In the 1970s the State in Massachusetts commanded all cities and towns in the state to set up Historical Commissions.  Many already had Historical "Societies", but those are not a part of a municipal government.  The Secretary of State's office oversees the Mass Historic Commission and they developed a series of templates for writing historic narratives about specific properties. The cities and town were then directed to use them and develop a publicly  accessible database of all the historic properties in every community in the Commonwealth. 

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Now since this piece is about historic resources for preserving RR infrastructure, lets look at the town of Billerica where the old B&M RR had a huge presence that community. Something like 600 acres with a huge yard, maintenance facilities, offices etc.  It was all there --and largely still is.  Though the B&M RR as an operating RR is no longer extant. The current name of the operating entity entity is Pan Am Railways, because the B&M sold off huge swaths of all their assets to the state of Mass. (managed by the MBTA actually) That include much of the built environment at Iron Horse Park.  

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In the case of Billerica, they have quite a few historic resources in town.  Over 450 places on the list.  Over 30 alone are related to the B&M RR's facilities in Iron Horse Park.  Below is a screenshot of one of the pages detailing the railroad infrastructure.  At the very bottom is one of the write-ups.  Done by a consultant for the MBTA.  I should mention too that the Form Bs are not encompassing, but are only a couple or three pages.  They wet the appetite so to speak. 

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