Talk:OpenRailwayMap/ETCS Markers

Modify national ETCS transition to use the same scheme of Level transition

I think it would be nice to slightly change the tagging schemes of national ETCS transtions to use the same scheme used for Level Transition. This to avoid problems with Stop Markers being in the same position of those national signs and so being unable to tag them on the same node. What do you think? --AwFi (talk) 12:58, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm unsure if they do have the same meaning. Because in switzerland ETCS L1 LS ist "everywhere" and then you transition into ETCS L2 via the "order" "change into cab signalling" or "end of cab signalling". --> there shouldn't be a transition sign at the borders of switzerland, even though it transitions into ETCS.

If you would want to use the same scheme for every country we would likely need something like type=start|end|distant_start|distant|end and from=0|1|1LS|2... and to=0|1|1LS|2... while "0" meaning without ETCS -> change to national standard. Piagno wiki (talk) 09:18, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Nevermind the marker is exactly on the border between ETCS L1 LS and ETCS L2. The relevant ETCS level is already on the track. So it should be clear from/to which level it goes.

Since there are zero level transitions (which I wasn't expecting..) on osm in switzerland I will remove the switzerland part from the wiki. So we shall use the standard on the wiki page. Piagno wiki (talk) 18:12, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

More signals

and more

I have vectorized and uploaded the remaining signals from the ERTMS specification for trackside boards to Commons: c:Category:EN 16494

More information on the individual signals: [1]

I don't if these are actually in use. If so, these could probably be added here. --Entbert (talk) 18:52, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

GSM-R network border marker

Following on from the previous section: The one signal of these which I know is in use is the GSM-R network border marker. I suggest that we add this one to the documentation, probably as:

• railway:signal:radio=ETCS:gsm-r_network_border
• railway:signal:radio:form=sign
• railway:signal:radio:caption=* country code at the bottom of the sign, e.g. CZ

I guess ERTMS: would be a bit more precise than ETCS:, but that would apply to the electrification signals as well, so we can probably stick with ETCS:. --Entbert (talk) 19:02, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Hi this is great! I would stick with ETCS:

Also, in Czechia, the GSM-R sign can theoretically be placed in the same place as another national radio sign for backup communication - e.g. one pole has two radio signs. To tag that one could probably use two OSM nodes. If this problem is Czech-specific, I think the two-node tagging would be acceptable (as this situation doesn't happen quite that often in reality). But I am not sure whether a similar situation can happen in other countries. Detective-fiasco (talk) 10:00, 22 August 2026 (UTC)

Most instances of this signs that I know of occur near national borders without additional signs.

Countries where the signal is used differently can of course use their own national tagging. In France for example, a signal looking like this is not only used at the border, but from my observations every few kilometres where the radio channel changes, with an additional sign stating the channel number. So they should probably stick with their tagging.

Do you have a suggestion how to make the tagging more flexible? The signal category seems to clearly be radio. If the additional sign shows only some text, we could change railway:signal:radio:caption=* to railway:signal:radio:country=*, so that caption is available for this text. If the text is a channel number, we already have railway:signal:radio:frequency=* available.

There is also the French solution with sub-types for signals (railway:signal:radio:mode=*), but I think that is too complicated. --Entbert (talk) 14:00, 23 August 2026 (UTC)