Author Topic: Railways: Draft Manual  (Read 7901 times)

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Offline Jim

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #30 on: August 01, 2023, 01:27:59 pm »
Is there any technical reason why we should truncate to three characters? Why not four or five? I think that the road limit is due to performance reasons. It is also dated back when users had to type the wps into their list file. I guess we wanted to reduce the risk of typos.
I think that the performance issues are gone now - for update process and on the production server. No one really needs to type anything into their list file but can use the .list Tool editor. Maybe we should promote the latter more prominentely to convince users to use it.

So, again, why not truncating wp labels to four or five characters to help maintainers and users to read the wpt files and list files?

I agree there is no longer a reason to abbreviate/truncate names like was done in the CHM days for various reasons and which TM adopted.

In the DB, the current waypoint label length limit is 26.  That can easily be changed if necessary, but I expect we can stay within that limit pretty easily.

Offline michih

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #31 on: August 01, 2023, 02:07:19 pm »
I'm gone with visible DIV_ and SKIP_ prefixes now. SKIP_ must only be visible if routes are diverting there but I think it's better to have all visible to avoid confusion. And to ease replacement once the workaround will be superfluous.

Any comment to deusnt?

I reworked the Schwerin system according to how I got the manual proposal:

I truncated all wp labels.
I moved the main station wp from the regional station location to the actual stop of the tram.
I merged the above mentioned wp to a 1PPI by using "+SKIP_" label prefixes as suggested by Duke87.
I split line 2 into two routes since there are two one-way branches with stops at the branches.
I used the "+DIV_" label prefix where line 2 branches off line 1/4 routes. They are actually called +DIV_T2_W (line 1) or +DIV_T2_N (line 4). T = tram.
I used "(Main)" and "Stadthaus" as "abbrev" to distinguish the routes.
However, I struggle naming the branch wps though:
- The western divergence point at the stop is a no-brainer. I simply used the stop name.
- The eastern divergence point is between stops. I'm gone with T1/T4 now. Thoughts?

Is T1/T4 fine? Any other proposal?

Offline Duke87

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #32 on: August 01, 2023, 06:07:50 pm »
Good rule of thumb is if it looks more like this it's light rail, but if it looks more like this it's heavy rail.

That's tier 4 vs. tier 5. I asked for tier 3 vs. tier 4.

No that is tier 3 (heavy rail rapid transit, second link) vs. tier 4 (light rail, first link).

Tier 5 would be something like this (people mover) or this (streetcar)

Naming guidelines
- waypoint labels should be the name of the station as it appears on official signs/maps, abbreviated per the same procedures that are used to abbreviate labels for highways with the exception that there is not a need to limit to truncate further than to three letters per word if there are more than two words other than a street name generic. e.g. "Atlantic Avenue - Barclays Center" -> AtlAveBarCen, "Termini" -> Ter, "Mornington Crescent" -> MorCres

I had fully agreed but then I redrafted deuulrs. Let's have a look into - a very short since still regional route only - RS5. The route only has 17 stations but there are Herbrechtingen and Hermaringen. Both are one word. More than one syllable but only one word. "Her" is not a word for its own. Calling both Her is not possible. I'm gone with Heb and Her but could also call them Heb and Hem. Sure.

However, while road wps are mainly labeled according to road numbers, there are no exit nor rail track numbers for rails. That means, almost all wps will have truncated names. And yes, I want to truncate them because Herbrechtingen, BofingenOstpreussenweg or MunchenHauptbahnhof are way too long.

Is there any technical reason why we should truncate to three characters? Why not four or five? I think that the road limit is due to performance reasons. It is also dated back when users had to type the wps into their list file. I guess we wanted to reduce the risk of typos.
I think that the performance issues are gone now - for update process and on the production server. No one really needs to type anything into their list file but can use the .list Tool editor. Maybe we should promote the latter more prominentely to convince users to use it.

So, again, why not truncating wp labels to four or five characters to help maintainers and users to read the wpt files and list files?

So, a couple things:

1) the existing waypoint labeling guidelines for roads allow for a fourth letter to be added if two points on the same route would abbreviate to the same three letters. These two stations could be abbreviated to Her and Herm (or Herb and Her, or even Herb and Herm) in order to disambiguate without extending the length of all other unaffected abbreviations and without changing the rules.
2) "shorten each word" was a guideline developed with the English language in mind. When dealing with aggluntative languages, some liberty is already necessary to deal with the fact that something which would be multiple words in English might be only one word. You will note for example in Iceland basically every street name is one word, with names like Njarðargata. But "gata" means "street" and is serving the function of a geneirc suffix, so the way I've handled it is to name that waypoint NjaGat.
I haven't poked around German names enough to be quite sure but it appears at a glance "ingen" might be serving a similar function here. If so, "HerIng" would also be a valid way of labeling one of those points.

Is T1/T4 fine? Any other proposal?

I think T1/T4 is the logical label there, yes.

That said, the "main" section of T2 should have "Hegelstraße bound" in the city field and the "Stadthaus" section of T2 should have "Lankow-Siedlung bound" there, with the latter extended to cover the entire route rather than showing just the split section.

My intention with the draft manual was that each direction should be mapped separately but for the whole route, and the names of the terminal station in each direction used to disambiguate. Though looking at what I wrote that perhaps wasn't clear, so what if we change:

Quote
- If a service takes a substantially different route in different directions at some point in the middle (e.g. runs around different sides of a downtown loop depending on direction), the different directions of the service must be mapped separately and should have their names distinguished by the terminal station in each direction

to

Quote
- If a service takes a substantially different route in different directions at some point in the middle (e.g. runs around different sides of a downtown loop depending on direction), the different directions of the service must be mapped separately and should have their names distinguished by the terminal station in each direction (e.g. "HogExp (Hogwarts bound)" vs. "HogExp (Kings Cross bound)"). Each mapped direction should cover the entire length of the route from terminal to terminal.

That work?

Offline michih

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #33 on: August 02, 2023, 12:33:00 pm »
Good rule of thumb is if it looks more like this it's light rail, but if it looks more like this it's heavy rail.

That's tier 4 vs. tier 5. I asked for tier 3 vs. tier 4.

No that is tier 3 (heavy rail rapid transit, second link) vs. tier 4 (light rail, first link).

Tier 5 would be something like this (people mover) or this (streetcar)

Your light rails and your Streetcar examples are both called "Straßenbahn" in German. The term "Tram" is also quite common in German for it. However, they refer to both types. There are German systems where one line is served by "streetcars" and other lines by "light train". I've also seen both on the same line. So, it is hardimpossible to distinguish. To be honest, your streetcar example is often an old train generation while the "light trains" have just been purchased (decades) later.

Again, I'm happy with si404's approach.

We might also go differently for NA and Europe if there is a good reason to do so.

Naming guidelines
- waypoint labels should be the name of the station as it appears on official signs/maps, abbreviated per the same procedures that are used to abbreviate labels for highways with the exception that there is not a need to limit to truncate further than to three letters per word if there are more than two words other than a street name generic. e.g. "Atlantic Avenue - Barclays Center" -> AtlAveBarCen, "Termini" -> Ter, "Mornington Crescent" -> MorCres

I had fully agreed but then I redrafted deuulrs. Let's have a look into - a very short since still regional route only - RS5. The route only has 17 stations but there are Herbrechtingen and Hermaringen. Both are one word. More than one syllable but only one word. "Her" is not a word for its own. Calling both Her is not possible. I'm gone with Heb and Her but could also call them Heb and Hem. Sure.

However, while road wps are mainly labeled according to road numbers, there are no exit nor rail track numbers for rails. That means, almost all wps will have truncated names. And yes, I want to truncate them because Herbrechtingen, BofingenOstpreussenweg or MunchenHauptbahnhof are way too long.

Is there any technical reason why we should truncate to three characters? Why not four or five? I think that the road limit is due to performance reasons. It is also dated back when users had to type the wps into their list file. I guess we wanted to reduce the risk of typos.
I think that the performance issues are gone now - for update process and on the production server. No one really needs to type anything into their list file but can use the .list Tool editor. Maybe we should promote the latter more prominentely to convince users to use it.

So, again, why not truncating wp labels to four or five characters to help maintainers and users to read the wpt files and list files?

So, a couple things:

1) the existing waypoint labeling guidelines for roads allow for a fourth letter to be added if two points on the same route would abbreviate to the same three letters. These two stations could be abbreviated to Her and Herm (or Herb and Her, or even Herb and Herm) in order to disambiguate without extending the length of all other unaffected abbreviations and without changing the rules.

To be honest, I was not aware of it :o It would help in this case. I don't know if it would do the trick in case of long routes.

It is also more than just having a rule. When I enter "5" for highway exit 5, it is unique and clear to understand. When I enter a road number like "US123" it is also clear what it means. When there are more identical labels, we add suffixes like "US123_S" or "US123_N" or city names "US123_Chi". Anything else are less important junctions.

Our rail routes never use "exit numbers" nor "track numbers" at stations or stops (maybe at divergence point but those are not intended to be used). Thus, I think we should rethink the wp label numbering so that the labels are simpler to be read. si404 testd full names w/o truncating. That's easy to read but I think that it is over the top. I'm trying to find something in-between like truncating to 4 or 5 characters by default. I don't say we have to do it this way though. I only want, that we agree on it soon to avoid having to redraft too many routes. Definitely before we "go live for a broader public".


2) "shorten each word" was a guideline developed with the English language in mind. When dealing with aggluntative languages, some liberty is already necessary to deal with the fact that something which would be multiple words in English might be only one word. You will note for example in Iceland basically every street name is one word, with names like Njarðargata. But "gata" means "street" and is serving the function of a geneirc suffix, so the way I've handled it is to name that waypoint NjaGat.
I haven't poked around German names enough to be quite sure but it appears at a glance "ingen" might be serving a similar function here. If so, "HerIng" would also be a valid way of labeling one of those points.

Nope. "ingen" is not a word. And it has no meaning. It is a very common suffix though.

That said, the "main" section of T2 should have "Hegelstraße bound" in the city field and the "Stadthaus" section of T2 should have "Lankow-Siedlung bound" there, with the latter extended to cover the entire route rather than showing just the split section.

My intention with the draft manual was that each direction should be mapped separately but for the whole route, and the names of the terminal station in each direction used to disambiguate. Though looking at what I wrote that perhaps wasn't clear, so what if we change:

Quote
- If a service takes a substantially different route in different directions at some point in the middle (e.g. runs around different sides of a downtown loop depending on direction), the different directions of the service must be mapped separately and should have their names distinguished by the terminal station in each direction

to

Quote
- If a service takes a substantially different route in different directions at some point in the middle (e.g. runs around different sides of a downtown loop depending on direction), the different directions of the service must be mapped separately and should have their names distinguished by the terminal station in each direction (e.g. "HogExp (Hogwarts bound)" vs. "HogExp (Kings Cross bound)"). Each mapped direction should cover the entire length of the route from terminal to terminal.

That work?

Thanks, got it. It makes sense to a certain degree. That said, I don't like the approach since drafting both routes completely would be a lot of effort for us. On creation and for maintenance. But again, it could make sense.... ;) :D Anyone else?

Offline michih

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #34 on: August 02, 2023, 01:33:40 pm »
Quote
- If a service takes a substantially different route in different directions at some point in the middle (e.g. runs around different sides of a downtown loop depending on direction), the different directions of the service must be mapped separately and should have their names distinguished by the terminal station in each direction (e.g. "HogExp (Hogwarts bound)" vs. "HogExp (Kings Cross bound)"). Each mapped direction should cover the entire length of the route from terminal to terminal.

That work?

I love it but I hate it at the same time!

If we would implement it, we need an answer to situation like this: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/51.78078/14.34544
The northbound stop is north of the junction but the southbound stop is south of the junction. I know a lot of stops like this....
Just image that we had two routes because it would diverting anywhere along the route. One might call for having the wp at the right location. So, it would open the can of 1PPI nor not worms.... with having a "skip" wp at the other stop for keeping concurrencies.

Offline Duke87

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #35 on: August 02, 2023, 05:58:16 pm »
Your light rails and your Streetcar examples are both called "Straßenbahn" in German.

{...}

We might also go differently for NA and Europe if there is a good reason to do so.

Interesting. These types of systems are distinguished between in (American) English and the distinction is not purely age. Seattle has a couple streetcars that began operations in 2007 and 2016, and the Green Line in Boston is absolutely a light rail line even though it dates back to 1897.

But yes, I can see issues arising where the distinction gets lost in translation because... well, that happens. As an English speaker the words "shade" and "shadow" mean decidedly different things to me but in Italian (and probably many other languages) there aren't two different words for them (in Italian both are "ombra").

So... yeah, it becomes a judgment call whether any "Straßenbahn" in Germany belongs in Tier 4 or Tier 5, and if you'd rather just throw them all in Tier 4 go ahead, this seems an acceptable adaptation of doing things slightly differently in Europe.

If we would implement it, we need an answer to situation like this: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/51.78078/14.34544
The northbound stop is north of the junction but the southbound stop is south of the junction. I know a lot of stops like this....
Just image that we had two routes because it would diverting anywhere along the route. One might call for having the wp at the right location. So, it would open the can of 1PPI nor not worms.... with having a "skip" wp at the other stop for keeping concurrencies.

That's one station and I would put one point in the middle even if we had separate routes in the RB (Railway Browser) for each direction.

Online si404

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #36 on: August 03, 2023, 11:37:17 am »
That's a light rail (tram) line, based on photos of it. Belongs in tier 4.
And if you find photos of it acting as an S-Bahn or as a U-Bahn, rather than the short street-running sections, it's not obviously dissimilar to other such systems. It's not as clear cut as you think. Here's a train running an RB service in another part of Germany - it doesn't look much different to the Karlsruhe light rail vehicles running on railways.
Quote
There are multiple distinguishing features
Nope. These are alleged distinguishing features. I note that you at least used 'typically' for most of them, acknowledging that these are more rule of thumb than hard-and-fast.

Street-running / right-of-way is somewhere where's the more complexity. I don't think anyone would think that London-Weymouth trains until the 80s would be light rail due to, having travelled over 100 miles (initially as intercity-style service), the last mile being on-street to reach the port. There's quite a lot of this kind of thing for industrial usage (Trafford Park near Manchester was full of streets with train tracks running along them, but redevelopment has removed most), but it's not unheard of for passenger use. And there's also a difference between street-running, where there's no horizontal segregation and so sharing of the right-of-way with other traffic, and at-grade-running where there is a dedicated right-of-way alongside/in the middle of a street, with at-grade crossings of the ROW (not that dedicated ROW can't have at-grade crossings). Looking at Karlsruhe, only the Strassenbahn has the former, with the Stadtbahn only doing the latter.

High-floor vs low-floor is one of those geeky obsessions (different electrical systems are also similar) that don't mean much for function. To give an example from the UK, where railways are all high-floor (which isn't the case in, say, Germany or the USA) - the Manchester Metrolink, Croydon Tramlink and Midland Metro (to give them all their original names) are similar concept systems from similar eras - build some street-running route in the centre (in the Midland Metro's case, a short bit in Wolverhampton, until much later when they bothered with a Birmingham bit) and convert rail line(s) to be part of the tram network. Manchester kept the old rail routes' high platforms and has high-floor vehicles. The other two demolished the pre-existing platforms (or, occasionally, raised the track height) and put in low ones and have low-floor vehicles. The three networks are all functionally the same thing, with Manchester not being different because of the type of vehicles.
Quote
These distinctions also have some functional implications because light rail trains can generally handle steeper hills and navigate tighter curves than their heavy rail counterparts, and also have shorter stopping distances (they have to, to safely run in streets).
Perhaps, but the DLR is undeniably functionally Metro, despite having 'Light Railway' in its name and using stock designed to do all the things that you cite here as being a Light Rail speciality due to the nature of the system.

Watching videos about the newly opened REM in Montreal this lunchtime, there was a subtle question of whether it's designation as 'Light' makes sense. The answer was so obviously 'no' they didn't bother talking about it much.
Quote
"Light rail" is also admittedly an American term, but British English "tram" is used similarly.
Yes and no - the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn would be seen in British English as light rail as opposed to being tram, rather than the terms being equivalent. I think I might have treated it as S-bahn when allocating a tier, rather than U-bahn (per the Stadtbahn in the Rhine-Ruhr) due to the use of Sx line designations rather than Ux ones, and thus it is perhaps a tier too high, but it's not at the same tier as the regular tram network in the city (which is not Streetcar).

And the LA Metro Light Rail lines - like the DLR/REM, stuff the Green and Crenshaw lines that are completely segregated and grade-separated and only are light rail because they use the same vehicles as the other Light Rail lines. And those other ones, which are Light Rail, I'd find easier to put into 'Metro' than 'Tram' - they don't have street-running, but rather at-grade-running (so their own ROW), and the great majority of time there's vertical-separation as well as horizontal-segregation - the at-grade running is short.

Offline Duke87

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #37 on: August 03, 2023, 06:36:54 pm »
All this seems to come back to "it's a judgement call".

At any rate, the primary value of tiers 3/4/5 is the ability to have up to three different tiers of systems within the same city. We may be fussing too much over the broad distinctions when what really matters is the local distinctions. You mention LA Metro for example: I would say the LA Metro Subway lines (Red/Purple) absolutely belong as a separate system than the various LA Metro Light Rail lines because... well, they're physically distinct systems with very different rolling stock. Likewise for Montreal Subway vs. REM and London Underground vs. DLR. It is helpful for organizational purposes if one system goes in tier 3 and the other in tier 4; whether the tier 4 system meets some particular definition of "light rail" or not is moot - what matters is it is the lower grade of the two adjacent systems.

So how about this, to be less rigid:
Quote
System Tiers
Tier 1: intercity rail systems (e.g. Amtrak, Shinkansen)
Tier 2: commuter rail systems and tourist/heritage railroads
Tier 3: high-tier transit systems (e.g. subway/metro)
Tier 4: mid-tier transit systems (e.g. light rail/tram)
Tier 5: low-tier transit systems (e.g. streetcars,  people movers)

That work better?


Online si404

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #38 on: August 04, 2023, 05:47:43 am »
That sounds right, though there's no problem with having two systems at the same tier in the same city if there's multiple networks that match that level. The DLR, for instance, is going to remain tier 3 as its more tube-like than tramlink-like and the London Trams are tier 4.

they're physically distinct systems with very different rolling stock.
IRT vs IND/BMT vs PATH (the latter being a same-level, but different, system in the same city), rubber tyre Paris Metro lines vs standard ones, etc. ;)

Offline michih

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #39 on: August 06, 2023, 02:46:26 pm »
Our rail routes never use "exit numbers" nor "track numbers" at stations or stops (maybe at divergence point but those are not intended to be used). Thus, I think we should rethink the wp label numbering so that the labels are simpler to be read. si404 testd full names w/o truncating. That's easy to read but I think that it is over the top. I'm trying to find something in-between like truncating to 4 or 5 characters by default. I don't say we have to do it this way though. I only want, that we agree on it soon to avoid having to redraft too many routes. Definitely before we "go live for a broader public".

I think about sticking with 3+ letters for street names but expanding to 5+ letters for cities and city districts. For instance, Frankfurt would be truncated to Frank, Berlin would Berlin, i.e. the main stations would be FrankHbf and BerlinHbf. More examples: DortmHbf, DuisbHbf, HambuHbf, HambuAltona, MunchHbf, MunchPasing, BerlinGesundBrunn

It might be a good idea for long-distance and regional services. Not for metro or tram services though.

Another examole: https://tmrail.teresco.org/hb/showroute.php?u=michih&r=eng.noreas
KinCro -> LondonKingsCross
Don -> Donca (Doncaster)
York keep as-is
Thi -> Thirsk
Nor -> North (Northallerton)
Eag -> Eagle (Eaglescliffe)
Har -> Hartl (Hartlepool)
Sun -> Sunde (Sunderland)

Thoughts?

Offline the_spui_ninja

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #40 on: August 10, 2023, 05:00:42 pm »
Good rule of thumb is if it looks more like this it's light rail, but if it looks more like this it's heavy rail.

That's tier 4 vs. tier 5. I asked for tier 3 vs. tier 4.

No that is tier 3 (heavy rail rapid transit, second link) vs. tier 4 (light rail, first link).

Tier 5 would be something like this (people mover) or this (streetcar)

In that case would US airport people movers count as tier 5? That's what I thought of as soon as I saw the WVU transit thingie.
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. - G.K. Chesterton


Online si404

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #42 on: August 11, 2023, 10:53:42 am »
Other Drafting guidelines
- Lines should be cut into different routes at each crossing of a region boundary, with points labeled as the names of the two bordering regions separated by a slash, e.g. ENG/FRA
ENG/FRA is never a valid border label (and GBR/FRA is a bit of an odd border). Suggest changing the example to NY/CT.
Our rail routes never use "exit numbers" nor "track numbers" at stations or stops (maybe at divergence point but those are not intended to be used). Thus, I think we should rethink the wp label numbering so that the labels are simpler to be read. si404 testd full names w/o truncating. That's easy to read but I think that it is over the top. I'm trying to find something in-between like truncating to 4 or 5 characters by default. I don't say we have to do it this way though. I only want, that we agree on it soon to avoid having to redraft too many routes. Definitely before we "go live for a broader public".

I think about sticking with 3+ letters for street names but expanding to 5+ letters for cities and city districts. For instance, Frankfurt would be truncated to Frank, Berlin would Berlin, i.e. the main stations would be FrankHbf and BerlinHbf. More examples: DortmHbf, DuisbHbf, HambuHbf, HambuAltona, MunchHbf, MunchPasing, BerlinGesundBrunn

It might be a good idea for long-distance and regional services. Not for metro or tram services though.
There's certainly merit in this. I've stuck with 3 letters (and possibly a 4th disambiguating one - often the 5th letter!) in my conversion from 3-letter codes to 3-letter abbrevs, but I see it in say datacheck* and have to think where that is and I know the routes! eg I got 'SKIP_Ber' as a duplicate label on a route and I didn't guess what either of them (Berkswell and Berkhamstead - the latter being not far from where I live!) was until I put the route in the browser and went and saw the stations zoomed in.

*As I looked at this morning. LONG_UNDERSCORE and VISIBLE_DISTANCE are cluttering it up!

Offline michih

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #43 on: August 11, 2023, 11:43:44 am »
Our rail routes never use "exit numbers" nor "track numbers" at stations or stops (maybe at divergence point but those are not intended to be used). Thus, I think we should rethink the wp label numbering so that the labels are simpler to be read. si404 testd full names w/o truncating. That's easy to read but I think that it is over the top. I'm trying to find something in-between like truncating to 4 or 5 characters by default. I don't say we have to do it this way though. I only want, that we agree on it soon to avoid having to redraft too many routes. Definitely before we "go live for a broader public".

I think about sticking with 3+ letters for street names but expanding to 5+ letters for cities and city districts. For instance, Frankfurt would be truncated to Frank, Berlin would Berlin, i.e. the main stations would be FrankHbf and BerlinHbf. More examples: DortmHbf, DuisbHbf, HambuHbf, HambuAltona, MunchHbf, MunchPasing, BerlinGesundBrunn

It might be a good idea for long-distance and regional services. Not for metro or tram services though.
There's certainly merit in this. I've stuck with 3 letters (and possibly a 4th disambiguating one - often the 5th letter!) in my conversion from 3-letter codes to 3-letter abbrevs, but I see it in say datacheck* and have to think where that is and I know the routes! eg I got 'SKIP_Ber' as a duplicate label on a route and I didn't guess what either of them (Berkswell and Berkhamstead - the latter being not far from where I live!) was until I put the route in the browser and went and saw the stations zoomed in.

Thanks :) Has anyone else experienced the same?

*As I looked at this morning. LONG_UNDERSCORE and VISIBLE_DISTANCE are cluttering it up!

Yep, data check might also need some adjustments when rules have been settled.

You can also try hiding errors via the url for the time being:
https://tmrail.teresco.org/devel/datacheck.php?hide=VISIBLE_DISTANCE
https://tmrail.teresco.org/devel/datacheck.php?hide=VISIBLE_DISTANCE,LONG_UNDERSCORE

Offline Duke87

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Re: Railways: Draft Manual
« Reply #44 on: August 11, 2023, 03:20:18 pm »
We are going to have to remove Long_Underscore and Underscore_Labels from the datacheck for rail systems as the formatting for DIV and SKIP labels means lots of these things will exist legitimately and this isn't an error we should be checking for.

I'm still very "if it ain't broke don't fix it" about abbreviating town names though. Adding more letters might be unobtrusive for place names that are one word but then you'd get things like SalisMillsCornw. SalMilCor is just so much tidier and no more ambiguous. And even for one-word names what difference does it make really.