Hey Chuck, In the case of a Control Point, junctions, or Interlockings: Eample: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/11204303 Name=Colley Avenue railway=crossover railway:position 1.9 (If the milepost markers have the prefix add LP) Here is an example of what the ref would be used for at the junction, crossover, or interlocking location. [image: railway=ref1231.jpg] Nathan P email: natfoot(a)gmail.com On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 7:14 AM Chuck Sanders <nathhad(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: > I'm trying to figure out another North American tag interpretation, to > keep us consistent with everyone else. > > For most North American railroads, operating sites like junctions, siding > ends, and crossovers (really, all Control Points) are referred to by name > and milepost (and milepost here is most often alphanumeric, example "LP > 1.9" for a site named "Colley Avenue"). We've been discussing internally > how to tag these this week, and realized we probably need a better > international interpretation to help us stay consistent. > > My initial thought a week ago was that this would probably be > railway:position. However, that tag isn't included by default in the > tagging scheme for these types of operating sites, and based on how it's > used, others have pointed out to me that this is probably a better fit for > railway:ref for these sites. I tend to agree. > > For a good, quick typical view of how these are used, see here for a page > out of an employee timetable (which is really the reference book for the > subdivision), page 4 (PDF page 8) where the above example was taken: > http://www.multimodalways.org/docs/railroads/companies/NS/NS%20ETTs/NS%20... > > So far in North America, railway:ref is only being used for the > three-letter codes for passenger stations, which is a very clear correct > use. Using that tag for the many, many control point operating sites we > have would very much be a different use to what's already done, so I'd want > to verify that it's correct and intended before actually implementing it. > After all, if we stuck with railroad:position for this, it would leave > railroad:ref an "uncluttered" tag for passenger stations, which do > represent its most important use. > > What is the sense of the wider community here on how this was meant to > work? > > A large part of the reason I've been bringing so many of these > NA-specific questions to the list over the past week and a half is that > we've been starting to work up a simplified NA-specific JOSM tagging > preset. Anything I include as an implicit tag interpretation is going to > potentially get repeated over the map quite a bit, so I'm trying to be > *really* careful about making sure my understanding of the tags built into > the preset tools is correct, so they will be correctly applied. > > Thanks for your help and input, > Chuck >