Towns with downtown streets that parallel railroads

[bugo]

During the Railroad Age, many towns, especially in the central part of the country, formed along railroads.  The railroads often did not run due north-south or east-west, so the early streets paralleled the railroad and the cross streets crossed at right angles.  When these cities grew, it was decided to build the roads along section lines, making most major streets due north-south or due east-west, terrain permitting.  You can easily tell the old parts of town by looking at the map, because the streets will have curves in them where the old grid meets the new grid.  Here are two good examples of this phenomenon:

Tulsa, Oklahoma:
http://goo.gl/maps/jfcjx

Mena, Arkansas
http://goo.gl/maps/BOUg5

Where else does this happen?  Are there any examples in the old part of the country, the eastern seaboard that was settled before railroads moved in?

[Scott5114]

Norman, OK is a particularly clear example of this.

[NE2]

Are there any examples in the old part of the country, the eastern seaboard that was settled before railroads moved in?

Hammonton NJ, with the old road (Egg Harbor Road) at a slight angle to the grid.

[hotdogPi]

Wakefield, MA (Main St.)

[1995hoo]

Ashland, Virginia. The railroad tracks run between two sides of the same street (Center Street). It's one of my favorite parts of the Auto Train trip. I do not know whether the town came first or the tracks came first, but I presume the town since it was founded in 1858 (I know, that doesn't answer when that particular street grew up).

[hm insulators]

When I was a kid, Walnut Avenue in Pasadena, California was closely paralleled by railroad tracks. The tracks entered Pasadena from the east, then at the west side of the town just before Raymond Avenue, they bent to the south along Arroyo Parkway, the surface street in Pasadena that ultimately puts you on the California 110 Freeway (then called the Pasadena Freeway, now reverted back to its original designation of Arroyo Seco Parkway). They were abandoned and torn up sometime in the 1980s, I think, although the Metro Link Gold Line uses some of the old right-of-way through South Pasadena.

[US 41]

1st Street in downtown Terre Haute has a railroad in the middle of the street. I think they are supposed to eventually tear it out and make 1st Street a boulevard, as it is an unused track now. It's been that way for over a year. Terre Haute is pretty much railroad capital of the world. Everyone hates the railroads in Terre Haute, but I think it's safe to say that they built the city. Terre Haute would be a little town if it wouldn't have been for the railroad.

[PHLBOS]

Along the Main Line area of southeastern PA, west of Philly; US 30/Lancaster Ave. runs parallel to the Amtrak Keystone & SEPTA Paoli/Throndale Regional Rail Lines.

[The High Plains Traveler]

Rocky Ford, Colorado.
http://goo.gl/maps/Og7TY

[SD Mapman]

Anywhere in SD with a railroad.

[SidS1045]

Much of the Massachusetts Turnpike's original 123 miles from the NY border to I-95/MA-128 was built alongside the RoW of the old Boston & Albany Railroad (which was failing at the time; the Turnpike Authority's purchase of the RoW from the railroad helped keep the condemnation costs down).  Most of the Boston Extension, from I-95/MA-128 to I-93, runs alongside the Amtrak/Conrail/MBTA Commuter Rail RoW.

[bzakharin]

Newark, NJ has a bit of this
https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m4!1m3!1d6693!2d-74.166141!3d40.7302785
though the rest of the grid is hardly due north-south/east-west

Also, Elizabeth (which borders Newark) has its grid bend to accommodate three railroads
https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m4!1m3!1d13399!2d-74.2031771!3d40.6589668
only one of which is still in use by passenger traffic (the one 1&9 parallels)

[pianocello]

Anywhere in SD with a railroad.

Ditto for Nebraska. West Texas comes to mind, too.

[Kacie Jane]

https://goo.gl/maps/PWWLJ  Bellingham, WA.  Though the old railroad through downtown along Railroad Avenue no longer exists.

[1995hoo]

Ashland, Virginia. The railroad tracks run between two sides of the same street (Center Street). It's one of my favorite parts of the Auto Train trip. I do not know whether the town came first or the tracks came first, but I presume the town since it was founded in 1858 (I know, that doesn't answer when that particular street grew up).

Follow-up now that I'm at a PC: Street View link showing downtown Ashland. If you move the view south a few blocks you can see some nice old houses fronting that street. I don't know that I'd really want to live along train tracks like that. My apartment at Duke was across the Durham Freeway (NC-147) from an at-grade railroad crossing and while train whistles didn't wake me up at night, they sure were annoying whenever I was watching TV or on the phone. I wouldn't care to have that experience again.

[NE2]

Ashland, Virginia. The railroad tracks run between two sides of the same street (Center Street). It's one of my favorite parts of the Auto Train trip. I do not know whether the town came first or the tracks came first, but I presume the town since it was founded in 1858 (I know, that doesn't answer when that particular street grew up).

The railroad came through in 1836: http://rnetzlof.pennsyrr.com/corphist/rf_p.html

[briantroutman]

I think you'll find many city street patterns that parallel tracks along the original Pennsylvania Railroad line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh–primarily from central to western PA. Of course that would include some of the "Main Line" towns as PHLBOS mentioned.

Lancaster, for example, was fairly well-settled before the presence of the railroad, so its street grid doesn't follow the rails, but Harrisburg, which was still largely pastoral until the construction of the PRR, has a street pattern which generally follows the curve of the railroad (and in turn, the river).

Following the tracks westward, you'll find similar setups in Newport, Mifflin, Mt. Union, Huntington, Altoona, Johnstown, and numerous other burgs in between. Most of these towns owe their existence to the railroad–many having first been rural settlements that grew into towns because of the industrialization enabled by trains.

[sandiaman]

I  forget  the  name  of  the street, it  has a  railroad  running  right  down  the middle of  the  wide street,  in downtown Elko, Nevada.  It  is  one block south  of Idaho Street, ( old US 40).  Lordsburg, NM  also  has  the  main drag  following  the  tracks,  and  it  was  aptly  named Railroad Avenue.  It  still has a  high amount  of train traffic  going  right  the center  of  town.

[DTComposer]

Many of the San Joaquin Valley cities along the rail corridor that also became the US-99 corridor developed this way: Modesto, Turlock, Atwater, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Selma, Tulare, Delano, Bakersfield (actually East Bakersfield, which was the "original" downtown when it was Kern City), etc.

[Alps]

Burlington, NC sprang to mind. http://goo.gl/maps/fwyYY

[roadman]

Wakefield, MA (Main St.)

North Avenue in Wakefield, which is considered the western boundary of Wakefield's downtown area, runs on a northwest to southeast alngment alongside the old Western Route of the Boston and Maine, which is now the MBTA's Reading/Haverhill commuter rail line.  Main Street in Wakefield has a crossing of the recently-abandoned Newburyport branch, which then goes in a northeast alignment away from downtown, while Main Street goes northwest into the center of downtown.

for the record,  I've been a Wakefield MA resident for 24 years and travel both North Ave and Main Street on a near daily basis

[hotdogPi]

NY 34 from Ithaca south to the Pennsylvania border (several towns), then PA 199 and US 220 from there on (several more towns).

Some towns along this path are Van Etten NY, Waverly NY, Sayre PA, Athens PA, and Monroe PA (Monroe is the endpoint).

[doorknob60]

Nampa, ID does this, and it makes for an intersting (and sometimes confusing) grid because the railroad is at a 45* angle compared to I-84 and the rest of the area's grid.

Map: https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m4!1m3!1d29927!2d-116.5595461!3d43.5786637

Caldwell does it too, for that matter.

[m2tbone]

Several towns northwest of St. Louis in Missouri come to mind for this.  Some of the top of my head include Montgomery City, Vandalia, Wellsville, Centralia, Wright City, Wentzville, and Jonesburg.  Other towns such as Washington, St. Charles, and Jefferson City have downtown streets that parallel both the river and current or former rail lines.  Other towns such as Mexico, Macon, and Moberly seemed to have downtown street grids established before the railroads were built around or through them. 

[mgk920]

Both the Spokane and Seattle downtown street grids were built around and along side railroads.  In Seattle, Alaskan Way was originally GN's mainline route (street running), before it was bypassed in the early 20th century by the current BNSF tunnel.

Mike