Capitalism and the corporation go hand-in-hand. Either collapses without the other. Alexander Hamilton was the visionary who saw that and fought for the corporation in the new USA. Masses of capital are needed for big factories and railroads. The bigger question is: are big factories and railroads appropriate for private interests?
Having private companies build the railroads in the USA allowed the country to expand rapidly. America had thousands of miles of tracks before Europe had hundreds.
BUT, the private railroads chewed through billions in foreign investment money, trashed the countryside, built redundant facilities, competed vindictively, made ridiculous fortunes, and ultimately built a transportation system that doesn't really work well for anything except long haul containerized freight or unit trains of coal.
Because of their private origins, American railroads manifestly do not haul passengers or go fast or offer any practical alternative to the automobile (or jet).
Not incidentally, the railroads in the USA had one period of remarkable efficiency and restraint: During WWI, the US government created the United States Railroad Administration to take over control of all the railroads for the duration of the war. The USRA standardized locomotives and other physical plant, ended petty inter-corporate squabbles and ran the trains for the benefit of the country rather than for the corporations. They've never run as well since. To this day the lesson remains unlearned.
Jun 15, 2026, 6:52 PM@mralancooper Private companies built the railroads in Britain (where railroads originated), too, for instance. (Of course, in the 1900s things evolved then in a very different direction, and the British railroads were nationalised in 1948, then eventually privatised during Thatcher, including the infrastructure, which was later re-nationalised, and at the moment also operations are in the process of being taken into public ownership.)