Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines
Hi Matt, The question about mapping old, historical features is much wider than just the Australian context. I'm pretty sure the current consensus is that we old rail lines should be mapped - even if there is not much to see on the ground. There might be more than you think - there's a station building (now a community hall, I think), other things too, perhaps. There are probably other former railways about with much less to see (the Rosstown Railway comes to mind) - at least with this one there are physical remnants such as tracks. So, yes, I object. Feel free to raise the issue on the main OSM talk list though. Steve On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 5:15 PM, Matt White mattwh...@iinet.net.au wrote: A question for the list regarding historical/disused rail lines. The old inner circle rail line in Melbourne is mapped in OSM, and I'm unconvinced of it being a good thing. Here's a little bit of it that I can talk about with some local knowledge of: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?** lat=-37.780512lon=144.982887**zoom=18layers=Mhttp://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=-37.780512lon=144.982887zoom=18layers=M Given that there is pretty much no trace of the rail line left, why are we mapping it? It was on the ground 30 years ago, but it certainly isn't now. (That said, there are some small pieces of the track remaining - where it crosses Rae St and Brunswick St Nth, two or three 15 metre sections + a set of points just north of the end of Birkenhead St (including what appears to be an old rail weighbridge), and a short three metre section in Edinburgh Gardens, and the old North Carlton station building is still there) If there are no complaints, I'm going to remove it. It's historical, and appears on old maps, but does not exist today. Matt __**_ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.**org/listinfo/talk-auhttp://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Tagging dirt and 4x4 roads - new approach
* Unpaved roads are difficult to really classify the surface in terms of anything other than dirt/sand/rock. The surface state changes over time from smooth immediately after grading, to possibly deep ruts/corrugations/mud after rain and wear. In this case, my personal opinion would be to use some sort of tag like surface condition (options being something like: maintained | uneven | degraded | corrugated | rocky | rutted | deep_rutted, but even those change immediately after track maintenance), with perhaps a best/worst case tag or similar One thought that occurs here would be to tag the *maintenance* of a track rather than its *current state*. Some tracks are essentially never maintained, while others are graded frequently. That, combined with the season that you're travelling (eg, late summer vs early spring) might be enough to make an informed decision. * Overall, it seems like Australia has both the special conditions requiring some extensions to the current 4WD/dirt road mapping data and the active mapping community to back it up. I don't see why we shouldn' agree on a handful of tagging rules for the AU conditions on this list and use them (assuming that they are well thought out etc). Document them nicely so the rest of the world can take them up, and make the rendering changes etc ourselves (how hard can a casing change be in the renderer? If we can do it an submit it to the trac system...) AFAIK the major issue with rendering changes is resources to implement them. So, if someone writes the code to do it, much greater chance of it happening. Steve ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Tagging dirt and 4x4 roads - new approach
On Sun, 2012-11-25 at 20:35 +1100, Steve Bennett wrote: One thought that occurs here would be to tag the *maintenance* of a track rather than its *current state*. Yep, that would be useful info indeed. Not sure how 'collectible' it would be though. The (dirt) road that I live on is graded reasonably frequently but I could not tell you how many times per year or when it was last done. And I live on that road ! AFAIK the major issue with rendering changes is resources to implement them. So, if someone writes the code to do it, much greater chance of it happening. Maybe, maybe not. The actual changes required are not that extensive really. I have built a mapnik and pgsql system on my laptop using the OSM config files. Its trivial to include new tags into the rendering database. (Although unfortunately, 4wd_only has some technical issues.) Getting Mapnik to then render them is more a matter of agreeing on how to do it than actually doing it IMHO. Sadly, our desired dashed casing is already used for tunnels, but possibly a different colour will work, or dashed infill ? But importantly, we can copy, in part, how its done for a tunnel. Issue really is these guys will have some pretty heavy change controls in place. And there will be some pressure to not add anything unless its really proved essential, every extra bit of processing slows each refresh. So, we need a really good case rather than clever coding I'm afraid. David ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines
Hi, I'm pretty sure we've reached consensus in the past that if there is absolutely no evidence of it on the ground - no tunnels - no cuttings - no tracks. In other words there was a railway line, but now it is a shopping mall, then it doesn't get mapped. We don't maintain layers of history in OSM right now. If there is evidence still on the ground, then we have tags for that. What is the source for the data that is there, if there is no evidence on the ground? Where was it copied from? Ian. On 25 November 2012 17:15, Matt White mattwh...@iinet.net.au wrote: A question for the list regarding historical/disused rail lines. The old inner circle rail line in Melbourne is mapped in OSM, and I'm unconvinced of it being a good thing. Here's a little bit of it that I can talk about with some local knowledge of: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?** lat=-37.780512lon=144.982887**zoom=18layers=Mhttp://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=-37.780512lon=144.982887zoom=18layers=M Given that there is pretty much no trace of the rail line left, why are we mapping it? It was on the ground 30 years ago, but it certainly isn't now. (That said, there are some small pieces of the track remaining - where it crosses Rae St and Brunswick St Nth, two or three 15 metre sections + a set of points just north of the end of Birkenhead St (including what appears to be an old rail weighbridge), and a short three metre section in Edinburgh Gardens, and the old North Carlton station building is still there) If there are no complaints, I'm going to remove it. It's historical, and appears on old maps, but does not exist today. Matt __**_ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.**org/listinfo/talk-auhttp://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines
Not sure of the original source - the rail line is in old Melways etc. and in some out of copy right maps I have. The existence of the inner circle rail line isn't really a secret. The problem for me is that it just isn't there any more (aside from the handful of things I mentioned below, which I agree can be kept mapped correctly because they exist physically, but it amounts to above 100 metres of track in a dozen small sections, plus a cutting underneath Royak parade and an old station building that is now a community centre). The actual align of the rail line is also out by about 30 meters at least - it's too far south on OSM to be accurate Just because is existed once in a time past doesn't mean we should map it. Parts of the Deepdene rail spur still exist (some cuttings and the like), but there's no rails, and it has been mostly built over. Ditto the Rosstown railway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosstown_Railway (Elsternwick to Oakleigh) It's not a disused railway where the infrastucture is still there. It's a bike path, the lines have been pulled up, the stations torn down, the overhead gantry towers removed... It's just a slippery slope... immediately north of the rail line in the link below is Holden St. It used to have a tram line on it, with a curious little dogleg at the end onto St Georges Road. That was also 40 years ago. There's not much left now, but there are a few traces if you know what you are looking for (old overhead cable mounts etc). But I hardly think it needs to be mapped. Matt On 25/11/2012 9:28 PM, Ian Sergeant wrote: Hi, I'm pretty sure we've reached consensus in the past that if there is absolutely no evidence of it on the ground - no tunnels - no cuttings - no tracks. In other words there was a railway line, but now it is a shopping mall, then it doesn't get mapped. We don't maintain layers of history in OSM right now. If there is evidence still on the ground, then we have tags for that. What is the source for the data that is there, if there is no evidence on the ground? Where was it copied from? Ian. On 25 November 2012 17:15, Matt White mattwh...@iinet.net.au mailto:mattwh...@iinet.net.au wrote: A question for the list regarding historical/disused rail lines. The old inner circle rail line in Melbourne is mapped in OSM, and I'm unconvinced of it being a good thing. Here's a little bit of it that I can talk about with some local knowledge of: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=-37.780512lon=144.982887zoom=18layers=M Given that there is pretty much no trace of the rail line left, why are we mapping it? It was on the ground 30 years ago, but it certainly isn't now. (That said, there are some small pieces of the track remaining - where it crosses Rae St and Brunswick St Nth, two or three 15 metre sections + a set of points just north of the end of Birkenhead St (including what appears to be an old rail weighbridge), and a short three metre section in Edinburgh Gardens, and the old North Carlton station building is still there) If there are no complaints, I'm going to remove it. It's historical, and appears on old maps, but does not exist today. Matt ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org mailto:Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] NSW Alphanumeric routes
On 04/11/2012, at 10:13 PM, Ian Sergeant wrote: I also noticed on the RTA site a while back, they were saying that they were trying to work with map and data providers to provide timely and accurate updates. It certainly may be worthwhile sending them an email to see if we can take advantage of that, especially if we can get a timetable for the coverplate removal. Has anyone else contacted the RTA about this yet? If not, I've just got back from my far-north Queensland trip so I now have time to do this (in between mapping from the trip!). Mark P. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines (Ian Steer)
://lists.openstr eetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/attachments/20121125/494bb b7f/attachment-0001.html -- Message: 3 Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2012 20:35:36 +1100 From: Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com To: Matt White mattwh...@iinet.com.au Cc: talk-au talk-au@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [talk-au] Tagging dirt and 4x4 roads - new approach Message-ID: CA+z=q=s6dcngcu6m5etswhxgujoghoxl1fm-bch-t-wweal...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 * Unpaved roads are difficult to really classify the surface in terms of anything other than dirt/sand/rock. The surface state changes over time from smooth immediately after grading, to possibly deep ruts/corrugations/mud after rain and wear. In this case, my personal opinion would be to use some sort of tag like surface condition (options being something like: maintained | uneven | degraded | corrugated | rocky | rutted | deep_rutted, but even those change immediately after track maintenance), with perhaps a best/worst case tag or similar One thought that occurs here would be to tag the *maintenance* of a track rather than its *current state*. Some tracks are essentially never maintained, while others are graded frequently. That, combined with the season that you're travelling (eg, late summer vs early spring) might be enough to make an informed decision. * Overall, it seems like Australia has both the special conditions requiring some extensions to the current 4WD/dirt road mapping data and the active mapping community to back it up. I don't see why we shouldn' agree on a handful of tagging rules for the AU conditions on this list and use them (assuming that they are well thought out etc). Document them nicely so the rest of the world can take them up, and make the rendering changes etc ourselves (how hard can a casing change be in the renderer? If we can do it an submit it to the trac system...) AFAIK the major issue with rendering changes is resources to implement them. So, if someone writes the code to do it, much greater chance of it happening. Steve -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/attachments/20121125/c2a8a 2a4/attachment-0001.html -- Message: 4 Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2012 21:07:37 +1100 From: David Bannon dban...@internode.on.net To: talk-au talk-au@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [talk-au] Tagging dirt and 4x4 roads - new approach Message-ID: 1353838057.4071.47.camel@Davo-LT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On Sun, 2012-11-25 at 20:35 +1100, Steve Bennett wrote: One thought that occurs here would be to tag the *maintenance* of a track rather than its *current state*. Yep, that would be useful info indeed. Not sure how 'collectible' it would be though. The (dirt) road that I live on is graded reasonably frequently but I could not tell you how many times per year or when it was last done. And I live on that road ! AFAIK the major issue with rendering changes is resources to implement them. So, if someone writes the code to do it, much greater chance of it happening. Maybe, maybe not. The actual changes required are not that extensive really. I have built a mapnik and pgsql system on my laptop using the OSM config files. Its trivial to include new tags into the rendering database. (Although unfortunately, 4wd_only has some technical issues.) Getting Mapnik to then render them is more a matter of agreeing on how to do it than actually doing it IMHO. Sadly, our desired dashed casing is already used for tunnels, but possibly a different colour will work, or dashed infill ? But importantly, we can copy, in part, how its done for a tunnel. Issue really is these guys will have some pretty heavy change controls in place. And there will be some pressure to not add anything unless its really proved essential, every extra bit of processing slows each refresh. So, we need a really good case rather than clever coding I'm afraid. David -- Message: 5 Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2012 21:28:04 +1100 From: Ian Sergeant inas66+...@gmail.com To: Matt White mattwh...@iinet.net.au Cc: OSM Australian Talk List talk-au@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines Message-ID: calda4ykasoulgcgfhybcxti0qxwnwqpb2xj_wjoo6b8ceaj...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Hi, I'm pretty sure we've reached consensus in the past that if there is absolutely no evidence of it on the ground - no tunnels - no cuttings - no tracks. In other words there was a railway line, but now it is a shopping mall, then it doesn't get mapped. We don't maintain layers of history in OSM right now. If there is evidence still on the ground, then we have tags for that. What is the source
Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines
On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 9:28 PM, Ian Sergeant inas66+...@gmail.com wrote: I'm pretty sure we've reached consensus in the past that if there is absolutely no evidence of it on the ground - no tunnels - no cuttings - no tracks. In other words there was a railway line, but now it is a shopping mall, then it doesn't get mapped. We don't maintain layers of history in OSM right now. Here's what the wiki says: Abandoned - The track has been removed and the line may have been reused or left to decay but is still clearly visible, either from the replacement infrastructure, or purely from a line of trees around an original cutting or embankment. Use railwayhttps://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:railway =abandoned https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:railway%3Dabandoned. Where it has been reused as a cycle path then add highwayhttps://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway =cycleway https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dcycleway For the case of the Inner Circle line, there is ample evidence: - some track, buildings etc - large sections of reserved land (according to our map, the Linear Park Reserve) - a bike path (the Inner Circle Rail Trail): https://www.railtrails.org.au/trail?view=trailid=133 I agree that where a rail line has been completely removed and sold off, and built over, the story is a bit different. But in this case, great effort has been expended to retain it as a feature of the landscape: hence the park, bike path, etc. Its presence lives on much more than some abstract representation on a map. It's completely plausible that people would want to follow the old train line on the map - in a way that wouldn't be the case if it had been built over by houses or shopping malls. There are other abandoned railways that perhaps shouldn't be mapped, but the case is pretty good for this one. Steve ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Tagging dirt and 4x4 roads - new approach
On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 9:07 PM, David Bannon dban...@internode.on.netwrote: Issue really is these guys will have some pretty heavy change controls in place. And there will be some pressure to not add anything unless its really proved essential, every extra bit of processing slows each refresh. So, we need a really good case rather than clever coding I'm afraid. Thanks, I stand corrected. Steve ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines
On Sun, 25 Nov 2012 17:15:59 +1100 Matt White mattwh...@iinet.net.au wrote: A question for the list regarding historical/disused rail lines. The old inner circle rail line in Melbourne is mapped in OSM, and I'm unconvinced of it being a good thing. Here's a little bit of it that I can talk about with some local knowledge of: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=-37.780512lon=144.982887zoom=18layers=M Given that there is pretty much no trace of the rail line left, why are we mapping it? It was on the ground 30 years ago, but it certainly isn't now. (That said, there are some small pieces of the track remaining - where it crosses Rae St and Brunswick St Nth, two or three 15 metre sections + a set of points just north of the end of Birkenhead St (including what appears to be an old rail weighbridge), and a short three metre section in Edinburgh Gardens, and the old North Carlton station building is still there) If there are no complaints, I'm going to remove it. It's historical, and appears on old maps, but does not exist today. Matt I'm in two minds about removing 'historical' data. Yes, objects no longer visible on the ground shouldn't be rendered on the map. BUT, by default, OSM has become a source for mappers doing more than mere street maps and the loss of historical data would be a serious setback. mick ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines
On Sun, 25 Nov 2012 17:15:59 +1100 Matt White mattwh...@iinet.net.au wrote: A question for the list regarding historical/disused rail lines. The old inner circle rail line in Melbourne is mapped in OSM, and I'm unconvinced of it being a good thing. Here's a little bit of it that I can talk about with some local knowledge of: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=-37.780512lon=144.982887zoom=18layers=M Given that there is pretty much no trace of the rail line left, why are we mapping it? It was on the ground 30 years ago, but it certainly isn't now. (That said, there are some small pieces of the track remaining - where it crosses Rae St and Brunswick St Nth, two or three 15 metre sections + a set of points just north of the end of Birkenhead St (including what appears to be an old rail weighbridge), and a short three metre section in Edinburgh Gardens, and the old North Carlton station building is still there) If there are no complaints, I'm going to remove it. It's historical, and appears on old maps, but does not exist today. Matt I'm in two minds about removing 'historical' data. Yes, objects no longer visible on the ground shouldn't be rendered on the map. BUT, by default, OSM has become a source for mappers doing more than mere street maps and the loss of historical data would be a serious setback. mick ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines
On 26/11/2012 10:38 AM, mick wrote: I'm in two minds about removing 'historical' data. Yes, objects no longer visible on the ground shouldn't be rendered on the map. I've been following this discussion with interest. We do mark and should mark administrative boundaries which are not visible on the ground. Can the logic for these boundaries which be usefully extended to historical data? Alex ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines
On 26 November 2012 12:36, Alex Sims a...@softgrow.com wrote: I've been following this discussion with interest. We do mark and should mark administrative boundaries which are not visible on the ground. Can the logic for these boundaries which be usefully extended to historical data? I don't think so. Keeping historical data in OSM is going to require a more complex model. Maybe a separate project, maybe layers, maybe something else. There is a mailing list and a wiki page set up to gather ideas.. http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/historic There are two main aspects to consider here. Firstly, how you map that what no longer exists? Secondly, how you track changes made to OSM, so you can capture history within the OSM changesets. The first one we have plenty of time. The second we need right now, every addition I make it is impossible to tell whether I'm adding a new feature that didn't exist on the ground before, or just filling in a feature that has always existed but wasn't mapped. And every feature I remove, it is impossible to tell if I'm removing it before it is wrong, or removing it because it has been demolished. So, we're actually losing information as we go. Ian. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines
From: Alex Sims [mailto:a...@softgrow.com] Subject: Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines On 26/11/2012 10:38 AM, mick wrote: I'm in two minds about removing 'historical' data. Yes, objects no longer visible on the ground shouldn't be rendered on the map. I've been following this discussion with interest. We do mark and should mark administrative boundaries which are not visible on the ground. Can the logic for these boundaries which be usefully extended to historical data? The subject of historical rail lines and historical roads came up on the talk-us@ mailing list relatively recently. As always, there were multiple views. The result of the discussion was that the general view is that historic information only belongs in OSM when there is some trace on the ground. As a practical matter, historic roads are not generally mapped in OSM. Whenever a road is physically realigned and the new alignment mapped in OSM the old alignment is not saved as a separate way. If I survey the area I only look at how it looks now so I don't know if the old alignment in the database is because it was aligned that way in the past or because the data was inaccurate. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines
On Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:06:27 +1030 Alex Sims a...@softgrow.com wrote: On 26/11/2012 10:38 AM, mick wrote: I'm in two minds about removing 'historical' data. Yes, objects no longer visible on the ground shouldn't be rendered on the map. I've been following this discussion with interest. We do mark and should mark administrative boundaries which are not visible on the ground. Can the logic for these boundaries which be usefully extended to historical data? Alex I'd forgotten about virtual Objects like administrative boundaries. They are made visible by the objects and vectors that define them, eg. trees, buildings, hills, roads and watercourses. Yes, Boundaries are essential and underlying historical objects that illustrate their logical basis should be available, even if the are not rendered. mick ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Historical rail lines
On Mon, 26 Nov 2012 13:18:30 +1100 Ian Sergeant inas66+...@gmail.com wrote: On 26 November 2012 12:36, Alex Sims a...@softgrow.com wrote: I don't think so. Keeping historical data in OSM is going to require a more complex model. Maybe a separate project, maybe layers, maybe something else. There is a mailing list and a wiki page set up to gather ideas.. http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/historic Thanks for the heads-up on the historical list, somehow I missed its birth notice. There are two main aspects to consider here. Firstly, how you map that what no longer exists? Most of my mapping interests relate to historical mapping, English parishes, Civil and Church, for my family history. Studying the Roman occupation of Britain, etc. My usual methodology is to start with available, free to use, current maps; For UK OS Open Data, for Aust. Geoscience Australia TOPO250K series and for both OSM subsets; And clean them up. Next, grab what I can find of earlier maps, georeference and trace them and then pull them into shape, I always seem to got plenty of distortion. When the map layers are as clean as I can get them, I overlay them and copy the required details onto a fresh layer and work-up suitable tagging. Secondly, how you track changes made to OSM, so you can capture history within the OSM changesets. The first one we have plenty of time. The second we need right now, every addition I make it is impossible to tell whether I'm adding a new feature that didn't exist on the ground before, or just filling in a feature that has always existed but wasn't mapped. And every feature I remove, it is impossible to tell if I'm removing it before it is wrong, or removing it because it has been demolished. So, we're actually losing information as we go. I fear this can only be successfully done on the micro scale unless the tagging guidelines can be tightened. The free and easy approach to tagging makes outside the box application of the data a largely manual job. I'm sure this is far from insurmountable, I just can't get my head around it. mick ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
