* nathan proudfoot <n.pf...@gmail.com> [2013-11-10 13:30 -0800]:
> I am mostly coming to ask about historic railroads and how to map them.
> In my area we have lots of rail trails, these trails mostly have been
> mapped by
> bicycle=yes
> foot=yes
> highway=cycleway
> horse=yes
> name=John Wayne Pioneer Trail
> note=railway=abandoned indicates a rail-trail
> old_railway_operator=Milwaukee
> railway=abandoned
> Ect......
I'm not sure the note= is necessary, but that matches the tagging I have
seen and used for repurposed abandoned railroads. I've also either seen
or added (I forget which) railway=abandoned to roads that were built on
abandoned railroads. (Note that I don't feel that former trolley systems
should be tagged in this way; the current road isn't a remnant of the
former trolley system, as the road usually predates the trolley.)
> historic=ruins
> ruins=railroad
I'm not sure this would add anything not already implied by
railway=abandoned.
> but in this case the railroad is rail banked and could be brought out of
> abandoned status.
I think that railway=abandoned is appropriate for rail-banked rights of
way. For one thing, it's pretty unlikely that many--if any at all--of the
rail-banked corridors will be revived in the future. For another thing,
they meet the sense of "trains used to run here, but the rails have been
taken up and only the surrounding environment indicates that there were
trains here at one point".
> We have other routes in the state that are not rail banked and are historic
> and are not seen as abandoned.
I'm not sure what you mean by "not seen as abandoned". Here's the
decision tree I use:
* Are there rails left?
+ If there are not, is there any trace that a railroad once ran through
there? (Traces can be subtle, like the curve of a building or the
presence of what was once a platform.)
- If there is no trace left (e.g. the entire area has been regraded
and new development has taken place in ways that bear no resemblance
to the old right of way), I usually just won't map anything but if I
do, it'll be railway=dismantled.
- If there are some traces remaining, I tag it railway=abandoned.
+ If there are rails, are they still used by trains?
- If no trains use the rails anymore (e.g. the rails are disconnected
from the mainline or I know from other sources that they're never
used), I tag them railway=disused. I do this even for remaining
rails in long-abandoned rights of way; other people might use
railway=abandoned for those.
- If the rails are still in use, are they used for "normal" rail
traffic (transportation of goods or people from one point to
another) or are they only used for entertainment or education
(i.e. their main purpose is *not* transporting goods or people from
one point to another)?
* If their main use is entertainment or education, I tag them
railway=preserved.
* If their main use is what we think of as normal rail traffic, I
tag them railway=rail.
This ignores railway=subway, railway=light_rail, and railway=tram, which
have, I think, rather more obvious tagging delineations.
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