Rail transport: a fascinating phenomenon

   Much has been written about railways, and that's fully understandable and justified. It is a phenomenon that has a rich, diverse history and
   continues to determine in its current form many different aspects of our daily life.

   The current railways are the results of a long and fascinating development that started in the first half of the 19th century with the construction of
   the first railway link between Stockton and Darlington in England. It has continued to evolve into the complex rail system as we know it nowadays.
   As railways played a crucial role in the development of national economies, the solutions adopted for technological and organizational problems,
   which arose over the years, primarily met national requirements. This has lead to a sector with many common features between the rail systems, but even with more different aspects, and it has lead to a situation in which the European railway systems and the rail markets merely consisted of a patchwork of badly interconnected national systems.

The basic principle of rail transport is the same everywhere: transport of goods or passengers over iron rails, but in Europe, there exist different gauge widths, different systems for the supply of electrical current, differences in maximum axle loads for wagons and locomotives; major differences in the organization of the rail traffic management systems; differences in requirements for staff and so on. Running train services from one Member State to another is possible, but the differences in the rail systems account for significant delays at border crossings and therefore extra costs, which has made this mode of transport less competitive than transport by road for example...

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