Privatbanen Sønderjylland ApS (abbreviated PBS, also known under the byname EuroRail) was a Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 railway operating company that existed between 1997 and 2001. Unlike other Danish railway companies at the time, PBS was an attempt to provide railway service on a purely commercial basis and entirely unsubsidised. Headquartered in Tønder

Tønder

Tønder is a municipality in Region of Southern Denmark on the Jutland peninsula in south Denmark. The municipality covers an area of 1,278 km², and has a total population of 40,367...

 in South Jutland, the company specialised in freight transport around most of Jutland

Jutland

Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...

.

Noted for its numerous battles with bureaucracy, the company was partially successful in getting otherwise closed freight lines up and running again. Motive power was obtained primarily through buying second-hand diesel locomotives from DSB

Danske Statsbaner

DSB, an abbreviation of Danske Statsbaner , is the largest Danish train operating company, and the largest in Scandinavia. While DSB is responsible for passenger train operation on most of the Danish railways, goods transport and railway maintenance are outside its scope...

, and a number of freight cars were leased from NS

Nederlandse Spoorwegen

Nederlandse Spoorwegen , or NS, is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands.Its trains operate over the tracks of the Dutch national railinfrastructure, operated by ProRail, which was split off from NS in 2003...

, the Dutch railways.

After several attempts to save the company, PBS was declared bankrupt in 2001. A new company, TraXion

TraXion

TraXion A/S was a Danish railway operating company that existed between 2001 and 2002. As an attempt to continue the activities of the bankrupt Privatbanen Sønderjylland , the company specialised in freight transport and operated on an independent commercial basis, as opposed to the approach of...

, was established and based on the remains of PBS, but was also commercially unsuccessful.

External links

• Official website (archived at the Internet Archive
  Internet Archive
  The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
  
  )
• Details at Railorama