Did towns build tracks to themselves?

[Railway Man]

 At least one did, the City of Prineville, Oregon, which built a 19-mile short line to connect itself to the Oregon Trunk when it bypassed Prineville in 1917.  The railway is a city department and is still owned and operated by the city.

In a similar vein is the CNO&TP, built by the City of Cincinnati to assure its position as a gateway to the south, and still owned by the city (and operated by NS).

RWM

 

[al-in-chgo]

Boyd

Back in the 1800s when towns that got RRs thrived and towns that got bypassed withered,,, did any towns build their own tracks connecting to nearby lines? 

Well, the town with its own railroad had to have the long-haul RR's permission before it could join its track to theirs.  So I'm not sure the original RR was bound to accept them; open access was probably a controversial issue even back then.  After all these were the exact lines that bypassed the little towns.  Probably the (line-joining) happened back then, but not too often.  At the height of railroad-building frenzy in the 1880s, railroad companies were the "dot coms" -- the highest tech -- and I can think of a couple of cases where the towns, having been bypassed by the first l-d lie, were able to lure a different or new line their way.  The more I learn about the alleged cutrhroat capitalism of 19th-Century railroading, the more I hear of exceptions, such as state-owned RR companies with a mandate to support that state's industry and transportation as opposed to l-d transregional concerns (Chicago - LA on the Santa Fe, for example.) 

Others will know better than I about relationships between such ambitious little burgs and the cold-hearted bureaucracy of RR's, or when the stereotypes didn't hold.  I can tell you that many towns actively promoted for a railroad headed their way to choose them as a stop or, even better, a water tank (hence the term "jerkwater town") or even division point.  Some of the inducements with which the towns tried to seduce the railroads sound surprisingly modern relative to today's corporation-hunting towns:  tax relief, for example.

I can think of one case in which the town gov't more or less lost its town to the railroad.  Appamattox Court House, where Lee surrendered to Grant at the end of the Civil War, is just that--a court house and grounds.  A great place to litigate a case or probate a will, at least back then.  The town of Appamattox is almost two miles to the north, having been lured there when the ex-N&W's main line (Norfolk - Cincy) went through. And IIRC  Appamattox was the most important passenger stop between Lynchburg and Petersburg for as long as there were N&W-operated passenger trains.

 

[Boyd]

Back in the 1800s when towns that got RRs thrived and towns that got bypassed withered,,, did any towns build their own tracks connecting to nearby lines?