Question about former railroad

I have a quick question I’m pretty sure I know the answer to, but wanted to be sure. In my town (and a neighboring town) there used to be a seldom-used railway line that is being turned into a rail-trail. Construction is nearly done in my town (and was completed in the neighboring town several years ago)… but that corridor is currently labeled as both an abandoned railway line and a footpath.

This seems wrong to me–it’s no longer a railway of any sort, right? An abandoned rail line is tracks rusting in overgrowth, right? Not a paved path through a suburban neighborhood, yeah? I’m leery of deleting the railway line though, as it seems like a major change, so I wanted to ask and be sure of this.

Well, railroad-fans have maintained or established something like a special treatment, they are basically the only ones that are somewhat allowed to store historical data in a non historical map . I’m not a fan of it as well but its fine if its tagged properly as abandoned.

A railway is usually not removed if it is still visible or recognisable in the landscape as a (former) railway but retagged to reflect its current state.

Also consult the wiki:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:railway%3Dabandoned
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Demolished_Railway

The concept you have in mind is “disused”, not “abandoned”. The latter applies to the structure remaining below the removed running-rails.

Best is to look at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Lifecycle_prefix and according to that demolished is probably the best choice. (not abandoned as i said in my earlier post)