I was mainly teasing @AndrewS_OHM that there were times when rails should have greater prominence than roads, and you bring a good point (at risk of thread diversion) about how significantly roads should be depicted in older times - e.g., yes, they were important connectors, but what % of the population actually used them & how frequently? Again, a good candidate for a separate thread!
and to add to the mix … shipping routes. Where I live there was no connecting road south to Sydney in the early 19th C and even after that was built through very rugged terrain the dominant transport for people and goods was by ship for many decades, then rail, then highways.
BTW we need shipping routes in OHM. Ferry routes exist but don’t render in OHM. Seamark=* has very specific shipping navigation details, but not a general shipping route. Some discussion of seaway=* on OSM but nothing solid. Are these best added to the Github issues list ?
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Here is my proposal, based on Openrailwaymap with some modifications (link to the JSON file).
- the white/yellow dotted lines indicate whether the line is electrified or not ;
- the two black lines furthest to the right are for bridges and tunnels ;
- tram;
- light rail;
- subway;
- narrow gauge;
- rail “usage”=“main”;
- not displayed - rail “usage”=“branch”, appearance identical to narrow_gauge;
- not displayed - rail “usage”=“industrial”, appearance identical to rail “service”=“yard” below;
- rail “service”=“yard”;
- disused;
- abandoned;
- rail “highspeed”=“yes”.
An alternative to dotted lines could be to use two colors, one dark and the other light.
As for names for “usage”=“main” or “branch”, a solution could be to display at a low zoom level only the “operator” tag and at a higher level the “operator” and the “name”.
As for “usage”=“industrial” and “service”=“yard” the simple display of the name at high zoom level would be sufficient.
At a higher zoom level, we could also display the type of electrification, gauge and the signaling.
I also recommend adding these tags to the rendered layers: operator, usage, highspeed, layer, gauge, frequency and voltage. As for railroad signaling, rather than using the Openstreetmap schema which is quite complex, I propose adding a “signaling” tag.
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My foamer dreams are coming true! 
Thanks to all involved!
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I do like this style, where each mode of transport has the same look to it, but just different colours.
Though I’m not completely sure about the electrification colouring, though I do like the idea of overlaying that information.
As for high-speed, I don’t think that’s something that needs to be displayed since what is considered as high-speed will change throughout the years. This is not an issue for OSM as they only need to know the current “rules”, but I think it can become problematic if that information was used in OHM with different “rules” for different time periods. I also think it would give a more uniform picture if that tag is just ignored.
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The WIP rail style is now live on OpenHistoricalMap.org, OpenHistoricalMap
We will make more frequent updates to this demo OpenHistoricalMap :: Leaflet MBGL TimeSlider Control Demo, with periodic updates to the production style
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Congrats and great work BUT (there’s always a but 
) for usage=industrial the blue colour scheme is not showing unless the “name=industrial” tag is applied. The style is triggering off the name tag rather than the usage tag. Everything looks okay in the Greenland test area because each line is named “usage=xxx”.
See this area: https://www.openhistoricalmap.org/#map=18/-32.93618/151.71946&layers=R&date=1924-02-15&daterange=1824-01-01,2024-12-31
The pair of lines at lower right are both usage=industrial, the only difference is the name tag.
This same problem was identified in the styling of the usage=main for the standard rendering and appears to have made its way into the railway rendering. See: Historic style only prioritizes railways named usage=main · Issue #676 · OpenHistoricalMap/issues · GitHub Also seems evident in the usage=main rendering (the top left lines are both usage=main, but render differently).
I haven’t checked other usage=* variants.
Andrew
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after taking a look at that Github issue the problem appears to be the absence of a ‘usage’ field in the vtiles data
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Yes, I think GH tickets using the Stylesheet Request is the best. Here’s a direct link to that issue template
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Now that this has launched, any activity on supporting =route ? It’s more suitable for changing attributes that doesn’t move the linear geometry. There was a recent question about how to duplicate long line not fully visible on iD for this purpose, which shouldn’t be necessary or preferred.
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@Kovoschiz - Thank you for the reminders on all of those fronts.
I’ve also filed: Support passing route relation members & attributes to vector tiles · Issue #705 · OpenHistoricalMap/issues · GitHub - can you add any related commentary there? Thanks!
@AndrewS_OHM - I just bumped #676 for attention. Please feel free to do the same whenever a request isn’t moving forward. Sometimes, there’s a tech blocker reason & other times there’s just a squeaky wheel reason.
@flha127 & @Luke04 - I’ve filed a ticket asking for the proposed style changes you’ve proposed. Please coordinate with @vanessa_GIN for any questions she might have. Ideally, that dialog will be over on the ticket. Not sure if you have github accounts or not, but that would be helpful for moving things along!
@AndrewS_OHM - yes, please do file a ticket in Github here!
I’ve been filing some on behalf of users, but the dev team is tired of hearing from me. Fresh voices always get a little more attention! 
Anyone have any good recommendations (apologies if already covered) for visually distinguishing light-rail / trolley / internal city rail systems from other rail systems?
Here’s an example, from an early system in Denver:
It may be tagged incorrectly, but I’m curious of the group’s perspectives here.
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In a parallel universe, here’s a demonstration of integrating selected OHM data into an OSM vector map:
In the future, the “Standard” layer on openhistoricalmap.org will likely be a vector map. We’ll have lots of opportunities to use both the Historic and Standard layers to funnel rail-focused users into the Railway style.
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I agree with you on the high_speed color.
Good morning,
Here are two tests:
- The first one with two colors (electrified/not electrified) instead of using dotted lines.
- tram/light_rail/narrow_gauge;
- subway (one color only);
- branch line;
- main line.
The rendering is simpler in my opinion than with dotted lines.
- The second with two line widths in the hypothesis of a tag dedicated to the type of railway body either railway:body=* or street_running=*:
- big line, for private rights-of-way:
– default style for railway=rail;
– railway=tram or light_rail with railway:body=independent or street_running=no - a small line for street_running (mixed, reserved lane, special site*):
– default style for railway=tram or light_rail;
– railway=rail and railway:body=mixed/reserced/special or street_running=yes.
*See BOStrab § 16 (4) for the railway body types. § 16 BOStrab - Einzelnorm
This last point is very useful for mixed networks (light_rail, interurbans and some suburban tram lines) which often go from road to private ROW.
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