It may be of interest to note that the monopoly enjoyed by the Western roads of the time were not a result of capitalism, but rather the effect of the government policy of granting hundreds of acres(thousands, perhaps)of land for each mile of track layed. By granting large tracts of land, the opportunity for monopoly was created, as the land was owned by the railroad, and that road would certainly not allow another to build on its land. Of course the reasoning at the time was that the land involved was unihabited (except by Indian tribes, I imagine) and the National interest was to secure California and the rest of the southwest. The government had urged the prosperous and privately funded railroads in the east to build west with the desire to tie the west coast by rail to the east, to consolidate what was a somewhat fragile territory. The eastern roads declined, siting the large expense of building projected road, and lack of any traffic sources. The government, wanting its road, eventually decided on the land grants as a way to make the road more attractive to potential builders. The great race to join the trans con line was really a race to grab as much land as possible. The men who choose to build those lines weren't railroaders so much as con artists. They wouldn't have been possible in the busy Northeast industrial area. There, relatively short hauls and dense traffic made the business profitable and attracted those who intended to run a railroad, rather than those who envisioned holding thousands of immigrants effectively as slaves on land they owned, for building a relatively shoddy railroad and providing inferior service.
So it was a govenment action which created the awful monopolies of the western railroads (with notable exception of J Hills Northern Pacific, who built his road without a penny of gov't money, and was prosecuted by the gov't for monopoly, while the other "govt roads" enjoyed a brief period of prosperity). But it is not the govt who bears the blame, it has been Capitalism.
Gary