[Talk-GB] Miniature railway or minimum gauge?

[Mark Goodge]

On 18/05/2019 16:35, Martin Wynne wrote:

> Wikipedia suggests that a "miniature railway" is one using rideable 
> *models* of real railways, which is not the case for the RVLR:
> 
>   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum-gauge_railway
> 
> Should I change the tag to railway=minimum_gauge, bearing in mind this 
> is not a common usage in the UK?

Other 15" railways in the UK (eg, the Evesham Vale Light Railway) are 
mostly tagged as railway=narrow_gauge. I think that's probably the best 
solution. Minimum gauge is really just a subset of narrow gauge (along 
with other common subsets, such as metre gauge and 3' gauge) rather than 
being a distinct category in itself. The Wikipedia page for Narrow Gauge 
lists it as a common subset:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrow-gauge_railway#Gauges

The OSM wiki is correct to distinguish between miniature railways (ie, 
ridable models) and small gauge "real" railways, as this reflects usage 
among railway engineers and enthusiasts in the non-mapping community. 
But I think the wiki page on miniature railways is wrong to suggest that 
minimum gauge railways are a separate category in themselves.

The wiki page for the Key:railway doesn't mention 'minimum_gauge' as a 
possible value, and I think that's the correct position. The distinction 
between different subsets of narrow gauge is best left to the 'gauge' key.

I think the wiki age for Tag:railway=miniature needs updating to remove 
the spurious distinct between minimum and narrow gauge, and make it 
consistent with the usage defined on the main page for Key:railway itself.

Mark