In retrospect, the railroads’ development looks inevitable, but Richard White – their greatest, contemporary, historian, and, not accidentally, one of the leading authorities on the history of the Midwest and West as well – points out that the massive transcontinentals didn’t actually need to happen when or how they did. America could have waited at least: [ block quote] … The transcontinentals, like those “suppositious villages” that didn’t fail, were a vision willed into reality by speculators, a massive unwieldy idea made profitable by a combination of old- fashioned corruption and a dreamlike conviction of their eventual profitability.

— Midwest Futures by Phil Christman (Page 55 - 56)