The vast majority of Finnish narrow-gauge railways were owned and operated by private companies.
There are only a few instances where narrow-gauge railways were in direct connection with each other, and those interchanges did not last for long.
The railways never formed a regional rail traffic network, but were only focused on maintaining connections between the national Russian-gauge railway network and the off-line industries.
Some railways were closed due to competition from the roads, others were converted to 1,524 mm (5 ft) Russian gauge.
Narrow-gauge tourist and heritage lines of 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) gauge and 750 mm (2 ft 5+1⁄2 in) narrow gauge still operate.