[Talk-us] USA Rail: Calling all OSM railfans! (especially in California)

[stevea]

Hello Peter:

The California/Rail wiki page you describe documents a couple of 
different ways we tag rail.  OpenRailwayMap (ORM) documents a three 
tier (route=tracks, route=railway, route=train) method used in parts 
of Germany.  As that page (as well as the USA Rail WikiProject) 
explain(s), because of the way TIGER entered rail in the USA, (and 
the way we structure and name rail) we often use just two of these, 
skipping route=tracks relations and "jumping" right to putting "named 
rail" into relations of route=railway:  rail "infrastructure."  You 
might say that two ORM/German-style "lower and middle level" 
relations have been merged into a single "middle level" relation here 
in the USA.  There are also ("higher level," and the whole OSM world 
agrees) passenger rail relations:  route=train (or route=light_rail, 
route=subway, route=tram...effectively at the same logical "level" as 
route=train).  That's OSM rail "structure" in a nutshell.

In Oregon, there are the Brooklyn Subdivision 
(http://www.osm.org/relation/2203588), the Fallbridge Subdivision 
(http://www.osm.org/relation/1443651)... these are (correctly) the 
middle-level infrastructure relations tagged route=railway.  There 
are also (predictably, also, the higher-level) route=train passenger 
rail relations like Amtrak Cascades 
(http://www.osm.org/relation/71428) which are often made up of a 
group of Subdivisions (route=railway relations) like Brooklyn and 
parts of Fallbridge.

THIS is what Paul was typing about in those Notes.  Specifically, a 
(higher-level/passenger) route=train relation should not have as its 
name=* tag the name of the system (like MAX, BART, Metro or Amtrak), 
it should be the name of the passenger line (Green Line, Downtown to 
University...).  And, the "underlying" (lower-level infrastructure) 
route=railway relation should be correctly "named" as the rail 
company (or public works department, transit district...) names it: 
often something like XYZ Subdivision or ABC Industrial Line.

OSM's Transport Layer is handy to display (rather raw) railway=* and 
(at closer zoom levels) route=bus.
ORM is handy to display rail infrastructure (with Infrastructure 
radio button selected), especially usage=* tags.
OpenPublicTransportMap (http://openptmap.org) is handy to display 
passenger rail relations.

The USA is largely under construction for all of these, but we've 
come a long way.

It's all in those wikis.  Makes sense?

Regards,
SteveA
California