We present a dataset on daily spot and forward prices of seven major Prussian railway companies’ stock as traded at Berlin Stock Exchange between 1875 and 1884. In late 1879, the Prussian state began to nationalize the entire railway system in its territory. Measured in railway kilometers owned by the state, most of it had been nationalized by the end of 1884. Our data cover the run-up to the nationalization of the Prussian railways and the important first five years of the process itself. There are only few studies having analyzed daily Berlin stock prices at all, and most of those do not focus on our period. Unlike monthly or weekly data, the daily data we provide open new research perspectives on the history of rail transport, financial markets, and public finances.
