[Talk-us] USA Rail: a progress report

stevea steveaOSM at softworkers.com
Fri Apr 10 19:51:30 UTC 2015


OK, this is cool:
http://www.openrailwaymap.org/?lang=en&lat=40.5&lon=-73&zoom=8&style=maxspeed

It's USA's Northeast Corridor (rail infrastructure) colored with 
maxspeed tags.  BTW, if you toggle from Maxspeed (style radio button) 
to Infrastructure, you'll see the NEC as orange mainline only in 
those few segments where we either don't know that the rail is truly 
high-speed (>=160 kph) or we do know it to be not high-speed, and a 
maxspeed= tag isn't yet entered.  So now, most of the NEC (where 
maxspeed>=160) displays as a vivid red using Infrastructure, the 
USA's only high-speed rail corridor.

(Serge might even like this, it Resolves lengthy Comments at 
http://www.osm.org/changeset/29723896 ).

Yes, I'm still cheerleading, still "generating interest" in better 
USA rail infrastructure, still using various OSM wiki pages to do so, 
because all of these work.  I hope it's not too strong to say I 
consider rail infrastructure improvement as a rough proxy for USA OSM 
enthusiasm (and our ability to generate it, partly by talk-us posts, 
partly by OSM missives and partly by wiki pages).  But it would be 
nice if one person here said "I read Steve's 'rail ra-ra' posts on 
talk-us, and look at all that enthusiasm and great data entry he 
encourages!"  This is a fifty-state effort, and we can't just hear 
crickets chirping all the time, you know.

You could also tell me to just tone it down here, too.  While you 
might accuse me of fishing for compliments, that's not the primary 
reason I posted this.  Part of it is "better grass-roots enthusiasm 
generation" (and perhaps how talk-us either does or doesn't fit into 
that).  I'm in listening mode now.

Respectfully,
SteveA
California



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