What is "prorail"

In the Netherlands, ProRail is a government task organisation that takes care of maintenance and extensions of the national railway network infrastructure (not the metro or tram), of allocating rail capacity, and of traffic control. Prorail is a part of NS Railinfratrust, the Dutch railway infrastructure owner. It consists of the following inframanagement organisations:

• Railinfrabeheer (Rail Infrastructure Management, RIB)
• Railned (railway capacity allocation) (planning more than 52 hours before the day of the train service)
• Railverkeersleiding (Traffic Control) (planning from 52 hours before the day of the train service)

The rail capacity supplied by ProRail is used by several public transport operators:

• the main one Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS),
• the smaller ones Arriva, Syntus, Veolia, NS Hispeed, and Connexxion,
• one that mainly operates in Germany, DB Regionalbahn Westfalen,

as well as cargo operators, notably Railion, ERS Railways and ACTS.

And smaller FOC's like: Rail4Chem (now owned by Veolia), Veolia Cargo, Rotterdam Railfeeding, Bentheimer Eisenbahn, HGK, Portfeeders (part of ACTS), and SNCF Fret

Its Utrecht headquarters is in the former offices of Nederlandse Spoorwegen (known as De Inktpot, "The Inkwell"), the largest brick building in the Netherlands. The building currently features a "UFO" on its facade resulting from an art program in 2000.