Talk:Hejaz railway
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I'm curious why this article was merged to this name, which seems to be the least used transliteration of the name on Google -
- "Hijaz Railway" - 48 hits
- "Hedjaz Railway" - 248 hits
- "Hejaz Railway" - 1520 hits
I'd suggest "Hedjaz" (as the form most commonly used at the time of construction) or "Hejaz" (most common today) would be more appropriate if the aim is for people to find this article. -- Arwel 20:33, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I get:
- "hijaz railway" - 434
- "hedjaz railway" - 248
- "hejaz railway" - 1520 hits
Probably just a Google thing.
There was an article called Hijaz line, which I expanded. I live in Jeddah, which is in the Hijaz, and Hijaz is the common spelling in English consular documents etc. as well as the spelling used by the Saudis themselves when writing in English. When I renamed it to Hijaz railway I discovered there was already another article, so I merged the better parts. I have no problem if anybody wants to move it to Hejaz railway. Probably logical, since there is also a Hejaz article. The only comprehensive book on the railway uses the spelling Hedjaz, which is a bit old-fashioned. Quite off-topic, but I've got a Hijaz/Hejaz rail-pin on the desk in front of me right now. Anjouli 20:48, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- And I've moved it. You are right of course. Anjouli 20:56, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I'm not sure how but the page history of this article seems to have been lost. I wrote the innitial entry to this article some time ago G-Man 18:01, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Ok it had been merged from Hedjas Railway instead of being moved, so I moved that here to avoid losing the history G-Man 18:08, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- "Hedjas" is the old German spelling. Maybe some justification since the Germans helped build it. Anjouli 06:01, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- The article started out as the Hedjaz railway, then got merged into another article on the Hijaz railway, hence the comment above about the most common transliterations, then it was moved back to Hedjaz railway and now has been moved to Hejaz railway. I don't mind which we finally settle on as long as we don't have long chains of REDIRECTs since I believe double-redirects don't work. Arwel 18:54, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- And I have now edited all the other transliterations to redirect directly to Hejaz_railway. Arwel 19:01, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Hejaz is probably the best place, as we have a Hejaz article. I thought that was where I left it after the last edit, but it seems to have been all around the houses since then. Anjouli 05:53, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
After a closer inspection of the history, I see my rename to "Hejaz" seems to have vanished and somehow it got back to "Hedjaz". How did that happen? Anjouli 05:59, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- I think it should go back to Hijaz. Google shows that that's more common (over 46000 English-language hits as opposed to 42000 for Hejaz; it's also more accurate and here in Syria at least it seems to be more commonly used for the railway.
As to the metal sleepers used in some areas, the stealing of wooden ones wasn't necessarily the only reason. In many climates wood does not survive at all well, and thus other materials are often used -- iron or steel being the most practicable at the time of construction of most narrow gauge railways. This is the reason for them being used on the Eritrean Railway, for example. These days, concrete would of course be used. --Morven 08:34, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
"Although justified as a "religious railway" to aid the Hajj pilgrimage, its true purpose was probably to cement the Ottoman grip on the region and foster trade between Damascus and Medina."
So now we're ascribing motives to the Ottomans for building this and saying that they had negative intentions relative to the Arabs. How do you know what its "true purpose" was?
