Talk:Railway sabotage during World War II

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 20:10, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that railroad sabotage, known as battle for the railways, was "one of the most frequent partisan activities" of World War II? Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=3FaICwAAQBAJ&pg=PT88

• Reviewed: Frédéric Passy

Created by Piotrus (talk). Self-nominated at 02:57, 30 May 2020 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: I think a more general name for the article, such as "Railroad sabotage during World War II", might be better... but that is not part of the DYK criteria. Suggesting alternate hook below, preferring a paraphrase to avoid distracting quote marks. buidhe 09:40, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

• ALT1 ... that railroad sabotage was one of the most common forms of resistance against German occupation during World War II?
  • @Buidhe: I am fine with ALT1 but I think the term battle is more interesting, particularly for the DYK, so see ALT2. I am also fine with starting a RM on the talk. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:14, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• ALT2 ... that railroad sabotage, also known as "battle for the railways", was one of the most common forms of resistance against German occupation during World War II?
  • I know that "battle" sounds more dramatic, but longer hooks are inherently less hooky imo. buidhe 03:35, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
    • @Buidhe: Well, it seems like something of the promoting admin to make a call on. Are there any other issues? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:22, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
      • Although the hook probably should not be promoted until the RM is closed. buidhe 04:25, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• The move discussion has closed and I have updated this template to the new page name: Railway sabotage during World War II. I'm wondering if the whole title should be used in the bolded links for ALT1 and ALT2, since this is not a general article about railway sabotage. Yoninah (talk) 17:31, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Yoninah: I am not sure what you mean; both hooks mention WWII so bolding it seems redundant? Unless the hooks are slightly rewritten? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Piotrus: Here's what I mean:
• ALT1a: ... that railway sabotage during World War II was one of the most common forms of resistance against German occupation? Yoninah (talk) 21:24, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

• Ah, I thought that may be the case. I have no problem with this version of ALT1, but of course proper review tick is still needed. Ping User:Buidhe. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:58, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I personally checked the source for this. Thanks for your suggestion, Yoninah. buidhe 19:19, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 2 June 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved (non-admin closure) --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 02:23, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

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Battle for the railways → Railway sabotage during World War II – See below buidhe 01:58, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support as nominator: I am not sure what the common name is here, but searching "battle for the railways" on google is getting me as many unrelated results as not, eg [1] [2] [3] referring mostly to political conflicts involving railways. I am also concerned that the term "battle for the railways" may not be used for all countries that saw railroad sabotage during the war. I checked some of the English sources used in the article, eg. [4] [5] [6] which seem to mostly use "railway sabotage" or some variant thereof. For these reasons I think the generic term with natural disambiguation is probably best. buidhe 01:58, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  • You are probably right that this is a more clear name. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:45, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support more justified name. ~ Amkgp ✉ 07:40, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Soviet?

The article says, "Soviet partisans carried out a large number of attacks on German railway infrastructure". The infrastructure in question was surely in the Soviet Union, which has a different track gauge and rolling stock than German trains; the two are incompatible without major modifications. Does this sentence actually refer to Soviet track and rolling stock captured and used by the Germans? Did the Germans build a parallel rail system to German standards? --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 16:35, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Rather late now, but yes the German army relied heavily on rail transport in occupied territories. They captured some native rolling stock, especially in the first months of Barbarossa. German freight cars were fairly easy to convert with longer axles. Locomotives were also converted, some with wide steel tires that reached out a few centimeters to rest on Russian rails. The Germans also made at least a few locos specifically for Russian Empire gauge. Mostly, however, the break of gauge meant the loads were merely transferred to Russian Gauge freight cars which clearly ate up time and labor. None of this was necessary in the Soviet part of Poland that Germany was recovering, as hardly any of those rails had been converted back from Stephenson gauge to Russian. Most of western Poland's rails had originally been laid to Royal Prussian standard anyway. Dual-gauge tracks and parallel lines of different gauge were rare and short. So yes, mostly those Soviet partisans were wrecking things that were either Soviet made, or German made to Russian standard, until the front line advanced beyond earlier Soviet territory. By then, guerrilla methods were less effective and less used anyway. Besides, railways were less vital to Soviet troops, because they had a more high-tech military transport system than the Germans. Jim.henderson (talk) 22:49, 28 January 2024 (UTC)