Well, maybe Europe built itself with government projects, but apart from some dubious transcontinental rail lines, America's "original" heavy and light rail systems were built by combinations of corporate, municipal and state entities. Roads were municipal matters, heavy trucks were seldom seen as that channel grew in symbiosis with the Eisenhower Highway system. Heavy trucks drive the need for durable roads, and they just weren't the norm until the Fed subsidized the crap out of inter-city highways and regulated the rail (most predominantly: the Pennsylvania RR) until if collapsed. Light-rail had its own similar history with roads and busses (and the fight for "right-of-way" at street level).
Weren't the beginnings of cross-US rail lines laid back at a time where regulatory frameworks (esp. cross-county/state, and noise emission) weren't that strict as today?
Also, back in the time it was customary to create stock companies where people bought shares to actually BUILD something of value?
When was the last time that a stock company was founded to build long lasting infrastructure?
Stock companies, these days, in my opinion focus WAY too much on creating short-term gains on the back of employees and unsuspecting investors...
> Weren't the beginnings of cross-US rail lines laid back at a time where regulatory frameworks (esp. cross-county/state, and noise emission) weren't that strict as today?
The major cross-US rail lines were laid down when government (IIRC, both federal and state governments) were handing out money like candy for building railroads. It was no more free market than today, its just the orientation of the government involvement was different.
And a lot of the companies created at that time in the industry were mostly created to funnel money from those subsidies into the hands of investors.
You really shouldn't idealize the early cross-US rail period either as one of an absence of regulatory involvement or one of noble value building vs. short-term extraction by capitalists.
Sure, even with all the outright corruption, rail lines to nowhere, and other abuses, there also happened to get some useful, long-lasting infrastructure and organizations with long-term value built. But its wrong to overly romanticize the process that went into that.
