Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to get a clearer insight in three central topics. At first, it asks for the main lines of historical development of railways in Eastern European countries since the beginnings in mid nineteenth century. Secondly, this book raises the question of political, geopolitical and economic context in Eastern Europe in the period between 1945 and 1989. Thirdly our interest is to learn more about the impact of transition starting in 1989 on the railway systems as a whole and the national railway companies in particular. From this focus the question derived about the efforts that have been undertaken for technological and administrative modernisation and about the consequences of the radical transformation as for example the drastic increase in competition from other modes of transport. The book includes contributions with focus on the time of the Cold War entitled Under Russian Protection.