Modern History Sourcebook:
Spread of Railways in 19th Century
This document takes the data in Table 6 of Spread of the
Industrial Revolution and presents it in different ways in order to show how
statistical data may be used.
Spread of Railways in Ten Selected Countries
(Length of line open [in kilometers [1km = 5/8 mile])
Visually this version of the table can be presented as follows. In this version the
percentage of total European railways belonging to each country in particular years is
shown. Great Britain, a small island, had well over 60 percent of railroads in Europe in
1840, but a much smaller percentage, even though its absolute amount of track increased
tenfold, by 1900.
In this next graph, the same data are present in a way which emphasizes the absolute
increase in railroads during the period.
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Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and
copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history.
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(c)Paul Halsall Aug 1997