[Talk-us] some GNIS places not showing up in OSM

[Kevin Kenny]

On Fri, May 7, 2021 at 8:08 PM Jason McHuff <osm-talk-us at jasonmchuff.net>
wrote:

> Examples:
> https://geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=138:3:::NO:3:P3_FID,P3_TITLE:1637910
>
> https://geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=138:3:::NO:3:P3_FID,P3_TITLE:1166614
>
> Entry date listed is well before 2009 (when
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/USGS_GNIS says import was done)
>
> Note that these are railroad locations, and not ones that have much
> meaning outside of the railroad.
>

Many locations such as rail junctions came in from the TIGER and GNIS
imports with a variety of strange tags. Often these came in without any
tagging that renders at all, or with inappropriate tagging such as
`place=locality` for the reference number of a railway switch.  Over time,
mappers have gradually made many of these more consistent. For example, at
one point, I altered https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/42074994/history so
that it wouldn't render as if it were a settlement.  It's simply a rail
switch with a reference number, which a specialized railway map might
render but which won't appear on a general-interest map such as the OSM
front page. It certainly didn't make sense for the map to show a settlement
named 'CPF 480'!

I suspect that Greton and Beburg might have suffered a similar fate, being
simply the names of rail junctions and not actual populated places.

I see for Beburg that it's simply a grade crossing in Beaverton. I can't
find the original node in among the tangle at
https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1404129443#map=19/45.48634/-122.79997&layers=D
but I'm pretty sure it's there somewhere.  Although I see that in GNIS an
alternative name of 'Electric Shops' appears, and since the appearance of
the map suggests that the railroad no longer has a workshop at the
location, the node might simply have been removed to reflect the reality on
the ground.  A great many GIS nodes describe features that have been
demolished.

--
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin
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