Rail 2000
large-scale project of the Swiss Federal Railways
Rail 2000 (German: Bahn 2000; French: Rail 2000, Italian: Ferrovia 2000) is a large-scale project of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB CFF FFS) established in 1987 to improve the quality of the Swiss rail network for the New millennium. It includes measures to accelerate a number of existing connections and the modernisation of rolling stock. The federal government decision to support the project in 1986 was approved by a referendum in 1987. In 2004 the first phase was completed consisting of around 130 projects with a budget of around CHF 5.9 billion.
History
Background
After years of heavy investment in roads in the postwar years, the share of rail in the total passenger market in Switzerland had been significantly reduced by the end of the 1960s. At this time SBB decided that changes were necessary to increase rail patronage. More trains were operated in order to increase frequencies; this led to a 75% increase in passengers between 1971 and 1983 on the Bern–Zürich route. In the 1970s the Swiss government and SBB decided to make further improvements in rail services. In 1972, the SBB introduced a regular interval timetable (German: Taktfahrplan). Under this timetable trains arrive and leave each station at the same minute past every hour.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Rail 2000” is large-scale project of the Swiss Federal Railways. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Rail, large-scale and project, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “large-scale project of the Swiss Federal Railways” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q687099. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2000, 1987, 1986 and 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rail 2000” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.