He did unfortunately follow through with the Progressive idea of federal railroads, but he was not the first to do so. Also, he used the railways for the protection –which is in the purview of any US President - of the attacks against the Federal Government - to protect the Constitution which the Democrat Slave states tried to destroy. And what else do you think was progressive about him?
What attacks against the Federal Government? Lincoln's War Against the States consisted entirely of the invasion and conquest of the south. Are you saying the Federal Government would have ceased to exist if the south had been left in peace?
Lincoln was the first president to implement many of the policies that would eventually become the progressive agenda. His corporate welfare program would become the regulatory state. His racist back-to=Africa fantasies would grow into the eugenics movement. And who could question his commitment to legal positivism and absolute state authority? He was the first president to issue a fiat currency (since the War of Independence that is). And he was a fervent supporter of protective tariffs. It is no coincidence that the campaign to built the Lincoln Memorial began under a Progressive administration. He was their patron saint.