> My guess is, whoever made this, based it on the idea that trains and subways are different things.
I think Openrailwaymap started out as a German project ("Bahnkarte") and it might still be somewhat German-dominated to this day (?)… – and in Germany there is indeed a clear legal split between mainline railways and subways, because the latter are built and operated according to the regulations that are also applicable for trams/streetcars, while the former have their own set of applicable laws and regulations.
So that relatively hard split might have coloured the world view of the Openrailwaymap creators somewhat in that regard…
(Though even in Germany there are some edge cases – the Hamburg and Berlin S-Bahn systems are legally railways and have some, albeit only limited interaction with the rest of the mainline network (respectively in the case of Hamburg some actual through-running again as of a few years ago), but in regards of operations and signalling they're (especially historically) in some ways more closely related to other rapid transit networks than to the rest of the mainline railway. I notice that in Openstreetmap those networks are currently tagged as "light rail", which with regards to the distinction from the regular mainline network might not be that inaccurate, but on the other hand is equally confusing, because "light rail" can mean loads of things:
- historically in the UK minor branch railways built according to simplified rules and regulations – but still railways in spirit – were called light railways
- these days it gets commonly used for anything between basically souped-up trams (sometimes not even all that souped-up) and full-scale rapid transit-type rail (which at other times is actually termed "heavy metro" if you want to distinguish it from "lesser" light railways)
- due to differing crash strength regulations and the historic US approach of "buff strength over alles", some types of (albeit light-weight) European main-line multiple units are seemingly classified as tram-train/light rail operations in the US
)
I think Openrailwaymap started out as a German project ("Bahnkarte") and it might still be somewhat German-dominated to this day (?)… – and in Germany there is indeed a clear legal split between mainline railways and subways, because the latter are built and operated according to the regulations that are also applicable for trams/streetcars, while the former have their own set of applicable laws and regulations.
So that relatively hard split might have coloured the world view of the Openrailwaymap creators somewhat in that regard…
(Though even in Germany there are some edge cases – the Hamburg and Berlin S-Bahn systems are legally railways and have some, albeit only limited interaction with the rest of the mainline network (respectively in the case of Hamburg some actual through-running again as of a few years ago), but in regards of operations and signalling they're (especially historically) in some ways more closely related to other rapid transit networks than to the rest of the mainline railway. I notice that in Openstreetmap those networks are currently tagged as "light rail", which with regards to the distinction from the regular mainline network might not be that inaccurate, but on the other hand is equally confusing, because "light rail" can mean loads of things:
- historically in the UK minor branch railways built according to simplified rules and regulations – but still railways in spirit – were called light railways
- these days it gets commonly used for anything between basically souped-up trams (sometimes not even all that souped-up) and full-scale rapid transit-type rail (which at other times is actually termed "heavy metro" if you want to distinguish it from "lesser" light railways)
- due to differing crash strength regulations and the historic US approach of "buff strength over alles", some types of (albeit light-weight) European main-line multiple units are seemingly classified as tram-train/light rail operations in the US )