This is a list of railway towns in the United States listed by state. The United States has a high concentration of railway towns, communities that developed and/or were built around a railway system. Railway towns are particularly abundant in the midwest and western states, and the railroad has been credited as a major force in the economic and geographic development of the country. [1] Historians credit the railroad system for the country's vast development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as having helped facilitate a "unified" nation. [2]