Using the Knowledge Base

A few introductory notes on using the Railway Knowledge Base

Provided you are working on a desktop computer, it is a good idea to become familiar with the Network diagram(s) first. They are based on a grid, in columns of 3 cells, a narrow one either side of a wider one. The wider columns hold the Station names that apply to a particular railway Line,

The top of the screen represents north and the right side of the screen represents east, just like a standard map. Every railway-line has a name and the Line name is in a blue shaded double-width cell at the start of every Line. Using the term Start straightaway tells you that a railway-line has a direction and it is important to understand which direction a particular Line has. Sometimes a Railway-line is connected to another Line at its 'end' as well as its "start', and to make it clear that that is the end of the Line, the Line-name is shaded orange there.

The start of one Railway-line is connected to another at a Junction and these links are represented by horizontal lines from the Junction station on one Line to the start of the other Line. Every Junction has an arrow (or two) to indicate from what direction a train movement can access the Branch-line.

Every cell forming a Railway-line is shaded, with the colour representing the status of the Line. You will quickly notice that most Lines are shaded pink, indicating the Line is closed. There are a few shaded light blue, indicating that they are mothballed but do still physically exist. Those that are shaded green are still operated by KiwiRail, and those shaded grey are operated by heritage groups. Yellow shaded Lines were privately operated but either used NZR rolling-stock or had their own rolling-stock which was allowed to run on the connected NZR tracks. There is one exception to that rule and that Is the Dun Mountain Railway. This is shown as an unconnected track more due to its historical interest and the fact that there were quite a number of records in the Station Archive file relating to it.

The columns of Railway-line data are made up of Station names and small symbols like so ][, representing a section of track between stations. Each name or symbol has a hyperlink associated with it, so clicking on the name or symbol will open the specific wiki page associated with that cell. Using the back arrow for the browser window will take you back to the diagram but to the top left corner. To get back to the cell you started from use the Link text at the top of the page - Return to name on the Network Diagram. The cell you want to go back to will be at the top right of the screen.

The network diagrams are great for browsing a particular area you might be interested in, as it gives you a good feel for what is or was in the area.

You can of course just type a station name in the search box at the top right of the screen, this will present you with a list of all occurrences of that station name in the wiki. The list will have the main page for that station (or track section) at the top, making it easy to get to.

Immediately above the page title, there is a row of page names. These are links to the last 5 pages that you have accessed and make it easier to get back to an earlier page than using the browser back button.

Once you are on a station page, you will notice some standard items. At the right we plan to have an information box that summarises the main details about that Station. You need to remember that we are talking about the whole station yard here not just the station building, although there may well be/have been, a station-building in the yard, in which case it will be mentioned. At the top right of each page there is a diagram representing the station you are at, plus the Track-sections and Stations either side. Clicking on any of the names will allow you to move to the next or previous stations, or Track-sections. These links allow you to travel-the-track just like a train with the opportunity to learn a lot as you go. It is intended that each Station has an explanation of the origins of the Station Name, plus a small table of key data about the station, like opening and closing dates, height above Sea level, etc

There is a special band of information titled Categories at the bottom of the page. This lists the pages that the current page is linked to by way of the Page-name, and here too we have a few regulars. Every Station page is linked to a page called Stations, which is an alphabetical list of all Station names in the wiki. There are some 800 names in the South Island so we will have around 1600 for the whole country. Every Station page also has a link to a Railway-lines page, which is a list of all Railway-lines in the Wiki. There are over 120 Line names shown on the South Island diagram so there will be over 200 in the whole country. Many Railway-lines have had multiple names over the years and only some of the more important alternative names are shown on the Network Diagrams to help clarify what that name referred to. Each of these Line names will of course have their own wiki page, eventually with a detailed description of the Lines history.

Across the top of each Station page there are a number of tabs which allow rapid movement between the main-page and standard sub-pages. I will briefly look at each one separately.

• Discussion:- Because rail-fans like to agree and disagree, and the fact that there will always be differing opinions on a subject, here is a place to air your views about the topic the page refers to. It is important to stay 'on-topic' otherwise the wiki quickly becomes a clutter of comment that looses any form of structure. Remember, that material can and will be removed from pages if it is deemed inappropriate, or irrelevant to the main-page title.
• File Records:- This page is a copy of the data in the Station Archive file relating to the specific station. This file was created by Juliet Scobel for the Rail Heritage Trust of New Zealand and represents many hours of sifting through old files for relevant information. It is in a table format with one line per item of information. Unfortunately, due to the original data format, I have been unable to sort the data in date order. Some stations have very few or even no lines of data, whereas others can have several hundred.
• Info Submission:- This is where users can add their own information about the page. This should be either in story form, just as typed paragraphs, or just a series of statements similar to what is on the File Records tab.
• Published Refs:- I expect this will quickly become a much liked and used sub-page. I personally will use it as a memory bank for info I am unlikely to remember but likely to want to remember. I see it including a list of photo references in publications and info snippets you come across in books or magazines. It logically feels like this needs to be in a table format similar to the File Records tab and would be able to be filtered and sorted. We are still working on an input screen for this page and the best way to store the data
• Page Notes:- This page is where comment about the current page's content and layout should be made. Ideally it becomes a quick reference for Authorised Editors to know what users are wanting to see changed and could also include prepared text for inclusion

that is a reasonably detailed look at what is available on the Station pages, but there are also the Track-section pages that cover sometimes many kilometres of railway-line between Stations. As I have no magic wand to collect and enter data for these pages, it will of necessity be the slower part of the wiki to grow. My aim is to add some basic info about these sections as quickly as possible from information I do have available. For the South Island anyway this should include lists of bridges and tunnels and a gradient chart, and I am sure many users will be able to contribute facts about slips or derailments or special works they are aware of.

Track-section pages will also have links to move between them and the previous or next Stations, but unlike the Station pages, you will not have the option to move from one Track-section to the next, bypassing the station page.

Each Line also has its own page. an example of one I have done some work on is the Nelson Section, and the quickest way to get to it is via the Network Diagram. The blue cells represent Line names so Click on the Nelson Section one near the top right of the diagram or here for convenience. These pages tell the story of the Line's history, with a map showing where each station was, a table listing each station with its opening and closing dates, linear reference and height above sea-level. These last two items are in both imperial and metric values. Below the table are paragraphs dealing with each construction stage. Information for this is gathered from a range of sources and will all get properly referenced in due course. Once I become more familiar with how to embed maps into the wiki, the maps on these pages may well become interactive in that you will be able to zoom in to an area you want to see more detail for.

One area I have not covered yet is submitting files for uploading, namely photos. Again there needs to be some rules around what is uploaded which I have not worked through yet. Principally, if you upload an image, we need to know whose image it is. Ideally every image has a standard block of reference data submitted with it, which would include (where known) who took the photo, when where, and is the copy you hold an original or already a copy. It is only fair that the 'originator' of the image be acknowledged if at all possible and if you do not know who that might be, someone else may, so that would become information that gets added over time.

Lastly, having just looked at importing files, I also want to mention that the aim is to make it easy to export information from the wiki. Page data will be able to be exported with options for some different formats including .pdf.