Swedish State Railways

The Swedish State Railways (Swedish: Statens Järnvägar) or SJ, originally the Royal Railway Board (Swedish: Kungl. Järnvägsstyrelsen), was the former government agency responsible for operating the state-owned railways in Sweden.

This article is about the historical railway. For the current passenger operator, see SJ AB.
Swedish State Railways
Native name
Statens Järnvägar
TypeGovernment Agency
Founded1887
Defunct1 January 2001
FateBreakup in two phases
SuccessorSJ AB (passenger trains)
Green Cargo (freight trains)
Jernhusen AB (infrastructure)
Headquarters
Stockholm
,
Sweden
Area served
Scandinavia
ProductsRail Transport
OwnerThe State
Older badge of Statens järnvägar
Winged wheel of SJ

It was created in 1887 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 in 1920.

In 1988, the rail tracks themselves were transferred to the Swedish Rail Administration (Swedish: Banverket), and in the upcoming years parts of SJ were gradually transformed into limited companies as a result of the open access 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, 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 2023). 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.

Media related to Statens Järnvägar at Wikimedia Commons

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