If this is indeed widespread behaviour in Japan maybe you can try to contact some of the accounts and find out if there is a place like reddit or youtube that promotes this mapping and try to advertise for good mapping there. Find the source and spread from there.
I recently documented some examples of very obviously out of scope for OSM historical railway mapping on this wiki page: Demolished railways - What is not sufficient
This page is the best summary I’ve found explaining that former railways should only be mapped in OSM if the former rail bed is still fairly visible, but that all former railway mapping is welcome in OpenHistoricalMap.
In the 1800s there was a railway running along the bottom of a ravine through my town. In the latter half of the century the railway was re-routed and the ravine was filled in so the space could be used for buildings and streets. I found this railway mapped in OSM recently and I removed it. Although there is some disagreement over what exactly qualifies an old rail bed as being “still fairly visible”, I’d say this example and others like it fall squarely on the side of very much not visible due to landscape modifications and construction that has happened.
OHM’s coverage of Japan has long impressed me, compared to coverage of other countries like mine. Maybe visualizations and storytelling based on that coverage could help to make the project more of a destination for historical rail mapping in Japan. If there are any local groups and meetups, see if you can pair OSM with OHM when organizing activities or introducing the project to newcomers. Also try to spot mappers who think they’ve run out of things to map and task them with improving OHM. As the local community takes responsibility for both projects and breaks down the social walls between them, you might even find mappers who get stuck on the other side and need to be convinced to map in OSM too.
・“often” refers to the high proportion of past railway issues relative to the total number of situations requiring discussion functionality. In terms of the overall Japanese mapping community, those creating active features are overwhelmingly the majority.
・As in this reply, exploring how people first learned they could map abandoned lines seems like an important clue indeed.
Incidentally, among those who created abandoned railways with no visible traces, about one-third had been mapping for many years (specifically since around 2016), while the rest had created their accounts within the last two years.
Furthermore, most of these individuals don’t limit themselves to railways; they seem to map abandoned lines as part of their broader mapping activities, which include active structures like houses.
Regarding the focus on good methods for dissemination, the reply suggesting platforms like YouTube was excellent advice, so I selected that post.
Also, as a supplementary comment:
One way to raise awareness among current mappers would be to display a warning feature in the iD editor (like the one that appears for non-standard store brands) when tagging abandoned railways.
As a message draft: “Historical railways can only be created if platforms, tracks, bridges, etc., still exist. Do not add them if they have been replaced by houses or other structures and cannot be verified!”
Also, negative layer values are often “abused” to control visibility.
Therefore, a warning message about this may also be necessary:
“The layer tag indicates the order in which features intersect. Do not use negative layer values to hide features.”
2 Likes
Mammi71
(One feature, Six mappers and still More ways to map it)
8
can You show us some examples for mapped abandonad railways You mean?
In the most recent example, layer=-5 is specified, which is thought to be for the purpose of hiding.
The change set is shown because it has been reverted. After hearing the explanation, this mapper understood that only items showing traces of equipment should be mapped going forward.
We expect the same issue will not recur.
In the case of this route, there is a concern that editing errors may occur because it runs parallel to an existing road.
This mapper appears to have effectively retired after a short period of time.
Mammi71
(One feature, Six mappers and still More ways to map it)
10
Thanks for your examples
your first example: Absolutely correct. There are no remains to be seen. Razed is correct, and razed should only be mapped in OSM in a few exceptional cases, which does not apply here. OpenHistoricalMap is the better place to map this. Then it can also be removed from OSM.
is not razed, but could be considered abandoned (in the OSM sense) – the railway line is visible (without tracks, of course), there is a partial embankment, and there are even information signs about the history of this railway.
Third example: the mapped “abandoned” is also likely to be incorrect in the OSM sense. Nothing should be visible today of a former horse-drawn tramway, and such information does not belong in OSM but in OHM.
Thank you for checking each location.
I hadn’t noticed the traces of the Ujina Line or the existence of the guide signs, so your information was very helpful.
(By the way: Since a similar topic has come up in the Japan community, I’ll share a link to this thread here.)
