Great comment in general, but I have a minor correction: Railway Mania was definitely a bubble. Valuations were overinflated, investors were irrationally exuber

Great comment in general, but I have a minor correction: Railway Mania was definitely a bubble. Valuations were overinflated, investors were irrationally exuberant, charlatans funneled up a bunch of dumb money, many rail lines were ultimately not built, and the unwinding of the bubble wiped out many smaller investors and railway companies. The resulting infrastructure created a lot of value for the UK (similar to the 90s telecom bubble in the US and Canada), but there was definitely a crash that destroyed a lot of people's bank accounts and represented a big dip in the value of the market.