OpenRailwayMap Meeting in Bad Nauheim, Germany

Alexander Matheisen
Mon, 03 Nov 2014 21:03:05

The second OpenRailwayMap Meeting took place in Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt (Main), Germany on 24 to 26 October 2014. It was a extension to the first "Mapping Weekend" in Cologne in July. Tagging discussions, which had been skipped due to a lack of time (or too much topics), and new tagging related questions and proposals were discussed now.

The second OpenRailwayMap Meeting took place at user spth's home in Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt (Main) on 24 to 26 October 2014. It was a extension to the first "Mapping Weekend" in Cologne in July. Tagging discussions, which had been skipped due to a lack of time (or too much topics), and new tagging related questions and proposals were discussed now.

The two other attendees, Michael (Nakaner) and Alex (rurseekatze), used their journey there to map. Michael went a detour by train from Karlsruhe over Heilbronn and Hessian Odenwald Railway and mapped their using GPS waypoints. Alex filmed between Düsseldorf and Cologne as long as his ICE was not too fast.

You can find the detailled protocol at OpenStreetMap Wiki. The most important topics were:

A discussion in German OpenStreetMap Forum made us to discuss differentiation between heavy railwas, light railway lines, trams and subways on Friday evening. We also discussed the tag railway=narrow_gauge. We think that this tag is an outdated synonym for railway=rail. We think that change these tagging in OSM database is useless.

If tracks are interlaced, we suggest to map all tracks as separate OSM ways and to tag these ways with railway:interlaced=yes. If passing is prohibited between two tracks, you can now use railway:passing_prohibited=left/right/yes/both.

The tagging discussions were continued on Saturday morning. Contrary to the rule not to tag ways both with usage=* and service=*, we decided that usage=* and service=* should be allowed for industrial siding and yard tracks to be able to differ between industrial and normal siding/yard tracks in rendering.

We defined new tags for meter load and axle load – meter_load=* and axle_load=*.

We could not reach a settlement in the question how to use maxspeed=* if there are different speed limits for different types of vehicles (e.g. trains with and without ability to tilt in curves or vehicles with/without eddy current break).

If a power line is mounted on catenary masts, you can now tag the mast with power=catenary_mast. This tag can also be used for the masts of trolleybusses and electric ships. We also invented new tags for power supply into catenary, jumpering of separators of catenary, the ground level power supply of Bordeaux tram, crossing boxes, blockposts and sidings.

On Saturday afternoon we went outside to map along the railway lines to Gambach and Gießen.

Because mappers have been using railway=owner_change, different form designation, for owner changes (e.g. between a national railway company and a private company), we decided to introduce railway=border for owner changes near country borders.

We also invented tags for automatically rising roadway barricades on Russian level crossings and in UK used gates on level crossings. If a level crossing has a saltire, it now can be tagged as crossing:saltire=yes. The new key crossing:supervision=* describes how railway personell takes care that no vehicles remain behind closed boom gates. This can be happen by a level crossing attendant, camera or radar scanners. We also decided to introduce a new tag for the time between closure and reopening of a level crossing.

On Sunday we invented signals for German trams and Berlin subway. This made us changing tagging of LZB signals. Now every signal which is related to a train protection system should be tagged as railway:signal:train_protection=*.

Just before the end, we created tags for some facilities which can be found in depots like sand stores and drinking water supply.

On the retourn journey, Michael and Alex mapped, too. Michael filmed between Friedberg and Frankfurt (Main) and between Frankfurt (Main) and Weinheim-Lützelsachsen until it became too dark outside and the phone battery became empty. Alex filmed West Rhine Railway between Mainz and Koblenz until as long as it was bright enough.