if implied context may allow its abbreviation in later references.
By contrast, if one holds that the word campus should be capitalized, note that its deletion alone does not completely change the meaning (though it does slightly mangle the grammar). The words location or neighborhood could be substituted and still convey the same concepts.
In the example here, the words Station and University are essential, and should therefore be capitalized as inherent parts of their proper nouns.
Applying this test to the proper noun Cambridge Subway shows that Subway is essential to identifying a particular underground structure, as distinguished from the pedestrian subway passage from one side of Massachusetts Avenue to the other via Harvard Square Station in Cambridge, or the currently-closed subterranean passage crossing under the same street at Hynes Convention Center Station in Boston. Note here that the generic term subway can and has been replaced by the generic words subterranean passage without fundamentally changing the meaning of the expression.
As a reasonable concession to the anti-capitalizationists among us, let us note that the Prentice Hall Handbook for Writers further recommends that "When the generic term is used in the plural, it is not usually capitalized", giving the example of "the Atlantic and Pacific oceans". This rule cannot be applied globally or blindly, and must exempt a full proper name, such as a hypothetical "Atlantic and Pacific Ocean Shipping Company", but not a hypothetical "Atlantic and Pacific Ocean Shipping company", nor a hypothetical "Atlantic and Pacific Ocean Shipping firm". In the latter two examples, note that the uncapitalized words are not essential parts of the proper name. 
In summary, capitalization is used to indicate to the reader which words are an essential or integral part of a proper name. The important distinction is between specific and generic references; the deletion/substitution test can help the editor decide this difference.
Remember, our overall goal is not merely to engage in endless arguments over which or how many putatively authoritative sources used whatever capitalization at whatever date. The overriding Wikipedia goals are to write an encyclopedia with clarity and readability (simplicity does not weigh in heavily on this particular question). Reify-tech (talk) 15:54, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not familiar with those guides, but it's clear that "Capitalize common nouns used as essential parts of proper nouns" is inviting a lot more capitalization than is typically found in sources; pretty much the opposite of Wikipedia style, which is to avoid unnecessary capitalization.  I think we can mostly agree that the "Cambridge subway" or the "Cambridge tunnel" as it's often called, is no less clear for lack of capping the generic.  The trouble with capping there is that it implies that these terms are accepted as proper names by the vast majority of sources, which is counterfactual here. Dicklyon (talk) 01:34, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: No, thrice. To begin with, you are begging the question on what level of capitalization is “unnecessary”, defining that by Wiki itself, never a good thing. Next, you are conflating the Cambridge Subway and the Cambridge Tunnel. The CS consisited of the Beacon Hill Tunnel, a small El-like bridge section, the separated, but roughly at grade median section on the Longfellow Bridge, and the Cambridge Tunnel itself, which runs out to Harvard Square. You sometimes see metastasistic usages, but the two are actually not, properly speaking, identical. Finally, the idea that every source out there is authoritative on every possible subject is not something we use elsewise; it need not be for this either. For instance, the Cambridge Subway, in the proper sense, is only of interest to historians (and folks interested in history), lawyers, state budget officials, and so forth. Most people, and most sources, don’t talk about the Cambridge Subway, but of the subway in or to Cambridge, a rather different thing. Qwirkle (talk) 02:02, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: "Unnecessary" is defined by evidence in sources, as MOS:CAPS describes.  If there's a definition of "Cambridge Subway" of the sort you describe in which the caps are needed to point out that that's the one meant, please show us a source or two that makes that clear. Dicklyon (talk) 15:44, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: No. “Unnecessary” is defined as “not required.” You are mistaking the map for the territory.There are any number of sources just above here that make it quite clear that the initial project which begins at Park Street Under and ends at Harvard was called the Cambridge Subway, as a capitalized proper name, predominantly. No matter how many descriptive counterexamples you give, it will not change that; it will only suggest that you are either sealioning (sealyoning?), or lack the ability to make the distinction, or don’t even bother to read the cites. Qwirkle (talk) 17:29, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we can agree that we all know that “Unnecessary” is defined as “not required.”  I was referring to how WP decides that w.r.t. capitalization, which is defined in MOS:CAPS.  I'm sure you understood so not clear why you throw back distractors.  As for that particular stretch of subway, fine, you're not going to cite evidence, so I'll show some that have it lowercase:  , , , , etc.  I'm sure you can pick on each of these for being old, or whatever, but I'm equally sure I could pick on your choices if you pointed any out. Dicklyon (talk) 04:39, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: No, we surely can not agree that you , since you are defining it by a styling rubric which does not at all address utility.Obviously, those are far better examples than those you Google-dredged earlier, and equally obviously they are old, and reflect slightly different capitalization standards - note the variance with “street” in proper names seen also. Qwirkle (talk) 05:24, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that over time we tend to cap more things.  "Street" is now universally capped where 100 years ago it was considered unnecessary to do so (it was mixed).  But I find nothing to indicate that capping "Subway" conveys a different meaning, or is considered necessary, by modern authors.  If there's utility in the caps indicating a different object than the lowercase, I've been unable to see that in sources, and you've been unwilling to try to show it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:34, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: And yet you are writing this supposedly in response to ’s explanation of how fuller capitalization of proper name phrases can provide clarity to the reader, sourced to fairly respectable sources, and after discovering that some uses of “Cambridge subway” did not necessarily refer to the 1912 project. This does not suggest a failure in transmission, but reception. Qwirkle (talk) 05:58, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: His proposal was theoretical, and of a style contrary to Wikipedia's.  I'm trying to emphasize the approach suggested by our own style guide. Dicklyon (talk) 06:03, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I greatly doubt he created a whole new section here simply to discuss theoretical aspects of writing. Your style guide -for it is not “ours”, you and the other myrmidons of the minuscule are at war with actual content creators at all corners of Wikipedia- seeks to eliminate “unnecessary capitalization”. Above are two far more authoritative cites than anything on Wiki itself suggesting that capitalization is, in some cases, necessary for clarity. Qwirkle (talk) 06:18, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The theory that "essential" words (words that can't be removed without changing the meaning) should be capitalized is obviously nonsense.  By embedding it like "as essential parts of proper nouns", one just comes back to the question of what's a proper noun.  Our style guide says we treat things as proper nouns when sources do so pretty consistently, and otherwise not.  I'm not aware of cases where this hurts clarity; when one says the Cambridge subway, it's as clear as the Cambridge Subway, which is why sources don't distinguish (in spite of your claims, unsupported as far as I can find, that the capped version means something different from the lowercase one).  I'm sorry you don't feel like you're part of the community that adopted these guidelines, but that doesn't give you license to adopt your own style in your corner of WP. Dicklyon (talk) 21:39, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I appreciate your drive for consistency, but blindly following the guideline is not helping anyone. The MOS:CAPS page says right up at the top that it is "a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply". Combining Reify-tech's extremely convincing explanation (learned this in elementary school!) with other editors' common sense approach on these MBTA articles, I honestly don't see how lowercase is even an option. We don't debate "Bridge" being capitalized as part of the names of bridges, yet you believe that "subway", "station", "incline", etc (all used in the same exact way) are somehow different. Your position is based purely on looking at what sources use across centuries, which I find very flawed. This isn't about "our own style", in fact it's not even a style. It's about common sense and actual usage; aligning with reader expectations. The guideline explicitly allows this type of flexibility. It seems we're either going to have to leave this as a stalemate and the status quo, or a larger discussion about changing the guideline needs to take place. (I'm fine with the guideline as is because I believe it allows us to follow best practices.) I've been watching these discussions play out for days/months (a year?) and all I see is disagreement with no end in sight. Dicklyon, no matter how many times you start discussions and whip out the term usage graphs and cite random books/articles/examples, it's very clear that the other editors here, including myself, don't believe that they're relevant nor do they establish your position with certainty. Shall we keep wasting each others' time, or? Grk1011 (talk) 23:06, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: These terms are not different "somehow".  They're different in how reliable sources treat them and cap them.  I'm not making this up, or proposing any novel theory.  There is absolutely no problem that would be caused if we just followed our style guidance.  Nobody is going to be surprised to see lowercase subway or portal or incline (indeed, most such fixes have not been commented upon).  Why these guys are so attached to this particular one is a bit of a mystery to me, as sources clearly get away with not capping it pretty often.  And the lowercasing of "station" is something that came from within the trains project, not from me or the MOS, so if you can't understand that, go back and review it. Dicklyon (talk) 05:01, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

text:  writes: , yet folk far more expert than you (or I) insist otherwise. An expert cite disagreeing with an inexpert wikipedian should be a slam-dunk, no-question-about-it closed case, and yet... Qwirkle (talk) 23:58, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I'm pretty sure nobody insists that essential words be capitalized.  That was an intentionally nonsensical strawman. Dicklyon (talk) 04:57, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: So, Little, Brown and Prentice Hall are nobodies.Kewl. Qwirkle (talk) 05:30, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: No, you're just stretching what you think they said to match my ridiculous strawman.  They didn't say that. Dicklyon (talk) 01:31, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Gentle Reader, read and see which version of this is true. Qwirkle (talk) 02:12, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

text: Another obvious problem is that you are conflating “proper name” with “thing that must be capitalized”. These are related, but not identical. Qwirkle (talk) 01:34, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I tend to do that.  I'm much more concerned with what should be capitalized than with the theory of what's a proper name; I tend to not distinguish those. Dicklyon (talk) 04:57, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I’ll let this res loquitate for its own damned ipsa. Qwirkle (talk) 05:30, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization of proper nouns, based on clarity and readability 

message: the "Cambridge tunnel" terminology, capped or not, seems to be rather rare compared to "Cambridge subway".  What sources do you find using that term?  I don't see any cited.  The paragraph that starts with "Construction of the Cambridge Tunnel, connecting Harvard Square to Boston, was delayed..." cites Change at Park Street Under, which does not use that term at all, right? Of the books that do use that term, none cap it, as far as I've found by searching so far.  What have you found?  I will go ahead and fix it to lowercase again until we have sources to the contrary. Dicklyon (talk) 03:34, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The Cambridge Subway, as mentioned here(?) before, consisted of several component parts. A tunnel under Beacon Hill, a short elevated section, an at....grade isn’t exactly right for a bridge, but it’ll do, and a tunnel out to Harvard Square. The Cambridge Tunnel, unsurprisingly, was the c&c work in Cambridge. It would only be seen as a separate thing in contract documents, public records, histories and so forth. Why would you expect otherwise? Qwirkle (talk) 04:11, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure what you're trying to say.  That is not at all the way Cambridge Tunnel is being used in this article, or others; Pi says it refers to the whole line, if I understand him correctly.  And even if it does refer just to the Main Street dig, it's still not capped in sources. Dicklyon (talk) 22:04, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: It has referred to the whole line at various times...and, in at least some of those cases, it was used more descriptively than nominatively. But when the Commonfilth and Mr Berry were talking cash, the term was used pretty narrowly. Qwirkle (talk) 03:44, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, no idea what you're trying to say.  Sources could help. Dicklyon (talk) 23:29, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tunnel capping