Talk:Lake Shore Limited (New York Central Railroad train)

A fact from Lake Shore Limited (New York Central Railroad train) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 16 December 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Lake Shore Limited, which began in 1897, was the New York Central Railroad's first regular luxury passenger train?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/December.

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Good start

Next, we need to tighten up the language. I'll mention just the last 2 sentences of first section, "History":

"The New York Central truncated the westbound Lake Shore Limited to Buffalo on July 15, 1956..."

I think I know what you mean, but because it fails to say it doesn't, it means just as easily: 1. The Lake Shore Limited westbound from New York City to Buffalo stopped running. 2. It continued to run westbound from Buffalo to Chicago. 3. It continued to run eastbound from Chicago to NYC. Doth not computeth.

"...and substituted the Aerotrain over the Chicago-Cleveland portion of the route."

1. This says the Aerotrain temporarily "substituted" for the LSL, and then the LSL was reinstated. Do you mean it replaced the LSL? 2. By not containing the pernicious words westbound or eastbound, the sentence is clear. Still, we are left in the dark because it doesn't address the topic of service east of Cleveland. The subjects of the two sentences aren't associated. 3. For that matter, why are we being told about service west of Buffalo, if the LSL was no longer running out there anyway? If the Aerotrain was not an immediate successor of the LSL in that segment, it is an interesting fact but secondary, and remove it from this paragraph.

So many individual facts are implied here which should be in separate sentences. Break down each change in status, for each geographic segment, into a separate sentence. Use no "and" or "but". Even a comma might be a bad idea.

"The eastbound Lake Shore Limited ended on October 28, 1956, as part of a system-wide reorganization."

1. The sentence contradicts the inset at top. The inset says the LSL stopped running in 1956, period; this says only that an eastbound LSL stopped. To paraphrase Darth Vader who, on TV back in the day, I saw dangling Wolfman Jack by the neck with one arm, asking him menacingly, "Who is an Alice Cooper?", I ask, menacingly: What is an eastbound LSL? 3. The tacked-on reorganization subordinate clause is pernicious. The picture is complex enough as it is. Segregate talk about the company itself into a separate sentence.

Altho' as a toddler I once rode on the 20th Century Limited over that same route, unfor. I don't have the knowledge to do the job. Good luck.

Jimlue (talk) 18:36, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]