abstract:Railway Mania was an instance of speculative frenzy in Britain in the 1840s. It followed a common pattern: as the price of railway shares increased, more and more money was poured in by speculators, until the inevitable collapse.
Just as the railwaymania carried on after the competitive landscape had changed for the worse, so these new cable companies kept on investing even as the supply ballooned.
The main routes built as a result of the railwaymania would surely have come about with or without the frenzy of the 1840s, and been part of a more rationally planned national network.