Of course this is true. Just like the need to travel long distances over land will never disappear.

The skills needed to be a useful horseman though have almost nothing to do with the skills needed to be a useful train conductor. Most the horseman skills don't really transfer other than being in the same domain of land travel. The horseman also has the problem that they have invested their life and identity into their skill with horses. It massively biases perspective. The person with no experience with horses actually has some huge advantages of the beginner mind in terms of travel by land at the advent of travel by rail.

The ad nauseam software engineer "horsemen" arguments on this board that there will always be the need to travel long distance by land completely misses the point IMO.