[OSM-talk] stop deleting abandoned railroads

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

sent from a phone

> Am 16.08.2015 um 22:11 schrieb Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org>:
> 
> What everybody can see is a clearing or change in the surface of
> something. That's fine to map.
> 
> Inferring from that that there must have been a railway there is a step
> too far. We are mappers, not trappers.


it really depends, this is an example for an abandoned railway where reading the traces is quite easy, and which is tagged (IMHO correctly) as abandoned railway in osm: http://www.dieter-kloessing.de/Berlin/Berlin-Zehlendorf3.html#Anchor-Stammbahn-47857

http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/225549367#map=13/52.3982/13.1674

the wiki shows some interesting inconsistencies btw, it currently says disused are railways that could technically re-enter into service any time without much effort (track and infrastructure are intact), while abandoned are railways that railways where tracks and infrastructure are removed. This is there since 2012 (or 2011), but doesn't make sense because it leaves out at lot of stuff which would then fall between disused and abandoned.
An older definition can be found here:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Railways&oldid=712930
"Abandoned - The feature has been dismantled, been reused or left to decay. "
but has itself contradictions (because dismantled is a value on its own there, introduced after this version: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Railways&direction=prev&oldid=712925)

Cheers 
Martin