> The "designated timetable locations" fall into a category that doesn't quite fit with OSM's tagging scheme and I've noticed that using the "junction" tag is the convention that the community in North America seems to have settled into

It's a false convention. The tag `railway=junction` should only be used for actual junctions.

> With that being said, if you think there's a more appropriate designation for these that I may have overlooked, I'm willing to hear it.

I talked with other mappers and all agree that `railway=junction` is not the proper tag.
I concur that these aren't actual stations, and more designated locations/control points.

> It also has the bonus of making them show up more prominently on Open Railway Map, where the information is most desired. 

That would be tagging for the renderer, since it's not the proper tagging being used.

> With respect to the node I added in Lorette, it's the precise location of the station name sign marking the designated location of Lorette at mile 152.4 of the Trois-Rivières subdivision, and is meant to be separate from the nearby "locality" node. 

The locality node actually refers to the "station" if you check out it's entry in the Banque de noms de lieux du Québec, or even the Canadian Geographical Names Database.

A locality point can refer to a railway site/junction.


> These are the operating locations that appear in railway employee timetables, which are mostly private, though there are some public avenues to obtain this information

Are you able to provide the source? Because time tables aren't necessarilly approved sources to use as they are private and most likely copyrighted.

See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenRailwayMap/Tagging_in_North_America#Private_Data

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The railway tagging is very euro-centric (in fact it's very much based on German practices as the original authors were German), and we mappers of North America have to untangle the differences in meanings and conventions.

Unless there is an actual junction, these should most likely be tagged as `railway=site`
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenRailwayMap/Tagging#Other_operating_sites

I suggest that you refer to https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenRailwayMap/Tagging_in_North_America
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada/Railways

There are a good deal of railway mappers present in the OpenStreetMap US Slack https://slack.openstreetmap.us/

And as always, there is also the community forum where things can be discussed.
