Railway platforms

Hi all, I just updated a train station (Node: ‪Pontypool and New Inn‬ (‪67073125‬) | OpenStreetMap) going off the wiki. I’ve noticed I’ve done something which is not consistent with most of the UK but common in Europe and on the London underground. The most common way in the UK to map a island platform, that is a platform that has a track on both sides of it, is as two railway=platform areas, one for each side of the platform. however the wiki and the rest of Europe seems to use the railway=platform_edge system where the platform is mapped with a single multi polygon and two of the ways are railway=platform_edge that contains the individual platform refs and the platform contains the list of all the platform refs on its perimeter . Just wondering why this is, is this a new way of doing it that the UK haven’t caught up to (with the exception of the underground) or is it something else?

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Am not sure I would describe island platforms as most common in the UK but the mapping of the most important station on the Welsh railway network may help.

<https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/52.711680/-2.749200>

What could have happened is the age of the platforms and the fact that these were mapped before railway=platform_edge became widespread (it’s been only documented since 2016 and usage was only a few hundred instances before) and no one. Bonus points if the platform edges were mapped as ways first and later turned into areas, it’s only natural to draw two railway=platforms than one single railway=platform as a multipolygon until the tagging for platform edges became possible.

This certainly isn’t a unique UK issue since I’ve seen similar platforms here in Germany. This platform edge used to be part of a split railway=platform before I merged them into one single platform and there was another platform on a different line which was mapped like this before I merged them into one single platform.
(Incidentally, said railway has — or had, I don’t know if it’s been replaced now since the line’s closure — a proper split platform where one side is physically higher than the other i.e. to get from one side to the other, you have to get up a step but it was mapped as a single area the whole time.)

Also, there are quite a few Underground stops which use a similar two-platform style (e.g. the platforms on the Piccadilly Line east of Boston Manor).

sorry that’s my poor grammar. I meant the most common way to map a island platform in the UK. I’ve edited the original post to make this clearer.

I’ve seen plenty of these split platforms, I think they are just a historic remnant, and not due to any specific decision. It’d be good to update them to use platform_edge :+1:

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And another tag to catch up on, not once seen in the 4.5 years of mapping and checking up in Taginfo tag map seeing just a number of times used in northern italy, and the rest of the country only 3 stations. Yes, I’ve used ref=1;2 in the drawing direction to signify which side is 1 and other side 2. Many, most the island platforms seen are a single simple lines, few done as area, mapped a few as area but as simple polygons. Can imagine why this has not caught on here. Mapped in the early OSM days and hardly ever needing (re)mapping after a recontruction or new build. Soon central Italy will show platform_edge tags, in that would it be inappropriate to just draw lines along the long sides of area platform polygons and tag these as platform_edge+ref?

Apologies should this de_rail the conversation.

And so the discovery was that I’m going to refrain from commenting about the wiki…

Running TagInfo on the Northern 3rd of Italy where only a dozen or so stations employ the railway=platform_edge tag, I sampled 3 randomly and found 3 different executions to include one platform area having been converted to a 1 member multipolygon and the platform_edge being tagged on separate ways mapped on the long sides of all. This is actually the version I’m gone for, drawing simple ways along the long sides of island platform polygons, tag them with railway=platform_edge and the ref=* leaving the platform polygon tag of ref=n;n in place, simple, clean. A sample:

(My suspicion, the wiki thought was to convert the platform polygon to an MP, cut it up in 4 sides and tag the long side with the edge/ref tags, but I,ve come to despise multipolygons when there’s no need to do so.)

On a roll, but for a big station, done all along the coast over an 80km stretch adding the edge ways, one skipped, because the platforms were mapped as simple lines ISO areas. Flanged up a little custom JOSM preset called by typing ‘edge’ after F3 for presets, skipping the height tag as they’re either ground level at stations going inland or standard height, and then I forgot the layer tag as an option since a number of stations have the platforms 1 level above the crossing roads, so this is version 0.02

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