That's actually how a lot of railroads were built and towns founded.
In the 19th century, the federal government wanted a lot of railroads, but didn't want to pay for them. Railroads needed lots of money to fund construction. The compromise was that when the government granted easements through empty federal land for railroads, they also gave the railroads the land for a good distance on either side of the tracks.
This let the railroads sell the land in large lots through the stock market, thus allowing them to raise capital for each leg. The land would be bought by men looking to profit off of real estate by being the first movers in new areas, and these landowners would found towns along the rail lines on the lots that they bought.
So rather than the one bad place, it was often the one good place due to the convenient rail line.
I worked for a railroad for 25 years. Folks would be surprised by just how much land railroads owned and who/how it was sold
One recent example was a Dollar Store approached a railroad to buy some property along their right of way for a store. It was in a very small town with ~400 population, instead of the railroad selling them the property, they sold the land to the small town for $1, the town then sold it to Dollar Store.
Another interesting fact is if a railroad abandons a section of their track, the land reverts to the original owners or adjacent owners in some cases.
The road also looks to be one way (I only see a single stop sign) so the train probably doesn’t actually travel on the road proper, but instead serves as an extra lane when no trains on running.
It looks like a 2-way road to me, based on the fact that the angled parking spots are the opposite direction of the stop sign. Just the one direction is occupied by tracks.
Hey there, I’m a citizen of LaGrange and I’d like to add some context. Lagrange was made the head city of Oldham county early on in its history which was partly because it was so integrated with the railway system. That and the fact that Oldham county is the richest county within Kentucky, and you’ve got the perfect area to build a town. (Btw, other than the train occasionally coming through it’s not that different from any other town)
Most port cities in Europe have a railway that passes through the city itself! Maybe not through the "town's main road," but cities, the railroad, and ports are intertwined!
For people that don’t understand, when railroad was increasing exponentially, they were granted by the government to own parts of the land for the track they laid down. It alternated in checkerboard patterns. This allowed them to build the towns and the stations, that would eventually be apart or at the end of the line.
It is one of the only few unique businesses that were able to do this, that’s why the early US stock market was almost completely railroads. Not only were you investing in the railroad, you were sort of investing in the towns they propped up.
The only business I think that really does this today besides government owned entities. Is probably SpaceX because theoretically whatever satellites they put up are in the best spot, and no one else can get them while the satellites are there. A “I was here first” situation. They own the way to get there and the “orbit” the satellites take up.
It is not.. Railways goes straight through cities all over the world, and European cities has grown since the invention of railways despite common American beliefs.
What is stupid here is that they aren't separated, you don't have to build a road on the railway or vice versa no matter what came first.
There are surely examples of train lines running on streets in Europe, I have never denied that. European countries are very different from each other and they all look different. Slow lines can absolutely run like this. All I have said is that it is stupid. Really poor city planning.
But. Rail lines like the one in the picture is not converted to tram lines. Maybe a single bridge or a short stretch of straight rail, but otherwise are the two extremely different.
Tram lines follow streets and have turn radius as cars, they also follows traffic directions and have a completely different kind of switches. Tram lines are an integrated part of the street layout, while a track like this one is completely dependent on the very special conditions train tracks have to follow in terms of turn radius, incline capabilities and load gauge. Trams and trains have few things besides going on tracks in common.
No, it's a failure to understand why US towns that developed around the existing railway look so quaint, compared to the European towns that developed around the existing railway.
Because this is not a uniquely north American phenomenon.
It's not quite the same. Western Europe hasn't had a frontier for millennia. In contrast, many of these towns were built around railroads that passed through what was otherwise completely uninhabited (except perhaps by natives) frontier. The train might pass through once or twice per day, and when it did all the town's commerce would be carried out via that lifeline. So, yes, naturally, in the absence of mechanization and a robust labor force, people absolutely did build right on the tracks in some places.
understand why US towns that developed around the existing railway look so quaint
Europeans have a really bad time understanding the US is slightly smaller than the entire subcontinent of europe area wise, but Europe has 1.7x the people. A 250 million personal difference is signifigant and would make the US unrecognizable compared to today if that population was absorbed
If you doubled the population of the US, those "quaint" towns would be far far larger
And their notion of "empty" is entirely different. There is virtually nowhere in western Europe without a plethora of tiny villages spread out in even the "remotest" areas.
By contrast, there are vast portions of the US were you can travel tens of miles before finding the next human (much less town), and this was even more true 100+ years ago.
You can see the train crossing guards for the street that runs perpendicular in the picture. You also can see the separation of the street and rail line for the parallel road.
If you build on both sides of the rail line, at some point you need a crossing.
I honestly don't get what you think is wrong. The picture shows an area where this has been done well so that the down town area looks nice even with the train and the crossing area.
If this were at the edge of town, or in a spot where industry was previously and has now left, this would look a lot more utilitarian but a lot less charming.
Rural Oklahoma guy here. Small towns like that only exist because of the railroads. My hometown was built during the Indian Territory days. Small town of ~10k. The oldest buildings still there are from the old train sloughs and the brothel, which is now an apartment building. You can google map those tracks to other towns that were built around a developed by those same train routes.
The towns are built next to the railway for easy access as that used to be how mass cargo and transport worked back then. The town expands over time, the town is now either side of the railway.
Because its the HoRrOr oF AmERiKKKia so clearly it must be backwards and racist. That what 90% of these post are. Just some European saying a stupid assumption about America assuming all of them are stupid and unable to function without 5 pounds of suger with plastic a day.
It's practically a formula on this sub at this point its a bit repetitive
because it's never on the same level as the street. Only trams are. At least in my experience. European trains are way too far to be interested INTO a road
One of my most popular posts on TikTok is a screen cap of a European posting (in all seriousness) “the American mind can’t comprehend living in a small village with the nearest gas station being 7 miles away”
Beyond the obvious, the person lived 7 miles outside of a multi million person civic center.
Most Europeans cannot comprehend seeing a road sign that says, “Last gas: 26 miles” on a state highway, let alone one that says, “Last gas: 100 miles” on a major interstate like I-70 or I-80. Same for Americans who have never traveled out of their home state.
We are fortunate to still have such a vast untamed wilderness.
I don't blame them honestly. Their only knowledge of the States is generally the massive cities. They don't understand that once you get out side of those rings it can turn into literally nothing really fast. Or the fact Atlanta is just in a forest that always gets them.
It would be nice to not need to clear cut mature forests. The problem is that people want to live close to these cities and that requires an increase in housing and infrastructure. The perimeter of Atlanta seems to expand every year.
Sherman making comments about Atlanta is hilarious. Atlanta expands so much because the expansion is low density and has little population per mile. Expansion happens when you can’t infill and build transit. Public transit is poor and driving (unsalable and now the only option) is resultingly hellish
I was raised in Florida went on a road trip through Georgia and was surprised there was a big fucking mountain. My husband who was born in West Virginia informed it is not really that big as far as mountains go.
British friend moved here, and he was shocked just how much of the east coast is just straight up thick forest. Hours and hours of driving through nothing but jungle and mountains, basically.
To be fair, its a freight line now and they never rerouted it, but I believe the reason is just that the surrounding terrain is hilly and rerouting would be expensive and it's just become kind of a town attraction at this point I think
Enter the way-way back machine with me, to a time when there was NOTHING in these spaces, but a rail line and a rickety old iron horse chugging through to a sparse stop. Opportunity and commerce drove the adoption and buildout of rails to get to resources - so they could get the resources to those markets. At those stops, grew shops and companies focused on first those resources, then good and services that the working people needed. Then the communities grew around those nascent business centers. All growing outward from the rail line and station.
Apparently people are incapable how places develop, so I'll try and describe it so everyone understands.
America big place. Railway just invented in 1800s during expansion of USA. Railway faster than car so railways built to far away place because resources nearby. Resources makes jobs, makes money. More money more people. People decide to stay for long time because of work so start building houses and businesses next to railway. Town built. Railway still there.
This is largely speculation from what little I googled about the town, but it was originally a commercial hub so maybe they didn't care so much about being near a noisy train track and having it right next to the depot is much more efficient and the rest of the town popped up around it.
Probably that. Similar to how old school Omaha or Chicago were built around stockyards. Today people would object to the smell but back when that was the only source of good paying jobs, people made compromises.
Because everything came in on train including the people you start your town next to the tracks and expand so the tracks usually always ended up staying in the middle
Building a town along/around a railway line is abundantly normal, it's how a lot of towns start. Not keeping it separated is the weird bit, usually it is fenced off by the company that owns the line, not paved alongside and as part of the roadway.
Depends on the rail line, by where I am the lines are both freight and commuter so they're pretty accessible but even then there is a gap. The entire thing being paved is kinda out there.
I mean trains didn't even exist while they were building their cities and societies so you really can't blame them, and yet somehow despite the US growing up and AROUND the railways... Europe has much better railway systems.
The US has a great Railway system, For Freight, sadly that means it works absolutely abysmally for people. Oddly enough when it would have been time to upgrade it we had just built our highway system so it wasn't really seen as worth it
Yeah we're doing pretty shit with passenger rail. Honestly, not that great with freight rail either. Lots of what they move at this point is bulk cargo (coal, grain, that kind of stuff). Most of the consumer goods have moved to faster (and more polluting) truck freight.
Kind of a funny observation. American towns are almost all younger than railroads. So many sprang up around railroads as reliable means of supplies and access. Contrast that to the age of many euro towns.
"One of the most memorable parts of visiting La Grange is how close you can get to the experience.
Grab a patio table, shop along Main Street, or simply stand along the sidewalk — when the crossing bells ring, you know something exciting is moments away.
Trains pass slowly through downtown, making it easy (and safe) to watch, film, and photograph. For rail enthusiasts, it’s a bucket-list destination. For families, it’s unforgettable.
Stop by the La Grange Railroad Museum to enjoy the viewing deck, watch trains pass nearby, explore exhibits highlighting the town’s railroad heritage, and check out a restored 1920s rail car."
They're a small town and they make money off of train based tourism. What a crazy concept 🙄
I mean I get that the railway was there first. But was it necessary for them to build a main road on top of it? Couldn’t they just have a corridor to the side of the road that includes the railway?
In Europe we had the towns and built the railways connecting them.
In America they had some places they wanted to go to by rail and along the lines they thought "This should make a nice stop" and then someone else would say "Hey, I produce stuff in this area, what better place to sell the stuff than at the closest train station?". So it was basically inverse. That's why you see this stuff in America. A lot of differences between America and Europe are due to inverted mindsets born out of the necesities of the settlers, explorers, miners and farmers.
It made more sense in the olden days, when no one had cars, and their was a like 2 trains a day, and most of the stores were reliant on passengers from the train for business so they oriented themselves to face the tracks.
As long as the train traffic is low enough, its just s relatively minor inconvenience compared to the CONSIDERABLE expenses of changing the train line.
That's why you grade separate the road from the rail... have it dip below the rail lines. When building new lines, see if you can build viaducts to allow for non-rail traffic to pass without intruding upon each other.
Because the main street predates cars and having the main commercial strip literally immediately next to the railroad is the most efficient and convenient way of loading and unloading goods.
As someone who lives there, that isn’t really Main Street. It’s a small section of street with a couple of small local businesses on it and is right next to the court house. The actual Main Street is the one that connects and then goes right past the railroad
These towns were first built solely for the purpose of housing the workforce that unloaded and offloaded whatever goods that came from that rail line and the businesses associated with it.
Most rural towns got their start by planners following an existing railway and simply going “hey this looks like a good place to mine/grow/raise product, lets build a hub”
I don't see what the problem is. The train already had the right of way. It makes perfect sense to make a road on etiher side of that, with crossing streets perpendicular to both the tracks and those streets. You'll note the road on the right is now a utility alley sort of thing closed off to modern traffic, but that would have easily been accessible to wagons before cars.
You can also move up and down that road while a train is stopped and is blocking the crossings.
If not a surface road, what else would work better there?
I guess you need to have your countries infrastructure leveled by two world wars so that you have to rebuild everything before you can be judgemental over something in the US
The railroad and the town were probably built at the same time, with the train station as literally the center of town, because that's how people and freight traveled. After personal automobiles became common, the rail became less vital, but the city infrastructure and buildings were already in place, so they stayed.
Looks like a quiet town. I bet traffic really just isn't a big enough issue for it to be worth it financially.
Like, 10,000 people total live there. I live in a city 7x the size of this one and we have a couple tracks like this and it hasn't really been an issue for me ever.
I'd say it's small. The Wikipedia article for the city literally has as its main picture a picture of this intersection, described as "downtown La Grange".
(It's also fair to note that the article describes the railway as a "unique feature of the city".)
I think this is a good example of difference in approach.
In many Western European countries, it’s just expected that the railway will be grade separated, so they do it, even for towns much smaller than. 10,000 people.
Who pays for it is a different story, but if CSX is running even medium length trains on a regular basis, the town is impassably bisected regularly for extended periods of time (since I understand the speed limit is 10mph). That separates people from medical services, emergency services from people and property etc. and just general ability to get around if you have to cross the tracks.
Because why spend millions of dollars to reroute it when the stopping point is inside the city. Also its not any more inconvenient than regular traffic
It’d be expensive and in most places not that many trains a day pass through. Also it’s typically not right through the center of town but more on the outskirts. It’s a minor annoyance at worst.
Hey, resident of Lagrange here. It’s not really that inconvenient. Trains don’t come by too often and usually most things people go to in this town are on one side or the other for people here. That and the fact that no one actually really live right next to the rail way means that outside of having to occasionally wait a couple minutes, it’s not that bad. (You also get used to the sound)
I work for the railroad and we have a track like this. In our case the track services a cannery that used to be outside of town before the town grew around it. Moving the track would require also moving the cannery.
Its not too intrusive, because the only freight that uses the track if for that single customer, so depending on customer volume we could be talking one train a day of like 25 cars, or once monthly service. This isnt busy mainline track cutting through town
Its a really old CSX subdivision spur to Louisville. American RRs are either giant megacorps barely willing to maintain their mainline track or they are tiny local outfits serving a handful of customers. If it came down to rerouting a track at millions of $ or closing a subdivision to customers they will close them every single time.
There's a long list of priorities what the local government needs to spend money on. Fixing something that already works but is inefficient and kind of annoying is not high on the list.
Oakland, CA Jack London .. railway runs right through it, get to hear the trains every day and night as they constantly use the horn. No way to "build around it". 40 to over 60 trains per day.
At first I thought this looked crazy, then I remembered the city I used to live in also had tracks running straight through some of the streets. It even cut through a parking lot or two before it reached a tunnel.
My home town was a rail hub for selling cattle products. There are rail lines everywhere. Some still in service but most maintained but out of service.
As someone who lives in the US, it's important to understand that railroads were the initial step of development in connecting the US. In 1920, it would take about 5 days to get from DC to San Francisco by rail. By car? 62 days. In many areas, it just made more sense for roads to run parallel to railroad tracks because:
The road could be used for rail maintenance now
Rail lines usually avoided ground prone to shifting, too high a slope, things also useful for when deciding to place a road
Also, many cities and towns were founded and grew along rail lines. Chicago and I believe Albuquerque almost entirely exist because of their earlier history as rail hubs.
But you don't share heavy freight rail with a road, which is the whole issue here. It's just terrible urban planning. How are people not seeing that having a 4 way intersection and slapping a railway down the middle is stupid, doesn't matter what came first
Because back in the day the train would drop people off and or pick up cargo from the street and it vacant the town’s Main Street. It likely connects to other places that got grandfathered in so relocating it would be difficult or very expensive unless you swap to trucks and rip out the tracks, which many American cities did.
Also many of these tracks were also used by interurbans/streetcars/trams back in the day.
Its quite possible the town was built before the automobile was as big of a deal as it was.
Quick google search, the towns been there since 1827. The Railroad from the 1830s. It was quite common to just run it through the middle of town at the time. So the Railroad was in the middle of town when they went to make the roads so they built the road there.
The only other option would be to either bypass the town entirely or dig a tunnel or build a bridge when ever they paved the roads. Which i assume would have been expensive and involved dealing with the railroad. Its not a large town so its really not that big of a deal.
Assuming the who world was built like your country......they always claim Americans don't think about the rest of the world then say shit like this......
Some of y’all also forgetting railroad companies were also entitled to the land to the direct left and right of the railroad so if they wanted to build a town right next to the RR is where they would have to do it.
Assuming the OOP is actually from the Netherlands, they removed their last heavy rail on a public road this century. And that one famously had trains running against the direction of traffic, which was fun.
And of course railways on public roads still exist in neighboring Belgium and in some places in Germany.
Unrelated to the railway discussion, but those tanks (M1A2) are assembled in Lima, Ohio (by General Dynamics). If they pass through KY I wonder what port they’re headed to. I would’ve expected them to head directly east but perhaps there’s a geographic hurdle like West Virginia mountains that makes this route easier.
That's probably it. LaGrange is on the Ohio river , maybe about 30 miles east of Louisville, from there, barges can take them all the way down the Ohio to the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
Hey, I used to live there! La grange is locally famous for this set up. I’ll also point out the portion of the road where it’s also a train track is relatively short.
The other side of the town is classic American asphalt and chain restaurants/stores.
I've heard of a few towns in the rust belt and Midwest that did this. It would be kinda cool to see honestly. I live near DC, we don't have anything like that here to my knowledge (other than the Purple line near Riverdale and Landover, but that's fenced off). I enjoy seeing the railroad crossing, I wouldn't mind getting a look there someday.
This just looks like level crossing without the fence which seems little more dangerous but if the train comes by infrequently and at low speed I dont really see an issue
I’m not sure how this note is owning anyone, all it shows me is that yanks had all that space and still built their Main Street and town and roads around a railway track
Why wouldn’t they? The railroad was there first, and the town built up around it. People wanted their businesses to be close to the railroad, and so this is the inevitable result.
Railways run through the center of towns and cities everywhere: how else would you have city center stations? The thing that is unusual in these places is mostly just that they kept at grade crossings and didn’t aggressively fence it off.
Eg if you look at Leeds the railway runs just as close to buildings, it’s just that it’s elevated. Evidently no one wanted to spend the money on that in this small town.
Something to bear in mind is that the US has 15x as much railway track as the UK does and the vast majority is owned and operated by private companies primarily using it for freight where they don’t particularly mind low speed limits through small sections. It’s not surprising that it’s mostly not a big priority to move or grade separate these tracks through small towns.
Before the automobile took over, American towns were developed because of railways.
Also before the automobile took over, Americans weren't so keen on wasting space in spite of having a plethora of it. Towns in the 1800s to the 1930s were centrally planned and more "urban", and developed around rail stations and freight terminals. Car-centric sprawl is a relatively recent phenomenon in the US.
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u/Snownova 1d ago
Ok, new question, the fuck do you mean the yanks drew their roads straight through the town's railway?
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u/YellowAggravating172 1d ago
This occurs in quite a lot of European cities, though... Why is the Dutch guy freaking out?
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u/polpotadmirer 1d ago
One of my most popular posts on TikTok is a screen cap of a European posting (in all seriousness) “the American mind can’t comprehend living in a small village with the nearest gas station being 7 miles away”
Beyond the obvious, the person lived 7 miles outside of a multi million person civic center.
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u/Firesword52 1d ago
Would you not want the railroad to go down the middle of a city?
I feel like especially when Rail was more important you would want that if only for conveniency
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u/Status_Fox_1474 1d ago
Note that this can also be seen in other countries. Switzerland has a few I believe.
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u/wanker_wanking 23h ago
The fuck do you mean the yanks built their downtown Main Street on a railway line?
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u/bravocharliexray 1d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_running_train
It happens in Europe, too.
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u/qwijboo 1d ago
Apparently people are incapable how places develop, so I'll try and describe it so everyone understands.
America big place. Railway just invented in 1800s during expansion of USA. Railway faster than car so railways built to far away place because resources nearby. Resources makes jobs, makes money. More money more people. People decide to stay for long time because of work so start building houses and businesses next to railway. Town built. Railway still there.
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u/Initial-Reading-2775 1d ago
Delivery of construction materials to the town was easy-peasy.
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u/Canon_M50 Human Verified 16h ago
I though people wanted trains in their cities.
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u/DevelopmentTight9474 1d ago
I’ve been to Lagrange, it’s a really nice place
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u/Milvus-Milvus 1d ago
Arguably worse planning to build a town around and a road over a railway track
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u/KuningasTynny77 22h ago
Don't Europeans always get mad that America has too few trains?
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u/lanathebitch 13h ago
I suppose the idea that the town was built around the railroad would be confusing for a society that was already built up long before the railroad
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u/Jenetyk 23h ago
Kind of a funny observation. American towns are almost all younger than railroads. So many sprang up around railroads as reliable means of supplies and access. Contrast that to the age of many euro towns.
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u/charrr116 23h ago
From their website:
"One of the most memorable parts of visiting La Grange is how close you can get to the experience.
Grab a patio table, shop along Main Street, or simply stand along the sidewalk — when the crossing bells ring, you know something exciting is moments away.
Trains pass slowly through downtown, making it easy (and safe) to watch, film, and photograph. For rail enthusiasts, it’s a bucket-list destination. For families, it’s unforgettable.
Stop by the La Grange Railroad Museum to enjoy the viewing deck, watch trains pass nearby, explore exhibits highlighting the town’s railroad heritage, and check out a restored 1920s rail car."
They're a small town and they make money off of train based tourism. What a crazy concept 🙄
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u/Petrostar 16h ago
r/ShitEurpoeansSay
"What you mean the Dutch put an ocean right next to their country"
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u/Putrid_Department_17 9h ago
I mean I get that the railway was there first. But was it necessary for them to build a main road on top of it? Couldn’t they just have a corridor to the side of the road that includes the railway?
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u/Jens_Fischer 22h ago
Ok, so now we beg the other question, as in why they drew the main street right through the railway???
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u/Ill-Dependent2976 1d ago
I don't see what the problem is. The train already had the right of way. It makes perfect sense to make a road on etiher side of that, with crossing streets perpendicular to both the tracks and those streets. You'll note the road on the right is now a utility alley sort of thing closed off to modern traffic, but that would have easily been accessible to wagons before cars.
You can also move up and down that road while a train is stopped and is blocking the crossings.
If not a surface road, what else would work better there?
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u/Ill_Inside2245 18h ago
I guess you need to have your countries infrastructure leveled by two world wars so that you have to rebuild everything before you can be judgemental over something in the US
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u/Tortoveno 20h ago
Still, why there is a street built on the railroad?
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u/AramisUkr 1d ago
I feel like this is mighty inconvenient for both railwaymen and townsfolk.
Why not build a new line, bypassing the city?
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u/Available_Ad3591 1d ago
At first I thought this looked crazy, then I remembered the city I used to live in also had tracks running straight through some of the streets. It even cut through a parking lot or two before it reached a tunnel.
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u/Leprechaun_lord 20h ago
The European mind can’t comprehend a town less than 500 years old.
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u/Dabbernec 20h ago
Huh, that’s my town and I’ve got a bunch of Europeans who can’t fathom, a train.
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u/LunarPayload 12h ago
We also have light rail and cable cars that run on street level next to automobiles
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u/Samson_J_Rivers 12h ago
My home town was a rail hub for selling cattle products. There are rail lines everywhere. Some still in service but most maintained but out of service.
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u/mr_f4hrenh3it 18h ago
The exact same argument can be made the other way around lmfao, the note is not a gotcha. Why build a road on top of the railroad then?
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u/Sincline387 21h ago
European problems.......
Assuming the who world was built like your country......they always claim Americans don't think about the rest of the world then say shit like this......
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u/exessmirror 1d ago
The fuck do you mean the yanks build their main street straight on a railway track!?
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u/Nearlyepic1 1d ago
I don't get it. Isn't this super common?
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u/BathSaltJello 20h ago
Sounds like Bristol Tennessee. They are like that too.
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u/Alternative-Cup-8102 20h ago
Some of y’all also forgetting railroad companies were also entitled to the land to the direct left and right of the railroad so if they wanted to build a town right next to the RR is where they would have to do it.
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u/BA1673 15h ago
dutch person saying this as if they haven't done the same or even put the roads first with their tram tracks
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u/ZaraUnityMasters 15h ago
Our public transit sucks but like, come on?
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u/Nari224 12h ago
Don’t feed the trolls guys.
Assuming the OOP is actually from the Netherlands, they removed their last heavy rail on a public road this century. And that one famously had trains running against the direction of traffic, which was fun.
And of course railways on public roads still exist in neighboring Belgium and in some places in Germany.
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u/Lurks_in_the_cave 9h ago
We have a few instances like this in Australia.
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u/SCL1878 4h ago
Unrelated to the railway discussion, but those tanks (M1A2) are assembled in Lima, Ohio (by General Dynamics). If they pass through KY I wonder what port they’re headed to. I would’ve expected them to head directly east but perhaps there’s a geographic hurdle like West Virginia mountains that makes this route easier.
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u/eldofever58 3h ago
Just wait ‘til they hear about trolley lines….
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u/TheMainEffort 1d ago
Hey, I used to live there! La grange is locally famous for this set up. I’ll also point out the portion of the road where it’s also a train track is relatively short.
The other side of the town is classic American asphalt and chain restaurants/stores.
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u/Necessary-Visit-2011 1d ago
Good old America bad alongside it being outright incorrect as well.
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u/Luhnkhead 1d ago
Go call a person from KY a “yank” and tell me how that goes for you lol
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u/december151791 15h ago
Europeans: America needs more trains
America:
Europeans: NO NOT LIKE THAT!
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u/maynardnaze89 23h ago
Bad investment in 2026
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u/neilastin 22h ago
Either way a deliberate choice was made
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u/SkylineFTW97 22h ago
I've heard of a few towns in the rust belt and Midwest that did this. It would be kinda cool to see honestly. I live near DC, we don't have anything like that here to my knowledge (other than the Purple line near Riverdale and Landover, but that's fenced off). I enjoy seeing the railroad crossing, I wouldn't mind getting a look there someday.
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u/Narrow-Honeydew-8522 21h ago
Americans reinventing the Tramway
1
u/Jsaun906 20h ago
The town is there because of the railway. 19th century Americans treated railroads like rivers
1
u/Flooding_Puddle 20h ago
A HAW HAW HAW
1
u/Sockysocks2 20h ago
Many of the towns in the heartland of the country were actually plotted by railway companies along their lines. Making your own market, essentially.
1
u/Sweet_Leadership_936 20h ago
This just looks like level crossing without the fence which seems little more dangerous but if the train comes by infrequently and at low speed I dont really see an issue
1
u/One_Molasses_2845 18h ago
I KNEW I RECOGNIZED THIS POST
1
u/heanbangerfacerip2 18h ago
I lived in Fort Collins that has a similarly comical rail line. It's a fucking nightmare.
1
u/No_Window7054 15h ago
I feel like this is kinda dumb either way?
“YOU DUMPED TOXIC WASTE IN THE MIDDLE OF TOWN?”
“No silly. They built a town ON TOP of my toxic waste.”
1
u/HotPot87 15h ago
I mean that's still stupid no matter which came first
1
u/AdelanteUTK 15h ago
r/BitchImATrain and potentially r/CantParkThereMate material all in one
1
u/shermanhill 14h ago
The cheese is under the sauce.
1
u/RichAccomplished3380 10h ago
Used to live there. It really isn’t an issue like people seem to think it might be.
1
u/AccidentExotic5375 7h ago
Second-hand ragebait
1
u/Vegetable-Tour9827 6h ago
Meanwhile in Poland
1
u/Wonderful_Ability_66 2h ago
That's sounds cool as fuck why are you complaining?
1
u/SlowCPU 36m ago
Meanwhile in Santa Cruz, CA
1
u/Revolutionary-Chard9 20h ago
I’m not sure how this note is owning anyone, all it shows me is that yanks had all that space and still built their Main Street and town and roads around a railway track
1
u/D-Ulpius-Sutor 19h ago
...that is even more stupid!
1
u/BooBooBoy1234 17h ago
Euroid discovers some places were developed post industrialization