Talk:London St Pancras International

Keep or redirect?

I don't necessarily oppose articles on huge train stations, by analogy with huge airport articles, but when the idea has been discussed before, it's been rejected. So what's our attitude about such an article just being started without prior consensus? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:32, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I would redirect it to London#By train for now and unredirect it if consensus to allow such articles to ever be created. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 06:17, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately I really want to see how the article develops before making my mind up. However this could mean that a lot of time is waisted completing eat and buy sections only for the article to be redirected. St Pancras is on the borderline of having the same justification for an article that an international airport has. Unlike most London stations it is quite likely that some passengers will transfer between trains without stepping outside. But the article has to be close to being a star to allow it to be the exception to the rule of no railway station articles. AlasdairW (talk) 09:46, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I'd support a rule that states that a railway station article must be a guide or star article within x amount of days or weeks before it will be deleted or something along the lines if we are to permit railway station articles. SHB2000 (t | c | m) 09:53, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I support huge railway station articles, similar to huge airport articles, as long as the station articles fulfill the similar for airport articles (with "airports" being read as "stations" and "flights" as "train routes"). I myself have stayed within Howrah railway station for several hours while switching trains there, which is the case for many Eastern Indian passengers living outside Kolkata (it is also the largest railway station in India by the number of platforms).

“ I'd support a rule that states that a railway station article must be a guide or star article within x amount of days or weeks before it will be deleted or something along the lines if we are to permit railway station articles.

@SHB2000

”

Unfortunately, I don't support this rule, as we usually don't rush to make an article a guide or star. I think railway station articles should be treated as "airport articles" as long as huge railway stations are super rare compared to huge airports (similar to how we treat town and village articles as "city articles", though rural areas are treated separately). So similar criteria for airport articles can be applied to railway station articles. For example (based on WV:WIAA),

• The station should serve as a hub with a large number of connecting train routes. Travellers are unlikely to spend a lot of time at stations that are merely origin or destination points.
• It must have several food and shopping options available; if the station does not have enough amenities to fill out "Buy" and "Eat and Drink" sections, it does not merit its own article.

Both London St Pancras International (UK) and Howrah railway station (India) seem to satisfy the above proposed criteria. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 12:54, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

The station article template will also be similar to the airport article template, with a few changes:

• Station codes instead of airport codes, though airport codes can be added if assigned to the station.
• "Services" instead of "Flights" to list rail services or train routes. Can also include metro/subway services.
• "Road transportation" instead of "Ground transportation", as railway is a type of land transport after all. It will cover road connectivity to the station.

Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 13:07, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Exactly this. I'd support articles for major train stations under a very similar rationale to that of major airports. As a traveller, these are useful when there are enough services to warrant a guide that separates the good ones from the bad ones, and that points out helpful amenities or features I might not find on my own. Once something like that becomes too unwieldy to fit in the local geographic article, it probably merits its own article.

All this said, I presume articles for train stations are going to be much rarer than those for airports, since airports have a greater tendency to be isolated mini-villages of their own. RickScott (talk) 22:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think I've mixed myself in the previous discussions on this topic before, but I've had an interest in creating dedicated articles for Schiphol, Amsterdam CS and Utrecht CS before as part of Rail travel in the Netherlands for quite a while. As someone who himself tries to avoid flying at all reasonable costs, I've really been missing these kinds of articles for major hub stations. A five-hour transfer onto a night train in Hamburg I made two years ago is an example that comes to mind. It would've been amazing then to have a quick overview of what I could have done within that timeframe, where I could've stored my luggage, what and where to avoid, et cetera.

Ultimately, I don't think these articles should be held to the same standards as airports, unless the airport guidelines get rewritten for intermodal hubs in general. This would be especially handy considering that many airports also are intermodal hubs (like Schiphol), but not all large intermodal hubs that'd benefit from their own articles are airports (like Amsterdam CS). What I think would be worthwhile is to start a couple of these articles, and figure out that way how we should go about handling these articles for stations that could without doubt benefit from this treatment - I'm all for keeping them.

I'd say, let's see where this article goes. It very clearly has potential. Get In paragraphs can't contain as much information as a dedicated article can, after all, and that additional information is very useful to some, including travellers like myself.
― Wauteurz (talk) 13:33, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

That's a good idea. Though I'm not saying that station articles should be held to the same standards as airport articles, I believe that railway stations that are hubs connecting multiple rail services (local, express, intercity, high-speed, metro/subway) can be standalone articles. Such articles should cover train services useful for travellers.

The busy intermodal hubs can be standalone articles too, especially if they connect three or more different modes of transport (plane, train, bus). Some airport articles (and indeed some city articles that are otherwise bedroom communities) that are parts of intermodal hubs can be rewritten to those standards. Such intermodal articles would have a single "Services" section with "Plane", "Train", "Bus", "Taxicab", "Car rental", etc. subsections, with "Ground transportation" being redundant.

I'm looking towards this new station article and see where it goes. It can be a role model for other potential station articles, including the one I use quite often to switch trains. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 14:10, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

If this kind of articles is useful for travellers, for travel purposes, they should be allowed, but we should avoid confusion between what should go into London#Get in, London#Get around, district articles and here. The local ticketing system should not be discussed here, and there needs to be some careful thinking about what to say about rail services here and in London#Get in and Rail travel in Great Britain#Inter-City lines. Also London/Camden#Get in has some redundancy with this. Do we need to have any Sleep here, given the district article? –LPfi (talk) 18:47, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the argument that articles about huge, complex train stations can be useful to travelers. I could easily imagine articles about New York's Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal being useful, too. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:01, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

On the point of how complex a station is, London St Pancras International is not only a medium-sized shopping centre, it has airport-style luggage searches and reasonably complex passport controls. This could be the qualification for whether a railway station warrants its own page.

See also Wikivoyage:What is an article?#Exceptions for airport article criteria, which St Pancras meets:

• It should serve as a hub with a large number of connecting flights. Travellers are unlikely to spend a lot of time at airports that are merely origin or destination points - St Pancras is a standalone shopping destination, very much like its own town centre for locals. It is also an interchange for passengers between the East Midlands, East of England, South East and mainland Europe, with no need to exit the terminal to complete the interchange.
• It must have several food and shopping options available; if the airport does not have enough amenities to fill out "Buy" and "Eat and Drink" sections, it does not merit its own article - As above, St Pancras is a standalone shopping destination.

EasternCounties (talk) 22:52, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I think quite a few main train stations are shopping destinations. Roma Termini is basically a shopping mall with a train station inside it, and there are lots of shops at stations like Berlin Hauptbahnhof and Muenchen Hauptbahnhof. I could easily see there being dozens of useful articles about European train stations if we allow them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:15, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Very much is – quite common to see in Japan too. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 07:32, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

It looks like there's an emerging consensus to allow huge, complex train stations to get their own articles. Should we create some kind of new Wikivoyage:Airport and railway station articles and put guidelines there? If not, how should we handle this? A separate new page for train stations that links to Wikivoyage:Airport Expedition? Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:17, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I think we should retain the term "airport articles" for articles on huge, complex airports, train stations, and other transport hubs. This is similar to using the term "city articles" for articles on individual cities, towns, and villages ("rural area articles" refers to articles on clusters of towns and/or villages where individuals can't have their own articles). Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 11:16, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I would prefer if we had a separate criteria for huge train stations and maybe create a separate expedition for that, tbf. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 11:52, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

That'd make it easier to handle aspects that usually differ, such as the Ground transportation"/"Road transportation" mentioned above. I suppose there also are more subtle or unobvious differences, for which one would want to tweak wordings. Finding wordings that fit both types may be difficult, leading to awkward language. –LPfi (talk) 12:29, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that may warrant to have a separate "station article", which I may support as long as we can create templates on the basis of this consensus. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 12:36, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek, SHB2000, LPfi: I have created separate status templates for huge stations (currently labelled as {{experimental}}s): {{Outlinestation}}, {{Usablestation}}, {{Informativestation}}, {{Guidestation}}, and {{Starstation}}. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 12:42, 16 December 2024 (UTC)