On 1: I spoke of maintenance in the context of delays (both tracks in bad shape and track works on long-neglected errors cause delays) and the service that can be offered (also in the contect of branchline closures). The latter doesn't just involve tracks and trains, but stuff like train control and signaling. As for other comparisons: in France or Germany, trains travel longer distances (more chance for delays, and for the transmission of delays as one train waits for another for those changing trains) on a more complex network (the job of coordinating trains at main stations is much more complex), with a more complex (and less taxed) road competition. I didn't wrote about this in the original post, but even comparing the German and French railways (when one focuses on employee number) is not straightforward: the French railways are more focused on passenger transport, which (especially since DB closed most of its small stations for freight) needs more men.

BTW, AFAIK the Netherlands delays problem (which I recall having read of improving recently, would have to look it up to make sure) was a capacity problem - the frequency of trains got too close to the limit of the existing network for minor disturbances to cause a chain reaction.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

On 5: hah, and I thought that will be my argument! You are right, these figures are harder to come by than the company balance sheets... I will look what I can find in form of hard data tomorrow, but IIRC the per capita spending on both passenger transport subsidies and big infrastructure projects is significantly higher in Switzerland. (In France, the previous right-wing government even put all newer projects on hold - while the then alone constructed TGV Est is cheaper than NEAT -, starting a general review, whose result in the end was only a lot of delays. In Germany, it's an even sadder story, with some stop-and-go construction like in post-war Italy.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

srutis, I hope you dodn't lost this thread... here come some promised statistics.

First a note on passenger traffic: while transport volumes are similar, the long-distance transport (expresses, high speed) was 54.85 billion p-km (SNCF) vs. 32.33 billion p-km (DB) in 2004. This is clearly a field where SNCF is better, tough it also means that the field with - I suspect - more workers, regional and city trains, is like freight: just above half of Germany's. (This is true for passenger numbers too, BTW.) However, I failed to find figures for how SNCF's employees are distributed according to branches (I do have it for DB), this is what would really be needed for a comparison. More below.

Railway geography: I note that France is twice as big as Germany with 30% less people, yet a network length some 15% below that of Germany (hence more difficult to attract regional passengers). In Switzerland, due to mountains and lakes, most of the population happens to live along railway corridors, and very few branchlines were closed over the last 50 years.

Punctuality: what really matters is long-distance trains (local trains are usually highly punctual, freight trains are presently hopeless). Last year SNCF's were 92% on-time by a 10-minute margin. DB keeps its figures under wraps, but according to leaks, this summer it again fell back from 93.1% in January to below 80% by a 5-minute margin.

Subsidies for traffic: In 2004, SNCF got €3.361 billion (most of this as 50.5% of the regional/city trains unit income), DB got €4.559 billion (as 56.1% of regional/city trains units' income). SNCF also got €677 million for debt service and €2.515 billion for its retirement fund. SBB got CHF 1.9684 billion (total income CHF 7.0086 billion).

Investments (track, stations, trains!): In 2004, SNCF and infrastructure company RFF spent €4.634 billion, getting €2.239 billion in public subsidies. DB spent €7.232 billion (of this €5.283 billion on infrastructure), and for this got €3.988 billion in public subsidies (all figures a significant reduction on last year). I couldn't find a 2004 figure for FinöV spending in Switzerland, or financial summaries on SBB, BLS self-financed projects, but it appears FinöV must involve about CHF 1.5 billion a year - that's c. €1 billion, per capita more than double of the German and most likely two-and-a-half times the French.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}