[Talk-us] Moving historic railroad ways from OSM to OpenHistoricalMap

[Minh Nguyen]

On 2015-03-31 23:12, Bryce Nesbitt wrote:
> For background, in the USA there is an intermediate step to
> abandonment.  A corridor can be "railbanked",
> meaning the easements don't expire.  It's not an active railway, but
> it can be returned to rail service
> via an administrative procedure.  And in fact, that's happened.
> Usually however these become trails,
> a process that can take decades.

I'd imagine that most railbanked rights of way would be mapped with 
railway=disused (inactive tracks, possibly overgrown) or 
railway=abandoned (no tracks but an embankment, greenway, or clearing 
still present), as opposed to something like railway=razed. [1] The 
tags' definitions acknowledge physical characteristics rather than 
ownership. I don't think we need a tag about railbanking specifically, 
although a note tag may be helpful as a reminder to future mappers. The 
nice thing about railway=abandoned is that it can be combined with 
highway=cycleway once a rail trail is built on the old grade.

[1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Demolished_Railway

-- 
minh at nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us