Across the borders

Research on railways has tended to compare rail investment with spending in other sectors inside individual national economies, leaving the wider international picture largely unexamined. This collection tackles that gap with a cross-border approach, presenting what it describes as the first large-scale historical study of how railways were financed worldwide.

The chapters look at how bankers, governments and business founders in Europe handled the difficulties of building and running connected rail networks, both within their own countries and in their overseas colonies. Drawing on many historical case studies, the contributors weigh the foreign investment options available to railway projects and examine them through economic, social, transport and railway history.

Written by specialists from 19 countries, the book is aimed at academic researchers, museum staff, archivists and general readers curious about how railways developed.