Length of railroad in Europe by region 1913
In 1913, the year before the First World War began, there were approximately 168 thousand kilometers of rail in Western Europe, which was roughly 30 thousand kilometers more than the rest of the continent combined. Russia had the second-largest volume of rail, at 70 thousand kilometers, and Central and Eastern Europe had just under 29 thousand. The four countries of Mediterranean Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece) saw their railroad networks expand by roughly 45 percent between 1890 and 1913, although their total in 1913 was just 38 thousand kilometers combined, much less than the likes of Germany, France or Britain.