FibiwikiProject Railways
Welcome to the Fibiwiki Railways Project. The aim of this project is to improve the Fibiwiki content and coverage on Railways in British India. If you would like to join the project please add your name to the list of project members.
Many of the railway pages have been created already and are now waiting for information to be added about operations, traffic, stations, staff, apprentices, colonies, institutes, schools etc. For a list of pages aleady created go to the Railways index, 1845-1947 page.
Infobox Templates
Please use the following Railways Infobox template when creating Railway pages. Using these templates helps us to provide a consistent appearance to the articles within our project.
For examples of these Infoboxes and a commentary, please click here.
Template Guidelines
These guidelines apply to all infoboxes.
- Most of the fields in each infobox can be left blank if desired.
- If adding an image, do not infringe copyright. If in doubt, don't.
- Internal and external links (eg linking a station name to a location article) can be very effective.
Station Names
Where possible or appropriate, the names of stations and other railway establishments should be standardised either (preferrably) with one of the several Alphabetical lists of station names published at various dates by the Indian Railway Conference Association (IRCA) and to be found in the India Office Records at the British Library (V/25/720/49-59) or with those place names in the Imperial Gazetteer of India (available online at Digital South Asia Library). If necessary, a redirect can be made to an article from an alternative name (see Help:Editing).
Sections to include
This section is a work in progress - please discuss things to include/remove on the discussion page.
All railway articles should be adapted to the opeartion in question, but the ideal article might include the following elements:
- Railways Line infobox
- System Railways infobox (if appropriate)
- Introductory paragraph - (does not need a heading)
- History
- Traffic and transhipment
- Organisation
- Cemeteries and colonies
- Education - (schools and colleges)
- Personalities
- Records - (details of any research materials at the British Library or elsewhere)
- External links - (see below)
- Categories - (see below)
Include anything you think will be helpful to the researcher.
To see a developed railway article, click here for the East Indian Railway.
External links
Include any quality links you are aware of. Most articles will be able to link to relevant Wikipedia articles and to the appropriate pages of LoveToKnow 1911 (based on the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica). Where there are several links, consider organising them into sections (see Calcutta).
Categories
Categories should be placed an the end of an article. All railway articles should be listed in Category:Railways, but additional categorisation will be helpful. You can copy and paste the text below.
- [[Category:Railways]]
- [[Category:Guaranteed Railways]]
- [[Category:Private Railways]]
- [[Category:State Railways]]
- [[Category:Assisted Railways]]
- [[Category:Indian States Railways]]
- [[Category:Foreign Railways]]
Sources for content
Please add additional sources to this initial list of suggested places to find information to flesh out articles.
- Google Books - free pdf copies of many old books.
- Imperial Gazetteer of India - provides descriptions and facts for most railways circa 1908.
- LoveToKnow 1911 - a digitised edition of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. Poor coverage of Indian railways.
- Wikipedia - good for general facts. Many Indian railways are covered but information on the colonial period is usually scant.
Do also consider the following which is too often overlooked or forgotten.
- Your own research/knowledge - interesting information or sources you have discovered about a location through your research should be of help to those who come across the same place in their own research.