Use the following guidelines when naming railroad segments:
For commercially-controlled right-of-ways, rather than apply the default "Railroad" name, you may optionally use the owner's full legal name spelled out without acronyms or abbreviations (e.g. "New Orleans Public Belt Railroad"). Some owners' names incorporate what appear to be or once were acronyms but are actually part of the legal name (e.g., "BNSF Railway", "CSX Railroad").
In case of uncertain ownership, do not guess. Use the default "Railroad" name.
Do not name a railroad segment for a passenger operator that uses it, regardless of how many passengers or how little freight it may carry, unless you are absolutely certain that the passenger operator owns the track. For example, do not name a segment "Amtrak" unless Amtrak actually owns the track (it usually does not, except in the Corridor and in a few other areas).
Do not apply "fallen flags" (former owners that no longer exist due to bankruptcy or merger) in the alternate field.
Keep in mind that should the name of the owner change, due to bankruptcy, merger, or other business decision, you or another editor will need to come back and fix all now-incorrect segments. Railroads can change names often; for example, BNSF Railway has been known by that name only since 2005, and its previous name was in use for only eight years.
For urban rapid transit and light rail systems, rather than apply the default "Railroad" name, you may optionally use the name of the transit authority and the name of the line, separated by a hyphen (e.g., "MBTA - Green Line", "RTA - Riverfront Streetcar").
If a system has only one line, of course, use its name alone (e.g., "Detroit People Mover").
If multiple lines share the same track or run on parallel tracks, include all lines (e.g., "Metro Rail - Red/Purple Lines").
However, if a rapid transit system is so complex that including all line names would lead to an absurd result on some railroad segments, use the name of the system alone (e.g., "BART", "MTA") throughout the system.

kkarkid wrote:Maybe we could standardize on the Canadian Railway Atlas acronyms.

ShaneYYZ wrote:What about in situations where GO Milton and CN Rail share the line?

Would it be named, GO Milton-CP Rail or one or the other? I think GO Milton would be more prominent in this case for most users if we're going to name them.

VIA Rail Canada operates almost 420 trains weekly on 12,500 kilometres of track, connecting over 450 Canadian communities across the country. (...) While VIA Rail Canada owns 223 kilometers of track, most of the infrastructure used by the passenger service is owned and managed by the freight railways, including ten different national and short-line operators.

doctorkb wrote:I would suggest that some form of delineation is necessary when we're talking about an area that has both urban LRT and freight rail.

Urban LRT has crossing delays of seconds (usually). Freight can be an hour. Being able to monitor your route across those differences may be relevant.

doctorkb wrote:#1a: This may be too soon, but perhaps we should add one more to the list: MMA, so people can know to not park downhill from them?