List of Railway Companies

This is a list of the world's railway operating companies listed alphabetically by continent and country. This list includes companies operating both now and in the past.

Note also that in some countries, the railway operating bodies are not companies, but are government departments or authorities.

Particularly in Europe, with privatizations in the 1980s and the separation of the track ownership and management from running the trains, there are now many track-only companies and train-only companies.

See also: Rail transport by country

Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, railway and/or companies:

    “Every morning I woke in dread, waiting for the day nurse to go on her rounds and announce from the list of names in her hand whether or not I was for shock treatment, the new and fashionable means of quieting people and of making them realize that orders are to be obeyed and floors are to be polished without anyone protesting and faces are to be made to be fixed into smiles and weeping is a crime.”
    —Janet Frame (b. 1924)

    “The advice of their elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.”
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935)

    “Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
    —Angela Carter (1940–1992)

    “The recent attempt to secure a charter from the State of North Dakota for a lottery company, the pending effort to obtain from the State of Louisiana a renewal of the charter of the Louisiana State Lottery, and the establishment of one or more lottery companies at Mexican towns near our border, have served the good purpose of calling public attention to an evil of vast proportions.”
    —Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)