Er der nogen mening bag det, at S-toget omkring København er tagget som railway=light_rail? Alle S-togslinjerne er blevet bygget til normal jernbanestandard, og der har kørt godstog på alle strækninger i større eller mindre grad frem til cirka årtusindskiftet. Nogle linjer tillader den dag i dag 22,5 tons akseltryk, hvilket svarer til 90% af resten af jernbanerne i Danmark. Det ville teoretisk set være muligt at sende et godstog afsted på S-banen i morgen, såfremt man lige havde et lokomotiv, der var godkendt til signalsystemet.
Ændringen fra railway=rail til railway=light_rail skete for 16 år siden uden nogen kommentar eller baggrund for ændringen. Spor tilføjet efter den dato ser ud til at være oprettet som light_rail
S-togene har lavere akseltryk end normale tog, men de er bygget efter normale jernbaneprincipper - ikke letbaner.
Det, jeg vil spørge om er: Giver det mening at bibeholde S-tog som light_rail? Var der nogen forudgående diskussion, før det blev ændret for 16 år siden? Ville det være mere korrekt at ændre det til en “normal” jernbane (railway=rail)?
The practice of using railway=light_rail on standard railway tracks that support S-train services appears to be unique to Berlin, Hamburg and Copenhagen. Berlin and Copenhagen were the first to adopt this, and Hamburg came 6 years later. As far as I can see, the rest of the world uses railway=rail for S-trains and other fast, frequent urban train services on mainline trackage.
I don’t know how it ended up this way, but it might be worth asking the German community—they might have more context.
Edit: This seems to have been discussed a few times before. Apparently these S-train systems have electrification and signaling systems different from the national network.
In my opinion, this is not enough to distinguish them from railway=rail. In the US, we don’t have a national electrification or signaling standard, so this never factored into my thought process.
Thanks for providing some context. I just don’t see the logic of some German inspired* re-tagging of the Danish S-train network in 2008 to light rail because that is how the Germans did it (if that is what really happened). Even so, back in 2008 there were regular freight trains on the S-train network.
“Apparently these S-train systems have electrification and signaling systems different from the national network”
That does not make a “Light Rail”, and Copenhagen S-train has no features that makes it distinct from heavy rail.
The network is basically segregated, yes, but that shouldn’t affect this as per the wiki: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:railway%3Dlight_rail
There is this fun sentence: “No consensus has been reached yet if the urban mass transit systems [in Hamburg & Berlin][…] are light rails or heavy rails. The same question occurs in Copenhagen for the “S-tog”.”
I don’t see the problem here, the Copenhagen S-tog doesn’t fit the OSM wiki criteria for Light Rail, nor is it legally a light rail.
From what I can tell, it was @Johnny_Carlsen in Changeset: 694866 | OpenStreetMap, dated 2008-09-25, who first changed the railway=rail to railway=light_rail. From his profile, I take that he is Danish himself. Whether he was inspired by the tagging in Berlin is something that he might be able to answer.
In my personal (german) opinion, it could (and probably should) be railway=rail, though that’s something the Danish community (and in particular the community in København) has to decide.