railway colour inconsistencies

[nebulon42]

Railway colours are currently a bit inconsistent. They are also hardcoded at the moment and should be moved to variables at the beginning of roads.mss even if they are only used once, this makes customising easier. Since there is only grayscale available the lightness should correspond to importance. In addition it may be necessary to vary line width to make solid lines like metro, tram, light_rail distinguishable.

Some things that I noticed (there might be more):

• tram lines are way too dark (too prominent)
• tram lines are darker than metro lines
• tracks in tunnels should be (at least a bit) lighter than overground tracks

[matkoniecz]

tram lines are way too dark (too prominent)

Can you give examples of places where tram lines are too prominent?

tram lines are darker than metro lines

Yes, that is a problem. Especially as subways are also mostly dashed (to mark them as underground).

tracks in tunnels should be (at least a bit) lighter than overground tracks

I am not sure that it is necessary. At least in places that I know dashing works OK.

[nebulon42]

Can you give examples of places where tram lines are too prominent?

Sorry that I'm always resorting to Vienna, Austria, but it has a large tram network and also an urban railway and metro system. Also, the new road style did greatly improve things by making railways stand out more.

rail network comparison, z15

Here I'm comparing the rail network. On what I annotated with "railway" run mostly regional rains and the urban railway network (S-Bahn). Equally high in importance or even more important is the metro (U-Bahn). And then there is the tram network. It is a bit unfair to compare the underground metro with trams in terms of visibility since it is rendered below the streets, but there is also an overground portion on the right.

In this comparison trams are most prominent. Visibility of railway is good, but metro is not visible enough. I think trams (and light_rail) should be tuned down, so that they still are visible but less prominent than railway and metro. While the underground portion of the metro is ok (could be darker) the overground portions are way too light.

Dashing for tunnels works okay, but IMO tunnels do not need to be so visible (they are more prominent now in the new road style).

Example (z13), Wienerwaldtunnel to the west of Vienna:

Additionally, when the metro should become darker, it could be necessary to lighten the underground portions, so that they will not become too visible in crowded urban areas.

[nebulon42]

Related to #1831, #1832, #1829.

[jojo4u]

also related to #1828