Heres's a perfect example of how something that can't yield a profit and for which there is no demand can still be sold if you force and bribe people and get the government to subsidize it.

I heard another interview of this writer, who when asked, "Well, didn't America need a transcontinental railroad system anyway?" He responded, "Yes, but not for another 30 years, and by then it could have financed itself and turned out profitable for everyone involved."

"It establishes a kind of networking between politics and business that persists to this day. Essentially for me, corruption is quite simple: It's the trading of public favors for private goods, and that's what happens repeatedly with the railroads and the federal government."
...
"What he realizes is that lobbyists themselves have limited ability to gain what they want if they operate only in Washington, D.C. They have to appear to be channeling real public desire for whatever it is they're advocating. So what Dodge does is go back out and organize publicity campaigns, so he makes it appear that what Union Pacific wants and the Texas Pacific wants is what local people want. But all of this uproar of popular opinion has really been organized by Grenville Dodge. ... This is AstroTurf."

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/11/137497772/how-trains-railroaded-the-american-economy

Listen to the interview with the author, its only about
8 minutes.