These ten rail networks are not only ever growing, but some are also shrinking at the same time! As old routes and closed and new ones are laid. They are the longest rail networks in the world and some of them would take you years to travel…
South Africa Railways
10 – South Africa (Estimated Rail Network Length: 31,000 km / 19,262 Miles)
Wiki Info: Transnet Freight Rail is a South African rail transport company, formerly known as Spoornet. It was part of the South African Railways and Harbours Administration, a state-controlled organisation that employed hundreds of thousands of people for decades from the first half of the 20th century and was widely referred to by the initials SAR&H (SAS&H in Afrikaans). Customer complaints about serious problems with Transnet Freight Rail’s service were reported in 2010. Its head office is in the Inyanda House in Parktown, Johannesburg.
Argentina Railways
9 – Argentina (Estimated Rail Network Length: 36,966 km / 22,969 Miles)
Wiki Info: Ferrocarriles Argentinos Sociedad del Estado is a State-owned railway company of Argentina created for the operation and maintenance of the Argentine railway network in the country, including passenger and freight services. The company shares its name with the previous national operator which was broken up during the privatisation process, and also uses a modified version of its original logo.
Brazil Railways
8 – Brazil (Estimated Rail Network Length: 37,743 km / 23,452 Miles)
Wiki Info: Brazil Portuguese: Brasil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 3.2 million square miles (8.5 million km²) and with over 208 million people, Brazil is the world’s fifth-largest country by area and the sixth-most populous. The capital is Brasília, and the largest city by population is São Paulo. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas.
Australia Railways
7 – Australia (Estimated Rail Network Length: 38,445 km / 23,888 Miles)
Wiki Info: Rail transport in Australia is a crucial aspect of the Australian transport network. Rail in Australia is to a large extent state-based. As at 2014, the Australian rail network consists of a total of 20,371 mi of track on three major track gauges. Except for a small number of private railways, most of the Australian railway network infrastructure is government-owned, either at the federal or state level. Most railway operators were once state government agencies, but with privatisation in the 1990s, private companies now operate the majority of trains in Australia.
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Germany Railways
6 – Germany (Estimated Rail Network Length: 43,468 km / 27,009 Miles)
Wiki Info: Deutsche Bahn AG is a German railway company. Headquartered in Berlin, it is a private joint-stock company, with the Federal Republic of Germany being its single shareholder.Deutsche Bahn describes itself as the second-largest transport company in the world, after the German postal and logistics company Deutsche Post / DHL, and is the largest railway operator and infrastructure owner in Europe. Deutsche Bahn was the largest railway company in the world by revenue in 2015.
Canada Railways
5 – Canada (Estimated Rail Network Length: 46,552 km / 28,926 Miles)
Wiki Info: CN is Canada’s largest railway, in terms of both revenue and the physical size of its rail network, and is Canada’s only transcontinental railway company, spanning Canada from the Atlantic coast in Nova Scotia to the Pacific coast in British Columbia. Its range once reached across the island of Newfoundland until 1988, when the Newfoundland Railway was abandoned.
India Railways
4 – India (Estimated Rail Network Length: 66,687 km / 41,437 Miles)
Wiki Info: Indian Railways is a state-owned national transportation system, and it is responsible for rail transport in India. It is owned and operated by the Government of India through the Ministry of Railways. It is the fourth largest railway network in the world comprising 74,330 mi of total track and 57,216 mi of running track over a route of 41,437 mi with 7,216 stations at the end of 2015-16. In 2015-16, IR carried 8.107 billion passengers annually or more than 22 million passengers a day and 1.101 billion tons of freight annually.
China Railways
3 – China (Estimated Rail Network Length: 124,000 km / 77,050 Miles)
Wiki Info: China Railway, commonly known as CR, full name China Railway Corporation is the national railway operator of the People’s Republic of China, under the regulation of the Ministry of Transport and the National Railway Administration. It used to be part of the now defunct Ministry of Railways. China Railway operates passenger and freight transport via several smaller companies.
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Russia Railways
2 – Russia (Estimated Rail Network Length: 175,236 km / 108,886 Miles)
Wiki Info: JSC Russian Railways is a Russian vertically integrated company, both managing infrastructure and operating freight and passenger train services. In 2012 it became one of the three largest transport companies in the world. The company was established on September 18, 2003, when a decree was passed to separate the railways from the Russian Ministry of the Means of Communication.
United States Railways
1 – United States (Estimated Rail Network Length: 250,000 km / 124,274 Miles)
Wiki Info: Rail transportation in the United States consists primarily of freight shipments, while passenger service, once a large and vital part of the nation’s passenger transportation network, plays a limited role as compared to transportation patterns in many other countries.