[editor-surveyor]

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You swim in foolish ignorance!

The abundance of the west is what made railroads fiscally feasible.

Only Moonbeam Brown can pull a railroad from nowhere to nowhere out of his hat.
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[BroJoeK]

editor-surveyor: "You swim in foolish ignorance!
The abundance of the west is what made railroads fiscally feasible."

Sorry, but in 1860 or 1865 there were no transcontinental railroads connecting California to the East.
The first transcontinental railroad came several years after the Civil War.

At the start of the Civil War the Union had about 21,000 miles or railroad, Confederates 8,000 miles.

US railroads in 1860: