Jump to content

Talk:Mid-Kent line

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Name of the Article

[edit]

The article, whose title is "Mid-Kent Railway", starts with "Mid-Kent line" in bold and says that was constructed by "The Mid Kent Railway". It's its use of '-' that is inconsistent.--SilasW (talk) 19:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which is the article meant to be about?

[edit]

Although called "Mid-Kent Railway" and (see above) mentioning "The Mid Kent Railway" the article seems more about some tracks which apparently should not be called the "Mid-Kent Line" rather than about a railway company. Some retitling and a new article might be appropriate.--SilasW (talk) 19:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The correct name for the route according to both Quail maps and the definitive railway publication (the Network Rail Sectional Appendix) is the Mid Kent Line, and I propose renaming the page as such. Fu Manchuchu (talk) 21:31, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed merge with Hayes Line

[edit]

From what I can see, the Hayes Line is the modern name of the Mid-Kent Line. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:45, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, I don't understand why the Hayes line has two pages. I think that the page needs to merged into the Hayes Line page. -Darianthomson (Talk) 01:11, 18 March 2014 (BST)
Mid Kent Line is still the correct name as used by the Railway itself for the physical lines (See NR Sectional Appendix Southern Zone Pages 115-118). We've ended up with two pages because the Train Operating Companies sometimes call their service 'Hayes Line' to keep it easy for the passengers - as in "it's the line that goes to Hayes". If you're going to combine the two pages, PLEASE differentiate the service Hayes Line from the route Mid Kent Line. This page is exactly right at the moment as it correctly describes the physical features of the Mid Kent ROUTE. Thankyou. Dr Sludge (talk) 19:27, 8 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Mid Kent and Hayes lines are the same thing, and so they should be merged, and I would say with a redirect, which I think is standard practice anyway. I am not sure what name it should be under, though I have only heard it called the Hayes Line, and would call it that myself. Wetter88 (talk) 07:43, 12 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'd personally go with Mid-Kent per Dr Sludge, and seriously I thought I actioned this three years ago. -mattbuck (Talk) 14:41, 12 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Mid-Kent line. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

checkY An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 20:39, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Mid-Kent line. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

checkY An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 12:57, 29 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Article name

[edit]

Thought best to start a new topic given no discussion on this page for many years, however i want to question the article name based on the lead.

"The Mid-Kent line (also referred to as the Hayes line by train operators, official bodies and the general public)"

If the operators, official bodies, and general public all refer to it as the Hayes line.... is that not cause for this article to be titled the Hayes line?

This seems especially true given the final line "Despite its name, none of the line is in the present-day county of Kent". Looking at the source given for calling it "Mid-Kent", i don't personally find it very strong compared to the sources calling it the Hayes line. This is also an issue now TFL are proposing to take over the line via an extension of the Bakerloo, and referencing it as the "Hayes line" throughout - with other wikipedia articles also then thus referencing it as the Hayes line due to their references doing so. Garfie489 (talk) 22:08, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Garfie489: When the line was built, it was entirely within Kent - Greater London didn't exist until about 100 years later. It's called the Mid-Kent line because it was built by the Mid-Kent Railway. Simple as that. If you want more on the line name, see
  • Padgett, David; Kelman, Leanne (November 2019) [1994]. Munsey, Myles (ed.). Railway Track Diagrams 5: Southern & TfL (4th ed.). Frome: Trackmaps. map 2. ISBN 978-1-9996271-2-6.
which shows that the Mid-Kent line runs from Lewisham Crossover Junctions (5 miles 72 chains from Charing Cross) to Hayes (14 miles 34 chains). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:15, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, i don't doubt it used to be called the Mid-Kent line. My comment on the strength of the source is rather its age and authority. Government bodies such as TFL surely have more authority over the naming of a line than a random book? - i'm sure the person is very credible, but by the same token anyone can publish a book.
We get into an issue where any modern article on the line, such as the Bakerloo line extension, now exclusively refers to it as the "Hayes line" because it is working with more modern sources that exclusively refer to it as such. Obviously there are many examples of lines with historic names differing to their modern usage, and it needs to be case by case as to which we use, but it if is true (as claimed) "the operators, official bodies, and general public all refer to it as the Hayes line" - then i don't feel there is much an argument for the old name to remain. It's not akin to say the Overground, where the operators and general public call it something different to TFL. Garfie489 (talk) 05:38, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As shown in the introduction of Railway Track Diagrams, and also its bibiography list at the back, "the person" has drawn heavily from official sources such as Network Rail. Hardly random. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:33, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Garfie489: As Redrose64 knows very well, WP:COMMONNAME applies here. This policy sets out five criteria to be used when deciding on the name of an article. They are:
  • Recognizability - 21st century press coverage and online sources overwhelmingly favour the term "Hayes line"
  • Naturalness - The line has not been in Kent since 1965 (over 60 years ago)
  • Precision - The "Hayes line" is the railway line that terminates at Hayes; the "Mid-Kent line" does not run through Kent
  • Concision - Both terms are equally concise
  • Consistency - see Bexleyheath line, Caterham line, Hastings line, Sheerness line, Tattenham Corner line for similarly named lines in the southeast. But we do have Kent Coast line (entirely in Kent) and North Kent Line (in Kent west of Dartford).
"Hayes line" wins over "Mid-Kent line" on the first three criteria, so I'd advise you to make a formal WP:MOVE proposal. 2A00:23C4:ACA2:D301:10C4:8E0B:A761:6DC0 (talk) 12:35, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Will admit ive never done such a process myself before, but have been involved in one (Asphalt). Will leave the discussion open here a bit longer and then look into how such a request is processed. Garfie489 (talk) 14:15, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What do Network Rail call it? Not that that should be the deciding factor but it could lend weight to an argument. So far I'm swayed by the common name argument but I'd like to see sources to back it up. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:07, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The South East Route: Kent Area Route Study dated May 2018 uses "Hayes Line or Mid Kent" (map p. 19), "Hayes Branch" (p. 37), "Hayes line" (pp. 72, 73), "Hayes branch" (p. 73) and "Hayes Line" (p. 88). The technical appendix to the same study uses "Hayes Line", "Hayes line", "Hayes Branch", "Lewisham–Hayes line" and "Mid-Kent route" (see in particular p. 30). So no consistency on the part of Network Rail. 2A00:23C4:ACA2:D301:10C4:8E0B:A761:6DC0 (talk) 17:34, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Network Rail Sectional Appendix [1] refers to the tracks as the "Up Mid Kent" and "Down Mid Kent". The document doesn't give names to any lines though. Thryduulf (talk) 21:20, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm leaning towards "Hayes Line" or "Hayes line" (if the upper case is correct we'll need to show it now or it'll be unilaterally downcased without reference to anything by one of the MoS warriors sooner or later; I've not looked at the evidence) on the grounds of COMMONNAME. I do need to point out though that the precision argument is wrong: both "Mid-Kent line" and "Hayes line" refer unambiguously to the same stretch of railway, so on that metric it's a score draw. As a very minor point, it is the eastern (not western) part of the North Kent line that is in Kent (although the border is a short distance west of Dartford town centre). Thryduulf (talk) 21:08, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 5 May 2025

[edit]

Mid-Kent line → Hayes line – WP:COMMONNAME , 21st century sources mostly refer to Hayes line - with other articles on the subject also thus then calling it the Hayes Line due to being more modern in sources. Line has not been in Kent for over 60 years, with few authoritative sources explicitly calling it the "Mid-Kent Line" without also using "Hayes line", but not vice-versa Garfie489 (talk) 14:49, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. This appears to be the name used most often and even Network Rail doesn't use a consistent name for it. That the line is not in present-day Kent is a relatively minor point, but could be confusing to the uninitiated and we have an opportunity here to eliminate that confusion without sacrificing any policy principle or "correctness". HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:21, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Mid-Kent_line&oldid=1289121939"