Talk:Key:usage

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Please see a small proposal at Talk:Key:railway#usage=interchangeMichael Z. 2011-03-30 03:33 z

This tag should be renamed to "railway_usage=*" or "railway:usage=*" to avoid confusion and mis-usage

Term "usage" is not limited to railways. If we can do it now without conflicts, we should do it now. Better safe than sorry. Xxzme (talk) 06:38, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Agree. Also especially important considering proposals like Proposal:More road details; so we should do it now since there are proposals that might rely on this change. --Ewrt1 (talk) 03:25, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
railway=* is the original user of usage=* , so it doesn't need to be changed. Other proposals are merely hopping on this generic attribute. You can see I changed to different prefix *:usage=* to distinguish different uses.
On the other hand, I don't like the railway:*=* prefix, nor aerialway:*=* . Seems over-namespacing.
—— Kovposch (talk) 11:08, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Why it conflicts with service tag?

"A track is either tagged with usage=* or with service=*" - why? What is wrong with tagging usage=branch + service=siding for branch siding? Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 09:56, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

usage=* is for tracks between stations and the main track in a station, service=* is for anything else (one could say "less important tracks").
service=siding is a tag for a track in a station. In a station, tracks are not assigned to a railway line (at least in some countries). In stations where multiple railway lines meet, it is impossible to tell which railway line a track belongs and therefore whether usage=main, usage=branch or usage=industrial apply (depends on how the railway lines meeting there are tagged). --Nakaner (talk) 10:04, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
Surely sidings aren't just for stations. And what about crossovers with usage=? GinaroZ (talk) 23:38, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Meaning of usage=freight?

While not documented, there are 700 uses of usage=freight, sometimes in combination with service=* and sometimes alone, almost all are combined with railway=*. These appear to be railway tracks which are mainly used for freight trains, not passenger services. Is anyone still using this tag? It seems most were added between 2012 and 2015: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/usage=freight#chronology - though it is used in many different countries: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/usage=freight#map


Possible additional value, forestry/forest/logging?

Given the thousands of miles of abandoned railway previously used exclusively as forest branches and spurs, it would be helpful to have a usage=forestry or 'usage=forest or usage=logging value available for the usage tag. I see value in mapping these extant railway lines, which though never intended as permanent rail infrastructure, nonetheless remain as recognizable features on the landscape and are often available for repurposing as roads and trails.

While I would consider looking into a usage=forestry, can forest tracks be reliably determined to be for this purpose? Mining currently is in usage=industrial. Unlike boundary=forestry or landuse=forestry in forest management, these don't very much function other than logging. Could you use eg usage=industrial + industry=forestry instead? ---- Kovposch (talk) 07:11, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Industrial sort of implies a manufactured product and from a certain plant to a mainline. In logging railroads, there is a dense array of Spurs designed to provide access to within 1/4 mile from any point. “Logging Railroads of South Carolina” by Thomas Fetter and “ Michigan's logging railroad era, 1850-1963” are on my shelf right now as references. These books differentiate between common carrier main line and industrial spurs to lumber mills, and “forest branches” which primarily served networks of temporary logging spurs. Trees were cut, bucked into log lengths, and skidded by animal teams, cable or tractor to these temporary spurs and loaded for transport to a mill or log dump in a lake or river. Given a few more options in attributes, it would help highlight these networks and individual line function in a map view. Skunkman56 (talk) 17:24, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Adding a leisure value to the key

There are uses of usage=leisure to denote miniature rail in a park or theme park. Let's document this with a table entry and consensus on what this is. Stevea (talk) 22:10, 3 November 2023 (UTC)