User:AlisonW/Rail Icons

This page is substantially outdated now (2023) but remains in place for historic and reference reasons. Thank you to many other editors for picking up on this work and massively improving the coverage of rail/river/road/canal/etc icons! --AlisonW (talk) 20: 07, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Rail icons are complicated. The coding is mostly the same across icon developers and languages, but not always. These two pages try to consolidate the main available icons (it used to be one page but mediawiki breaks on trying to cope with them all at once!) Note that these pages and tables are not in the main namespace due to their reliance on CSS, thus making them not browser-independent (a requirement for main namespace articles).

Sections

0: Legend - how to decode colours

Page 1

1: Straight tracks
2: Stations and stops
3: Cross-platform interchange
5: Other Elevated
6: Cross junctions and Flyovers

Page 2

7: 2-way branches and junctions
8: 3-way branches and junctions
9: Curves
10: Branching symbols
11: Bridges and Tunnels
12: Line endings and sidings
13: Other symbols (borders, level crossings, etc)
14: Berlin S-Bahn

Extras

16: Hub overlays

How this works

Each entry line contains links to the possible icons in that series. Because many of the 'possible' codes may not actually exist - either because they are not logical/required or because no-one has yet needed to create them - this would cause lots of 'missing image' errors. CSS is therefore used to suppress those icons which do not exist, which is why these pages won't work effectively on non- CSS-capable browsers or for screen readers. It is, however, far more complete than the main manually-maintained version.

The purpose of these tables is to 'find' what icons already exist within WP, and to make it easier for editors to locate the simplest icon for their purpose. Because of this 'consolidation' approach you will find some icons are actually "wrong" according to some editors as their codes might be in error in some way. Similarly, it is often easier to overlay one simple icon with another simple icon to produce the required complexity, rather than create another icon from scratch. This also means that the tables shouldn't be used as a guide to what needs creating; just because there is a blank position it doesn't have to be filled!

It helps a lot to use this table on a wide-screen display! Multi-line-types in a single icon are being moved to their own tables due to the extension of the number of prefixes (eg 'h')

Legend

Note that the number of metals (tracks) is not normally signified in the graphic. Unless stated, naming is based on the vertical/primary route.

dark colour means a currently open line / facility

light colour means either a closed line / route / facility or one under construction / planned

red colour indicates heavy rail or freight line

blue colour indicates light rail, metro or tram line

Prefix:

t means 'tunnel'

h means high / elevated

u means 'unter'/'underground', eg metro and light rail

v indicates close parallel lines

Full list of prefixes in table below

Suffix:

l normally means to left / links / gauche

r normally means to right / rechts / droit

a normally means at start / anfang /

e normally means at end / ende / fin

f normally means forward (down) / fahrtrichtung

g normally means backward (up) / gegenrichtung

o normally means over /

u normally means under / unter

q normally means horizontal (replacing 'H' prefixes)

other codes are built up from joining these together

Prefix	Example	Line	Type	Feature		Note
(none)		Open	Heavy	Open
xp		Open	Heavy	Open		Express service; doesn't stop here
x		Part open	Heavy	Open
e		Open	Heavy	Closed
ex		Closed	Heavy	Closed
t		Open	Heavy	Open	Tunnel
et		Open	Heavy	Closed	Tunnel
xt		Open	Heavy	Closed	Tunnel
ext		Closed	Heavy	Closed	Tunnel
h		Open	Heavy	Open	Elevated
eh		Open	Heavy	Closed	Elevated
xh		Open	Heavy	Closed	Elevated
exh		Closed	Heavy	Closed	Elevated
v		Open	Paired	Open
tv		Open	Paired	Open	Tunnel
ev	File:BSicon evABZlf.svg	Open	Paired	Closed
ve		Open	Paired	Open & Closed
vx		Open	Paired	Open & Closed
vex	File:BSicon vexABZlf.svg	Open	Paired	Open & Closed
xev	File:BSicon xevBHF-STR.svg	Closed & Open	Paired	Closed & Open
exv	File:BSicon exvABZlf.svg	Closed	Paired	Closed
u		Open	Metro	Open
ux	File:BSicon uxKBFa.svg	Part Open	Metro	Open
ue		Open	Metro	Closed
uex		Closed	Metro	Closed
ut		Open	Metro		Tunnel
uxt		Part Open	Metro		Tunnel
uet		Open	Metro		Tunnel
uext		Closed	Metro		Tunnel
uh		Open	Metro		Elevated
uxh		Part Open	Metro		Elevated
ueh		Open	Metro		Elevated
uexh		Closed	Metro		Elevated