After a long debate over abandoned railways in the general channel of the OSM World discord, there is new interest in reforming the tagging schema for abandoned/non-existent railways. The consensus is that railways that don’t exist should not be mapped on OSM, instead they should be put on OHM, because of the “map what’s on the ground” principle. For some reason, railways are the only group of objects that have non-existent parts still frequently added on the map.
This post is mainly to open up discussion about change to a broader amount of people, since the brief discussion about deprecating railway=razed on the discord already got a wide variety of opinions. This proposal is about deprecating the railway=razed and railway=dismantled tags. If there is still railway parts on the ground, I argue they should be replaced with railway=abandoned or railway=disused and if not they should be removed and ideally moved to OHM.
The wiki page for the railway=razed tag describes it as a tag “where all physical features and traces of the railway have been removed”. There’s not a wiki page for railway=dismantled, but the page for demolished railways says it is used “where mostly all evidence of the line has been removed”. It does not make sense to keep these tags if we want to map only what’s on the ground. Railways should not be the only exception to this principle and these two tags should not be in the database.
I didn’t follow that discussion. Can you explain why “short” lengths of disappeared track between =abandoned would not be acceptable? My only personal opinion for them is to not use railway= , instead moving to razed:railway= completely.
Somewhat equally =proposed / proposed:highway= is non-existent. It may never come to existence.
I don’t think that anything that no longer exists should be on OSM. If there’s not any railway there there’s just not any railway there. I also don’t think that proposed highways should be on the map for the same reason but that’s an entirely different discussion. If you want to show that the abandoned railways are a part of the same thing a relation (route probably) could work.
I forgot to type proposed:railway= , which I intended to mention railway=proposed together. A route==track or =railway would be even more broken and incomplete. =multilinestring doesn’t have much use.
What I thought about is a section of razed:railway= could be on the same curve (same curve radius, no horizontal transition curve) along an otherwise =disused or =abandoned= alignment. They can be very recognizable, and obviously related to each other.
Anecdotally, I have seen some “construction” lines (CAD meaning) used in drawing some complicated buildings (or some structure, forgot where), that are kept. The razed:railway= is in some sense less detached from reality than them.
A proposal could be more focused by removing completing disappeared track between two junctions. Or curves.
Side note: Recently someone added a railway=abandoned in my country. That’s mostly correct. But I believe some short lengths may actually be =razed . I haven’t investigated completely yet. It’s difficult.
I don’t think that anything that no longer exists should be on OSM.
agreed
If there’s not any railway there there’s just not any railway there.
I think this is too easy, there may still be traces of the former railway when the tracks have been dismantled. We have just been discussing this in the German talk community. There may be embankments, cuttings, tunnels and bridges for example, train stations and other railway buildings. A dismantled railway does not mean there is nothing left to see, and even razed railways can well have left traces (or they couldn’t be mapped).
I also don’t think that proposed highways should be on the map for the same reason but that’s an entirely different discussion.
a deprecated tag or deprecated feature is tagging that is recommended by OpenStreetMap community consensus for removal and replacement with other tagging.
Note the important part: “and replacement with other tagging”
So we should map those, but not the razed railway. There’s an embankment? We should map the embankment. There’s a tunnel? Map a tunnel. But why map something (railways) that doesn’t exist anymore? Where I live someone mapped a tramway that has been closed and razed in 1920s. This has no place in OSM. I understand that what is still visible should be map, but if something doesn’t exist anymore what’s the point of mapping it?
In the post i said that it should be replaced to railway=abandoned or railway=disused or just removed. It would in no way make mapping old railways impossible. It is about removing non-existent things from osm.
This has been hashed out about eight billion times on the mailing lists. I really cannot be bothered to regurgitate the details for the benefit of a bunch of Discord users who have as yet not looked up previous discussions by googling the topic with site:lists.openstreetmap.org[1]. Or who think that in 2024 they have magically come to a perfect consensus that somehow everyone in the past 20 years of the project has missed.
OpenStreetMap would be much better if people spent their time mapping things rather than spending it deprecating things.
For some reason, railways are the only group of objects that have non-existent parts still frequently added on the map.
That’s right, there are only 143,266 completely non-existent highway=proposed objects.
Every other thing in osm (like buildings, roads, businesses, etc) are all removed when they dont exist anymore. Railways should not be different. Ohm is a better tool for that.
If theres still a railway left, then railway=disused or abandoned. If theres a tunnel or embarkment or whatever left then tag that as that and not a railway. If theres truly nothing there then delete it.
Your attitude is disgusting. If you cant be bothered to “regurgitate” the details again then dont even bother posting. I shouldnt have to explain to you that osm is a community project that thrives off of discussion. Its not a zero sum game either, talking about deprecating a bad tag does not take away from anything else period. I also just because other bad non exisisting data is in the database doesnt mean other non existing things should be added either. Proposed highways are in no way relevant to railway discussions.
“When I said ‘railways are the only group of objects that have non-existent parts still frequently added on the map’, the fact there is another major group of objects that has non-existent parts still frequently added to the map is in no way relevant to my point”
If you cant be bothered to “regurgitate” the details again then dont even bother posting
No. If you can’t be bothered to respect the community by doing 30 seconds’ googling to see whether this has been discussed before, maybe you should reflect upon your own attitude.
OSM is about community. It is about the dedicated contributions of thousands of people over the last 20 years who have brought their individual enthusiasms to bear upon the best map of the world.
You are bulldozer-ing in with a deletionist attitude about “I have read this in the wiki, therefore I am going to” - and I quote - simply “delete it”. How does that build community? How does that make people who have been spending the last 20 years making the map better want to continue when they see their contributions summarily deleted?
With the best will in the world, you have been mapping in OSM for less than two years. I would not breeze into the Linux kernel mailing list after two years and tell people that they have been getting things wrong for 20 years and only I, Richard, know how their project should be organised - don’t worry, I’ve discussed it on Discord and everyone agrees with me.
There is a huge amount of nuance in railway tagging in OSM - just as there is a huge amount of nuance in path tagging, or waterway tagging, or seamark tagging, or highway tagging, or historic building tagging. Any of these nuances are not immediately obvious to casual mappers. That’s the point. OSM is better because it captures all this in-depth subject knowledge.
OSM is large. It contains multitudes. There is lots I don’t care about in OSM, but I don’t tell people that they should stop mapping it because I don’t understand it.
I misphrased when I said that “‘railways are the only group of objects that have non-existent parts still frequently added on the map”. I meant that they were the only ones that kept being added long after they were destroyed. I would also argue that only planned roads shouldn’t be added to OSM either, like I said earlier.
I know that razed railway discussions have been talked to death as an issue, but no one else has actually proposed deprecating them. Yes, this was discussed on the discord. People talked about deprecating railway=razed and I proposed making a forum post to propose deprecating it, which everyone seemed to agree with. As I said in the post, this was to bring it up so everyone else can chime in.
I am not a newbie coming in with a big stick and smashing everyone’s work saying to delete it all. I am not saying I am a super genius who knows best for the project. I also did not just read a few wiki pages and decided to bulldoze in to say and delete everything. I’m asking you to please not make stuff up about me. Just because I made my osm account two years ago does not mean I am completely forbidden from simply proposing to deprecate a tag. Literally all of this was discussed with others on the discord.
I also don’t want this post to meander into some sort of argument since thats just pointless. I’d like this to stay on topic.
