The Swedish State Railways (Swedish: Statens Järnvägar) or SJ, originally the Royal Railway Board (Swedish: Kungl. Järnvägsstyrelsen), is a former government agency responsible for operating the state railways in Sweden.
In 1988, the tracks were transferred to the Swedish Rail Administration, and parts of SJ were gradually transformed into limited companies. SJ was disbanded in 2001, with the assest transferred to seven separate companies, all owned by the Swedish Government:
- SJ AB, usually called SJ, the passenger train operator
- Green Cargo, which operates freight trains
- Jernhusen, real estate
- EuroMaint, train maintenance
- Unigrid, information technology
- TraffiCare, which provides terminal services, e.g. train cleaning and switching
- TrainTech Engineering, currently a part of Interfleet Technology, the technical unit.
Some of them have been sold to other companies, but SJ AB, Green Cargo and Jernhusen are still (2010) fully government owned. Apart from these companies, Statens Järnvägar still exists as a governmental agency. It controls some property, but has no regular railroad activities. It has not been dismantled due to technical reasons.
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