The Victorians generally did not give a crap about "old" stuff and willfully and frequently built/rebuilt/demolished/dug-up/forced-out pretty much whatever they

The Victorians generally did not give a crap about "old" stuff and willfully and frequently built/rebuilt/demolished/dug-up/forced-out pretty much whatever they wanted or was in their way to get stuff done. They also had a large and cheap labor force with questionable safety protections. These days we spend a lot of effort on "preserving" older things, you cant just railroad (pun intended!) your way through a suburb demolishing things to lay railway tracks more or less where you want, and obviously there is a lot more focus now on individual worker safety (for the better). I guess they were able to build things during the "wild west" where rules, procedures, , respect for individual rights & safety, and laws had not yet caught up with industrialisation.