[Tagging] Miniature railways and park trains

[Stefan Tauner]

On Sun, 17 Jan 2021 15:31:17 -0500
Tim Magee <timothy at eastlincoln.net> wrote:

> Any comments or further suggestions?

This is a mess. :) Thanks for looking into it!

You are not the first to notice, e.g.,
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:attraction%3Dtrain

In the (very, very) old attraction proposal
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?oldid=127171
this was said about attraction=train: "", i.e., nothing.

> I propose the following language for attraction=train:
> 
> A small train that exists primarily as an attraction rather than for
> transportation. Within a park, such a train will frequently allow riders
> to view the park. This is not a roller coaster as it does not exist as a
> thrill ride. It can have tracks or it can be a "road train".
> 
> I also propose that we remove the language from "attraction:*" that
> suggests that we use "roller_coaster=track" for the track of an
> "attraction=train".

I am not sure if we should use attraction=train at all. I'd rather
deprecate it because of the mess that it apparently was and still is.

Instead I propose to use railway=miniature for those rides that are
actual railways that have (usually) multiple stations to get around a
park or used for sightseeing without being connected to a true railway
system (basically the current definition of railway=miniature). I do
not agree with your categorization of "attraction rather than […]
transportation" (to be fair you wrote "primarily" but I want to stress
this point). In many cases these can be both, attraction and
transportation, and for some the latter aspect might be more important.
I live near one where this applies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prater_Liliputbahn

For the tractors with trailers disguised as trains I would introduce a
new tag attraction=road_train. The term road train is mostly used for
very big freight trucks but the key makes it clearly distinguishable
and not a problem IMHO. These probably should be mapped as relations
since they use existing streets.

The two above usually have multiple stops and extent spatially quite a
bit in comparison to common attractions. However, there is a third
related ride that you did not mention yet. They are not roller coasters
in the sense that adults would get thrilled whatsoever but that target
younger kids. Something like:
https://youtu.be/Dq8Bfk97VnI?t=629
https://www.oskarshausen.de/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery/imported_from_media_libray/Fahrt-mit-dem-Minizug-Rummeltag-2019-Oskarshausen.jpg
I have not tried to determine if and how these got mapped so far but I
think we should document these 3 variants in the wiki with clear
distinguishable features.

This endeavor needs further research (into the current, actual
tagging), possibly even a proposal. I can't help with that till
February.

-- 
Kind regards/Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Stefan Tauner