Although historical features such as abandoned railways can be valuable information and interesting, OSM is a consists of physical features that currently exist, as Shawn succinctly stated, http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2012-July/008563.html (I don't know if there's an official statement from the OSM Foundation about it, but there's been a strong community consensus through previous discussions supporting this).
With that in mind, adding a tag (railway=abandoned or railway=disused) where the physical features (old spurs, gravel, underneath the bed) of the railroad tracks are still visible are okay to be included in OSM in my opinion, as Mike N mentions - http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2012-July/008574.html Historical items that no longer have a physical presence (like railway lines) would be better suited to a separate entity that focuses on historical ways. _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
