Western, with headquarters at Lahore and serving the port of Karachi, in view of its strategic nature has for many years been a State railway. The Bengal and North Western, serving Luck now, Benares and Allahabad, includes the Tirhut State Railway, and is owned and operated by a company ; while the Bengal Nagpur, stretching from Nagpur to Calcutta, possesses a contract which will not lapse for some years. The Bombay, Baroda and Central India is also operated by a company and possesses an important metre gauge system, as do the Madras and Southern Mahratta and the South Indian. The Eastern Bengal, however, possesses lines of several gauges and is a State system, as is Burma Railways, which were company operated till the end of 1928.
Ceylon has possessed a railway system since 1865. The railway network of the Federated Malay States is based on Kuala Lumpur. Railways also exist in Iraq, Palestine, Turkey in Asia, North Borneo, Dutch East Indies, Indo-China and the Philippine Is. The State railways of Siam are of metre gauge and over 1,9oom. in length. In Siberia are long mileages of Russian railways, built to the 5ft. gauge, while a narrow gauge line exists in Cyprus. China possesses State and company owned railways; the former Chinese Eastern, now North Manchurian, was transferred to Japan and Manchuria, March, 1935; the South Manchuria has been Japanese since .1906. Hongkong possesses a standard gauge railway. Next in importance to India among Asian railways stands Japan, with a State owned and operated system of the 3ft. 6in. gauge, with mileage of nearly 9,500. The first section was opened in 1872; during the succeeding 20 years privately owned lines grew side by side with the State railways, but by 1887 only 240m. of railway had been constructed. Between 1897 and 1906 a considerable reduction took place in the number of privately owned lines, but they had been responsible for the con struction of over 3,200 miles. In 1906 when the route mileage was almost 4,800 a railway nationalization bill was passed and nearly £50 million paid for over 2,800 miles. In 1927 the Japanese Government Railways had 200,000 employees; in addition there were 4,900m. of privately owned lines. A feature of the Japanese railway system is the use of ferry steamers for connecting up the islands over which the railway system spreads ; some of these steamers are train ferries.
The railways are divided into three classes based upon the gross earnings in any one, a similar method to the Class I. and Class II. systems of the United States. There are 16 Class I. lines, earn ing Rs. 5o lakhs or over per annum, of which the largest are the Great Indian Peninsula, the East Indian, the Bombay, Baroda and Central India, the North Western, the Bengal and North Western, the Bengal-Nagpur, the Eastern Bengal and the Madras and Southern Mahratta. Many of these lines are purely operating companies, the railways being owned by the Indian Government, and as the leases run out are taken over wholly by the State. Thus the East Indian, serving Calcutta, Allahabad, Agra and Delhi, the first section of which was opened in 1854, was taken over Dec. 31, 1924, being later amalgamated with the Oudh and Rohilkhund, serving Benares and Lucknow, also taken over. The Great Indian Peninsula serving Bombay, Agra, Delhi and Cawnpore, has been worked by the Government from June 30, 1925, while the North Railways of Africa.—The most important railway system in Africa is that of the South African Railways and Harbours Ad ministration, a Government owned and operated system of 3ft. 6in. gauge in the Union of South Africa. In 1860 a standard gauge 4ft. 82in. line was opened at Natal, followed by a line of similar gauge between Cape Town and Wellington, but by 187o less than Tom. had been completed. By 1881 the gauge had been changed to 3ft. 6in. and Cape Colony and Natal had commenced State ownership. Kimberley could be reached by rail in 1885 and Bloemfontein in 189o, the Orange Free State taking control of this section in 1897, the year when the railway first reached Bulawayo. In 1902 there were 4,90o route miles of railway in what is now the Union of South Africa, and when the railways were amalgamated under the Union Government the mileage amounted to over 7,000, which had increased to 9,60o in 192o, and to 12,200 in 1927, including the New Cape Central Railway absorbed in 1925 and the railways in South West Africa. In addition there exist over doom. of private railways in South Africa. The 600m. line northwards from Vryburg to Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia, through British Bechuanaland, is also administered by the S.A.Rlys., while the main ports are operated by the same organization ; thus competition between ports is eliminated and the closest coordination obtained with the railway working.