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<blockquote type="cite" cite>Also good data can be retrieved from time
tables, division maps, and track diagrams.</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div>That is true, thank you Nathan Proudfoot. For the Union
Pacific, I was disappointed that their web site requires a (UP
employee?) login and password to gain access to their geographic rail
data. BNSF seems a bit better (providing "high level"
rail maps at a nationwide glance), and other railroads are probably
somewhere around "you get what you get," but please do take
Nathan's good advice and seek data directly from a rail entity as a
good first strategy for obtaining track/lead/line/subdivision names,
for example.</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>
<blockquote>I'd be happy to convert the shapefile to an .osm file for
importing. It could be broken into smaller chunks to use the tasking
manager. Maybe by county. Someone needs to create a import page on the
wiki and announce it on the import mailing list.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div>Thanks, Clifford. I want to make it clear that it is very
early "first blush" that we (OSM) examine these Oak Ridge
rail data as a POTENTIAL import into OSM. We are still in the
beginning evaluation phase of examining the data, and no decision has
been reached as to whether we will or will not formally import them.
I do cross-post to the import-us list as a preliminary "heads-up"
that at least some folks in OSM are considering this. But we are
a ways away from beginning a formal import process until we (I,
others, please share your feedback) examine the suitability of these
data and begin to formulate strategies about how they may best be
used/imported. Or if indeed they or a subset of them DO get
imported.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Conversion from zipped shapefile to .osm is fairly
straightforward: simply unzip, fiddle the geospatial coordinate
system to be "proper" (I'm still working on this), open in
JOSM with the Shapefile plug-in enabled, and there you go.
Saving to .osm is straightforward after that, but right about here in
the workflow is where it might make sense to break up data (say,
state-by-state).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>As for a tasking manager breaking up the data, yes, perhaps a
state-by-state approach is a good first whack at this. 49
(Alaska data are included, Hawaii, no) is a manageable number of
"sub-projects" but around 3000 at a county level, whew, not
so helpful. But before we do that, I think I'd like (us, me,
others...) to take a look at those 30 or so tags on each "line"
and see if we can begin to make sense of them and how they might turn
into useful OSM data. I believe that's an important sub-task to
start to do first. Some sort of a table lookup from the
abbreviations used in those tags to something that is more
human-readable is going to be required, I can determine that
already.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>BTW, the actual track data might actually be better expressed by
OSM's existing TIGER import of rail data. (And I think that is a
GOOD thing, as would remove the requirement for conflation of the
two). The Oak Ridge track data, while "there" seem a
bit sketchy in comparison to OSM's TIGER rail. Jury still out,
evaluation of Oak Ridge data continues.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>We could use that wiki to have these conversations, but Charlotte
(while she did volunteer to begin it) has a full plate now.
Perhaps someone else could plant the initial seed for a "USA Rail
WikiProject"? If you wish to do so, contact me or Charlotte
for a "Draft 3" that Charlotte, Alexander and I evolved in
the last few days.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>SteveA</div>
<div>California</div>
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