[Bear_Slayer]

This is a far cry from taking someone's land for the railroad to come through . . . .

Do not forget, that when the railroads first went through, they (the robber barons) and the lumber mills they owned, received one square mile of land on either side of the tracks as far as the tracks ran.

[Steve_Seattle]

I don't know if the person mentioning the railroads was being sarcastic, but there are a lot of problems in the way that was done, even if the railroads succeeded in "opening up the West" blah blah. To this day, mile after mile of the coastline (of Puget Sound) is dominated by the railroad tracks that follow the shoreline and cut the beach off from the general public. It's hard to find a beach on the east shore of Puget Sound that isn't marred by an intrusive railroad line.

[GOPJ]

Do not forget, that when the railroads first went through, they (the robber barons) and the lumber mills they owned, received one square mile of land on either side of the tracks as far as the tracks ran.

And stuff like that might be one of the reasons the term "robber baron" is soooo appropriate.