Key:passenger_lines
 passenger_lines
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| Description |
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Used to describe number of tracks of the railway line a certain track segment belongs to. 
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| Group: railways |
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| Useful combination |
| Status: in use |
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This tag can be used to specify the number of tracks of the railway line the track segment belongs to.
It should only be used for mainline tracks (usage=main, usage=branch or usage=industrial) and not for all other tracks, i.e., in combination with service=spur, service=yard or service=crossover.
All tracks of a line should be counted which connect the same stations or junctions and share other features of a railway line like gauge, clearance profile and electrification. Values can be 1 or more, i.e., 2 for a double-track railway. In this case it says that there is one other track belonging to the same railway line, even if it is not all the way running exactly parallel. The counting of tracks should be like it is communicated to the general public and be consistent all over the world, especially with descriptions on wikipedia. If for example the media refers to a project of improving a double track to a four track railway there should be found passenger_lines=2 before and passenger_lines=4 after the construction work. The counting should not follow internal regulations of specific or national railway companies which limit the number of tracks to a certain maximum. In case of doubt you may skip this tag.
Naming
Despite the "passenger" in the name all kinds of tracks connecting the same railway stations or junction should be counted with no regard to the train services running on it. The kind of train service should be tagged with railway:traffic_mode=*. So it is some kind of workaround, since tracks=* or lanes=* are not to be used for this topic. The reason of the naming is that this tag was first used in an area where lines for goods or freight traffic are very rare. Better ideas were line_tracks=* or running_lines=*. But it seemed better to use the already completed work than starting with a completely new tag.
Possible tagging errors
References
Railway network maps which feature the number of tracks as an attribute of rail lines and may be useful as a source for tagging:
- https://www.sncf.com/en/network-expertise/rail-network/sncf-reseau/network-maps (France)
- https://en.plk-sa.pl/press/maps (Poland)
- https://geovdbn.deutschebahn.com/isr Streckenmerkmale / Gleisanzahl (Germany)
- Eisenbahnatlas Deutschland | Neuauflage 2023, Verlag Schweers + Wall, ISBN 978-3-84466-440-9
- Eisenbahnatlas Deutsche Demokratische Republik 1976, GVE-Verlag, 2015, ISBN 978-3-89218-976-3
- https://indiarailinfo.com/atlas (Railway atlas of India with number of tracks as one out of three main characteristics of a railway line, electrification and construction status are the others)
- https://parovoz.com/maps/supermap/ (countries of the former Soviet Union)
Mentioning of quadruple lines in Germany which can be found in the above mentioned map as two double track lines:
- https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahnhof_Dresden-Neustadt#Ausbau (Originally I had a link to a press release by Deutsche Bahn particularly mentioning the addition of 2 new tracks, but this seems to be gone.)
- https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahnstrecke_Hamm–Minden