People in government back then liked the idea of a High Speed...er...Transcontinential railroad, and wanted to do something to kick it off.

A lot of people in the private sector really liked the idea of the government handing them valuable assets and money for nothing, and greased a lot of legislative palms.

"Corporate cronyism," a mutual backscratching between people running businesses and people running government (giving businesses a "gun" they should never have in a free market and governments the cash to gain and keep power) has been going on in one form or another for centuries. Countless examples. Chartered monopolies, royal grants, trade restrictions, subsidies...

I wish I could tell you that noble capitalists are dragged kicking and screaming into mixed and totalitarian economies. But much of the time businesses are more than delighted to jump into a situation where they don't have to worry that much about making money or innovating, and competition is often legally forbidden.

This crap is so ingrained in our economy now I doubt you could ever pry it loose, but it would be nice not to move any further in that direction.

At some point, you get to where you can't tell which are the pigs and which are the men. There are businessmen in communist countries, too.

Maybe if things had been done otherwise it would have taken a lot longer to get a transcontinental rail link. Probably involving eventual combinations and deals between local lines and property owners that would have been a dog's breakfast of complication compared to the nice mathematical precision of a royal decree. But the result would have been healthier all around.