[OSM-talk-ie] Railways

[Michael Reichert]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hi Colm,

Am 03.02.2016 um 17:14 schrieb Colm Moore:
> One of the peculiarities of OSM is that it uses tracks=number to 
> list the number of railway tracks in a railway line, but only
> where the railway line is mapped and the individual tracks aren't
> mapped. This work is essentially complete for Ireland (there may be
> a few small places where the aerial photography is insufficient or
> have otherwise been missed). It used to be supported on ITO World: 
> http://product.itoworld.com/map/14  but not anymore.

The map has been removed on my request a few weeks ago. We had in Europe
serveral mappers over the last years (the latest one was WJtW) who added
tracks=2 to railway tracks of double-tracked railway lines which already
have been mapped as two tracks at OSM (i.e. they tagged for the
renderer).

> However, when each track is mapped individually, the tag changes
> to passenger_lines=number. While the tag uses the word "passenger",
> it applies to all lines, whether they carry passengers or not. The 
> name of the tag doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The requirement 
> to change the tag doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Well, I think the same.  But I do not see any need to rename this tag
just for the purpose of renaming. Time could be used better (e.g. for
mapping or coding).

> The tag has been used extensively in Britain, Sweden, The 
> Netherlands, India and Russia (only because Russia has lots of 
> railways, the % is middling). The rest of Europe is hit or miss
> and the rest of the world has only sporadic usage. I have only
> started to apply this tag in the last week, so it might have a few
> hundred instances.

German and Austrian railway mappers are nowadays focussed on railway
signals and details of switches because they get rendert at
OpenRailwayMap [1]. In Germany railway lines always only have one or two
tracks (outside stations).

In general, the German community is no real fan of passenger_lines=* and
thinks more that this tag is unnecessary at all (and should be derived
from existing data). Tracks which are no siding, crossover, yard or spur
tracks are tagged with usage=* and do not have a service=* tag. They
usually have a railway line number (called "VzG-Nummer" in German) which
is assigned by infrastructure division of Deutsche Bahn. [2] In Germany
a railway line has – by definition – only one or two parallel tracks
(outside stations). If there are more than two parallel tracks outsides
stations (e.g. Augsburg–Munich), they are defined as two independent
double-tracked railway lines.

> http://www.openrailwaymap.org/ appears not to support either tag.

We, the developers of OpenRailwayMap do not plan to support
passenger_lines=*. We are a map which is designed for detail mapping.

> 1. There are about 4,000 instances of tracks=number that need to 
> change to passenger_lines=number. Can someone help me? A mass edit 
> seems attractive, but can that be restricted to Ireland? It may be 
> desireable to add

I don't think that a mass edit is possible. Every track should be
checked manually if track=* is right or wrong.

> 2. If anyone knows of other OSM railway debugging tools, can they 
> let me know?

There are special railway validation rules for JOSM. F12 → blue tick →
Tag checker rules →

Best regards

Michael
(co-developer of OpenRailwayMap)


[1] You can get your local signals rendered at OpenRailwayMap if (1) you
have a clear tagging scheme (ask questions at our mailing list if you
need help to define one), (2) have a small amount of signals already
mapped, and (3) provide icons as SVG. German tram signals and Finish
railway signals will be the next signals which will be added.

[2] The services on this infrastructure like regional or long-distance
trains often have numbers, too. They are modelled using route relations.



- -- 
Per E-Mail kommuniziere ich bevorzugt GPG-verschlüsselt.
(Mailinglisten ausgenommen)
I prefer GPG encryption of emails. (does not apply on mailing lists)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1
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=OOe5
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----