Tag:railway=station

+/- railway=station Description A railway station Used on these elements Useful combination Key:name Used combinations in World Australia/Oceania Europe (list) Asia (list) Central America (list) South America (list) Africa (list) Status Undefined

Railway stations (including main line, light rail, subway etc) are places where customers can access railway services. For simple station a railway=station node with the railway track itself can be used; for larger stations with multiple platforms and tracks and other facilities the tag can be used on an area.

Contents 1 How to map 2 Things to avoid 3 See also 4 Example

How to map

Either:

• For simple modeling of simple stations with a single track (or one in each direction) just add a node with railway=station and name=* at an appropriate point on the railway (tagged railway=rail, railway=subway etc).
• For complex or larger stations it is often best to create a node within the main concourse area and use a public_transport=stop_area to associate this with the rest of the elements of the station.
• It is also valid to create an area encompassing the land used for passenger services (including any concourse, platforms and associated tracks) and tag this as a station. Two disadvantages with this approach. Firstly, the name will be positioned in the centroid for the area which is often within the platform area for a terminus station which is not the place people using the station will find most helpful. Secondly, route relations require to be linked to nodes rather than areas and cannot be used with this approach.

Associated tags

• Add appropriate additional tags, such as uic_ref=number which is a unique code for railway stations as registered with the UIC. See german homepage for more details.
• name=*
• operator=*
• platforms=*

Related elements

• public_transport=platform (replacement for deprecated railway=platform which is a linear or area feature beside the track where passengers wait.
• public_transport=stop_position which is on the track where the train stops.

Things to avoid

• There should only be a single railway=station tag for each station. Where there are multiple nodes for a single station then consider converting the station to the area format and moving the relevant tags (including the name etc) to this area and remove the station tag from all the existing 'station' nodes.
• Where a mainline station and metro station (or other railway like station) are physically connected, consider if they should be modeled as separate stations or as a single station. The associated Wikipedia article for the facilities might assist with the decision. If the facilities are run by separate organisations (for example a heritage station next to a mainline station) then it is probably better to map them using two separate railway=station tags.
• Tram stops and bus stops do not use this tag. They are tagged as simple nodes public_transport=platform next to the track or highway where passengers wait. Together with public_transport=stop_position on the railway=* or highway=* way. Formerly railway=tram_stop and highway=bus_stop have been used for this and are still optional additional tags.

See also

• public transport scheme - to tag platforms and stop positions
• building=train_station - useful to map the station building itself
• railway=subway_entrance - to go into a subway station.
• railway=platform - to map individual platforms in the station

Example

Picture/Description	Tags	Mapnik	Osmarender
	railway=station name=London Victoria together with an area building=train_station name=London Victoria uic_ref=7000010

See London Victoria Station for reference.

Related terms: stop. terminal. station.