The National Rail network of 10,072 miles (16,209 km) in Great Britain and 189 route miles (303 route km) in Northern Ireland carries 1.7 billion passengers and 110 million tonnes of freight annually.
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Network Rail owns, operates and develops Britain's railway infrastructure. That's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations.
The American National Rail Network is more than twice the size of the European rail system, with over 224,000 miles (360,000 kilometers) of track compared to Europe's mere 94,000 miles (151,000 kilometers).
It is the world's longest passenger train route which links Western Russia to the Far East of Russia. At a track length of 5,772 miles, the Trans-Siberian line travels through 8 time zones and it takes about 7 days to complete the journey.
The US rail network, with an operating route length over 250,000km, is the biggest in the world. Freight lines constitute about 80% of the country's total rail network, while the total passenger network spans about 35,000km.
1. Switzerland. Tucked inside the small but incredibly beautiful country of Switzerland is one of the most efficient and scenic rail networks in the world.
It probably comes as no surprise that in a global 2019 survey of railroad efficiency, the top two places went to Japan and Hong Kong, with scores of 6.8 and 6.5 (out of seven) respectively.
The reasons for this are varied: from the privatisation of the rail industry to the rising cost of infrastructure. The UK does not have fixed rates like other European countries such as France, which can result in flight tickets being cheaper than a regional train journey in the UK.
The Middleton Railway is the world's oldest continuously working railway, situated in the English city of Leeds. It was founded in 1758 and is now a heritage railway, run by volunteers from The Middleton Railway Trust Ltd. since 1960. Main station building on Moor Road.
Great Britain, a small island, had well over 60 percent of railroads in Europe in 1840, but a much smaller percentage, even though its absolute amount of track increased tenfold, by 1900.