Swiss Federal Railways (German: SBB, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen; French: CFF, Chemins de fer fédéraux suisses; Italian: FFS, Ferrovie federali svizzere; Romansh: Viafiers federalas svizras; The abbreviations VFS (Romansh) or SFR (English) are not used officially) is the national railway company of Switzerland headquartered in Berne. Formerly a state-owned enterprise, it is since 1999 a special stock corporation with all its shares held by the Swiss Confederation or Swiss Cantons. By the end of 2006, the corporation was handed over from the long-term CEO Benedikt Weibel to his successor Andreas Meyer.
The Swiss Federal Railways are divided into three divisions and two groups:
- Passenger traffic
- Freight traffic (SBB Cargo AG)
- Infrastructure
- Real estate
- Core services (finances, personnel)
The corporation is led in an enterpreneural manner. A performance agreement between the Swiss Federal Railways and the Swiss Confederation defines the requirements and is updated every four years. At the same time the compensation rates per train and track kilometre are defined.
The subsidiary SBB GmbH is responsible for passenger traffic in Germany. It operates the Wiesentalbahn and the Seehas services.
Further subsidiaries are Thurbo, RegionAlps, AlpTransit Gotthard AG, Cisalpino AG and TiLo (the latter in consortium with Italian authorities). The Swiss Federal Railways hold significant shares of the Zentralbahn and Lyria.
To take care of the historical heritage, the Stiftung Historisches Erbe der SBB ("SBB Historic") was founded in 2002. This foundation takes care of the historic rolling stock and runs a technical library in Berne, a historic archive, a photo archive and the poster collection of the Swiss Federal Railways.
