Proposing to deprecate railway=razed and railway=dismantled

[Ferrocarriles_de_México]

@Logan_Mc

If all that is left is ballast, can we really call it a railway?

Moot point. We have highway=traffic_signals, yet traffic signals are not a highway.

[Ferrocarriles_de_México]

@Logan_Mc

Maybe we could define railway = abandoned to exclude this most basic state, but encompass all other states of disuse. I appreciate your work in Mexico, by the way @Ferrocarriles_de_México

I just saw you added this part to your message. I do not like the “abandoned” part in railway=abandoned. It is misleading. To me “abandoned railway” gives the impression of a railway line with sleepers and rails present but overgrown vegetation, right-of-way encroachment or something like that. However the current meaning is already entrenched.

[Logan_Mc]

@Ferrocarriles_de_México

I do not like the “abandoned” part in railway=abandoned. It is misleading. To me “abandoned railway” gives the impression of a railway line with sleepers and rails present but overgrown vegetation, right-of-way encroachment or something like that. However the current meaning is already entrenched.

If railway=abandoned has such an expansive meaning. What conceptual space is left for railway = razed and railway = dismantled? Do you find these tags useful in any way?

[Mammi71]

@Logan_Mc

If all that is remains is the ballast, can we justify calling it a railway?

If only a few remains of the wall are left, can we justify calling it a building?
Some mappers only map the few walls. Others map it as building=ruins. Is one of the two wrong?

[Logan_Mc]

@Mammi71

If only a few remains of the wall are left, can we justify calling it a building?
Some mappers only map the few walls. Others map it as building=ruins. Is one of the two wrong?

Their is less tolerance of line features being treated the same way, right? They are much more conspicuous and railway = razed can be mapped as an extremely long line feature, possibly for many hundreds of kilometers.

[Minh_Nguyen (Minh Nguyễn)]

Perhaps this thread would be of interest – another case where the tag value is not to be taken literally:

Large scale change of traffic_sign to traffic_sign:id

For those following along, the wiki’s description of highway=stop came up in a discussion yesterday: The tag highway=stop is used to map points at which vehicles are required to stop. This includes stop signs, stop lines and (potentially) other points where a physical stop is required by law. In the infobox, it also said, “Used to mark stop signs.” @yopaseopor pointed to these passages as proof that the tag represents the sign itself. However, the rest of the page goes on to detail exactly …

[Ferrocarriles_de_México]

@Logan_Mc

What conceptual space is left for railway = razed and railway = dismantled? Do you find these tags useful in any way?

• I do not find railway=dismantled useful since (AFAIK) ORM does not support it and its semantics are not defined.
• I find railway=razed useful when I map a railway line that is mostly just disused (railway=disused) but with a short section entirely removed and overbuilt (railway=razed). I do not map lines that would be railway=razed in most of their length.

[Minh_Nguyen (Minh Nguyễn)]

@Ferrocarriles_de_México

I find railway=razed useful when I map a railway line that is mostly just disused (railway=disused) but with a short section entirely removed and overbuilt (railway=razed). I do not map lines that would be railway=razed in most of their length.

Out of curiosity, how long of a gap would it need to be before you would refrain from mapping a razed section? I wonder if folks are coming to this discussion from different perspectives because they’ve personally encountered gaps that are longer or shorter, or more or less prominent, than others have. I could see similar difficulty with other inferred features like footway=link (proposed and gaining in popularity).

[Ferrocarriles_de_México]

@Minh_Nguyen

Out of curiosity, how long of a gap would it need to be before you would refrain from mapping a razed section?

In my experience, when people build buildings (as opposed to streets) over a former railway line it is just a few houses, less than 50 m.

If you want a definite threshold, then my choice is at most 1 km can be railway=razed. Longer than that, I would not map it at all. Also as said above, if the part that is razed is longer than the part that is not, I would not map it either.

[Mammi71]

@Logan_Mc

They are much more conspicuous and railway = razed can be mapped as an extremely long line feature, possibly for many hundreds of kilometers.

And the alternative is then to map the railway embankment as a double line? A man_made=embankment on the right and a man_made=embankment on the left in the opposite direction?

[Logan_Mc]

@Minh_Nguyen

Out of curiosity, how long of a gap would it need to be before you would refrain from mapping a razed section?

I was envisioning gaps extending many kilometers.

@Mammi71

And the alternative is then to map the railway embankment as a double line? A man_made=embankment on the right and a man_made=embankment on the left in the opposite direction?

I might do that, or instead opt to use the attribute tag embankment:side = both, depending on how wide the ballast foundation is.

I’m not at all attached to my hypothetical solution, but I think it may conform better to the ‘on the ground’ rule provided the only thing remaining of a railway is artificially placed dirt?

@Ferrocarriles_de_México

If you want a definite threshold, then my choice is at most 1 km can be railway=razed. Longer than that, I would not map it at all. Also as said above, if the part that is razed is longer than the part that is not, I would not map it either.

I have no objection to railway = razed if we confine its usage to this small scope. This might be part of a possible solution? Anyone think the same?

[citrula]

@Logan_Mc

I have no objection to railway = razed if we confine its usage to this scope. This might be part of a possible solution? Anyone think the same?

This sort of thing serves only to confuse new mappers and cause more conflicts between editors with unclear benefits to anyone involved (other than preserving network connectivity of historical routes.) When I see rail ways which are completely built over I would remove that part.

[Ferrocarriles_de_México]

@citrula Did you read this part of the thread:

@Ferrocarriles_de_México

If you want a definite threshold, then my choice is at most 1 km can be railway=razed. Longer than that, I would not map it at all. Also as said above, if the part that is razed is longer than the part that is not, I would not map it either.

?

[citrula]

Yes, that is what I’m responding to. If the railway is completely built over by a building then it shouldn’t be on the map. This is the same standard we hold all other physical objects to.

[dieterdreist]

we are not calling it a “railway”, we are calling it a former railway, visible remains of a former railway. The analogy to your example would be: just the skeleton and not the body.

This aside, I think nobody would be questioning that a finger is part of a body. If police were looking for a body, would they reject a finger because it is too few?

[StC]

If I was to map the fingers found, I would create a way or node per finger and a relation to gather them all and say they apparently belong to the skeleton of a homo sapiens. And I would sketch the live human in another document.

[Mammi71]

@citrula

If the railway is completely built over by a building then it shouldn’t be on the map.

To be honest, I have never seen a railway line that has been completely overbuilt by a building It would either have to be a very short line or a very long building.

Joking aside: can we all please make an effort to be more precise about what we mean? There have indeed been cases where 20 km of railway line have been cancelled because of a single building.

[SomeoneElse (Andy Townsend)]

@StC

If I was to map the fingers found, I would create a way or node per finger and a relation to gather them all and say they apparently belong to the skeleton of a homo sapiens

That (albeit with teeth not fingers) is pretty much a standing joke in mammalian palaeobiology

[Logan_Mc]

@StC

If I was to map the fingers found, I would create a way or node per finger and a relation to gather them all and say they apparently belong to the skeleton of a homo sapiens. And I would sketch the live human in another document.

Representing a former railway with a relation using the extant pieces is definitely preferable to mapping a continuous line feature, say extrapolating 20km from a 2km remnant that was found in a ground survey.

@Mammi71

Joking aside: can we all please make an effort to be more precise about what we mean? There have indeed been cases where 20 km of railway line have been cancelled because of a single building

I would be fine with the standard used by @Ferrocarriles_de_México

Folks that accept the usage of railway = razed, could you please give examples of situations where you would and not use this tag for railways in various levels of decay? How ‘complete’ can the railway remains be to continue using this tag?

[StC]

@Logan_Mc

preferable to mapping a continuous line feature, say extrapolating 20km from a 2km remnant that was found in a ground survey.

… and the OSM community is not well equipped for validating such extrapolations, while the OHM community is.