Richland, PA

At the 2020 census, Richland was a Lebanon County borough of 1,490 people whose town square is crossed by an active railroad. Main Street and Race Street form the square and are the only streets linking the northern and southern halves of the borough. When a train rolls through, the crossing can split the whole place in two. That is a very literal town-center problem, and it has earned Richland mentions in Ripley's Believe It or Not! and Jeopardy!.

The railroad arrived in the 1850s, when the Lebanon Valley Branch of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway brought a permanent depot and a grain warehouse. Richland grew around that line, with the square functioning as both commercial center and hinge between neighborhoods. The track is still active, so the old arrangement never became a museum display; it remains part of how people move through town. Richland is a borough whose most famous landmark is a moving line that can briefly rearrange the map.