Stage 2: make it easy for everyone to have a railroad by leasing them yours. Lease yours multiple times over, each time for less than it would cost the customer to build a new one.

Stage 3: everyone has a railroad which they rent from you. Collect rent on all railroad activity forever.

Then it's a long time after the initial Industrial Revolution, and you're in a fantastic world where it's commonplace for ordinary people to own a steel machine which can travel as fast as a train at "high speed."