I favor railway=abandoned and then if necessary specialize from there. The point about data consumers not knowing about new tags and therefore building a semantic hierarchy to optimize for sensible behavior is a strong one.
You probably already know this, but: in OSM railway=abandoned is what we in the US would call "old railroad grade". railway=disused seems to cover both what we would call "out of service" (a term within railroad regulation, referring to tracks/ROW still owned by the railroad, on which they have discontinued service, but not formally abandoned -- and might resume) and "abandoned" (again a term with formal meaning, generally requiring ICC permission, etc.). (Actually, the legal term abandonded is expanded by USGS topo maps into two categories: abandoned (tracks present, more or less) and "old railroad grade".)
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