I see here (Sweden) lot of historical railways mapped, even if there are no visible traces left. OSM is not a historical database, but these old railway lines seems to be an exception. Why?
I’m not sure there is anything new to say that is not already covered in:
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That always a discussion. There are quite some people who are opposed to railway tracks that are below buildings or residential areas (me included) but the railway community was able to map a lot and is able to keep it currently.
Any discussion about it is often met with heavy discussion.
See also the german thread with currently 444 posts this year alone. Open Railway Map - Route in JOSM nicht editierbar/nicht angezeigt
But in fact it should not be in OSM, it should be in the OpenHistoricalMal.
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What’s the correct way of treating a mapped abandoned railway with not traces left?
Delete the whole railway line or delete only invisible parts?
Delete in OSM, add to OHM?
Often old railways lines also has an relation with all parts gathered. Deleting only invisible parts creates a broken relation. Ok? (Assuming not deleting all parts of the railway line).
Delete from OSM part with no visible traces.
Contacting mapper who added it may be valuable, maybe there are traces you missed. Especially if you have no experience in editing railway remnants.
If edit was adding things without survey (for example based on old maps) reverting without survey is likely ok. Reverting edits based on survey without survey is not really ok, often there are traces not visible on aerial.
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Deleting gone parts fixes relation. Osm is not place for mapping utterly and totally gone things. If such relation exists it should not include utterly gone parts.
People mapping them should use OHM map.
OpenRailwayMap not rendering historic data from OHM is not valid reason for incorrect mapping for renderer.
If railway line and train station and village where both were located were replaced by 30m deep pit of open pit mine then neither railway nor train station nor buildings of village are mappable.
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To elaborate, there isn’t an absolute requirement that a route relation must be contiguous from end to end. Most route relations are contiguous, but only because the route is contiguous in reality. In fact, plenty of route=road relations are legitimately discontiguous, such as Tennessee State Route 385. Or to pick a more relevant example: as the name suggests, the Dodd Road Discontiguous District is a historic road officially defined as three disconnected route segments that retain the original feel of the road before it was bypassed by a railroad and replaced by modern roads.
If a validator complains about the breaks in these relations, we should ignore those complaints, because the route is no longer contiguous in reality. Meanwhile, OpenHistoricalMap has the full, contiguous road, connecting the various streets still named Dodd with the portions that have been plowed under.
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