from my understanding, 2 is abandoned and 3 is razed, not sure about removed and dismantled. There is also destroyed, which doesn’t tell how much there is left, but that it isn’t neither easily repairable, nor that it was deliberate. (e.g. could be abandoned a very long time and “vanished” (not mappable?) or some essential parts broke, e.g. a landslide, raising waterlevel or something like this (mappable in its dysfunctional current state).
The meaning depends on the question, if you just want to know if it is operational, all of these mean the same.
Yes. If I remember the history, railway=dismantled was widely used in the UK in the early years of OSM but not documented in the wiki, and railway=razed was used in Germany, and was documented.
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For railway tracks not in use, I only use the following:
railway=disusedwhen rails are present and not over-paved.railway=abandonedwhen rails are absent but the right of way is clearly identifiable (e.g.: former railway track turned into street or cycleway or embankment remains).railway=razedwhen the right of way is no longer identifiable, usually because it has been built over.
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If there’s nothing left of a railway, it shouldn’t be mapped. OSM is not a historical map.
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… unless it is still visible on (latest high-def) aerial maps that are being used, so there is a reasonable danger that razed:railway=* (or railway=razed, whatever) is going to be mapped over and over again if one removes it (e.g. after verifying on the ground it’s completely gone).
(of course, that primarily applies to changing currently existing railway=* from yes / disused / abandoned to razed).
OSM is not a historical map.
I’d too recommend OpenHistoricalMap for railway fans (and there are a lot!) that care to map railway lines which are long gone and no traces of them remain, including the detailed historical date (from when to when they were operational, when they were dismantled etc).
They’re still more then welcome to map existing (even disused/abandoned) railway infrastructure in OpenStreetMap, of course!
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I came across a case of this the other day: Way: Oosterspoorbaan (495230885) | OpenStreetMap. These railways still show up on all the imagery and were retagged to razed four months ago.
Since this follows the documentation of the Lifecycle prefix - OpenStreetMap Wiki, so I have no issue with the use of razed:railway=* here. railway=razed is also fine, I guess, but it’s more or less redundant since the lifecycle prefix is also present.
They’re still more then welcome to map existing (even disused/abandoned) railway infrastructure in OpenStreetMap, of course!
the actual question is mostly with railways where some traces can still be seen, albeit not along the whole track, i.e. embankments, cuttings, bridges, signals and signs, former stations, etc. and maybe not always by everybody.
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Stuff that is on the ground should get mapped with their respective tagging (and maybe a note=former railway if one can’t help it):
- Embankments:
man_made=embankment - Cuttings:
man_made=cutting(not in wiki, but should exist by mirroring the line above) - Signals and signs:
railway=signalon the node where the signal is - Former stations:
building=train_station
But none of that justifies keeping a nonexistent railway line in the map.
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Fixed that for you. 
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If the terrain has an abrupt drop where a river used to flow 50 years ago, but a man-made development has rerouted the river elsewhere, should we map the old river course as natural=water + water=river + river=abandoned?
What if it’s not a river, but a city square built following the layout of a building that has been demolished? Should we tag a phantom building=razed on the square?
If the answer to the above is no, then why should we do it specifically for railways?
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Is it not a sunny day where you guys are? It’s a lovely sunny day here.
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I don’t know, I’m looking down at the ground searching for an abandoned railway that the map says is definitely here!
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But none of that justifies keeping a nonexistent railway line in the map.
the thing on the ground is a decomposing railway line, the individual pieces can be mapped, but the fact that there are ruins of a specific railway line should be mappable as well, similar to how castle ruins are mapped, where we do not say “you can map individual stones, but there is nothing that justifies keeping a non-existent castle on the map” - there is. Or “these city walls are not city walls anymore, because they are not closed”
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Depends on what happened to the river, tbh. Turia Garden in Valencia is explicitely built on the old riverbed of the Turia River and the streets wouldn’t have had their today’s shape hadn’t there been a river in the past.
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If the terrain has an abrupt drop where a river used to flow 50 years ago, but a man-made development has rerouted the river elsewhere, should we map the old river course as
natural=water + water=river + river=abandoned?
maybe not with abandoned, which suggests that it was a human made feature, but definitely interesting to map where a river has flown for many thousands of years, as it has likely significantly impacted the landscape
What if it’s not a river, but a city square built following the layout of a building that has been demolished? Should we tag a phantom
building=razedon the square?
possibly yes, if the shape of the building is conserved
If the answer to the above is no, then why should we do it specifically for railways?
to me it is yes in both cases, but depending on the actual situation it is not a must, but I definitely wouldn’t remove it if someone had entered it.
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Why not?
if you want to map the foundation walls or the floor plan of the former castle - go ahead! After all, it was deliberately embedded in the pavement of the square.
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That’s basically the unstructured version of razed:railway=rail (or railway=razed since this unfortunately exists). I fail to see how keeping former railways, but unstructure them, improves the data in any way.
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Because there’s no building.
I agree! I just don’t know which tags are meaningful for “visible foundations”. Maybe archaeological_site=fortification? But yeah, not building=*
Sadly not, so I’m sitting indoors, deleting long-gone railways from OSM.
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Ok, then remove the note and then the map is now better: it contains a bit less obsolete data, more easily verifiable by others and more aligned with what’s on the ground.