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> From 1850 to 1871, the railroads received more than 175 million acres (71 million ha) of public land – an area more than one tenth of the whole United States

• s1artibartfast 4y ago
  That establishes that they were given land, and a hell of a lot of it. So we're settlers, Ranchers, and individuals. A bass portion of land in the US was handed over to private parties who wanted to put it to use. I don't see how that undermines the idea that they are the rightful owners of it today. They were giving it in the expectation that they would put in rails to make money for themselves, and as a byproduct, there would be rail service for customers. Sellers remorse after 150 years is not grounds to claim that they don't actually own it