Railway Network Ranking

[ncr]

Cool list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size) on Wikipedia.

Thailand is in 39th place after all.... (for comparison - area: 49th, population: 19th in the world)

Also: No Railways

* Bahrain
* Belize
* Central African Republic
* Chad
* Iceland
* Kuwait
* Laos (though here, they optimistically mention "4km" between Nongkhai and Vientiane)
* Libya
* Nicaragua
* Niger
* Oman
* Qatar
* United Arab Emirates
* Yemen

I was aware of Iceland and Laos, but not the rest (well, the UAE should have come to mind). Interesting: the clusters of railless countries in Northern Central Africa and on the Arabian peninsula - Libya, Chad, Niger and the CAR are connected by common borders. Likewise Yemen, Oman, the UAE and Qatar (almost).

They also have a nice map (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Railway_size_world_map.PNG) where those countries without any rail (or missing data) are displayed in grey.

Altogether the stats are not complete. For example, Papua New Guinea, most Pacific island states, Bhutan, Somalia, Mauritania, West Sahara, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau are not on the list (do they have rails???)

(On the other hand, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Haiti and Suriname are grey on the map, but appear on the list with 166, 84, 40 and 24 kms, respectively.)

[dick]

And San Marino, and Andorra. I think there are more countries...

[waerth]

I have lived in surinam for 4 years when I was young. I can say it has 2 railwaylines.

One in West-Surinam the line from nowhere to nowhere (niets naar nergens) as it is called in Surinam. It was build to transport Bauxite. The production never started though.

The second along the Surinamriver. From Brownsweg to Onverdacht. Both raillines are defunct though by my knowledge.

Waerth

[dick]

I have lived in surinam for 4 years when I was young. I can say it has 2 railwaylines.

One in West-Surinam the line from nowhere to nowhere (niets naar nergens) as it is called in Surinam. It was build to transport Bauxite. The production never started though.

The second along the Surinamriver. From Brownsweg to Onverdacht. Both raillines are defunct though by my knowledge.

Waerth
Is one of these the famous Landspoorweg? Are industrial railways also belonging to the national railwaynetwork?

[Yappofloyd]

Khuyn ncr, interesting that the Holy See gets on the list last for the 1km of network running though with the station. Not so sure about Afghanistan as when I worked there it was always common knowledge by those in devlopment sector that no railway existed but perhaps a 'secret one' exists? I do think that West Sahra has any rail but I had understood somaila did but doubt if it exists now (we should check on your others).

The list obviously does not include metro lines as Hong Kong is only listed as 34km in total which I assume is the KCR lines but even this seems a tad under as it is even less than Singapores total. UAE will get a metro network of 2 lines in a few years (construction just starting ) and I had read last year that a Saudi to Yemen goods line is in the works.

[von Hirschhorn]

Is one of these the famous Landspoorweg? Are industrial railways also belonging to the national railwaynetwork?
The latter is the ' Landspoorweg ' indeed.
Industrial railways are railways so why not include them.
In that perspective Laos once had one - Khone Island - and Iceland too.

[von Hirschhorn]

[QUOTE=ncr]
Also: No Railways
* Nicaragua

Also here once a train, even electric as far I have seen on pictures and stamps. Laos and Iceland mentioned above. What to think about Nauru.
Yes, an independent state (very small) somewhere in the Pacific with railway for industrial purpose.
Fiji is another example. The sugar industry still operates some railways, in the past even with passenger service (free of charge)
The best of all is Christmas Island and although this is Australian territory a railway is permanent. I think we can go one with this list.

[GWR]

The latter is the ' Landspoorweg ' indeed.
Industrial railways are railways so why not include them.
In that perspective Laos once had one - Khong Island - and Iceland too.
Not to mention the Tha Kek line, which seems to have been abandoned during construction. Presumably it had some construction traffic on it. This string mentions both Laos lines:-

http://www.angkor.com/2bangkok/2bangkok/forum/showthread.php?t=1055

[von Hirschhorn]

Completely overlooked this French enterprise in Laos, thanks for mention again. As stated before somewhere in some thread; piece by piece the Southeast Asian Railway history will come to daylight for the second time.
If you have anymore on this, please!

[ncr]

Rail Networks on Worldmapper (http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/display.php?selected=36).