As someone who has added a few railway=dismantled ways to the map, I thought I might add in my reasoning.
Railways, by their nature, link places and are pretty much continuous. So in areas (like Glasgow) where there are sections of old railway infrastructure visible on the ground I have mapped these as r=disused or r=abandoned depending on whether the tracks are still in-situ. But I find it useful if these can be linked by sections of r=dismantled (or some other tag) that reflects that there was a railway there, even if all traces are now gone, as this can make sense of the remnants that are there. I appreciate there is a line between mapping what is on the ground and creating a database of historic routes, and perhaps dismantled railways crosses that line (if you'll excuse the pun). However, there are also instances of highway=no, where roads have been realigned or ripped up, should these also be removed from the database? Personally, I wouldn't map a long section where there once was a railway but it has now been completely obliterated by this complex housing estate and shopping centre, but I have mapped a place where an abandoned railway was obliterated by a carpark but the remains of it are visible on either side (and on 3ish year old bing imagery). This doesn't really address the OP regarding railway:historic=rail versus railway=dismantled, which I have no real views on, as neither appears on most map renderings. Although I have recently changed a couple of railway=station+disused=yes nodes to railway:historic=station, where there is no visible evidence left on the ground (and so they are no use for navigation), so maybe railway:historic=rail keeps things tidier. regards, Donald -- Donald Noble http://drnoble.co.uk - http://flickr.com/photos/drnoble _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
