India/Tags/Railway

Railway lines

Note: This page is outdated and requires a review

Railway lines are mapped as ways and most railway lines can be easily mapped or traced using satellite imagery. These tags define the attributes for these railroad ways. A large part of the information required for these tags is already available on various sources on the internet. Also see OpenRailwayMap/Tagging

Tag	Usage
Primary classification (required) railway=rail railway=subway railway=narrow_gauge railway=preserved railway=disused railway=abandoned	Use 'rail' for broad gauge sections and 'narrow_gauge' for smaller gauges including metre gauge. 'subway' is used for dedicated metro corridors (Rapid transit) in cities where other kinds of rail traffic is prohibited. 'preserved' are railway lines that are primarily used to run heritage or tourism services. 'disused' are for sections that are no longer in use while 'abandoned' are for historical alignments which no longer exists.
Gauge (metre) gauge=1676 (Broad Gauge)	For railway lines that are not broad gauge, tag the section with the relevant gauge specified in mm. Common gauges are 1676, 1000, 762 and 610. Resource: IRFCA FAQ-Gauge
Secondary classification usage=main	secondary classification to distinguish between railway=rail segments. Choose an appropriate tag in descending order of priority. . 'heritage' sections are historical sections that are run primarily for the purpose of tourism. Not required if the line carries mixed traffic.
Parallel tracks rail:tracks=3	Use if a segment represents multiple parallel railway tracks of the same classification
Administrative network=IR operator=SR +IR:zone=SR:MAS	Specifies the network of the railway section. Should be IR (Indian Railways) unless operated by others (Port Trusts etc) For zone, use the official zonal abbreivation seperated by the station code of the divisonal headquarters of the division under whose jurisdiciton it falls (IR:zone=ZONE_CODE:DIVISION_HQ_CODE). Use ALLCAPS for the codes. Resource: wikipedia:Indian_Railways#Railway_zones, Erail.in-Station Codes
Maximum section speed (kmph) maxspeed=40	Default is considered as 80kmph when not tagged. Useful for computing travel time between stations and locating high speed railway sections. Keep minimum track segment length to atleast the distance between two stations, do not split the rail segments unnecessarily.
Service track classification service=spur service=siding service=yard	Used for tracks not used for mainline operations. 'siding' and 'yard' include lines for stabling coaches, pit lines, maintenance tracks and for shunting operations. 'spur's are small branches of tracks used by industries. These lines have low priority on the map.
Traction electrified=contact_line	Use for electrified sections
Bridges and tunnels bridge=yes tunnel=yes +ref=B23 +name=Krishna Bridge	For tagging segments that are bridges or tunnels. Can be used in conjunction with 'name' and 'ref' to indicate the official bridge or tunnel number
Level crossing (node) railway=level_crossing railway=crossing +ref=LC3 +name=NV Colony	For tagging nodes that intersect with a road, 'level_crossing' are manned and have gates. other unmanned crossings can be tagged just 'crossing'. Can be used with the name=* and ref=* to label it.
Historical date:start=1852 date:end=1987 date:converted=1995 date:doubled=2002 date:electrified=2003	This tag stores historical information when a track segment was constructed or abandoned. You might need to refer to historical maps or records for this information

Railway Stations

Railway stations are mapped as nodes and require a more presicion source for mapping like GPS track or high resolution Yahoo imagery. Its also possible to distinguish major stations on Landsat imagery due to their larger size. Smaller stations serving villages can be mapped as the closest point of the railway line to the place, usually having a road leading from it.

The railway tracks usually split into multiple ways while nearing major stations having multiple platforms. If possible these tracks can be mapped seperately, one for each platform. However only the platform serving the the primary station entrance needs to be tagged in detail and must have the name=* tag. The station nodes for the other platforms need to have only railway=station and a ref=STATION_CODE:PF# to indicate the platform number, see below for usage.

Tag	Description
Primary classification (required) railway=station railway=halt railway=yard +name=Nagpur	Use 'station' for fully functional railway stations, 'halt' for stations with basic infrastrucure without regular scheduled services. This would usually be indicated in the railway timetable with a postfix 'H'. While naming, use the same name that appears on the timetable, without 'Railway Station' or 'RS'.
Reference code ref=MAS	Official station code used by the railways in ALLCAPS.
Secondary classification station=primary_terminal station=secondary_terminal station=commuter_station station=junction	For use to classify railway=station nodes. For cities with more than one station where train services terminate, tag the primary station with 'primary_terminal' and the other terminal stations with 'secondary_terminal'. Some cities may have two primary terminals like Delhi (Delhi-DLI and New Delhi-NDLS) or Mumbai (Mumbai Central-BCT and Mumbai CST), since they terminate trains coming from different systems. 'commuter_station' are those which service only commuter or suburban trains. 'junction' are stations between major cities from where railway lines branch out. Junction stations serve as transiting or reversing points and generally larger in size with more amenities.
is_in=Chennai	Used for grouping multiple stations that serve the same city.

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The Indian railways has a technical and commercial classification scheme for stations nin the network source:IRFCA source:WR This scheme is outdated!!

Class	Passenger earning per annum	Station type	Platform type
A1	Rs 50 crore +	non suburban	High
A	Rs 6-50 crore	non suburban	High
B	Rs 3-6 crore	non suburban	Low
C	n/a	Suburban (Commuter)	High
D	Rs 0.5-3 crore	non suburban	Low
E	Rs 0.5 crore	non suburban	Low
F	n/a	halt station	Rail