[OSM-talk] railway=narrow_gauge

[Nick]

In article <200706192000.49433.adrian at frith.co.za>,
Adrian Frith  <adrian at frith.co.za> wrote:
>On Tuesday 19 June 2007 19:11:37 Nick wrote:
>> In South Africa, the standard gauge is 3ft 6in but it is called "Cape
>> Gauge" or "Cap Gauge". "Standard Gauge" or "Stephenson Gauge" is always
>> 4ft 8.5in.
>
>Fair enough; my point is just that we must have enough data in the model to 
>know, not only what the gauge of a railway is relative to "standard" 4' 8.5'' 
>gauge, but also what the gauge is relative to the prevailing mainline gauge 
>in the region. To render the entire Southern African railway network 
>as "narrow-gauge railway" simply because it is narrower than "standard" gauge 
>would be very silly. (After all, only 60% of the world's railways are 
>standard gauge.[1])

Yes - this would be undesirable.

>So perhaps we need to analyse further *why* we might want to render 
>narrow-gauge railways differently, and then add *that* data to the model?
>Maybe just a "railway=special_purpose" value?

So we are returning to the idea of railway=tourist which indicates a
stretch which is unconnected to the "main" network. So long as the
actual gauge is captured elsewhere I see no problem with that...

Nick