Milestone-Proposal talk:Grand Central Terminal Electrification

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suggested modifications to citation -- Administrator4 (talk) 12:34, 10 August 2015 (CDT) -- Administrator4 (talk) 12:34, 10 August 2015 (CDT)

I would suggest deleting the phrase about "worlds largest and busiest" because other terminals have taken that place. I think the citation is very strong emphasising just the technical aspects. My suggestion is:

The Electrification of Grand Central Terminal, 1906-1913

Grand Central Terminal, in continuous use since 1913, was the first major urban railroad terminal electrification. The design of the terminal brought with it several notable achievements in the field of electric traction that included innovative designs of electric locomotives, multiple unit (MU) control of electric rolling stock and the pioneering use of underrunning third rail.

Suggested modifications -- Pisrael (talk) 14:38, 15 September 2015 (CDT)

I apologize for taking so long to review the materials and the text as altered. I have two concerns about the present wording.

The first is more substantial and has to do with whether Grand Central is, in fact, one of the world's major railroad terminals. I'm not sure what the criteria for that would be. The Wikipedia entry suggests that Grand Central is not among the busiest in the world and in the United States, which has no stations in the top 100 of the busiest (at least as found in an online list), New York Penn Station beats it. It does apparently have more platform capacity. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_station, the section on Largest, busiest and highest stations). So the question is do we need the statement about the terminal's status as a great station or is there some other way of indicating its significance?

I would also suggest a minor change to the wording of the sentence that begins "The design of the Terminal brought with it several notable achievements in the field of electric traction.." I would suggest a more straightforward statement: "The design of the Terminal included several notable achievements..."

Paul Israel

Milestone Committee Member (TAB) comments -- Tbickart (talk) 21:28, 29 September 2015 (CDT)

I want to believe that Grand Central Station has more electrical engineering/technology firsts than the write-up conveyed to me. The references were in large measure about civil engineering achievements. I would hope/trust that there are more electrical engineering/technology achievements that we can identify. What about dispatch control system(s)? What about electrical power management? What were the achievements with respect to electrical traction. I presume this to mean electrical locomotives with innovative features to enhance load management--such as the number of fully loaded cars that can be moved. This write-up does not give me reason to visit Grand Central Station. By the way I've been there many times, but this write-up does not catch my attention to go back and look for things I have missed over those many years.