Forum:Ingerland/Transport
Here's a rambling set of questions for Ingerland mappers to try and start discussion on transport where country-wide decisions need to be made. I'm sure there are things I haven't thought of, so please add them in. -- Pawl (talk) 08:40, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
Roads
How do we intend to classify and number our roads? Are we going to follow the British designation system of M (motorway), A and B roads, or perhaps use different letters, e.g. M (Motorway), P (primary), and S (secondary), and maybe T (trunk)?
At the moment, mainly because of legacy mapping, we have a bit of a mixture of road types and designations. There are motorways designated as M, N or S, "A" is used with all types from motorway to tertiary, there are Bs and BWs (secondary), "C" tertiary, and "F" primary roads.
How do we number them? Will we do something like the British system, where the country is divided into zones each with numbers beginning with a particular digit?
Who allocates the numbers? Shall we keep a register where we log road numbers as we assign them, to prevent duplication?
Can we collectively lay out the major roads network? This would involve deciding where roads enter and leave vacant territories, which would commit future mappers of those territories to working with what has already been decided.
- Not a project member, but as somebody who lives in the UK... I think the M/trunk/A/B designations and the radial road numbering zones are a very strong unique flavour to UK mapping, and doing something else here would really serve to dilute the commonality. I think either a single or dual radial setup would work well. Depends if UL10x should be included. Thanks/wangi (talk) 14:56, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Here's a proposed layout. Only zones 6 and 8 don't radiate out of Wendon. Rather than follow main roads as boundaries like the UK, these zones follow OGF territory boundaries except for in the capital region (of course), and UK 10-04 and 05, both of which had to be dissected in order to create corridors to further-flung areas. -- Pawl (talk) 13:25, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think radial road zoning would be sensible- it's simple, iconic and easy to understand, even for mappers unfamiliar with the system. However, defining zones based on territory boundaries still raises questions both in terms of mapping practicality and history. I'd say defining boundaries by motorways makes more sense, although I don't think we're ready to lay down a national motorway framework. Currently the distribution of motorways is heterogenous: long-distance motorways on the east coast are well-developed, but in other parts of the country the map is either blank (and so motorways could go anywhere depending how future users choose to map the geography), or still in the state Andy left it in when Ingerland was handed over (which also raises the question of to what extent Andy's mapping is here to stay). What does everybody else think?Yuanls (talk) 20:10, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
Re: road numbering prefixes: Glaster currently has 2 S-roads carried over from before the territory was moved. S-roads stood for (Grade) Separated roads. I am more than happy to change the prefix. There was a single grade below S-roads, which were R-roads. I won't go into the intricacies of the system at large because it's redundant now, but it was non-analogous UK road numbering and was a system I made up myself - though I never got around to labelling any R-roads. I'd support a bipartite or tripartite system of road classification - I suspect if we separate trunk roads the system might just become too complex for practical mapping. I'd vote against the lettering system to existing OSM tags simply because it's a bit too on-the-nose. In fact I'd rather retain the M-A-B system Britain uses in real life, or perhaps incorporating elements of the old Glastian system. I have no opinion on any specifics below the numbering of roads in general. The British road network is full of inconsistencies rooted in local history and planning bureaucracy. Perhaps we could leave specifics up to the mappers if they so wish to include them. Yuanls (talk) 20:10, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
Railways
Are the railways nationalized or run by private companies?
Did Ingerland have a rail network as extensive as pre-1960s Britain, and did it go through a major Beeching-like reduction? (i.e. should there be a lot of evidence of closed railway lines and stations on the map?).
Can we collectively lay out the major rail network? This would involve deciding where roads enter and leave vacant territories, which would commit future mappers of those territories to working with what has already been decided.
As with the road network, the rail network suffers this heterogeneity between active territories, blank territories and territories which still retain Andy's mapping. Because we don't have the additional step of working out a numbering system, we could probably pin down (in general terms) a rail system linking the east coast, Wendon and the area surrounding Wendon, at least. In particular I designed Glaster and Kingswin with the idea of two competing railway companies, with one or most likely both owning main lines into Wendon.Yuanls (talk) 22:11, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
I think it would be difficult to historically justify fewer railways as we did in real life, as before road transport took over, the railways were necessary for industrial growth. The question might come down to the extent to which railways were closed, when, and why this happened. There are many disused railways in Glaster - and I have been quite meticulous at mapping them, though there aren't as many as there would have been if I followed railway history Beeching-style. I've deliberately kept the timing and reason of closure ambiguous, but I've had previously had the view that closures were more protracted than they were in the real UK.Yuanls (talk) 22:11, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
It might be best to keep the system nationalised just for simplicity's sake. I've never expected this question to manifest itself significantly in the mapping, especially if this aspect of railway history is similar to what happened in the UK, though I am aware that British Rail did own hotels, engineering facilities and ferry services as well. Curiously in Glaster the setup was that most of the railway network was nationalised, but with certain sections of the network which were privately owned and operated (though again there is no evidence of this on the present map) Yuanls (talk) 22:11, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
Air
I presume the major airport(s) will be in the capital region but we can all create provincial airports where we like. Is there anything we need to decide collectively?