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In Central Greece, a train line started to be constructed in the 1930s. Until World War II, the project was more than 90% finished, with a clear train path, bridges, tunnels, stations, other buildings etc. However, when WWII spread in Greece, in 1940, the constructions got frozen and throughout that period, the distructions on the construction sites were many. After the War ended and the country got liberated, the new Greek Administation decided, as a result of multiple reasons, to cancel the whole project, regardless its almost finished stage and to abandon the construction sites. Because of the project's advanced progress till then though, the ruins of the construction sites, the station buildings, the railroad, the bridges and tunnels are still visible till nowadays, making it easy to anyone to figure out where the train would pass through, if the constructions ever managed to finish.

Given that, I am wondering if such a train line is drawable, according to OpenStreetMap's rules. If yes, how would it be tagged? As "train line under construction", "abandoned" or "razed"?

asked 26 Nov '21, 05:36

Thanosmed's gravatar image

Thanosmed
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accept rate: 0%


I historically disagree with Frederik on this but will be good and refrain from downvoting him just because I disagree ;)

Where you have a situation where

the station buildings, the railroad, the bridges and tunnels are still visible till nowadays

then that's an "abandoned railway" in aggregate. And OSM has always mapped in aggregate: we're happy for people to map a "primary road" rather than requiring people to micromap every single physical attribute. Yes, as often with OSM, it's a spectrum: an unused viaduct followed by a cutting with an old platform is clearly an abandoned railway and worth mapping as such; an indiscernable route across a ploughed field might well not be. (But as ever note that some people are more attuned to finding traces of old railways than others, and "well I can't see it and my opinion is paramount" is not a valid reason to delete things in OSM. We are not Wikipedia and we do not have a notability criterion.)

So: in this case I would indeed map it as railway=abandoned. The fact that services never ran over the line is largely immaterial; we don't map historic service patterns. We map what's on the ground, and if someone turns up and sees this, they'll see "ah, an abandoned railway". OSM should accord with that. The rest we leave for a history book!

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answered 26 Nov '21, 11:53

Richard's gravatar image

Richard ♦
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accept rate: 18%

edited 26 Nov '21, 11:54

You can add the individual things that still exist - potentially tagging them as abandoned or ruined. Do not, however, map things that have been built over, nor things that have never been built, and do not group the various bits into any form of "route". OSM is not a historic railway atlas.

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answered 26 Nov '21, 09:31

Frederik%20Ramm's gravatar image

Frederik Ramm ♦
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accept rate: 23%

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question asked: 26 Nov '21, 05:36

question was seen: 1,328 times

last updated: 26 Nov '21, 11:54

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