Starting an article with the words “According to Wikipedia” isn’t a good sign; even we know that. But according to Wikipedia, on this day in 2006 the website’s one millionth article was published.

Not just any article though, but one detailing the history of Jordanhill train station located in the west end of Glasgow. It is a station which has apparently remained in use since 1887.

Even in the ten years since the article was published the platform has seen many changes including a planned rebuild for the 2014 Commonwealth Games which were held in Glasgow.

To make a point of the anniversary we thought we would delve into the history of the station and see if the Wikipedia sources for the article are on the right track.

Apparently so; according to RailScot it opened as part of the Glasgow, Yoker and Clyde Railway before ten years later being linked to the Whiteinch Railway. The Whiteinch connection was later closed to passengers in 1951 and to freight trains in 1967.

Again, this is the case. The station would have been relocated to Westbrae Drive, half a mile away from the current station, according to a report from the time.

There were also proposals to keep the existing station and build a second one, with the train line serving as a transport link to a University of Strathclyde campus in the area; however this was brought to a halt.

The station was again subject to a possible rebuilt as part of the 2014 Commonwealth Games bid for Glasgow however the section on Wikipedia still has this as a potential development. One reference claims it was part of the mooted £160m Glasgow Airport rail link, which ultimately was not given the go ahead.

The figures on the page come from the Office of Rail and Road statistics and claim Jordanhill train station welcomed 296,000 passengers in 2013/14, the lowest since a decade before in 2004/05 (281,000). The peak in that time came in 2008/09 with 392,000 passengers.

Apparently the ticket machine was one of ten installed by SPT between 2003 and 2004 as part of their plan to save £2m a year which was lost on “fare dodging”. Despite a reference to an article in The Scotsman on December 2, 2003, there is no direct link or archived piece to explain this further.

There is, however a link to the National Rail website confirming there is indeed a ticket machine at the site, along with 11 car park spaces.

As we know the page was created on March 1, 2006 and began as a single sentenced article before becoming what it is today. Not content with the page on the railway station itself there is also a page featuring frequently asked questions about the millionth article.

Wikipedia say: “It has been edited over 250 times; the average number of edits per article is 25. It is of representative length, however; the average article length is 2800 characters, including whitespace.

“Because the Jordanhill railway station was the one millionth article, it received much more attention than had it been the 999,999th article. This additional attention created the environment that allowed the article which would have most likely remained a short stub for a long time to quickly become a well written and detailed article.”

There is also a question about if it really is the millionth title ever written in Wikipedia and worryingly after writing this it seems an answer is “no”. But that’s because of Wikipedia’s counting system and the fact it was the millionth article created, rather than millionth edit.

They explain: “Wikipedia articles are constantly being added, deleted, and merged. Many article titles have been created that are no longer associated with their own article. This was the first article to be created at a time when there were already 999,999 articles in the encyclopaedia.”

There were even celebrations held by “Wikipedians” on an Internet Relay Chat with a countdown clock used to wait and monitor what the millionth article would be.

In context: on November 1, 2015, the English version of Wikipedia hit the five million article mark (about Persoonia terminalis) and only in January 19 this year did the Japanese Wikipedia reach the one million milestone.