text: what effects did railroads play in westward expansion?   lots. they didn't have trucks or higways back then. if farmers wanted to ship their crops to market, it had to go by riverboat or train. towns that had railroads prospered; town's that didn't dried up and blew away.  the cattle drives that you read about were cowboys taking their cattle to rail yards in kansas, where the cattle were shipped east to be made into steaks and shoes. texas didn't have any railroads at first.  lots of towns didn't have reliable water transportation, so they needed railroads. just having 160 (320, 640) acres of corn, wheat or barley didn't make a farmer rich; he had to ship it to market to sell it.   a train could carry hundreds of times more than a horse-drawn wagon, and do it cheaper. that cut down on the transportation cost, which in turn made it economically possible to grow wheat in nebraska and kansas, but sell it to new york.