Want a time series example of RR's and the development of a great city, reflected in the development and evolutions of the rail system... I'll nominate LA, especially the Alameda Corridor. Not quite bygone, but a lot of history, and an incredible evolutionary example of railroads and cities.

I did a survey of old trackage and industrial spurs, active and abandoned along Alameda Street in LA from J yard north, both the "old" UP main to the former SP-UP 1920's era Grand Central Station, and along Alameda, the route of the original Los Angeles and San Pedro RR, and various "alley's", a few years back, for a track removal and street repair grant. It was a history lesson in old LA, and my own misspent youth.

I used to work the same tracks on Alameda Street on the City Job, along with the Rathole job, including such hidden places as violet alley, the "old" coach yard, the banana dock, the old "auto dock" (boxcars with double doors era), the Times paper dock, the Coors dock, the Christmas trees, reefers of produce, all still happened here. So I am a bit biased.....

This was the route of the first rail line into LA from the Port of San Pedro by "City-builder" Phineas Banning. Who built a port, where there was none, realizing this would be the shortest, lowest gradient, snow free rail route to the Pacific, not SFO......and the rest is history. From hay to SFO via Coastal Schooners and Steamers, to Cerro Gordo Silver via 20 mule team over Caheunga Pass, to the largest container port in the US. Remi Nadeau, a relative of the original Remi Nadeau who ran the Cerro Gordo wagons into "old" LA, has written a great book on this period.

This RR literally went from being a short line from a shallow water coastal port to a western "cow town", no bigger than Bodie was during the same period, to one of the biggest megalopolis in the US, in the first 100 years since the train pulled into town.

The evolution of LA is shown on a great set of murals in the foyer of the MTA building..... Choo-choo's have changed and this area is a great example of that transition, since the first choo-choo's arrived in the "cow town" of Los Angeles in 1869.

Larry Mullaly and Bruce Petty have one of the best books on this period of SP RR history.

Now, we have Subway yards, yuppie housing, LRT, Commuter rail, and stack trains, where 2-4-0's once ran with trains of arch bar trucks under cars of cattle, going up to the "bullring" to water the cattle.

And, despite what you will hear from some of most misinformed docents I've ever met, there was never a real "bull ring" here in "Mexican times" as I was once told by those working on the park there now. The "Bullring" was named so, in reference to the local Mexican kids they'd hire from "Sonora-town" (the area now around the Plaza, nearby) to unload and water the cattle, who would use capes like matadors, to drive the cattle in and out of the SP railroad cars. As the yard expanded, the name stuck, as kicking cars from the top end of the "Bullring" was like watching matadors, switching oncoming cars onto different tracks.

I was told the Cornfield, referred to a Mexican era corn field, but the story I got working on the friendly SP was that back before they built the cornfield yard up the river, some time in the 1870's or 880's that it was the site of a "cornfield meet".

LA and the Bay Area names have more to do with the Choo-choo's than many folks realize.