I’d like for us Canadians to clarify our railway tagging conventions, and make sure everyone is on the same page.
Some users, include the primary operator/owner’s name in the name tag because it’s present on signs near the railway, and that the public knows the railway lines as the operator, and that the generic ORM tagging specifies that the name tag specifies the name of the “line”.
That specifically violates Name is the name only, is against the North American tagging guidelines, and is considered tagging for the renderer.
Here is the current guidelines:
While you might see the operator name listed on signs, that is not part of the name.
As for the operator=* tag, it should contain a semi-colon delimited list of all operators, starting with the primary operator/owner.1
For example,
CN’s Kingston Subdivision should be tagged along these lines
name=Kingston Subdivision
operator=Canadian National Railway;VIA Rail;[other operators]
owner=Canadian National Railway
In French,
one could tag it like so
name=Subdivision Kingston
operator=Canadien National;VIA Rail;[other operators]
owner=Canadien National
In cases where there are 2 routes with the same name, and only in that case, one could prefix the name with the primary operator/owner’s short name.
Is there anything wrong with these? and should these be formalized properly
Please also help in making the Canadian Railways wiki by sharing your knowledge: Canada/Railways - OpenStreetMap Wiki
Feel free to also check out the vector maps fork of ORM which shows promise for North American rail: GitHub - hiddewie/OpenRailwayMap-vector: OpenRailwayMap vector tiles