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.
The land was given (cheap) to Burlington Northern to open up the west. BN, through Plum Creek, logged this land -(read: raped the land)
A century later, Plum Creek is running out of timber, so instead of replanting then harvesting the land responsibly, they are going to sale it to developers. Huge tract housing will go in. Those that bought near Plum Creek land, in hopes that they would always have wilderness around them, will soon find that their property tax is going up along with an army of new neighbors.
Private Industry, with the help of Government, was made rich, the public got screwed - once again.