The borough of Railroad owes its existence, and its name, to what became the Northern Central Railway, which was built to connect Baltimore, Maryland and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

[4] Laura Randall described Railroad as a "tiny town of three hundred people near the Maryland border... home to the Jackson House B&B, a popular crab shack, and not much else.

[6] According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of 0.64 square miles (1.7 km2), all land.

There were one hundred and sixteen housing units at an average density of 185.1 per square mile (71.5/km2).

Roughly 1.3% of families and 4.7% of the population were living below the poverty line, including 16.7% of those aged sixty-five or over.