In both the New and Old Worlds, the railways were invariably the largest business enterprises of the nineteenth century in terms of both employment and capitalisation. This article explores whether Australia’s railroads were also seminal institutions for the employment of accountants and the advance of their discipline, through a consideration of the effects of commonalities and differences with the American experience. Commonalities exist in the similar roles played by American and Australian railways in the global economy, while differences principally relate to ownership structure – the former being privately owned and the latter state-owned. State ownership is found to have had a more significant influence than economic commonalities. Financial accounting was retarded due to (1) dealings with investment markets being the responsibility of Parliamentarians and (2) the abstinence of Australian railways from financial endeavours such as land speculation. The domination of cost accounting by professional engineers also left little room for qualified accountants.
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