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Is the tag redundant if posts are already tagged with and ?

If no, should I tag relevant questions with all three tags, or only with — probably this implies and ?

If yes, is it technically possible to make synonymous to the combination of + ?

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  • Well you can travel with ViaRail in some parts of the states (Pacific North West)... Can't do multiple-tag synonyms, sadly, at least not that I've seen. Might be a cool feature to propose on meta.stackoverflow.com
    – Mark Mayo
    Mar 10, 2013 at 22:45
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    I don't think this matters either way. We have tags for the names of other train companies as well as bus and air travel companies. There's only space for five tags on a question so if you're already got four important ones you can squeeze in "amtrak". Mar 11, 2013 at 2:21

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There are about two dozen regional/commuter rail systems in the U.S. that are not operated by Amtrak, but also would never be confused with urban rapid transit systems. They are not designed for long distance travel by tourists, but a backpacker could make the journey from New London CT all the way down to Newark DE (about 250 miles) entirely on commuter train services for about $50 (plus a walk between Grand Central Station and Penn Station in New York), as opposed to $127 on Amtrak.

In some cases they share facilities or lease rail from Amtrak, but to the consumer they have no other relationship— you can't go to a Metra agent and ask whether the Empire Builder is departing on time, and you can't go to an Amtrak agent at Washington Union Station and get a VRE pass. So while we wouldn't need a tag for each of those systems, it wouldn't be correct to tag them as Amtrak, either.

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Is the tag redundant if posts are already tagged with and ?

No - see @choster's answer. (The tag is presently in use for 43 Open questions.)

If no, should I tag relevant questions with all three tags, or only with — probably this implies and ?

Only with (and others as appropriate). As you mentioned, already implies and . @Ankur Banerjee♦'s advice is:

use the most specific tags for the question.

This is advisable in part, because of the five tag limit per question, to leave room for other more meaningful relevant tags, such as , etc.

If yes, is it technically possible to make synonymous to the combination of + ?

Technically Yes, but very far from being practical or ever being implemented.

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I think the people looking for questions tagged either , or should find questions relating to , so I suppose it implies questions should be tagged the three.

But I agree, it seems weird to have all these, it looks like too many.

Are synonyms one-way or bidirectional? In other words, is there technically a way to "produce" the tags and when is used, but not the other way around? If so, I would suggest this. If not, let's just tag the three.

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    No you can map many synonyms to one main tag but you cannot map any synonym to two main tags. It wouldn't really be possible anyway because what would happen when you used four regular tags plus one synonym that maps to two tags? You can't have six tags on a question. Mar 16, 2013 at 5:58
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I feel should be made a synonym of . Thoughts? Train companies usually have a monopoly on whatever routes they run, and even if they don't (such as in the UK, where the connecting trains between two points may be from different companies), the difference usually doesn't matter.

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    I disagree in this case. For example, between Kiruna and Luleå (Sweden) I might want to ask about differences between the trains by SJ and the trains by Norrtåg, both operating on the same route, but with different characteristics. After some more thinking, I don't think amtrak is redundant, even if it presently is in practice, perhaps there will be other train companies in the future.
    – gerrit
    Mar 11, 2013 at 9:20

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