Talk:OpenRailwayMap/Tagging in Belgium

French abbreviations?

Does Infrabel use monolingual French abbreviations? If not, I don't think we should use them in OSM. There was also a draft for signals at User:Eimai/Railway. He used "big_stop_signal" instead of "GSA" or "GSS". This was from before the railway scheme had settled on railway:signal:main=*, but we could use something like railway:signal:main=BE:big_stop_signal. Or railway:signal:main=BE:GSA-GSS. —M!dgard (talk) 01:45, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, they do use french abbreviations, even in the flamish handout from Infrabel, where the map legend is bilingual. Sorry for that. Therefore I strongly recommend to stay with the proposed tagging and not to start the traditional belgian language discussion. —Daham 08:12, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely, if Infrabel uses these abbreviations that makes total sense! —M!dgard (talk) 00:05, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

BE:ARV

Notwithstanding the above, on the wiki page, "vitesse imposé par le signal" is abbreviated as "ARV", whereas this is also used for "annonce de reduction de vitesse", which seems like a copy-paste mistake?

I think you should also explain how to recognize these two; I assume the speed_limit_distant is the number on top of the signal and the speed_limit the one below? —M!dgard (talk) 01:45, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

BE:PJV

Again a double abbreviation copy-paste mistake?

I don't think and imply railway:signal:speed_limit:speed=none at all. The first one imposes an immediately valid speed limit which is lower than the reference speed of the line but higher than the previous speed limit. The second one is more subtle, it's placed when trains can come from different directions, and it also announces either a directly active or a distant speed limit (here my sources seem to contradict each other). —M!dgard (talk) 01:45, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Normal vs opposite regime

This information must be mapped to show the correct orientation of the big stop signals. More info at User:Eimai/Railway. —M!dgard (talk) 01:45, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Same aspects

signals and distant signals can show the same aspects

There are distant-only signals that don't have a red light installed and cannot show the "stop" aspect. These have a yellow circle reference plate instead of a rectangular white one and are not big stop signals. It's important to explain that because now they would be incorrectly mapped as big stop signal. Furthermore, most signals on a line don't have the white light installed, so they cannot show the "continue in small movement" aspect. Furthermore, the last signal before the end of the line will not have a green light installed and hence cannot show the "clear" aspect. —M!dgard (talk) 01:45, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

PVJ and ARV

Sorry for the typos and thanks for the finding - I've fixed it now. They where correct in the french and german versions where I started from. (Daham @ 8:35 23.12.2024 UTC)

Suggestions for new tags

I propose to keep the French abbreviations, as all the ones used in the Belgian railway tagging scheme are French. These proposals are inspired by the Eimai proposal and other countries' tagging schemes.

• Adding "railway:signal:[main|distant]:states" tag with values :
  

- "BE:V" for "Vert"

- "BE:VJH" for "Vert Jaune Horizontal"

- "BE:VJV" for "Vert Jaune Vertical"

- "BE:2J" for "2 Jaunes"

- "BE:RB" for "Rouge Blanc"

- "BE:R" for "Rouge"

- "BE:V" for the regime change indication

- "BE:U" for for access to a dead-end track

- "BE:CAB" for the CAB indication (TVM430 mandatory for L1 access)

- "BE:TCS" for "Très Courte Section" represented by a horizontal white line on the upper supplementary screen. Apparently, it is still present in the regulations but has not been used for years.

• Adding ETCS-related plates :

- "railway:signal:train_protection=BE:ETCS[1LS|1|2|end]

For distant signals :

• Adding "railway:signal:distant=BE:SAI for "Signal Avertisseur Indépendant"
• Adding "railway:signal:main_repeated=BE:RTL" for "Répétiteur à Traits Lumineux"

Other :

• Adding "railway:signal:stop=BE:PMQ" for "Panneau de Mise à Quai"
  

I welcome any comments ! :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sikal (talk • contribs) 24 jan 2025

---

Hi Sikal! Yay, another mapper who wants to help with the railways!

Did you know Infrabel has a license-compatible dataset about the state of ETCS on the network at https://opendata.infrabel.be/explore/dataset/geo-etcs/?

My remarks:

• Great for the ETCS signs! I've been mapping them with note=* until a tag for them was invented.
• For the signal states:
  • In my experience mapping signals, it requires a lot of knowledge about the signalling system, and even then careful observation about the block size, to determine whether a signal can show 2J, VJH and/or VJV. I'm not confident that I'm capable of doing this correctly so I normally avoid tagging this. So instead I would propose to tag which lights are installed. Do you work for the railways? Do you know if the lights themselves have names? (Thinking in particular about the upper and lower yellow light.)
  • You're suggesting BE:V for both the green state and for the regime change indication, which doesn't seem like a good idea. ;)
• The Wikipedia page has 3-light signals also listed under GSA, but even if they are so in the railway code, we should have a way to differentiate between them in OSM. This is what the shape property described at Tag:railway=signal#List of signal properties is for.
• Signal categorisation:
  • In the current version of the page, SAS signals are currently tagged with railway:signal:shunting=BE:SAS, but the "shunting" part is not correct afaik, right? See the definitions at Tag:railway=signal#List of signal categories. On the Infrabel net, I have never seen such signals outside of shunting yards, but could they be encountered in big movement too, theoretically? On the heritage line between Maldegem and Eeklo they are used, for example.
  • Conversely, the railway:signal:minor=BE:PSA could probably be changed from "minor" to "shunting"? Additionally, violet/yellow shunting signals are still missing altogether. Are those still in the regulations?
• Just for the record: there are some more things we will need tags for:
  • The triangular signs that are used on main/distant signals for VJH.
  • The first of these STOP signs (local activation of the signals of the level crossing) can also still be found, in particular in ports: [1] I remember seeing the last one too somewhere, but I can't remember where. Perhaps it was on a heritage railway line.
  • Various other signs
  • But I suppose these are for later!

If this is a lot, don't feel obliged to answer to everything at the same time! —M!dgard (talk) 13:20, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

---

Hi M!dgard, Thank you for your remarks !

Having contributed a lot to ETCS tagging, I know the geo-etcs dataset well but it's not my only source for following ETCS deployment in Belgium. ;-) To answer to your question : I am a Belgian train enthusiast and I have followed the training to become a train driver but I have failed in the end. :-/ I remain very interested by this domain and keep me up to date!

• ETCS signs

I'm pleased that you agree with my proposal. I propose the following marking scheme for these signs:

- If the sign is carried by a signal (GSA or SAS), keep the tagging scheme of this signal.

- If the sign is on its own, apply basic railway signal tagging scheme.

In addition :

- railway:signal:train_protection=BE:ETCS[-1LS|-1FS|-2|-end]

I suggest adding "-" for readability and "LS"/"FS" to more explicitly indicate which variant of ETCS Level 1 is installed. As ETCS Level 2 is always Full Supervision, I think it is useless to add "FS" to it.

- railway:signal:train_protection:type=[start|end]

"start" for railway:signal:train_protection="BE:ETCS-1LS", "BE:ETCS-1FS" and "BE:ETCS-2"

"end" for railway:signal:train_protection=BE:ETCS-end

- railway:signal:train_protection:form=sign

• Mapping signals

I completely understand. That is why we will also need to determine the method by which we will to know which the states the signal can really show. In rare cases, some of them have lights for some states but aren't programmed to show all of them, either on a temporarily or permanently. That's why I think than tagging exclusively according the lights isn't a great idea.

The VJV is the only aspect that it seems to be impossible to deduce. Other aspects can be deduced from the signs on the signal and knowledge of upstream/downstream signals.

For BE:V for two states, sorry. I was tired. I suggest to keep this tag for "Vert" and find another tag for the regime change. Maybe BE:CR for "Changement de Régime" but it is not consistent with other tags like the BE:U where the letter describe the shape of the indication. Maybe add a prefix "ECS-" for indications from the "Ecran Complémentaire Supérieur" ?

This would result in : BE:ECS-V, BE:ECS-U, BE:ECS-CAB and BE:ECS-TCS.

• 3-lights signals

These signals are called "Type I stop signal" and I think there is already a tag (railway:signal:main=BE-SME:simplified_stop_signal with railway:signal:main:height=normal) but this tag is specific for Stoomtrein Eeklo-Maldegem. However, there are still a few active on the Infrabel network and this signal isn't specific to SME...

• Signal categorization

I think you're right on this point. The SAS can be seen in big movement in some cases like AP/BP or dwarfs combined with a GSA. PSA can only be seen in small movement. violet/yellow shunting signals are no longer in regulations.

• Other signals

Yes, many other signals can be mapped and this discussion was created for that. However, I think we need to map more signals first and propose to render them in https://openrailwaymap.fly.dev ;-)

I look forward to hearing from you ! --Sikal (talk) 08:14, 25 January 2025 (UTC)