Swiss Federal Railways is 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 entrepreneurial manner. A performance agreement between 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.
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 SAS.
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 Bern, a historic archive, a photo archive and the SBB poster collection.