From 1834 onwards the fledgling Belgian state embarked upon a state-sponsored programme of railway
construction. This was quite unique. No other country except for Britain had done so. In most other
countries railway-building was entrusted to private companies. For the Belgian government railwaybuilding
was enough of a priority to sponsor the enterprise with state money. Now that Belgium had been
deprived of the Rhine, and the Dutch colonies, it had to look for other markets, and these it found close by,
in Germany and France, which could be reached by railway links. In 1844 the country counted 560 km of
trunk lines. Adding the private branch lines that were subsequently built, the country could boast a total
length of 3027 km in 1871.16 The Belgian railways were important enough for Kume to devote a short essay
to a comparison of the relative merits of the different types of railway company