Talk:New York Central and Hudson River Railroad No. 999/GA1

GA Review

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

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

• 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)

• 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)

• 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)

• 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)

• "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)

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

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

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)

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

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