This empirical research is an enquiry into the nature and causes of the preservation and reuse of railway heritage from a comparative point of view: Britain v. Andalusia. We started studying the prospects of heritage railways in Andalusia in mid 2000s and set up a comparative framework with the country where this industry is the most developed in Europe. We found that the former were anything but poor and subsequently focused on the underlying institutions that constraint its development. Our scientific methodology is inductive in a first stage and deductive in a second one falling within the realm of Political Economy. The thesis, in its inception in the domain of Cultural Economics, evolves into the tenets of Institutional Economics.The results suggest that three factors impact directly on the preservation and reuse of railway heritage: volunteering, public governance and collective identity. The first and second are quantifiable, whether directly or by proxy, and the third is non-measurable. The first two variables are dependable on social capital as measured by generic trust – ultimate success factor in the industry of heritage railways.
Industrial heritage is a public good and as such the externalities matter; as a result the private sector is not well suited to protect it and reuse it. It is for be the public sector and/or the Third Sector to intervene on a free exchange basis.

JEL Classification: B52; D73; N70; Z13
Key words: Institutional Economics, Railway Heritage, Public Goods, Trust, Public Governance, Volunteering.