Downtowns with railroad tracks as the center

[skluth]

There are a few in Wisconsin near where I grew up

Appleton
Brillion - railroad ROW is visible
Coleman
Columbus
Denmark - now a state trail
Lena
Marinette
Shawano - now a state trail
Superior

[kphoger]

There are a few in Wisconsin near where I grew up

Appleton
Brillion - railroad ROW is visible
Coleman
Columbus
Denmark - now a state trail
Lena
Marinette
Shawano - now a state trail
Superior

From what I see, none of those matches what the OP is looking for.

[NWI_Irish96]

This would describe a lot of the inner Chicago suburbs that are on Metra lines.

A few I can think of:
Berwyn
Riverside
Brookfield
Lagrange
Des Plaines
Mt. Prospect

I'm sure there are more.

Downers Grove, Westmont, Wheaton are a few more I know.

Yep, and those aren't the only ones either.
Besides Wheaton, I also immediately thought of Elmhurst, for example.

I we're allowing elevated tracks to count, then Oak Park would qualify.

[kphoger]

I we're allowing elevated tracks to count, then Oak Park would qualify.

Yes, sort of.  Most businesses front Oak Park Avenue, but there are plenty along North & South Avenues as well.  I'm not familiar enough with Oak Park's history to know what it looked like a hundred years ago.

[route29]

Brewton, Alabama

[KCRoadFan]

Here in the KC area, Lee's Summit comes to mind.

[SkyPesos]

Are there any examples of this with tram tracks? Most of the US tram tracks that run in the middle of the road are street running, not on their own trackbed or in a patch of grass.

[fillup420]

Most NC examples have been said already, but I know there's right many towns along the CSX A-line (and I-95) that would qualify. Places like Kenly and Benson. Also, looking at the map, its impressive how straight the railroad is throughout most of NC. Seaboard did a bang-up job when they built what is now the A-line

[Road Hog]

The only thing I can add to this is Celina, TX uses the BNSF Railway through town as its E-W zero numbering point. The tracks pass a couple of blocks east of the town square.

[lepidopteran]

Would Vineland, NJ count?  That pattern runs a long distance, it seems, and there's even a perpendicular branch with that same setup for about two blocks.

[ran4sh]

A lot of Georgia examples were already mentioned, but another example is Commerce GA.

For the OP, you might want to read about the PLSS (Public Land Survey System) if you're unfamiliar with it. A lot of the Midwest and West was surveyed before it was settled (by Americans), so that could possibly contribute to why you don't see the railroad-based town layout as much in those states.

[Dirt Roads]

Most NC examples have been said already, but I know there's right many towns along the CSX A-line (and I-95) that would qualify. Places like Kenly and Benson. Also, looking at the map, its impressive how straight the railroad is throughout most of NC. Seaboard did a bang-up job when they built what is now the A-line

Pardon, but the A-Line is the former Atlantic Coast Line.  The Seaboard is called the S-Line.  And yes, the ACL constructed the best engineered railroad speedway on the East Coast.

I worked on the railroad in both Kenly and Benson and didn't consider either one to meet the OP requirements.  But looking at the map, perhaps Benson does meet the requirements.  Today, the downtown section is along South Wall Street (US-301), but many years ago Market Street was the main drag.  But it actually looks as if the section of town that I worked in functions like a portion of downtown spread across both sides of the railroad.  Many of those buildings look as old as the surrounding ones.

[lepidopteran]

Other New Jersey examples include

• Jamesburg
• Englewood and Tenafly.  Tracks are lightly used, if at all. (but YMMV.  One side of the track in the former is a parking lot, but it looks like it may have been a road at one time.)
• Passaic, on Main Ave. (abandoned), with a parking area where the tracks were.  There's a picture somewhere of the ceremonial "last train" on the line, complete with a backhoe waiting around to rip up the rails pronto!

Then there's Saratoga St. in Newport, KY, with L&N tracks running down the middle to the bridge over the Ohio River.  Although this is often given as an example of street running, photos suggest that the tracks were sectioned off by curbs in the median, albeit with little clearance.  This was abandoned in 1987; CSX had just combined Seaboard System operations (which included L&N) and the Chessie System (with C&O).  They opted to stick with the C&O bridge.  The median is now raised, with grass.

[cpzilliacus]

The railroad is long gone and the town is largely abandoned, but there once was a railroad in the middle of the Borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania (I believe that Centralia was the end of the spur line that served the municipality).

Appropriately the line ran  in the middle of Railroad Avenue as can be seen on Google Maps here.

[zachary_amaryllis]

Fort Collins, CO

https://goo.gl/maps/8omxf88uoPyFHEU7A

it used to be that the tracks were literally the middle of the street, now they've dug them out and there's an island in the middle of the street for the trains.. still neat (i live near there).

you can count on this.. the one time you're late for something, or about to be, there's the train. at least they built a bypass track to eliminate a lot of the back-and-forth across college when they were interchanging bnsf and up cargo along jefferson. that would tie up that intersection for hours sometimes.

[paulthemapguy]

This would describe a lot of the inner Chicago suburbs that are on Metra lines.

A few I can think of:
Berwyn
Riverside
Brookfield
Lagrange
Des Plaines
Mt. Prospect.

Downers Grove
Westmont
Wheaton

Elmhurst

Oak Park

Hinsdale
Western Springs

I imagine there are a lot of little railroad towns across the Midwest and Great Plains that have this dual-frontage street setup.  Here's one: Sturgeon, Missouri  Of course, many of these small towns don't have much of a downtown anymore; still others never did.

[kphoger]

Hinsdale

I see the streets there, but I don't see many buildings fronting them.

[sparker]

Pasadena, CA, up until 1994, featured a main line of the ATSF (Santa Fe) railroad running right through the city center on a N-S axis.  It literally ran through an alley between commercial buildings on both Colorado Blvd. and the parallel streets flanking that main artery, crossing all of them at grade.  Most of the main pre-Amtrak Santa Fe trains utilized this track (the Chief, El Capitan, Grand Canyon Limited, and, most notably, the Super Chief -- although that one was switched to their Riverside/Fullerton line in 1967, skipping Pasadena).  That ROW is still there today, although now hosting the Gold Line LR -- but that has been sunk in a trench and subsequently covered; businesses are now located in the former "alley" -- on the LR cap -- where the Santa Fe tracks ran for 100+ years.  BTW, the Pasadena Santa Fe depot was 4 blocks south of Colorado Street; boardings and deboardings there were almost always equivalent to that at L.A.'s Union Station, 12 miles to the southwest; a lot of riders preferred not to have to put up with downtown L.A. traffic to get on the train!   

[Roadgeekteen]

Would Needham count?

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.2838201,-71.2430246,15z

[zachary_amaryllis]

laramie, wyoming. a good part of downtown fronts on the tracks, and bonus: there's a cool footbridge that goes up and over the railyard, and is a great place to watch trains if one is so inclined.

[Rick Powell]

The South Chicago branch of Metra is partially covered with roads and homes and businesses on both sides of the tracks, and other places with a road on one side and an alley or private drive on the other side. When I worked for the former ICG RR we occasionally had to replace sections of high rise platforms where an errant car had jumped the tracks and taken out a support; most of the wooden platforms have since been replaced with concrete. Back in the 70s there were local industries being switched as well as commuter trains, but I suspect that most or all of the freight business has vanished by now.

You can drive the StreetView link below to the north and see most of the double street action. It's a pretty narrow rail corridor and the streets are right next to the trains with little buffer, and the stations and center platforms are about as narrow as you will find in the Chicago area.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7541438,-87.5549563,3a,75y,347.75h,98.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sQ7YCVgfV2-1AvesURQ9J5g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

[index]

Would Needham count?

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.2838201,-71.2430246,15z

Nope, the buildings aren't centered around the track.

[XamotCGC]

LaGrange Kentucky.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.4076317,-85.3783784,3a,75y,50.9h,69.48t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1scS73Gu9_i7hkDCssadw86w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

[pianocello]

LaGrange Kentucky.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.4076317,-85.3783784,3a,75y,50.9h,69.48t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1scS73Gu9_i7hkDCssadw86w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

That was one I thought of as well, until I saw the OP:

... but NOT something like La Grange, KY ...

Not sure if this qualifies, but Winter Garden, FL has had its railroad converted into a trail. I don't know the setup when the tracks were in place, but it appears to have been between the two roadbeds. (map)

[Dirt Roads]

Shakopee, Minnesota:  This past month's edition of Trains magazine emphasizes railroads in the state of Minnesota.  In the back of each edition is a photo gallery, and one of the photos addresses this very topic.  It says that "street running is rare in Minnesota", but then shows a Union Pacific train on the Mankato Subdivision running between streets on Second Avenue in Shakopee.  As the OP correctly indicates, this is not "street running".  While it looks like First Avenue is the main drag downtown, it appears that Second Avenue also meets the downtown requirement specified by the OP.