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Well, most railroad expansion was due to a govt act giving tons of land rights and other highly valuable privileges to anyone laying track in the territories -
by nickpinkston 16y ago
Well, most railroad expansion was due to a govt act giving tons of land rights and other highly valuable privileges to anyone laying track in the territories - the TransContinental railroad was laid this way.
However, quite true on the rest.
- nickpinkston 16y agoBTW: This sub-comment thread is a testament to how good HN still is at bringing together reasonable/thoughtful people - thanks guys.
- jswinghammer 16y agoA private company did it the honest way and laid a more efficient track. The government paid per mile of track laid which you can imagine can go wrong all kinds of ways.
- nickpinkston 16y agoA very good point - though as a counter the plank-road mania of the early 1800's was a fully private sector road bubble: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plank_road http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plank_road
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- trevelyan 16y agoOnly after the crash of 1857. Prior to that American railroad networks were quite decentralized and much more competitive (not only with themselves, but also with canal systems). Most were financed by local entrepreneurs and often by the British and American companies that sold track on credit.