What is special about railways compared to other OSM features, with respect to still "mapping" features where all traces of them have sceased to exist?

[osmidal]

This thread is getting off-topic now, my original question seems to has been answered.

I am going to ask for closure of this topic, and if anyone wants to discuss the branching off topics, just start a new thread: Click on the timestamp besides the post you want to refer to, where you can start a new thread linked to this one.