San Diego State has the “Trolley” line going under the campus.
The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL has tracks running adjacent to the south side of campus. Not sure whose tracks, but I do know that they are active from my tenure at the university earning my degree.
Little Goshen College, in Goshen, Indiana. The NS Marion Branch runs right through the middle of it. For years, they’ve talked of getting a pedestrian bridge over the track or even a tunnel underneath of it but nothing has been done.
Down in Southeast Ohio, the B&O used to run through the campus of Ohio University but that’s all gone, now.
The United States Military Academy at West Point. CSX, formerly Conrail, formerly Penn Centerl, formerly New York Central, formerly the West Shore railroad, runs through a tunnel under the campus. There was, of course, passenger service at one time, now just freight.
There’s a railroad next to the campus of Grand Valley State University’s campus in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Used to be CSX; I believe it’s probably owned or leased by Marquette Rail now. And Amtrak trains may go past it when they’re being “put away” for the night.
Grand Valley was my alma mater. Back when I went, though, they didn’t have this campus. I’d nominate the original campus, in Allendale, Michigan, as being one of the farthest away from a track (I could hear that lonesome whistle callin’…).
UW Oshkosh used to have the Milwaukee Road along the west edge of campus (near the river) mainly to serve an industry or two as well as deliver an occasional LCL of goods to the facilities maintenance sheds. It’s now the WIOUWASH trail.
Bryn Mawr College is right by the same Amtrak-SEPTA main line as Villanova.
Swarthmore College is split by the SEPTA - former PRR - Media-West Chester Line - which used to see AMTK ballast trains at night to and from the quarry at Glen Mills.
- Paul.
Photo by Dick Leonhardt. Notre Dame & Western brought coal to the Notre Dame power plant. They get their coal by truck nowadays but I think the tracks are still there, just in case.
The local one has a Buffalo & Pittsburgh line next to it. It was a different abandoned railroad, inactive for 2 decades. When they reactivated it, aftre all the construction was finished, they eliminated a pedestrian bridge/crossing and put up a fence to prevent people from getting around. It sucks that it ruins any camera-taking opportunities.
Oregon State in Corvallis, OR
University of Washington, Seattle, had a Northern Pacific branch through it until sometime in the 1970’s. Line originally built by Seattle Lake Shore and Eastern as their main line east, which made it almost to the base of the Cascade Mountains, and became part of the line actually completed to the Canadian Pacific at Sumas WA about 1890. I recall seeing NP Baldwin switchers, VO 1000’s IIRC, switching coal into the university’s steam plant. Now, sadly, is the Burke - Gilman trail.
Washington State University, Pullman WA, had both UP and NP branches along south edge of campus. They got coal for their steam plant from the UP side until 5 years ago or so. Intact to best of my knowledge.
University of Idaho, Moscow ID, had same UP & NP lines along one side. Bits of each still intact last time I was there.
Mac
University of Tennessee has CSX and NS on three sides of the campus. Wabash College in Crawfordsville ,Indiana had NYC I think, slept since then, run on the south edge and possibly through part of the campus.
City of South Bend, Indiana and Brothers of the Holy Cross, Inc., Petitioners, v. Surface Transportation Board and United States of America, Respondents, Chicago, Lake Shore & South Bend Railway, Intervenor, Decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Nos. 08-1150 and 08-1301, Petitions for Review of an Order of the Surface Transportation Board, Decided May 29, 2009 (12 pages, approx. 45 KB in size).
Mike/ wanswheel, thanks much for that link. [tup] A very interesting case for those interested in the applicability and limits of the doctrine of ‘adverse abandonment’ of a rail line - i.e., typically a city or adjoining land owner wants the rail line abandoned so that something else can be done with the land that it occupies. It also have several citations to similar recent cases. Short version
[quote user=“Paul_D_North_Jr”]
City of South Bend, Indiana and Brothers of the Holy Cross, Inc., Petitioners, v. Surface Transportation Board and United States of America, Respondents, Chicago, Lake Shore & South Bend Railway, Intervenor, Decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Nos. 08-1150 and 08-1301, Petitions for Review of an Order of the Surface Transportation Board, Decided May 29, 2009 (12 pages, approx. 45 KB in size).
Mike/ wanswheel, thanks much for that link. 
A very interesting case for those interested in the applicability and limits of the doctrine of ‘adverse abandonment’ of a rail line - i.e., typically a city or adjoining land owner wants the rail line abandoned so that something else can be done with the land that it occupies. It also have several citations to similar recent cases. Short version
CTA Green Line runs through the student union building and alongside the IIT campus from 31st to 35th Streets on the south side of Chicago. The Dan Ryan Branch of the Red Line is about a block west of the IIT Campus. CTA Blue Line runs adjacent to the UofI-Circle campus.
Pennsy (later PC) used to run adjacent to the Rose-Hulman campus on the east side of Terre Haute. Today, this is a hiking/bike trail.
Art
On the north edge of my alma mater Heidelberg College (now Heidelberg University) in Tiffin, Ohio has the north edge of campus right along the CSX Chicago-Pittsburgh route (former B&O through Fostoria). Spent many times at trackside. [:)]
Kevin
Thinking of that now, a branch of the old line starts a Rails-to-trail just outside of campus, one that connects a couple towns a ways off. It would be especially nice to go biking on. I’m sure, though, that many areas feature such trails, especially near colleges where such demand would be much higher.
Another campus just about perfectly bisected by rail is pastoral little Grinnell College, in Grinnell, Iowa. Probably the dorms are “mixed” now, but in the old days (1960, when I was there), the men’s houses were on one side of the tracks and the women’s on the other. Many jokes were made about this.
The line passed from main-line M&StL to Chicago and North Western control the fall of the year I was there. The red and white M&StL diesels stayed for a while. My favorite was an ‘F’ with an air-chime whistle, obviously intended to recall steam and the most beautiful whistle on a diesel I have ever heard. I believe only one unit had this.
I dropped in on Grinnell a couple of years ago as a freight of successor U.P. passed the old depot (now a restaurant) shared with the main-line Rock Island in the old days. The triad air horns on the Rockets were pretty special too, enticing me to trackside for way too many hours away from the books. Hence only 1 year at Grinnell!
I have caught a glimpse of football activity on the UA campus from the Southern Crescent when going by there in the fall. This line, originally Alabama Great Southern, is now a part of he Norfolk Southern.
The Puget Sound Extension of the once mighty Chicago, Milwaukee, Saint Paul and Pacific ran along the northern edge of the University of Montana campus in Missoula. Today that right of way is a footpath, one which has a few block signals still in place to remind the students that a great railroad once passed through there.