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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by David Fuchs via FACBot (talk) 7 July 2025 [1].

Sounder commuter rail

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Nominator(s): SounderBruce 01:50, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

After a decade of sitting on some notes, I have finally finished writing an article on one of my username's inspirations: a commuter train system that serves the Seattle area. It has two lines, runs somewhat infrequently, but boasts great views (especially on the N Line, which runs along Puget Sound). A GAN review was completed last month and I feel that there wasn't substantial changes needed to prepare for a run at FAC. The first line turns 25 in September and I hope to have a TFA ready for that day. SounderBruce 01:50, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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  • "Other services, including reverse commute and mid-day trips are offered" => "Other services, including reverse commute and mid-day trips, are offered"
    • Fixed.
  • "which is shared with Amtrak Cascades" - link Cascades, which seems to have an article
    • Added link.
  • That's all I got as far as the end of the Stations section. Back for more later.... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:07, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • "add passenger cars on gamedays in the future" - might be worth clarifying that the Kingdome was a venue for [whatever sports it was a venue for] (or at the very least clarify that it was a sports stadium) as without that info, "gamedays" is a bit meaningless in this context
    • Added list of sports.
  • That's taken me up to the end of "Demonstration project and votes" -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:53, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you for the review so far. I hope you'll be able to enjoy a ride on Sounder; the N Line to Everett is very scenic and, when combined with a ferry trip, a perfect way to spend a summer afternoon here. SounderBruce 17:16, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
More comments
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  • "A series of open houses [...] were held during the same month and was followed" - subject seems to change from plural to singular mid-sentence
    • Decided to split the sentence, as it isn't that related to the next event.
  • "In April 1999, Sound Transit, WSDOT, BNSF (formerly Burlington Northern), and Union Pacific announced a preliminary agreement to operate Sounder service" - think that should be either "In April 1999, Sound Transit, WSDOT, BNSF (formerly Burlington Northern), and Union Pacific announced a preliminary agreement to operate Sounder services" or "In April 1999, Sound Transit, WSDOT, BNSF (formerly Burlington Northern), and Union Pacific announced a preliminary agreement to operate the Sounder service"
    • Switched it to "Sounder's Seattle-Tacoma line" to make it clearer; "Sounder [train] service" would have worked, but it implies (at least in American English) that it is just one trip and not the whole line's operations.
  • "A provisional station near in North Sumner" - is there a word or words missing here?
    • Fixed.
  • That's all I got in the remainder of the article -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 16:04, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:50, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nick-D

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I'll post a review over the weekend.

I've read over the article, which is in excellent shape. I have only 2 comments:

Support  Comments  from Noleander

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  • I reviewed this about a month ago for GA. The article was in great shape then, and the nominator addressed several issues that I raised at that time.
  • A month ago, the article had some railfan lingo, but I believe that was all converted into layman's terms during the GA.
  • The article's prose & paragraphs are rather dense and detailed, but I don't think it rises to the point of encroaching on WP guidelines WP:SUMMARY or WP:DETAIL; and a dense, factual style is somewhat expected when describing an engineering infrastructure.
  • Map color contrast: There are two maps near the top of the article that do a poor job of communicating info to the reader due to a color-contrast issue: those maps draw the rail line as light blue, while the line is adjacent to a light blue bodies of water (Puget Sound, Lake Washington, etc). .. the lines are very hard to see because it is blue-on-blue. These two maps are in the sections Sounder_commuter_rail#N_Line and Sounder_commuter_rail#S_Line.
The content of the maps is not under the control of the nominator of this article ... the nominator is using the standard rail/subway map template template:Rapid transit OSM map. That template gets the color of the Sounder line from WikiData at: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q56525586 and that file contains the official light blue color of the Sounder line, which, coincidentally, is nearly the same color as the map's ocean & lakes.
This is not the first time in the world's history that rail line colors have conflicted with map background colors (e.g. a green rail line going thru a green forest). This color-contrast problem has been solved in real world maps in many ways (e.g. drawing thin black borders on the rail line). For example: Google maps draws this same Sounder rail line in its official light blue color, but has white border lines, so as the line crosses blue water it is still visible: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6669173,-122.4022998,18.17z/data=!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDUwNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
Does the template:Rapid transit OSM map template offer any solutions to this color-contrast issue? For example: does that template provide an alternate way to draw the line to enhance contrast with the background? I posted a query on that template's Talk page: Template_talk:Rapid_transit_OSM_map#Is_there_a_way_to_draw_borders_on_a_rail_line,_to_distinguish_it_from_background_color?
Has this map color-contrast issue been discussed before in the FA process? What was the outcome?
  • That's all I have for now. The article is a great article, and I hope my lengthy discussion about the map color issue is not out of place here in the FA review. Noleander (talk) 13:46, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Noleander: I have also made some inquires about improving the interactive map template; it seems to be using {{Maplink}}, which does have support for color changes, but the code is rather complex. For the time being, I have whipped up a new map in QGIS that should suffice as a placeholder. SounderBruce 07:02, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@SounderBruce: New map looks fantastic. The article is in great shape... I look forward to seeing it on the front page of Wikipedia in September! Support. Noleander (talk) 14:22, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@SounderBruce One final comment: There is a redundancy near the bottom of the article: the See Also section has a link to Commuter rail in North America, and also there is topic bar Template:USCommRail at the very bottom of the article, which has the identical link to Commuter rail in North America in the topic bar's colored header. Some editors say "See Also" sections should not exist in a great article (on the theory that any important link should be in the body text); on the other hand, the topic bars are not displayed to readers on many devices (e.g. phones). Not a showstopper for FA, just pointing it out. Noleander (talk) 14:42, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Moved the link up to the very first use of the term "commuter rail" in the body. Thanks again for your comments. SounderBruce 17:16, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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I'll conduct a source review this weekend. Hog Farm Talk 20:41, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Caldbick, John (January 7, 2015). "Milwaukee Road's S-Curve Trestle (Tacoma)". HistoryLink. Retrieved January 2, 2025." - what are Caldbick's credentials for this? Is he a subject-matter expert? What sort of editorial control does HistoryLink have, and are the editors recognized experts for Washington history? The about page of the website says "With a few noted exceptions, all articles on this site are original works prepared exclusively for HistoryLink.org by staff historians, contract writers, volunteers, and consulting experts." - so there seems to be a fairly wide range of qualifications by the writers. The same general question applies to the other HistoryLink articles
    • HistoryLink does seem to have editorial guidelines and fact checking, per this Times interest piece and their about page ("HistoryLink.org articles are fully sourced, bylined, and dated to provide authoritative references for legal, journalistic, and scholastic use") for their features and timeline entries. The people's histories are generally from relevant but not professionally qualified contributors.
    • Going through those who are used in this article and from the list of past contributors, I do think most have the proper credentials: Heather MacIntosh, master's degree in architectural history; Walt Crowley, co-founder of HistoryLink and author of several city and university books; Russell Holter, historian employed by the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation; Greg Lange, reference historian at the King County Archives. Caldbick is a former newspaper reporter, but not necessarily a subject expert; McClary and Cohen don't seem to have the credentials. These three HistoryLink sources have been replaced.
  • "The locomotives are 58.5 feet (17.8 m) long and 15 feet (4.6 m) tall, while the passenger cars are 85 feet (26 m) long and 15 feet 11 inches (4.85 m) tall" - I'm not convinced that this can be adequately supported by a 1999 press release. This press release obviously can't support the size of the 2012 locomotive additions, or support that the various new car cab purchased in the 20 years since didn't have a redesign
    • Added a late 2000s source, but could not find specifications that were newer than that.

Spot checks from this version

  • "The tracks cross over the Lake Washington Ship Canal on the Salmon Bay Bridge, a movable bascule bridge near the Ballard Locks, and pass through Golden Gardens Park" - The source used to support the use of the Salmon Bay Brigde is a source from 2018 discussing how the bridge is being considered for replacement. While this didn't happen, I think a more recent source that isn't discussing the bridge in the context of it being planned to be removed 7 years ago would be better
    • Replaced with a 2020 source on the non-replacement decision.
  • "Trains then pass under Interstate 405 near the former Longacres horse racing track and arrive at the first outbound station, Tukwila, which is shared with Amtrak Cascades" - source does not seem to mention Interstate 405 or the horse racing track, and I'm not seeing where it supports that Tukwila is the first outbound station?
    • Moved up the map source (which should support the station order and I-405) and added a better DJC source for the horse racing track and Amtrak service.
  • "The railroad to Tacoma was completed in December to meet a deadline imposed by the United States Congress and scheduled passenger and freight service began on January 5, 1874" - OK, although the copy of Armbruster on Internet Archive not having visible page numbers is a bit annoying
  • "The companies, which merged into the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1970, ceased all of their passenger service the following year amid financial losses" - Can I get the quotes from the sources supporting this?
    • From Barr (April 30, 1971): "The North Coast Limited, now operated by the Burlington Northern, formerly was a proud name train of the Northern Pacific Railway. [...] For nearly three quarters of a century, that road's Monad emblem, followed by Rocky the Great Northern Railway goat, were identities and symbols of the Pacific Northwest. They died when the lines merged."
    • Replaced the other source with one that focuses on Burlington Northern's finances (August 17, 1970): "Last March 2, the Great Northern, Northern Pacific and Spokane, Portland & Seattle railways joined the Burlington & Quincy Road to form a 24,000-mile system extending into 17 states and two Canadian provinces [...] But he [BN president Louis W. Menk] warns that his rail line and others must go out of the passenger business unless Congress subsidizes them. [...] "We are, out of pocket, losing $38 million a year on passenger operations.""
  • "Burlington Northern agreed to share technical information with Metro Transit for their studies and stated that they were interested in operating the trains, which they could accommodate with the construction of a parallel track" - Does Higgins, Mark (October 27, 1990). "Commuter rail line draws interest". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. p. B2. support the parallel track, and if so can you please provide the quote? The other source supporting this mentions that the service would occur on existing tracks
    • The quote is "The company has proposed using its tracks through the Green River Valley and may consider adding a new parallel line if there is sufficient demand for the commuter service, said DJ Mitchell, superintendent of suburban operations for Burlington Northern."
    • Added "should demand warrant it" to the article.
  • "The demonstration was delayed due to issues securing financing from the state settlement and was renamed to reflect its expanded scope, which included rush hour service to Seattle that began from Everett on January 28" - source mentions only funding difficulties without specifying if this was the state settlement or the federal grant funding
    • Removed the "state settlement" here; it is mentioned in the second part of the January 29 source but only in passing.
  • "The RTA's preliminary schedule for the projects in Sound Move was adopted early the following year with plans to begin construction on commuter rail stations in 1998." - could I please get the quotes from the sources supporting this?
    • From Feb. 14, 1997: "Commuter trains powered by diesel locomotives are expected to be rolling between Seattle and Tacoma by the end of 1999 [...] The Regional Transit Authority unveiled yesterday a 10-year schedule for its $3.9 billion bus-rail system"
    • Swapped out the second source for a better one (Mar. 31, 1998) that says the following: "Construction on the Tacoma-to-Seattle commuter line, called Sounder, will begin later this year."
  • "of which $200 million would be funded by Sound Transit—was part of the agreement, which was overseen by U.S. Senator Slade Gorton at the request of local officials during an impasse in negotiations" - could I please get the quotes from the sources supporting this?
    • From "Gorton breaks impasse...": "An impasse involving two major railroads and Sound Transit that threatened the inauguration of Seattle-Tacoma commuter trains this December has been broken with the intervention of Sen. Slade Gorton.", "[Rob] McKenna said he approached fellow Republican Gorton about a month ago when it became apparent the parties could not get together.", "Sound Transit will cover $200 million of the work with the railroads, ports and state sharing the rest."
    • From "$319 million deal...": "The $319 million agreement to improve 40 miles of track will smooth the way for commuter-rail service between Seattle and Tacoma, scheduled to begin by the end of the year.", "Sound Transit will provide $200 million of the funding. The Transportation Department will provide the bulk of the remaining budget, but its share has not been approved by the state Legislature. Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific railroad companies, which own the tracks, also will contribute financially."
  • "A flat rate of $1 is charged for senior citizens and passengers with disabilities enrolled in the Regional Reduced Fare Permit program, or low-income passengers enrolled in the ORCA Lift program" - OK
  • "The ST2 ballot measure, approved by voters in 2008, included funding for additional parking garages at four S Line stations that would open in the 2020s" - OK

So there's 10 spot-checks - one with issues, one with a more minor issue, one with a non-ideal source, three OK, and four pending quote from offline source. Hog Farm Talk 21:20, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for the late response. I have been on a road trip for the past week and will not have full access to my sources until I return. Will make corrections and such where I can with the online sources I can access. SounderBruce 04:12, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Hog Farm: Thank you for the review. I have added quotes from the offline sources and made changes based on your comments. SounderBruce 03:33, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Pass on the source review - formatting and reliability OK; there were a few minor sourcing issues which have been resolved but I trust the nominator will look through the article as appropriate. Hog Farm Talk 22:59, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

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Images are well chosen and all, as I can see, have sufficient alt text. Licence checks:

That's a pass, and I note that many of the images were taken by the nominator -- which is impressive dedication to duty indeed. UndercoverClassicist T·C 08:18, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RoySmith

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In Sengkang LRT line, I objected to the sourcing based on the high reliance on WP:PRIMARY and local sources. It would be disingenuous of me to not raise the same concern here. With the help of a little scripting, I looked at the publisher= or work= attributes of all the sources (305 out of the 318 in the article). Here's what I came up with: 

 90 publisher=Sound Transit
  6 publisher=Washington State Department of Transportation
  2 publisher=Washington State University Press
  2 publisher=Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority
  2 publisher=Amtrak
  1 publisher=Virginia Railway Express
  1 publisher=University of Washington
  1 publisher=Northwest Seaport Alliance
  1 publisher=Metrolink (California)|Metrolink
  1 publisher=King County Flood Control District
  1 publisher=KING-TV|KING 5 News
  1 publisher=KING 5 News
  1 publisher=City of Puyallup
  1 publisher=American Public Transportation Association

 55 work=The News Tribune
 52 work=The Seattle Times
 42 work=Seattle Post-Intelligencer
 24 work=The Everett Herald
  4 work=HistoryLink
  3 work=Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce
  2 work=Kent Reporter
  1 work=Tukwila Reporter
  1 work=Trains (magazine)|Trains
  1 work=The Washington Post
  1 work=The Olympian
  1 work=The New Tribune
  1 work=The Columbian
  1 work=St. Cloud Times
  1 work=Seattle Weekly
  1 work=Seattle Magazine
  1 work=Railway Age
  1 work=Puyallup Herald
  1 work=Los Angeles Times

It would be really nice if this could rely less on self-published reports from the system owner. On the news media side, the coverage is overwhelmingly local. What are the media outside of Washington State saying about the line? Here's a few possible sources:

I also found a bunch of news coverage from Oregon, but that's local-ish so I haven't listed them here. Some of these may be wire service reprints which actually originated in Seattle, but there's at least a couple which are other cities thinking of building their own light rail services and looking at Sounder to learn from their experience. My guess is with a bit more digging, you could write a whole top-level section on Comparisons to other systems.

I see you've got a 40 page chapter from a 2014 Environmental Impact Statement, but you missed the 826 page version from 1999:

  • "Everett-Seattle Communter Rail Project: environmental impact statement F:v.2". HathiTrust. June 21, 2024. Retrieved June 18, 2025..

Actually, that's just Volume Two, so presumably there's a Volume One with more information. More generally, search hathitrust.org for "sounder commuter rail" and you'll find a ton of documents that you seem to have missed (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ls?q1=%22sounder+commuter+rail%22&field1=ocr&a=srchls&ft=ft&lmt=ft).

I'm also seeing a lot of sources in WorldCat that you've missed. These look like they would be particularly useful:

I have to respectfully disagree with "high reliance" on the use of local sources from reliable and reputable news organizations and noncontroversial facts sourced to primary sources as being problematic. Commuter rail, much like the Singapore LRT example, is an inherently local issue that will have very little in-depth and truly high quality sources from outside of the home region or neighboring areas. As it stands, the Pacific Northwest is also largely ignored by the national media relative to our size and influence on the national economy, so the Seattle Times and Seattle P-I (when it was printed) have been treated as having the same weight as a national newspaper would. Conversely, I would not expect to find in-depth pieces about the Long Island Rail Road or MBTA Commuter Rail system in a copy of a newspaper outside of the Northeastern U.S. except in the event of a controversy or tragedy that receives national coverage.
While I will try to incorporate some of the Minnesota coverage, I do not think that the scope of this article should include comparisons to other systems, as Commuter rail in North America is a far more appropriate place for it. The Flint source is from 1938 and long precludes any plans for commuter rail, let alone the name Sounder, and quite a few results in the keyword search would turn up similar mismatches.
The 2014 Long-Range Plan EIS is merely used to cite the standard platform configuration for the system. I tend to avoid using project EISes as sources due to how significantly things can change between their publication and the actual construction and opening of transit projects. They would also exacerbate the potential issue of using Sound Transit sources in a Sound Transit article, which I have tried to avoid as much as possible for anything remotely controversial or potentially able to be influenced by their bias.
As for the reliance on Sound Transit sources, I took great care to make sure that they are being used to cite raw numbers, basic facts, or other information that would not be considered challengeable. A good chunk of the citations are to ridership statistics, audited budget figures, dates of service changes, or basic service information that would not be covered in a secondary source in the level of detail needed for this article.
Among the HathiTrust results, most are EISes or federal documents that pertain to budgets and congressional committee notes, which would be covered in better detail and with proper context by the Seattle Times or P-I. Indeed, some of these reports overlap with news coverage that was instead cited, as the preference for secondary sources is something I do not take lightly. Prior to completing my rewrite of the Sounder article, I did a thorough sweep through WorldCat and the Sound Transit Library for relevant literature, and could only find a handful of books with usable information, but some were far below the threshold of "high quality" that is required in the FACR. The "Back to the Future" book is a collection of essays and projects from University of Washington students, so none are particularly able to count as subject matter experts (full disclosure: I personally know one of the authors of another chapter in that book). The Dorin book is written from the perspective of a rail enthusiast and, from the copy I read a few months ago at the Seattle Public Library, the author does not have the appropriate credentials to be a subject matter expert. The final example listed is a promotional map, which I have requested a copy of from Sound Transit and hope to see soon; I do not expect it to have anything new or usable, but it is a nice find nonetheless.
Sorry for the long response, RoySmith, I just wanted to be thorough in my reply here. I have somewhat limited time to conduct research this week due to the ongoing 2025 FIFA Club World Cup. SounderBruce 17:01, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just as a drive-by comment because I noticed this as well, but @RoySmith, I also would respectfully disagree that the use of local sources is a problem. The FA criteria, specifically 1c, require only that an article be "well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature; claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate".
The FA criteria don't require that the article use citations from non-local publications if such citations don't exist, or if they are inferior to the coverage provided by local publications. Many topics only receive in-depth news coverage from a relatively small geographical area because that topic is only relevant to that particular area. For example, you would expect a building or a rail line in Seattle to be covered predominantly by Seattle-area newspapers, or even Washington state newspapers. I'm not saying that non-local coverage shouldn't be used, just that there's usually a reason why local publications are the best sources for a topic. – Epicgenius (talk) 02:07, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Epicgenius thank you for your comment. Perhaps I overstated my case a bit, but I do think that non-local coverage, while perhaps not strictly required, is useful and worthy of extra effort to uncover. I'm sure 10 minutes with google or newspapers.com could produce another 100 examples of routine local press coverage of service changes, but I'm much more interested in what people outside of the area think about the project. I'll thus politely push back on I do not think that the scope of this article should include comparisons to other systems. If the folks in Saint Cloud, Minnesota are using Sounder Rail as a model of comparison as they consider their own rail system, of course we should cover that.
Be that as it may, I'm more concerned about the WP:PRIMARY sources, especially those that are Sound Transit talking about themselves. By raw source count, Sound Transit is the single most common source by almost a 2:1 margin. And counting individual citations (i.e. 1a–1p, 8a–8m, 11a–11h) it's even more lopsided. That's a problem. RoySmith (talk) 12:09, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do believe nuance is required when evaluating the use of primary sources. I have done my best to avoid using Sound Transit sources to discuss aspects of the Sounder system that could be criticized by a secondary source or could be considered contestable. The following table shows how the Sound Transit sources are used and their distribution among the sections:
Use of ST sources by section
Section Number Use(s)
Lines 13 Basic overview (termini, length, ridership); track ownership; location of overpasses, bridges, and parks
Stations 5[a] Station standards (platform length, amenities, artwork); intersystem connections
History: Predecessors 0
History: Proposals and studies 0
History: Demonstration project 0
History: Planning 3 FTA record of decision background; chosen depot designs
History: North Line service 2 Provisional station locations; board meeting minutes
History: ST2 votes 7 Description of the voter-approved plan and details contained within that were not adequately covered in local news media
History: Added trips 4 New schedule announcement, equipment contract, emergency service announcement
History: Service reductions 3 COVID-era fare and schedule changes, in addition to the resolution of the train shortage that was not reported in updated news coverage
Service and operations 6 Special event schedules, normal schedules, maintenance information
Fares 10 Details of how fare is enforced and penalties/fines, which have not been kept current in news coverage
Ridership 18 Ridership figures; analysis was instead left to secondary sources
Rolling stock 8 Specifications, capacity, and general layout
Future expansion 7 Project timelines and basic project details; news coverage has not been kept current due to shifting timelines
Other proposals 0
Notes
  1. ^ Includes one consultant report

If there are specific instances that are problematic, I am happy to address them. Removing even half of the Sound Transit sources would require carving away enough content for the article to fall short of FACR 1(b), as it would neglect aspects of the topic. I should also note that the criteria does not preclude the use of primary sources.

As for the comparison between systems, there is not enough of a connection beyond the borrowing of a trainset. There is very little evidence that Sounder was a strong influence on other commuter rail systems, as such comparisons are frequently made between many transit systems during the planning and debate stage of the project lifecycle. Seattle itself looked to many other systems when designing its commuter rail and light rail systems, but none of these instances are notable enough to mention in the respective articles. SounderBruce 04:19, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@RoySmith: In case this response wasn't seen. SounderBruce 18:58, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@SounderBruce thanks for the ping. I did see your comment, but wasn't sure where I wanted to go with this so I didn't respond. I still feel that the article relies too much on self-published, local, and/or primary sources. I don't think I can get myself to the point of formal opposition, but I do think there is room for improvement. RoySmith (talk) 19:05, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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