Talk:Wheatbelt railway lines of Western Australia

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second sentence in lead para needs work[edit]

Resolved

This sentence in the lead paragraph:

The network of lines as found in pre-second world war maps of the Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR) system show that railway lines were, in the main wheatbelt region within 60 miles of the next railway line, facilitating ease of access of rail transport.

when stripped of dependent clauses, appears to say merely that:

The network of lines ... show that railway lines were ... facilitating ease of access of rail transport.

ie "the railway lines facilitated rail transport", which does not appear to convey any information (other than the self-evident).

No doubt the sentence is trying to say something significant, but I can't quite figure out what. The sentence could be given meaning by removing the first comma - changing the adverbial clause "in the main wheatbelt region within 60 miles of the next railway line" to the verb phrase "were in ....":

The network of lines ... show that railway lines were in the main wheatbelt region within 60 miles of the next railway line, ...

ie, "the wheatbelt railways lines were within 60 miles of the next railway line", but was this "next railway line" a wheatbelt line or not?

Would someone familiar with the subject explain what the sentence is trying to say? Mitch Ames (talk) 01:16, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with the move of this discussion - it's about the article, not you, even if you are the primary contributor, and possibly the only person who can address the issue - so belongs on the article talk page. Thus I ask that you move it back. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:12, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
returned as requested  Done sats 03:30, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

...reply: -

How would this info sound:

Railway line development in the wheatbelt occurred in the 1900 - 1934 era.

(Most maps of the system at its longest route mileage are from 1934-1938)

Railway lines had been built in a grid throughout the wheatbelt, so that most other wheatbelt lines were within 60 miles of the next line.

This had facilitated the ease of access for farmers to sidings capable of handling grain.

As it was in the era of horse and cart, trucks were small and not very powerful at this stage

Sidings with grain handling facility - after 1934 + had silos, elevators provided (see CBH history etc)

The grid was undone when lines were being closed in the 1950s +

The 1960s was the era of peak number of receival points (1965 - had 305)

The 1970s + more trucks, bigger - started trucking to the reduced number of bins

The 1980s - Westrail starts eliminating sidings on a mass scale. fewer bins. longer distances, less rail lines

Hope that helps, thanks for your consideration

sats 03:34, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not claiming any expertise but I think the opening paragraph is fine as it was. Logistically, the closer all the node points on a network the faster the network is able to be traversed. Most of the lines would be wheatbelt lines, with the exception of mainlines the the east, north and south of Perth. The main reason for this, besides ease of transport, would be undoubtably have been disaster recovery. In the case of WA flooding was traditionally a major problem and, given the landscapes lack of drainage, washaways seem to occur with great regularity. This in turn would take rail and road away with it. With easy and close access to other lines this problem is largely circumvented. Hence the importance of having many lines within 60 miles of the next railway line. Also unlike other cargos wheat, particularly in damp conditions, can spoil and transporting it to dryer storage conditions would become imperative. Hughesdarren (talk) 04:40, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And just to complicate things I've just slightly altered the wording of the lead paragraph to change the emphasis. Although, to be honest, I have even less expertise in this area, (as you would both undoubtably know from the copyedits you do on the articles I've contributed to). Hughesdarren (talk) 04:50, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've copied the two comments above by Hughesdarren from User talk:SatuSuro#second sentence in lead para needs work so all the discussion is in one place Mitch Ames (talk) 06:20, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

With Hughesdarren's edit, the sentence makes a bit more sense. However - based on sats' comments - would it be better to say:

... in the main wheatbelt region, any railway line was within 60 miles of the next railway line 30 miles of the harvest location, facilitating ease of access of to rail transport.

The words "harvest location" might need tweaking but the important thing - ie what makes it easy for the farmer - is the distance from the farm to the nearest railway line, not from one line to another. (The farmer doesn't have to move his grain from one line to another, only from his farm to a line.)
If we want to include redundancy / disaster recovery, we should probably say so explicitly in the article, (but perhaps it doesn't belong in the lead paragraph), eg:

... in the main wheatbelt region, any railway line was within 60 miles of the next railway line 30 miles of the harvest location (with a second line within 60 miles, should the closest be out of service for some reason), facilitating ease of access of to rail transport.

Mitch Ames (talk) 07:18, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
sheeesh - washaways in the wheatbelt is a massive topic that I would find hard to get a handle on in the short term - roads, fences, railways, and other things (drainage issues relative to vegetation loss in the wheatbelt and a whole range of hydrology and hydrology engineering issues that I cannot even imagine a few days in the mines department library or uwa reid library would even scratch the surface) - a major issue, and complex to get a handle on as there are few wehatbelt wide overviews of the subject - another potential article ! sigh :( sats 07:57, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
actually there are sone interesting leads, but... [1] sats 08:00, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"washaways in the wheatbelt" may well deserve it's own article, which might take a while to write, but in the lead paragraph (or elsewhere) of Wheatbelt railway lines of Western Australia should we explicitly mention that the line spacing allows for redundancy. And/or is either of my proposed edits above an improvement? Mitch Ames (talk) 09:54, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would not put anything about alternate routes at all unless good collections of refs. the first suggestion is the better of the two - thanks for your consideration sats 10:11, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:51, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to subsections of Strategic grain network report?[edit]

It appear that sections Tiers, Closures and Response refer directly to the Strategic grain network report of the preceding section. Should those latter sections be sub-sections of Strategic grain network report? Mitch Ames (talk)

In fact I wonder whether Tiers, Threatened closures and Response sections heading should be deleted - keeping the text as a single contiguous section. It seems to read more like a continuous body of text rather than separate sections. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:54, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality of Closures section[edit]

Resolved

I've tagged the Closures section as POV. Specific problems are:

  • "general lack of support from government for any investment ..." with no reference
  • "The government response has been to absolve itself of any involvement in funding "re-sleepering" ... ", which is not what the ref says. The ref itself is a blog (}WP:ELNO) on "Save Perth's hills" - not likely to be a neutral source.
  • "The systematic loss of rural infrastructure, environmental considerations, or the complex cost to the wheatbelt communities affected seems to not show up in the 2009 report or any subsequent government statements" - not supported by (the same not-so-reliable ref)
  • "... the [WA Transport Infrastructure Summit] session and its outcome was not reported widely in the local media, despite the currency of the topic." - not referenced (ie ther the non-reporting or the currency). This paragraph should probably be deleted if the session was not notable enough to have been reported.

Mitch Ames (talk) 13:07, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The tagging is somewhat pointless.
  • The line of argument of the POV tag suggests that the assertions within the section as requiring referencing for comments that are inherent in the rest of the text. Rather than deleting the section,

the whole thing can be easily rewritten to accomodate the unnecessary tag.

    • Buswell had repeatedly said publicly before the election that he will not spend money on teir 3 lines
    • Questioning one source does not negate the overall argument
    • Loss of rural infrastructure, environmental issues, wehatbelt commounity issues - is not something that comes simply from Save rail - other res in the article also refer to the issue (not in any shape or form anything to do with Save Perths Hills)
    • The Transport summit under-reporting is a valid point and has nothing to do with notability in any way.

So the tagging is made with a

  • (a) confusion of save grain on rail with save perths hills - whatever that reveals
  • (b) lack of understanding that the issues raised in the paragraph are echoed in other cited items.
  • (c) I am about the re-write the section with a removed tag

Please read more carefully next time. sats 13:21, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

March 2013 election - less than informative sentences[edit]

The first paragraph of the "March 2013 election" section says:

... the ... election campaign saw increased activity in relation to the issue. The major players in the system ... have all ... either stated their position ... or not.

That's not very informative. The first sentence tell us that something happened, but doesn't tell us what happened. The second sentence tells us that the players did or did not say anything! Some words that tell us what the players actually said would be helpful. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:26, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Section reorganisation/hierarchy required[edit]

Unresolved

Some reorganisation and/or hierarchy might be required for the article sections, in particular I find it difficult to believe that sections named:

  • 1932
  • October 2013

are appropriate at the top level.

Perhaps something like:

  • History
    • Origins
    • First bulk handling or Receival poinst or similar, but not 1932.
      (And perhaps this section doesn't need to be a separate heading at all.)
  • ...
  • Tiers (merge with Tier rail network)
  • Closure of tier 3
    This should include (probably not as separate sub-sections) the contents of the current "Threatened closures", "Response", "Auditor General report January 2013", "March 2013 election", "October 2013"

Mitch Ames (talk) 13:16, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done (by Evad37) . Thanks. Mitch Ames (talk) 14:45, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

reverted[edit]

Following the materials since made public in the last 12 months, this article needs a re-write, and as such have reverted to the form prior to the 'revert' of 12 months ago which (a) shows little or no understanding of the complexity of issues (b) does not allow for elaboration of issues as found in the restored format. satusuro 01:59, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

wrong[edit]

Please note that I disagree with mitch's sense of tidiness and will be communicating separately on this issue, will try off wiki is possible satusuro 08:01, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that part of the disagreement with the re-organisation was the discovery of 2ndary and primary sources that show the issue of the commencement of bulk grain handling in western australia is not as straight forward as what might seem... So I am in error as much as anything. Apologies to both Mitch and Evad in relation to this.

A new sub page of the totally misnamed sub project of wheatbelt railways - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiTakes_Western_Australian_Wheatbelt_Railways_2013/Heirarchies_of_article_and_category_issues satusuro 06:59, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Time lines/Issues[edit]

Wheat transport on WAGR - Westrail railways from start of railways until 1970s is complex enough, and to be sceptical about Brad Thompsons timeline in this mornings west is simply thinking about it in thr wrong way.

The information as found in Thompsons article regards access/lease agreements, that until this last month were considered undiscoverable in relation to supposedly secret commercial deals that affected the transport/access to the railway network in western australia. Over a year of supreme court actions were blocked until Blayney, Logan, Norberger, Tinley and Love basically opened the pandoras box. satusuro 08:27, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Reverted[edit]

As there is no sign of cooperation to allow for re-structuring this article and engage with what will become a talk page to end all talk pages, I am reverting the article to a pile of rubbish it has been for whole year, and will re-create the article offline, as it willtake a few weeks to draw together what is not a simple story. satusuro 08:40, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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stated their position on the fate of the grain rail network, or not[edit]

This sentence in Wheatbelt railway lines of Western Australia § Closures:

The major players in the system ... have all ... either stated their position ... or not.

tells us nothing. I could just delete it, and no information would be lost, but perhaps someone knowledgeable on the topic could rewrite it so that it tells the reader something - perhaps which players stated their position and what those positions were, and which players did not. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:28, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - the ambiguity of the actual players and what they were on record for, or not - will need careful research to clarify.

The closure section could actually be another article separate - JarrahTree 13:37, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted Mitch Ames (talk) 14:10, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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