Talk:Cranleigh line

Something wrong here?

"Although Yolland had sanctioned the opening of the line, he had refused the opening of Rudgwick station intermediately, because it was on a 1 in 80 gradient; he required the gradient to be eased to no steeper than 1 in 130 for safety reasons; this was done, not without some difficulty, and Rudgwick station opened in November 1864." If the line itself didn't open till 1865, surely 1864 can't be the right year for the opening of Rudgwick station? JH (talk page) 09:37, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

According to Butt (1995), the stations on the line all opened on 2 October 1865 except Rudgwick, where November 1856 is shown - this must be a typo for November 1865. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:54, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll correct it accordingly. JH (talk page) 08:33, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Referencing style

I would like to do some work on this article over the next few weeks. Principally, I would like to expand coverage of the history post-1900, tighten up the remainder of the text and improve the referencing. I have done this in the past few months for the Redhill–Tonbridge line and Oxted line articles, both recently promoted to Good Article status. Per WP:CITEVAR, would anyone object if I convert the references to use template:sfn?
Thanks and best wishes, Mertbiol (talk) 18:27, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

I have completed this work. Mertbiol (talk) 09:19, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

GA review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Cranleigh line/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Mertbiol (talk · contribs) 09:19, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: JacobTheRox (talk · contribs) 12:33, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi @JacobTheRox: Thank you for picking up this review. I would prefer it if you could discuss the changes that you would like me to make here, rather than diving in to reorganise the article yourself. Mertbiol (talk) 12:54, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

A bit of a fresh start could be for the better here. Apologies for that.

Hi there. I just did some housekeeping which involved:

• rewriting a couple of sentences for clarity
• I moved the freight section to be part of the route as it seemed to make more sense there (feel free to revert this if you want per WP:RETAIN)
• I slightly reformatted the references section so it conformed with the MOS, which it needs to do to become a GA.
• Add {{railway gradient}} where appropriate.

I did not:

• Change the meaning of any content
• Add or remove content from the article

I did not do these as if I work on the article, I can no longer give a fair review of its content. I look forward to suggesting any content changes I see fit, and you are welcome to undo anything you don't like. Thanks, JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 13:48, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @JacobTheRox:

• I'm afraid I don't agree that your rewordings improved clarity.
• The freight section belongs below history, where it fits best, and not as part of the route, which is focused on the physical infrastructure.
• MOS:REFERENCES allows an editor to choose how they set out the references section. In particular, it says "General references and other full citations may similarly be either combined or separated (e.g. "References" and "General references"). There may therefore be one, two, three or four sections in all." and "Editors may use any reasonable section and subsection names that they choose." The formatting of the references was already compliant with the MOS. Changing the spaces of references is unnecessary.
• Please do not force image sizes per MOS:IMAGESIZE: "Except with very good reason, a fixed width in pixels (e.g. 17px) should not be specified, because it ignores the user's base width setting."
• Removing the {{clear}} causes problems for those not using the default skin with text wrapping.

Mertbiol (talk) 13:58, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

• That's interesting that the {{clear}}is there for that; I removed it because it broke the page layout for me. Now you've reverted it there's a massive blank space on the page for me.
• As for 'in situ' vs 'in situ', the MOS says "use italics for phrases and words that are not current in English" and that "This does not apply to loanwords or phrases that see everyday use in non-specialized English", however 'in situ' is recognised as an English word per [1] [2] [3] [4]. The reason the article title is italicised is that it is a reference to itself as a word, as described in MOS:WAW: "use italics when writing about words as words".
• As you have reverted my reformatting of the bottom sections, I will not fight you on it as it is certainly not worth it. You are correct that the MOS says any reasonable system may be used, but 'bibliography' is somewhat problematic: is it a list of works cited or a list of works about the line?
• I did not intentionally force image sizes; I will look into why they changed and if I can't work it out I'll report it to technical support in case it is an issue. I apologise for this happening.

To conclude, as you have reverted my edit, I will not fight you on it per MOS:RETAIN but I have given an explanation for each one. If I am still concerned I will mention it in my review when I get a chance to continue it. These are all very minor things anyway and do not really make a difference to the article itself. Thanks, JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 14:58, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @JacobTheRox: I have removed the italicisation of "in situ" per your explanation above. So far as the clear template is concerned: (a) it is better to have a blank space than to have images, tables and infoboxes clashing; (b) I am using standard text size and standard width on the default skin and have no issue.

Please provide any further feedback here and let me respond to it, before making any further changes to the article yourself. Mertbiol (talk) 15:08, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

@JacobTheRox: Wikipedia:Good article criteria#1b lists five elements of the MOS which are required for GA: lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. These are followed by a footnote explicitly stating that Compliance with other aspects of the Manual of Style or its subpages is not required for good articles. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:55, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

@Redrose64 Thanks for pointing this out; the review is a work in progress and I will ensure that it is entirely compliant with the criteria before I come to any judgement. Anything I've written so far is a bit stream-of-consciousness to be honest but I'm not claiming otherwise and don't want to rush anything. Thanks, JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 09:12, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

@JacobTheRox: This really is not good. The review is should be against the criteria. It is certainly not an opportunity for you to record your musings in a "stream-of-consciousness" fashion. Please look at other reviews to see they are carried out and leave comments HERE for me to respond to. Mertbiol (talk) 09:28, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

WP:GAI says to "plan to wrap up your review in about seven days", so I am not going to be done in one. The review is against the criteria, as is set out below. I just cannot 100% grantee that my comments are all-encompassing of both the criteria and the article until I have finished the review. I am busy today but will do some more work on it later; I look forward to expanding on my comments. JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 10:05, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

@JacobTheRox: No one is asking you to rush - it is disingenuous for you to imply otherwise. If you want to record your "stream-of-consciousness" thoughts, then you should do this in your sandbox, in a private file on your computer or even a piece of paper. The GA review is for you to evaluate the article as it stands against the criteria and to give me specific points to respond to. Please look at other reviews to see how they are carried out. Mertbiol (talk) 10:18, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Preamble

Well-written

a) Approved - there is a limit to the extent an article on a railway can be understandable to someone with no knowledge thereof, but I think the article does well enough in that regard. There were a couple of minor grammar clarifications needed which I have done. Spelling is correct and prose is clear.
b) Approved - I have moved the freight section to where it makes a bit more sense and done a bit more wikification (e.g. the references section). Even before I did so, the article was passable in this regard but now I think it definitely meets the criteria.

Verifiable

a) Approved - article is written with cites + sources and this is done to standard using {{[[Template:sfn|}} tags.
b) Approved - every statement in the source is cited somewhere; the lead has no cites but this is standard as all of its claims are repeated elsewhere in the article.

I will continue this soon :)

Apology accepted and thank you for starting your comments again. Mertbiol (talk) 10:06, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

@Mertbiol:   I have added one archive.org url to the bibliography to help me verify the article's sources. Hope this is okay. I also found this but was not sure if it was the same edition as there is a discrepancy in the publication years. Not a GAN issue but I was wondering if you could give it a quick look. Thanks, JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 21:30, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

I have used the 5th edition of Vine, published in 1996. The archive.org version appears to be a 1968 reprint of the 1966 2nd edition. (The third edition was not published until 1973.) Looking at the two side by side, there are some differences in Chapter XIV (from p. 177 onwards) with some minor changes to the wording on the history of the railway. (Vine was a canal historian, so it is understandable that the early editions might include a few errors about the railway.) There also appear to be a few minor page changes. With that in mind, it is best to use the more recent edition, even if it is not yet available on archive.org. Mertbiol (talk) 13:23, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Preamble

I'm going to start again to some extent because I think it would be better. I am not deleting or hiding anything; it is all collapsed above. Equally, I am not starting again in my review itself, but more my comments on it. @Mertbiol: I hope this is okay with you and I must admit I may have been ignoring WP:STRESSED a little before, so apologies for that.

The article is a really nice and interesting article, and it's definitely my pleasure to review it. I'm going to structure my review based on the guidelines, then I'll repeat any suggestions I have in a different section so they're nice and clear. I will suggest a couple of things even if they are not in the good article criteria just because those are things I think might be nice to do, but to be clear these will not be considered in my final assessment of the article's promotion. Also please note that I have changed the structure of the guidelines for ease of review as you can see below but I have obviously not changed the wording itself.

Update on evening of 1 June 2025: I have now written out my comments for everything except 3b and signed off sections 4,5, and 6 as all approved. It's really down to minor questions and fixes now and me getting on with a decision about 3b. I don't want to ask something of you then change my mind so I hope it's okay that I'm taking a bit more time on it. Thanks for your responses so far as well. (22:14, 1 June 2025 (UTC))

Key (in case I'm being confusing)

Y	Approved
	Waiting for confirmation from nominator
N	Cannot pass in current state
	Individual issue that needs fixing
=	An issue/question/comment that doesn't affect the GAN but I'm raising just out of wanting to make sure the article is as good as possible :)

Statistics

ORES: FA (5.72) - This is not particularly reliable but I thought I may as well include it.

Length: 4802 words according to WP:PROSESIZE.

Nominator has 93.5% authorship according to mw:XTools

Earwig result can be viewed here.

0: Not in the six good article criteria but important anyway

a) Nominator is a significant contributor

Y Mertbiol has an authorship of 93.5% and is the 2nd largest contributor, so they are eligible to nominate.

b) No maintenance tags or need thereof

 On hold per question about a possible '' issue below. Otherwise it's all good.

c) Other issues

Y No other outstanding issues.

All issues cleared up

N The description page of {{infobox railway line}} says stations should be "Number of stations/stops, including termini". The six in the infobox do not include Guildford and Horsham. Therefore it should be eight, and I wonder if the table should then also include those two termini for clarity. They're in the RTD as well obviously. You've done the two termini as the junctions which is allowed per the description page, but it might make more sense to then use the two stations instead. Let me know your thoughts.

 Not done The description page of {{infobox railway line}} is very clear that it used for "for railway lines, i.e. the physical trackage between two or more places". The physical line ran from Peasmarsh Junction to Stammerham Junction, as is made clear in numerous sources. It is therefore correct for these junctions to be given as the termini of the line, as the descriptions fot the |start and |end parameters state. This is neither confusing nor unclear. The passenger service on the Cranleigh line ran between Guildford and Horsham – this is why you can see "Guildford–Horsham" under the "Service" heading in the infobox. As neither Guildford nor Horsham are on the stretch of track called the Cranleigh line, they are not discussed in any significant detail in this article (except in connection with that service). These stations do not therefore need to be included in the table. Mertbiol (talk) 13:23, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Oh no, might be my mistake. I would always consider a branch like this to include the two termini but that's irrelevant per Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. Go with what the sources say then and my bad on this one. JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 16:53, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

1: Well-written

ai) the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience;

Y There is only a certain extent to which an article such as this can be broadly understandable. It is certainly as understandable as other GA railway lines: 1 2. The prose is clear and consise; I'm not entirely decided yet about a couple of bits surrounding weighting and detail but I think it is more appropriate to pick up on this in 3b if need be.

aii) spelling and grammar are correct

Y Necessary changes done so all is good here.

N Minor changes needed listed below:

  In the paragraph starting "In the 1940s and 1950s, Baynards...", there are many instances of unnecessary commas. Commas should not be used to separate the name of films, for example in "...the 1957 BBC television series, The Railway Children, based on the novel...". I counted quite a few unnecessary commas in that paragraph which ought to be removed. Also "...platforms at Christ's Hospital, using an N class locomotive, which was otherwise prohibited..." suffers the same issue (see the first and bolded comma).

 Done Mertbiol (talk) 10:06, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

  The sentence "...called for the reinstatement of the entirety of the line, following the cancellation..." contains an unnecessary comma that ought to be removed.

 Done Mertbiol (talk) 10:06, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

  The sentence "...companies that received or sent goods via the line, to permanently transfer their operations..." contains an unnecessary comma that ought to be removed.

 Done Mertbiol (talk) 10:06, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

  Every comma in "The station appeared in the 1942 comedy, The Black Sheep of Whitehall, and the 1945 melodrama, They Were Sisters." is unnecessary. It should read "The station appeared in the 1942 comedy The Black Sheep of Whitehall and the 1945 melodrama They Were Sisters."

 Done Mertbiol (talk) 10:06, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

= Minor thing that won't affect GAN: really sometimes called the "Itchingfield South Fork" should be sometimes called the 'Itchingfield South Fork' as it's not a quote. Just a bit of pedantry you might want to change. This also goes for the 'Study into Rail Line Improvements in Surrey: Network South Central Operating Area' and 'Surrey Rail Strategy', which should either have single quotations (as I have done) or be italicised.

See below for the "Itchingfield South Fork" issue. Mertbiol (talk) 10:06, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

The "Study into Rail Line Improvements in Surrey: Network South Central Operating Area" and "Surrey Rail Strategy" are sections of larger transport studies and therefore fall under MOS:MINORWORK, which says "Titles of shorter works should be enclosed in double quotation marks ("text like this"). It particularly applies to works that exist as a smaller part of a larger work." MOS:NOITAL says the same thing. Mertbiol (talk) 10:06, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

Ah makes sense; thanks for clarifying. JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 10:38, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

bi) it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout,

Y Can't find any issues for this!

= Minor thing that won't affect GAN: As previously discussed the specific design of the bottom sections' layout is an irrelevance at GAN, but do you think Bibliography should be kept? It could be confusing whether it refers to books you've cited, books about the line generally, or both. If you like it how it is then end of discussion per WP:RETAIN

I prefer the section title "Bibliography". Mertbiol (talk) 10:06, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

 Acknowledged

bii) words to watch

  Please see the comment below. If it's not an issue then all is good for this. Layout is good including lead; I can't find any other possible instances of WP:WEASEL.

  I picked up on the sentence "A west–south spur was also provided, sometimes called the "Itchingfield South Fork"". I don't have access to Turner 1978 so please may you just give this a check. This could warrant an "" tag so it might be worth looking at the source to see if there's a clearer way of writing it.

The page for Turner (1978) is available here. (You might need to sign in to archive.org to read it.) The exact quote is: "This spur was known as the Itchingfield South Fork." From my reading, the only source which gives the spur a name (and calls it the "Itchingfield South Fork") is Turner. I could rephrase to say "...described as the "Itchingfield South Fork" by the railway historian, J. T. Howard Turner..." or I could remove the mention altogether. Please let me know your thoughts. (Incidently, on the same page, Turner also calls Baynards Tunnel, "Rudgwick Tunnel", and he is the only author that I have found who does this. So it does seem that he regularly uses non-standard names.)

An interesting case. It seems to me that Turner may have used the railway workerks' common names or just made them up. I think it would be good to include it so maybe "A west–south spur was also provided, described by the railway historian, J. T. Howard Turner as being called the "Itchingfield South Fork". would work. It's really up to you but seeing as his naming conventions are contrary to others' then mentioning his name seems a good idea to me. I'd definitely leave it in double quotes there then to show it has been extracted from the text itself. JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 10:38, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

 Done Mertbiol (talk) 05:48, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

biii) fiction and list incorporation

Y These two don't really feature in the article at all.

= Minor thing that won't affect GAN: I'm interested about your little station table as I haven't really seen it before on railway line articles. Do you think a bullet point list is sufficient as otherwise it's WP:TOOMUCH and some of it has been said elsewhere in the article? If you like it how it is then end of discussion per WP:RETAIN.

Axholme Joint Railway has a table here, the content of which is hidden contrary to MOS:DONTHIDE. My other railway line GAs (reviewed by three different editors, two of whom are highly experienced writers and reviewers of railway line articles) all have tables: here, here and here. My feeling is than an unannotated bulleted list is not helpful. It's true that many UK railway line articles have bulleted list of stations, but many of these date from the time when the articles were created (or shortly afterwards), and the articles concerned are not GAs. Mertbiol (talk) 10:06, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

If you're happy then I'm happy. I prefer working on improving poor-quality articles so maybe that's why I often see bullet-point lists for the stations. JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 10:38, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

2: Verifiable with no original research

all approved!

ai) it contains a list of all references (sources of information)

Y - Article contains a bibliography of books, all of which exist and are referenced correctly. These are pointed to by {{sfn}}s throughout the article, and some sources are just referenced inline. Every one of the books look reliable publications to me, as do a sample of the ones cited inline that I did a bit of research on. Issue I pointed out has been fixed.

N - I have not done this in full yet but I noticed the below point and thought I'd point it out (i.e. fixing the one issue below does not necessarily mean it will be a Y)

  In the source Grayer, Jefferey (2024), his first name is spelled incorrectly. It should be 'Jeffery' per [5] [6] [7]. This needs to be changed in the sources, but the inline references should be fine as they don't have his first name.

 Done Mertbiol (talk) 10:06, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

aii) presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;

Y sfns and cite templates are used and done so correctly. Question about use of bibliography has been raised and author has chosen to keep it, which is absolutely fine. Query has been resolved and is not an issue.

  Not sure how much this is a GAN issue but it could signal a lack of consistency in referencing which might be. Have a look anyway. I wonder if some of the inline refs would work better in the bibliography. Refs 7, 8, 23, 28, 29, and 114 all have both multiple instances in the text and span multiple pages. Could some of these use sfns to pinpoint the text they are citing more clearly? If so they'd work much better in the bibliography. If an edit changes all of the numbers use this permalink to see the ones I'm referring to

 Not done Firstly, footnote [4] of the GA criteria says: "Using consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required, although, in practice, enough information must be supplied so that the reviewer is able to identify the source." (It is often mentioned on WT:GAN that page numbers are not required for GA articles.) Secondly, and more importantly, the way that I have set the references out is consistent. For books and reports (where one author or one author team has written the entire source), I use the sfn method. For newspapers, magazines and journals (where the author(s) of the article is not the same as the editor(s) of the larger publication), the page range of the article is given. This is standard practice. Mertbiol (talk) 13:23, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't an issue. JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 16:53, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

b) reliable sources are cited inline. (shortened from official guidelines)

Y - every sentence outside of the lead is cited, including in the notes. There is at least one ref per paragraph but mostly more than that. I've cross-referenced the uncited lead and infobox with the article and every claim appears somewhere or is implied by WP:CK. I mentioned reliability in 2ai - all publications are either reliable books, journals, news articles, or other sources. There isn't anything contentious or any claims which would need any more than one ref.

c) it contains no original research

Y - every claim is cited somewhere so that suggests not.

d) it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.

Y In order to answer this, I ran WP:EARWIG on the page. The highest percentage likelihood I got was 9.9% (which is classified as unlikely anyway) but when checking these were just generic phrases such as "at the end of the century" which were used in different contexts for each one. Every instance it flagged on the sources it scraped was just a case of "there's only one way you can say that" so I have no reason to suspect any WP:COPYVIO or WP:CLOP.

3: Broad in its coverage

a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and

Y - having read the article many times over for this review I am confident that everything I would want to know about it within reason is addressed. As a railway nerd, there are a couple of things that could be added (e.g. a little more on the signalling and train protection) but even if those things were needed for full coverage that's more of an issue at FA than GA.

b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

 On hold Sorry to disappoint about this @Mertbiol: but I'm still a little bit undecided about whether certain bits of prose belong in footnotes and vice versa. I think there may be a couple of things that don't need to be in the body which comes under this section. As you haven't got round to responding to all of the comments I've left so far (and no pressure to rush in doing so - we are all busy people irl), I am going to keep pondering on this for another day then come back to you. There's certainly no massive issues.

This is getting ridiculous again. Considering moving information between body text and footnotes is way beyond the scope of the GA criteria. If you are having trouble deciding what or how items should be moved, then that surely shows how insignificant these issues are. AGAIN - PLEASE STICK TO THE GA CRITERIA!!!!! Mertbiol (talk) 13:23, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

@Mertbiol I am literally reading the GAC as I write it. The GA criteria says "it addresses the main aspects of the topic; (5: The "broad in its coverage" criterion is significantly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required of featured articles. It allows shorter articles, articles that do not cover every major fact or detail, and overviews of large topics.) and it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)." I was simply considering whether a couple of bits were too specific to be in the body but could be kept as footnotes to not waste your time and hard work. I have decided that the article is well-rounded and I don't think anything needs taking out. Thank you for letting me take some more time to think about it, and this leaves the only outstanding issue as the need to change the Itchingfield South Fork phrasing before I am happy to approve this. No rush anyway. JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 21:34, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

4: Neutral ( Done)

all approved!

a) it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

Y - the article is not covering a controversial topic and to be honest I don't see how it could be biassed in any way. One instance of possible weasel wording is being inquired about but that's being dealt with at 1bii not here.

5: Stable ( Done)

all approved!

a) It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

Y - the line is closed so no big changes likely. The article is stable and mainly edited by the nominator. The page has never been protected and I don't see any edit warring or the like in its history.

6: Illustrated ( Done)

all approved!

a) Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio

Y 8 modern images and 7 historical images is more than enough. Couldn't see any interesting audio or video to include or leave an external link to in a quick scrape of google.

= Lots of articles have line maps today of a similar style; might it be nice to have one for this? Reach out to commons:User talk:Rcsprinter123; if you ask them nicely I'm sure they won't mind. Just a suggestion and not relevant to the article's quality. For examples see 1, 2, 3.

b) media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and

Y All media is from Commons and tagged with acceptable licenses. No instances of non-free content.

c) media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

Y All images have relevant captions and have been distributed nicely based on relevance to their respective topics. Within history images are not sorted chronologically but they are still relevant to what is being said in the corresponding prose so I don't really think it's an issue.

Conclusion

Section 1:  On hold

Section 2: Approved

Section 3:  Not finished yet

Section 4: Approved

Section 5: Approved

Section 6: Approved