Abstract Governments make substantial contributions to the finance of railways in Europe. This paper first considers the possible justifications for subsidies – namely normalisation of accounts, public service obligations, economies of density, relief of externalities on other modes, wider...

Over the last few years, much progress has been made in developing rail charges to ensure non-discriminatory access to, and efficient use of national rail networks, but in Europe the international dimension is still missing, particularly in terms of the freight market. Integration of European...