city planning student with questions about railyards?

Hello all,

I am a graduate student at Virginia Tech University getting my Master’s degree in City Planning. I am currently doing research for a paper that has to do with Railyards.

I want to look at Railyard closures and their impact on the urban landscape. So I want to find out about any railyards that are close to cities and that have closed or that have plans for closure in the future. I would also like to know about any type of development that has occurred on former railyards around the nation.

I know what the major RR companies are and I plan to call them and ask for this info, but if anyone knows of any webpage that has this info listed I would appreciate the URL because it would save me a lot of time.

The idea behind the paper is that such a large amount of open land that railyards are composed of does not open up frequently in urban areas, especially large cities like NY and D.C. So when such a large swath of land does open up the potential for impact upon the urban locale is great. Whether it’s a stadium, housing, a mall, or whatever, the developments that are going up on these closed railyards are significant and I would like to better understand the planning process that surrounds their development.

Any info would be of great help.

Thanks,
Aurash

Two major sites in the Boston area would be: on Guilford Railway (formerly Boston & Maine RR) in Somerville, Ma. The railroad used to dominate a very large area which was several yards adjacent to one another but over the last 10 years it has pretty much all vanished and become residential and office buildings.

The second would be in South Boston. The former New York New Haven & Hartford's A Street yard was once a very large railyard but the only remnants of this yard is a single track that current serves one steel customer. (There are a few links for the Boston Railway Terminal, which is the customer I am referring to, in the New England Railfan Forum).