[Talk-GB] railway=halt

[Philip Barnes]

In GB halt has been used to indicate request stops. 

That is the how they are described by train staff, as opposed to Principal Stations where the train always stops.

You will find lots of halts on the Cambrian, Heart of Wales and three on the Shrewsbury Crew Railway.

Typical announcement which is ingrained on my memory is 'This train is for Crewe, we will be calling at the following principal stations, Wem, Whitchurch, Nantwich and Crewe. Yorton, Prees and Wrenbury are request stops and you must notify the conductor if you wish to alight.

The on train displays only list the principal stations.

Certainly request_stop is clearer.

Phil (trigpoint)
 

On Saturday, 1 February 2020, Dave F via Talk-GB wrote:
> Hi
> Over the past few months I've been sorting & adding detail to the UK's 
> National Rail railway stations so that OSM has the correct amount.
> 
> I'm unsure of the benefits of tagging some of them as 'halts'. I'm 
> proposing they should all be 'station'.
> 
> All 2567 NR Stations with 96 halts in blue: https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/Qik
> 
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:railway%3Dhalt
> Determining based on size, as the wiki suggests, is too subjective IMO.  
> How is 'size' determined? The number of platforms? Tracks? Passenger 
> usage (which fluctuates)? Note, OSM doesn't have an equivalent tag to 
> distinguish really big stations..
> 
> Another factor is if they're request stops. This is a much more 
> appropriate criteria. I've now added them with the more explicit tag 
> 'request_stop=yes'.
> 
> All 137 Request Stops in blue: https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/Qil
> 65 of these are already tagged a stations.
> 
> British Rail remove all references to halts (1974?)
> There are only two which have since been renamed to include halt. It 
> appears to be for purely cosmetic reasons. (The locals probably think 
> it'll increase property values).
> 
> I've contacted Thunderforest and OpenRailMap. Neither make a distinction 
> between halts & stations in their renders.
> Carto label them the same but display halts at a higher zoom level, 
> which personally, I find irritating.
> 
> Opinions/Suggestions?
> 
> Cheers
> DaveF
> 
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