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Notes -
The railroads themselves were built by private operators, but they typically involved some level of state involvement; usually in order to acquire the rights-of-way they were built on either the land was seized and then granted/sold to them by the government, or they were granted limited powers of eminent domain by the state. So in either case they were still operating within a similar legal environment. In Canada and the US the government was fond of subsidizing railway development by offering massive land grants that the railway companies could then develop/flip/use to their purposes.
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