Talk:New York Central and Hudson River Railroad No. 999: Difference between revisions

New York Central and Hudson River Railroad No. 999 has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: September 1, 2022. (Reviewed version).

Trains: By country series / Locomotives GA‑class Low‑importance

Trains Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Trains, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to rail transport on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. See also: WikiProject Trains to do list and the Trains Portal.TrainsWikipedia:WikiProject TrainsTemplate:WikiProject Trainsrail transport articles GA This article has been rated as GA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Associated projects or task forces: /  This article is supported by the By country series task force. This article is supported by the Locomotives task force.

United States GA‑class Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles GA This article has been rated as GA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on New York Central and Hudson River Railroad No. 999. 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:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051230202557/http://www.co.genesee.ny.us/dpt/historian/ese999.html to http://www.co.genesee.ny.us/dpt/historian/ese999.html

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

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• 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) 11:49, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why does the article state that the 112.5 mph was officially recorded, when Flying Scotsman was the first locomotive to go over 100 mph? Not to mention that City of Truro was more likely to have reached 100 mph first, based on the relatively accurate timings made on her 1904 run. GreatLakesShips 🤘 (talk - contribs) 15:41, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The article is very careful to limit the facts. It states that the speed was recorded by officials of the Railroad Company. Contrast this to City of Truro whose speed was recorded by Charles Rous-Marten an independent journalist with an impressive portfolio of railroad reports. I suppose that a speed estimated by officials is officially recorded. Also note that the article states that when this locomotive was connected to a recording device it only achieved 86 mph. On subsequent runs with independent journalists on board, its top speed was recorded as 81 mph. Flying Scotsman was the first steam locomotive to exceed 100 mph whilst its speed was being recorded. (By a mechanical recording device that had been independently calibrated.) The statement that 112½ mph was not exceeded until 1921 also needs to be treated with caution. No steam powered locomotive on steel rails exceeded that speed but a German electric experimental loco exceeded 130 mph in 1903.

Nevertheless the authenticated speed of 86 mph (or 81 mph) was very respectable. Not only was it a very high speed for the time but it was unusual for a locomotive of that configuration to be sufficiently table at that speed to stay on the rails. OrewaTel (talk) 13:26, 18 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have tagged the statement in the lead, and the entire section, claiming the world speed record, because it's all sourced to very old (mostly contemporaneous) sources, and these newer, scholarly sources all explicitly state this claimed record is dubious:

• Meehan, Tommy (2007). "FACT OR FABLE: The 1893 run that reputedly broke world speed records got surprisingly modest coverage in contemporary news accounts". Railroad History (196): 47–49. ISSN 0090-7847. Let's just say that 999 was a very fast engine, but its record-smashing sprint of May 10, 1893 should be asterisked as "possible" or "claimed" and not taken as gospel. - This entire article is about the 999's claimed record.
• Withuhn, William L. (2019-03-01). American Steam Locomotives: Design and Development, 1880–1960. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-03934-7. [p. 29] So what is the authenticity of the claim on behalf of No. 999 that it reached 112.5 mph on May 10, 1893, on the straight track west of Batavia, N.Y.? Contemporary accounts paint an exciting, dramatic picture ... [lengthy discussion of using stopwatches to time trains over short distances] A two-second error, easy enough to contemplate, is an error of six and a half miles per hour. Webb triumphantly declared the speed to be 112.5 mph. He generously rounded up the "31 1/2 seconds." He was hardly a disinterested observer. There is a less obvious but more profound basis for doubt ... [mechanical discussion] ... Even 100 mph is near the limit of its capacity. The claim of 112.5 is probably out of the question. - Almost all of Chapter 1 of this book is about this.
• Howard, R. (1920). "Old 999 Still in Service". Scientific American, 123(26), 635-635. "It was with her doing the hauling that the train made its much disputed record of 112.5 miles per hour." - "Much disputed" early as 1920.

I think the whole section needs to be rewritten, with the old sources replaced by the new. Levivich 15:09, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This review is transcluded from Talk:New York Central and Hudson River Railroad No. 999/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 15:18, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:18, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• If you knew where File:NYC 999 in Syracuse.jpg I would suggest adding it to the Commons page. As it stands we can't prove it's available for use, since it might have been sitting in a private photo collection for years and only published recently. However, given the amount of publicity about the locomotive, and the fact that it looks like a postcard, I'm going to let it go for GA since I think it's very likely it was indeed published long enough ago.

•  Done - The German User:FritzG uploaded the photo to Commons 20:42, 24 May 2006. I'm taking it in good faith that it is a public domain picture.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 17:55, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Suggest cutting DailKOS; it's not a good source for anything and this is not its area of expertise in any case.

•  Done --Doug Coldwell (talk) 18:05, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• What makes softsource.com (FN 1) a reliable source?

•  Done - Kevin V. Bunker is a railroad historian. Here is a place I found him at the California state railroad museum. He co-authored a book on the Sacramento Central and Southern Pacific Shops buildings. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 18:27, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I've done a fair bit of copyediting and moving of sentences to what I think is a better sequence; let me know if I screwed anything up. I think we should cut the sentence about the "competent fireman"; it doesn't tell us anything.

•  Done --Doug Coldwell (talk) 18:41, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• "Engineer Hogan and the No. 999 locomotive were the star attractions and brought honor to the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad." Seems like puffery; if we have anything independent of the railroad that clearly says Hogan and the locomotive were the star attractions we can keep that, but I doubt that's a unanimous opinion. The second half is just ad copy.

•  Done - Ref 4 where I got this from is the Genessee County, New York, county historian. It is on the county's history department webpage Empire State Express NO. 999 and titled "Historian's Note". They are independent of the New York Central railroad. The history department has several other History Stories about the county. Their sentence about this on the webpage is Charlie Hogan and the No. 999 were the star attractions at the Chicago World's Fair and brought prestige and honor to the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. I think in this case my sentence I wrote about the "star attractions" is legitimate and correctly referenced by a reliable source.--Doug Coldwell (talk)

Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:14, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for review. I'll get started on the issues.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 17:34, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• @Mike Christie: All issues have been addressed. Can you take another look. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 19:32, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

OK on most changes; I think if you want to keep the sentence about Hogan it would need rephrasing; that's much too close to the source. My recommendation would be to make it 'Engineer Hogan and the No. 999 locomotive were the "star attractions"' keeping those two words in quotes to avoid a close paraphrasing problem. I still don't think you need the second half but if you do keep it it has to be paraphrased. Also, if we're keeping FN 1 can you format it correctly? It's a bare external link at the moment. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:18, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• @Mike Christie: Addressed these additional issues. What do you think? --Doug Coldwell (talk) 20:51, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pass. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:57, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The article contains the sentence, "It took less than 32 seconds for the train to travel between Batavia and Buffalo" This is a speed of 4,600 mph. OrewaTel (talk) 22:35, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the "32 seconds" figure may have come from this article, which actually says the train travelled one mile in 32 seconds, or 112.5 MPH. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:36, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if this is a reliable source. The webpage is self-published, by Kevin V. Bunker. What I've been able to find on Bunker is that he collaborated with Mary Amanda Helmich on a book on the Southern Pacific shops in Sacramento [1], and had a brief note in the May 2009 issue of Trains. It's not an article, just a photo and paragraph about the start of Green Line service in Portland. He seems to be pretty active in locomotive preservation. Per WP:SPS, we need something attesting his status as an expert. Either publications, or people writing about him. The source itself is probably replacable. Mackensen (talk) 11:41, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a little concerned at the output of the duplication detector:

• "slippery and hard to handle when pulling more than five cars" (Wikipedia)
• "slippery and hard to handle when passenger trains exceeded five cars" (source)

...and...

• "both railroads trying to provide the swiftest service to the fair" (Wikipedia)
• "special trains to provide the swiftest service imaginable from the world"

These aren't quotations, and the first of them isn't even cited to Bunker. Mackensen (talk) 11:47, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to be a very old copyvio. The oldest capture of Bunker is from 2007: [2]. This article was created in 2011. See [3] for an early example of close paraphrasing; which was later altered to be an outright unattributed quotation. Mackensen (talk) 12:06, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Originally I took out Bunker as a reference, however I've Googled his name as a historian and come up with various things. One is that he is associated with Fort Bragg as a historian. Especially since I came up with so many things about him as a historian and connected with railroad history I consider him an authority. I believe the Bunker reference and webpage to be accurate.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 16:57, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How do you know that Kevin Bunker wrote [4]? Just because it has his name on it doesn't mean it's authentic. And where on [5] does it say he is a historian? Being the director of the Fort Bragg-Mendicino Coast Historical Society doesn't necessarily mean he is a historian in the WP:EXPERTSPS sense (particularly about 19th/20th c. locomotives). What else did you find about him? I cannot find his CV and can't figure out if he is a professional historian or an amateur historian, nor what his specialty is. Does he have a PhD? Teach at a university? Had works published in peer-reviewed publications or by university presses? Had his works cited by other historians? And even if he is a historian, how do we know this particular source was written by him? (I cannot find it published anywhere else on the internet.) Levivich 17:15, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To me because the webpage says "by Kevin V. Bunker" indicates he wrote the page. There is no other name associated with the webpage. To me if a person is a director of a Historical Society it is very likely he got that position because he is a historian considered an authority. Apparently you have doubts that he is a historian. In that case remove his reference like I did originally and that would be fine by me. The paragraph will stand up by the other references connected with Daniels. That then will settle the dispute. Fair enough?--Doug Coldwell (talk) 17:28, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think what Levivich is getting at is that the source has no provenance. Is Bunker the owner of softsource.com? The site is mostly about CAD software, which is difficult to reconcile with what we know about Bunker's career. If Bunker is not the owner of the website, then where did the article come from? If Bunker is superfluous as a source, why was the source left in? It seems likely the other parts of the article, as written, cribbed from Bunker at various times. Was the prose checked during the GA process? Mackensen (talk) 17:56, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The article was a Good Article on September 1. There was no dispute then. The Bunker doubt came after that. Here is an idea that might resolve this -> Put a period after "rolling stock." Then use these words with the associated references to start the next paragraph George Henry Daniels, the railroad's chief public representative officer[2] proposed a new locomotive be designed capable of exceeding the 100-mph speed barrier.[3] Sound good?--Doug Coldwell (talk) 18:13, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]