Swiss Federal Railways says it made a profit last year of SFr345 million ($303 million) – up 329 per cent on the previous year.

It said higher passenger figures and good property investments explained the fact that profit was more than four times higher than in 2007.

The state-owned company said net profit had increased from SFr80.4 million and that the number of travellers was up 5.2 per cent.

There were 322.6 million train journeys last year, representing 16.14 billion passenger kilometres, the railways said. Rush hour passenger numbers increased by eight per cent.

The company's freight-carrying arm, Federal Railways Cargo, announced a loss of SFr29.9 million for 2008, a markedly better result than the previous year, when it lost SFr190.4 million.

Federal Railways said it would need investments of SFr60 billion until 2050 for infrastructure and rolling stock, including SFr20 billion for rolling stock alone by 2030.

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