Talk:Trinity Chain Pier

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Wishlist

I'd really like to get:

Better book sources for the article Partly done
What was the building used for between 1898 and 1945?
How much of the original fabric of the ticket office survives in the pub? I assume it's more than zero.
Was any cargo hauled from it? It doesn't look suitable and all the sources talk about passenger traffic. Done

Anything else as well. Seems astonishing there are not more quality sources about this iconic landmark of historic Edinburgh. --John (talk) 21:39, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you haven't already, you need to check out an Ian Allan shop, which always give one the faint feeling of needing vaccination against nerd cooties after visiting them (Allan was the inventor of trainspotting, and his shops reflect this), but precisely because they're catering for obsessives, they tend to stock all kinds of books on trains, planes and boats that even the best specialist department at a Waterstones etc can't match. Robert Humm is also very good for "out-of-print-for-a-hundred-years" books. (The cost of these things isn't as much of an issue as it seems; because of their rarity, you can generally sell them on with no trouble.) It might be worth writing to the Riverside Museum in Glasgow (or seeing if Lirazelf has any contacts there)—given the amount of public money they've hoovered up to document Scottish transport history, they might have something on this, although IIRC their bookshop could politely be described as "shortbread-and-tea-towels McTat". ‑ iridescent 21:53, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot for those suggestions. I have quite a few Ian Allan books already, so I think the nerd virus is already well established in my corpus. I will have a look but money is always tight around here and I may end up waiting for a free solution, if one is possible. --John (talk) 22:10, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dropping key phrases into Amazon is always a good bet as well—because they're trying to sell you things, their algorithm is considerably better than Google's at pointing out things in which you might be interested. (If there's such a thing as the Edinburgh Newspaper Library—I assume it would be part of the National Library of Scotland—that would probably be a good place to go looking, as there was presumably a lot of coverage both of it being built and it collapsing. I don't know if ACrockford still works at the NLS, but even if she doesn't she could presumably at least tell you who you need to ask.) ‑ iridescent 22:23, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the Amazon trick, I had forgotten that. --John (talk) 06:40, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This painting is out of copyright, and stealable under Bridgeman/Corel. You may want to approach this person and ask if they're willing to release that video into the public domain. (Emphasise that an appearance on the Wikipedia Main Page will probably generate more views for the video in a single hour than it's received in its entire history.) This photo is almost certainly in the public domain as well, although it looks like Edinburgh Libraries are claiming copyright over it, so you have to decide whether antagonising them is worth the hassle. Per my comment at Lirazelf's talkpage, your main priority should be persuading Edinburgh Museums and Galleries to release a high-quality upload of Pier of Suspension, erected at Trinity. ‑ iridescent 09:35, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

…which in turn, has led to the realisation that when it was built, it was called either "Pier of Suspension" or "Trinity Suspension Pier", and dropping "Pier of Suspension, Trinity" into Google brings up a huge stack of references to it in contemporary books and newspapers. ‑ iridescent 09:43, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very great help. Thank you. --John (talk) 18:20, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a great deal happier about the sourcing now, and the passenger/cargo question has been answered. I'd still appreciate more info about the missing history of the surviving office, and about the percentage of it which survives in the modern pub. Where would I look? --John (talk) 21:25, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Per my comment on Eric's talkpage, local papers from the time the pub opened would be a good bet. Rifling through Google Books for anything with a title like "History of Leith Docks" and a publication date in the 1930s would also be a good bet, since they'll probably say something along the lines of "the former booking office, now a storeroom" or whatever. (Was there anything significant nearby? If so, run a search for photographs of that, and see if you can make out a sign on the office building.) ‑ iridescent 22:53, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just saw this! I'm afraid I'm no longer at the NLS since May, and am starting a new job 1st September that is, sadly not a Wikimedia job. Would be happy to make NLS recommendations, though. I'm not sure that there's specifically an Edinburgh Newspaper Library online resource, but certainly the NLS would have backissues of newspapers that could be accessed. One of the best ways to go about it would be to see if you can find the relevant information in the catalogue, and then contacting Reference Services about obtaining access. ACrockford (talk) 22:35, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]