The Swedish State Railways () or SJ, originally the Royal Railway Board (), was the former

government agency A government agency or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government (bureaucracy) that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, s ...

responsible for operating the state-owned

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

s in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

History

The Swedish State Railways was created on 1 June 1888 as an agency belonging to the Ministry for Civil Service Affairs, with the task of managing all state-owned railway lines in Sweden, and was transferred to the

Ministry of Communications A Communications Ministry or Department of Communications is a ministry or other government agency charged with communication. Communications responsibilities include regulating telecommunications, postal services, broadcasting and print media. The ...

in 1920. In 1988, the rail tracks themselves were transferred to the

Swedish Rail Administration The Swedish National Rail Administration () was a Swedish state administrative authority which acted as owner on behalf of the State and maintained virtually all main railway lines in Sweden; except for short sidings for freight, heritage railwa ...

(), and in the upcoming years parts of SJ were gradually transformed into limited companies as a result of the

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

obligation introduced by EU Directive 91/440. SJ was disbanded in 2001, with the assets transferred to seven separate companies, the first three owned by the Swedish government and the latter four being privatized: *

SJ AB SJ is the primary passenger train operator in Sweden. A wholly List of government enterprises of Sweden, state-owned company operated for-profit under market conditions, SJ operates various services across Sweden. SJ's operations include High-spee ...

, usually called SJ, the passenger train operator * Green Cargo, which operates freight trains * Jernhusen, real estate * EuroMaint, currently a part of CAF, train maintenance * Unigrid, information technology * TraffiCare, which provides terminal services, e.g. train cleaning and switching * TrainTech Engineering, currently a part of SNC-Lavalin Rail & Transit, the technical unit. Some of them have been sold to other companies, but SJ AB, Green Cargo and Jernhusen are still fully government owned (as of January ). Apart from these companies, Statens Järnvägar after 2001 continued to exist as a governmental agency, mainly dealing with the leasing of rail vehicles, but otherwise had no regular railroad activities. It was dismantled at the end of 2012 when that role was fully taken over by

Trafikverket The Swedish Transport Administration () is a government agency in Sweden, government agency in Sweden, controlled by the Riksdag and the Government of Sweden. It is responsible for long-term infrastructure planning for transport: road, rail, ship ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Statensjarnvagar Defunct railway companies of Sweden Railway companies established in 1888 Railway companies disestablished in 2001 Government agencies established in 1888 Government agencies disestablished in 2001 Government-owned railway companies Swedish companies established in 1888 2001 disestablishments in Sweden Companies disestablished in 2001 Swedish companies disestablished in the 2000s