A railway town, or railroad town, is a settlement that originated, or was expanded, as a result of a railway line being constructed there.

North America

During the construction of the

First transcontinental railroad America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad), Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the exis ...

in the 1860s, temporary, " Hell on wheels" towns, made mostly of canvas tents, accompanied the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

as construction headed west. Most faded away but some became permanent settlements. Model of a North American prairie railway town

In the 1870s, successive

boomtown A boomtown is a community that undergoes sudden and rapid population and economic growth, or that is started from scratch. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although t ...

s sprung up in

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

, each prospering for a year or two as a

railhead {{Short pages monitor