Comment by jcranmer

> The records do show that the railways were profitable for a short while, but it seems only because the government paid for the infrastructure. If they had to incur the capital expenditure themselves, the math doesn't look like it would math.

Actually, governments in the US rarely actually provided any capital to the railroads. (Some state governments did provide some of the initial capital for the earliest railroads). Most of federal largess to the railroads came in the form of land grants, but even the land grant system for the railroads was remarkably limited in scope. Only about 7-8% of the railroad mileage attracted land grants.