McKay and the Railway Boom

The railway mania of the mid 1840s lasted for about five years and involved huge consistent inflows of money from mostly individual investors. Total spending on rail construction came to the equivalent of around five trillion dollars in today's money. Andrew Oldwhisco analyzed all of the articles written by McKay at the time and the pieces by other writers that he edited and included in his publication. So what did the historian of financial bubbles think of the railway boom? Did he spot another mania that had broken out right in front of him? Not at all.