Wikidata:Property proposal/RailScot company ID

RailScot line or company ID edit

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Transportation

Done: RailScot line or company ID (P10989) (Talk and documentation)

Description	identifier for a historical railway company on the RailScot website
Data type	External identifier
Domain	railway company (Q249556) / railway line (Q728937)
Allowed values	`([A-Z]\|\.\.)/.*`
Example 1	West Highland Railway (Q7985371) → W/West_Highland_Railway (preferred)
Example 2	West Highland Railway (Q7985371) → ../West_Highland_Railway
Example 3	Strathspey Railway (Q7622173) → S/Strathspey_Railway (preferred)
Example 4	Strathspey Railway (Q7622173) → ../Strathspey_Railway
Source	https://www.railscot.co.uk/_maps/index.htm ; https://www.railscot.co.uk/railways.php
Planned use	Two sources of possible matches are likely to be en:Category:Railway companies of the United Kingdom and c:Category:Defunct rail transport companies of the United Kingdom, as well as https://w.wiki/5Suw, which are probably worth working though in detail. Then worth loading into OpenRefine and Mix'n'match to see if they can find further candidate matches.
Formatter URL	https://www.railscot.co.uk/companies/$1
See also	WD:Property proposal/RailScot location ID
Applicable "stated in"-value	RailScot (Q113083146)
Single-value constraint	single best value
Distinct-values constraint	yes
Wikidata project	Wikidata:WikiProject UK and Ireland, Wikidata:WikiProject Railways

Motivation edit

(see also proposal WD:Property proposal/RailScot location ID)

RailScot (Q113083146) is a long-standing website with over 78,000 images related to rail transport, and extensive information about rail-related locations and historical companies, with a pricipal focus on Scotland but also a fair amount of content relating to elsewhere in the British Isles, and further afield.

Information about locations and how they evolved is primarily organised via the historical companies that first created the sites or later re-built them, giving RailScot strong coverage in this area (particularly within Scotland, but also further afield). These would be valuable external IDs to add to our items in this area (and to give as links from Commons infoboxes).

Note that the RailScot page [1] links to the site's 'first-generation' pages for companies. In many (but not all cases) the site also has another, newer, more complete page for the same entity, as eg typically linked from the map at [2]. To avoid confusion, it is proposed to add both pages (since both types are still live on the site), but with the more modern page being preferred, but the older pages still being accessible (with their distinctive style of system maps). This is why there are two IDs given for each of the examples above.

For interpretation note that in the modern system diagrams, green = disused, black or red = active. Jheald (talk) 11:53, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion edit

Proposed. Jheald (talk) 16:02, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support Infrastruktur (talk) 12:12, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Notified participants of WikiProject Railways Jheald (talk) 09:32, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support --Jcornelius (talk) 14:50, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:58, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Despite being labeled as companies, the linked articles describe railway lines rather than companies. Couldn't the property's name be modified somehow to make it less confusing (maybe RailScot line/company ID)? --Jklamo (talk) 15:26, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jklamo: Actually, they were companies (as our P31s indicate) -- that mostly then got taken over, or were set up as special-purpose vehicles to build and/or operate a particular part of line. But because lines were used in different ways, as parts of different routes and different services as time went on, it is specifically the original companies set up to build them that RailScot takes as its top level of organisation to discuss particular parts of the track. (It even has a few pages in a different 'routes/' hierarchy, eg [3], to consider some modern service patterns). But yes, happy to change the name to 'company/line ID' if you prefer. And then we could include Argyle Line (Q4789827) as ../routes/A/Argyle_Line. Jheald (talk) 18:47, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. Also I suppose that with entries like D/Dalmarnock_Branch_Extension_Caledonian_Railway I have to admit that you are right. Jheald (talk) 18:52, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:10, 18 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jheald, Infrastruktur, Jcornelius, Pigsonthewing, Jklamo, Tagishsimon: Done Now RailScot line or company ID (P10989)