Railroads are not deprecated. Huge amounts of freight moves by rail in the US still.
There definitely was a speculative bubble, but it left behind a lot of real value, but that real value was not in the railroad business nor in the railroads themselves but the gigantic amount of land grants and development that supported the bubble.
Depreciation is the wrong word (not a native speaker). I meant moved into the background and not that much in the general public eyes (like oil drills and weather stations).
There definitely was a speculative bubble, but it left behind a lot of real value, but that real value was not in the railroad business nor in the railroads themselves but the gigantic amount of land grants and development that supported the bubble.