[OSM-talk-be] About SNCB/NMBS and Infrabel

[gvdmoort at skynet.be]

Newby on OSM, I see that a lot of good work is completed about the
railway network, but it seems that the relevant tags are not always
consistent.

Should a way/relation relative to a railway line be described as a
«line» of the SNCB/NMBS (with the focus on the service, the operator,
the destinations, and so) or a physical infrastructure of Infrabel (with the focus on
the technical characteristics) ?

Now, there are «lines» focused on the first choice:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/271000
Relation: Bruxelles - Namur - Liège - Liers
Tags: name = Bruxelles - Namur - Liège - Liers
      network = IC
      operator = NMBS/SNCB
      ref = IC M

and others focused on the 2d:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/107939

(A little line between Gembloux and Jemeppes)
Tags: operator = infrabel
      ref = 144

No node as stop, even though there are some, like Mazy:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/369736818

not tagged as part of the line.

I've tried to download this URL:

http://osmxapi.hypercube.telascience.org/api/0.6/relation[network=IC|CR][bbox=2.54,49.49,6.41,51.55]

expecting to get all the lines and stops of Belgium, but that failed.

I think that an osm-client, an application, should be able to make a
request returning all the railway lines of Belgium, or all the
train-relations of the SNCB/NMBS, and that's not identical.

In the 1rst relation, there are unused railways, in the 2d, there are
some lines redundant with others (international lines, f.i.). A finest
request could return the IC, IR or L lines if the tags are accurate.

So what do you think ? In the case of the line 144, must a new relation
be introduced with references to the same ways, but with other tags ?

I'm not a specialist of railway-centric obsessions, and not the best
person to initiate this debate, but I think it's important if we hope
OSM gives coherent information, not only nice maps.

By the way, have some mappers had contact with Infrabel or SNCB/NMBS ?
Are they kindly or unwilling about the use of their data ?

Regards,

Gauthier