[Talk-GB] railway=rail + oneway?

[Mark Goodge]

On 15/01/2021 04:51, Dave F via Talk-GB wrote:
> In my upkeep of railway stations I've come across a few railway=rail 
> sections which are tagged as oneway=yes.
> 
> To check before I remove: Anyone know of a legitimate case where trains 
> can *only* travel in one direction? Most of the national network have 
> double direction signals to allow them to use the right hand track.
> Some of the examples I've found end midway along a linear track with no 
> junction & even a couple of buffered ends.

My personal opinion is that this tag doesn't belong on railway tracks. 
The reason we have it on roads is because it's the sort of thing that 
road users need to know from a map (and the sort of thing that routing 
software needs to know). But rail users don't need to know it, unless 
they are train drivers, in which case they will already know it as it's 
a key part of their route knowledge.

Also, railways don't have the equivalent of highway legislation that 
creates legal restrictions on their use (eg, "no entry" signs and one 
way streets). It's up to the railway networks how they want to use their 
tracks. Although most double-track main lines are one direction each 
side, not all are, and there's no easy way to tell the difference just 
by looking at them. And even those which are, can be used in the "wrong" 
direction when necessary.

The wiki appears to support this position. It specifically refers to 
tagging legal restrictions on the use of highways by vehicles (or, as a 
special case, similar restrictions imposed on publicly accessible 
navigable waterways). Railway tracks are not highways, and trains are 
not vehicles in the highway sense.

I would, therefore, simply be inclined to delete any such tags applied 
to railway tracks.

Mark