[Talk-us] bike rail trail as built vs as proposed and imported

[Alex Mauer]

On 08/12/2009 06:55 AM, Greg Troxel wrote:
>> Probably not; however, it is accepted practice in OSM.  As you say,
>> someone with more familiarity with railroad procedures and how they
>> differ between the US and elsewhere might be able to answer that.
> 
> I think one of the bugs in OSM is failure to follow established
> practice.  But that's not worth worrying about in this case.

Often this is because there aren't necessarily people in the OSM
community who know where to find the established practice.  This is
presumably less true now, but I don't see anyone chiming in with "I has
the solution!!!" on this list

>> I think that's a big understatement. I would go so far as to say that
>> it's nearly impossible to take an arbitrary piece of railroad track and
>> determine whether it's abandoned or out of service (in the US legal
>> sense) -- or indeed, whether it's in fact still in service.
> 
> For tracks that are not abandoned, in service or out of service is
> determined by the railroad.

Sure, but you can't tell by looking at it.  Do they publish this somewhere?

> Yes, it is hard to find out, but that does not make it unverifiable.  I
> suspect one can write to the STB and ask and find out, although I
> haven't tried.
> 
> You are applying an unreasonable standard.  

I'm not applying a standard at all; I'm just asking if it is feasible
for someone to actually find out this information.

Not saying you can't tag this information, just that it's IMO unlikely
that a tagging scheme for this will see much use, because it's so
difficult to get the information.

Incidentally, there are other problems with the railway=abandoned /
railway=disused.  Specifically, using them loses information about what
type of railway it is ("standard" rail, tram, narrow_gauge, subway...)

See http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_life_cycle_concepts
and http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_Features/Status

-Alex Mauer "hawke"

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