Your history ends in about 1920 or so. The Staggers Rail Act of 1980 deregulated the railroads considerably, and now they're very competitive, and doing very nicely.
All right, fair enough: I specifically meant that the railroads were largely replaced by trucking. The industries grow, mature, and often die. In the present context, the point is that throughout all of our history some jobs and entire professions were lost --- to other industries, sometimes American and sometimes foreign.
Those b----ing today act as if that happened only to them, and it's all due to Daddy Bush. Programmers scream most of all. I have not heard them complain when they were making absolutely obsene money in 1990s. The businesses wised up since then.