Talk:Kingston Line

GA review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Kingston Line/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Pi.1415926535 (talk · contribs) 00:52, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Chipmunkdavis (talk · contribs) 14:04, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Will start up on this now. Images all check out through various licenses. The Amtrak logo as a whole is on Commons as PD geometric shapes, couldn't find the other icons but they seem similarly plausible. The lead is short but I believe there are at least a couple of words hinting towards every subsection, might come back to this later. I can see some potential reviewing trouble in that the different lines appear to have a few different names. I can't find "Middleborough Main Line" in its source for example, but it might there under another name. Is the "Kingston/Plymouth Line" the Kingston line? On broadness, I note the article does not have sections on rolling stock and passenger numbers, is that because those are done at the MBTA level? CMD (talk) 14:04, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: Thanks for taking the review! Some notes for now:

• The other icons are in commons:Category:MBTA icons (save for commons:File:MBTA.svg); all are public domain.
• I've added a pair of sources that explicitly list the (infrastructure) line names, added a sentence to the lede about the change from "Plymouth/Kingston Line" to "Kingston Line", and made names consistent in the article. (Frustratingly, the MBTA itself was not consistent with names for the service. I've added a footnote detailing that.)
• The general equipment type is mentioned in the operations section; yes, the detailed equipment roster is at the system article.
• Ridership was mentioned in the infobox and the relevant time in the history section; I've also added it to the lede.

Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:25, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

Operations

• I am pretty sure the VHB/HNTB source supports the sentences it is attached to. I am unsure if the single page noted supports all of it, but that may be because it has an odd page number system.
  • The relevant text in the source is: The Middleborough Main Line currently serves the MBTA Middleborough Main Line between Middleborough and Boston, and the MBTA Kingston/Plymouth and Greenbush Lines between Braintree and Boston.
• "the Kingston Branch is mostly double-tracked", if I am interpreting "the short Kingston Branch" and the source in the map correctly, then isn't the Kingston Branch the tiny gray single-track spur?
  •  Done You're right. I've added another source with more detail.
• "Like the rest of the MBTA Commuter Rail system, the Kingston Line operates using push-pull trains with diesel locomotives. Maximum speeds are 79 miles per hour (127 km/h) south of Braintree and 59 miles per hour (95 km/h) to the north" The first half is not cited on that page, but I think is cited on another page. The speeds word should be tweaked to be a bit more vague as the source has it as a range rather than a specific number.
  •  Done Added better source for the first sentence; added ranges.
• [3]: 10 checks out.

History

• Is it possible to get page numbers for "By 1924, inbound service included..."? One of the few sources in the section I can spotcheck!
  • It's already listed in the citation, no? Unfortunately, the most comprehensive accounts of the New Haven era are offline sources, though I've tried to use online sources where possible.
• "The New Haven Railroad declared bankruptcy in 1935, setting off a 12-year-long reorganization process. The Old Colony lease was a major liability to the New Haven. It ended the lease in 1936 but was forced to continue operating the division" is mostly supported by Rood 1940, do the "major liability" and "12-year" parts come from Reidy 1996? Similarly, Rood 1940 supports "In May 1939, the company proposed to abandon all passenger service in the "Boston Group" and I can't check the second half.
  • Yes - re liability, Reidy says These studies revealed several companies were losing money, including the Old Colony. ... The Old Colony results showed an annual loss of $2 million. (The following pages include more detail about the financial issues with the Old Colony.) I've adjusted pagination for the second sentence - the abandonment proposal is on page 15, but the description of the Boston Group is on page 14. (...the Boston Group consisted of the Boston to Middleboro line and all South Shore lines east of the Middleboro line...)
• "In 1991, the state agreed to build a set of transit projects as part of the settlement of a lawsuit by the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) over auto emissions from the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (Big Dig). Among these projects was the "Old Colony Commuter Rail Line Extension", to be complete by the end of 1996" Some of this is in the source, but I think not on the cited page? I also can't find where a lawsuit is explicitly mentioned, although I did find the mention of the big dig.
  •  Done Added some newspaper citations. (Turns out the CLF lawsuit was merely threatened, not actually filed, to get the agreement.)
• Worth noting that this source includes some of the information I was unable to spotcheck cited to other sources, as well as some information not in the article. However, I can't find support for "It also moved the Abington station from North Abington to a site near the town center and removed a potential stop in downtown Kingston".
  •  Done Fixed pagination.
• "Weekend and some weekday trains began stopping at JFK/UMass on April 30, 2001" is supported by first source, although a page number would be nice. Is there a reason this 2001 sentence is outside of the Service since 1997 subsection?
  • It felt awkward putting it at the beginning of the next paragraph, which is all about the tie issues. I feel its more related to the restoration.
• A map of the Restoration plans would really help here. It is very dense, and being able to see what the "shared mainline" is, along with the Middleborough/Lakeville Line, Plymouth/Kingston Line, and perhaps other lines would provide clarity. Part of this is I think the very flexible definition of "Line", it seems to be used in the article both for distinct pieces of infrastructure, as well as for particular routes that carry over multiple "lines", so this might also be a good place to explain what the Kingston Line as created in 1997 is exactly.
  • I definitely agree that a map would be helpful, but that's a fair bit of work that I don't think I'll be able to get done during a GA review. The routing of the "Kingston Line" service is described in the operations section - is there anything you think is missing?
• Should it be clarified that 2007 was when failures were first observed or when they first happened? I suppose the question is whether eg. observations are regular enough to say that there weren't faults before 2007.
  •  Done
• A wye is not mentioned in the Dungca 2015 source, nor efficiency. The problem the source finds is that the scheduling itself is inefficient with a lot of idling time. I also don't see where the source supports the MBTA announcing scheduling changes.
  • The "straight track" in this passage is the nonexistent third leg of a wye: ...because the Plymouth and Kingston stations aren’t connected by one straight track: The Old Colony Line forks so that each station is at the end of a branch. The article does mention efficiency (Because it’s so inefficient...) and schedule changes (The Kingston train is an example of several “scheduling anomalies” that Keolis, the company that runs the commuter rail, hopes to address when it issues a new schedule sometime soon...)
• Paget-Seekins & Benesh 2020 checks out.

Stations

• The Miles source checks out.
• Is there an intuitive way to source Connections and notes, for example an MBTA bus map and a subway map or similar?
  • The MBTA does have a bus system map, but it only covers the area of the MBTA bus system and not the further-flung suburbs. I do have some ideas about how to modify {{MBTA other buses}} (which handles the listing of non-MBTA buses) to incorporate citations, but I don't think I'll have time to code that during the GA review.

CMD (talk) 09:31, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. Not looking for new code or entirely new maps, citing the system map for example covers most of the connections. Something like File:MBTA system line map.svg could be added with a caption explaining which parts were relevant. The Dungca 2015 source doesn't read like that to me, it is suggesting that Plymouth and Kingston aren't part of one single line along with Boston, not that their particular connection requires a reversal. "But now, instead of heading straight toward Boston, the train was heading south, back to Plymouth." would apply even with a wye, and it would still be a fork even with a wye. The cited cause of the scheduling was that it made "more financial sense to combine the two stations into one trip, instead of sending extra Boston-bound trains from each branch". CMD (talk) 15:58, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: Cited the system map. That SVG map is rather outdated; I'd need to substantially modify it or create a new (better) map from scratch. Again, desirable but outside the scope of a GA review. I've added a bit to the information cited to Dungca that hopefully better matches the source. I think I've addressed all other issues you've raised. Best, Pi.1415926535 (talk) 08:02, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Per your explanations on the status of the map and on the broadness, plus my other comments above, this passes on GACR 3 and 6. No concerns for GACR1, spot checks found no copyvio issues and issues found were matters of interpretation, so passing on GACR 2. No issues identified with 4 or 5. CMD (talk) 13:10, 2 November 2025 (UTC)