Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS; Dutch: [ˈneːdərlɑntsə ˈspoːrˌʋeːɣə(n)] (listen); English: "Dutch Railways") is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands. It is a Dutch state-owned company founded in 1938. The Dutch rail network is one of the busiest in the European Union, and the third busiest in the world after Switzerland and Japan. The rail infrastructure is maintained by network manager ProRail, which was split off from NS in 2003. Freight services, formerly operated by NS Cargo, merged with DB Schenker in 2000. NS runs 4,800 scheduled domestic trains a day, serving 1.1 million passengers. The NS also provides international rail services from the Netherlands to other European destinations and carries out concessions on some foreign rail markets through its subsidiary Abellio. From Wikipedia