I can't help but feel much of this argument is relative. From my experience (I'm no longer a European resident) almost all of the European rail network that I've traveled on (and that's quite a lot) beats much of the infrastructure in Anglophone countries—and I'm referring to both track and rolling-stock).
(...Perhaps my view has been formed by the fact that I've come from a low base in Anglophone countries, so everything seems much better in Europe.)
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Edit: I must be fair, there was one European route that I traveled on that was truly substandard and that was the single-track Kaiser Franz Josephs Bahn (Emperor Franz Joseph Railway) from Vienna (Wien Nordbahnhof) to Prague via Gmünd — not the good two track route that goes via Břeclav and Brno (which I've also traveled on).
The railway track of the Kaiser Franz Josephs Bahn was in dire—most desperate—need of maintenance when I traveled on it and that was a few years before the Iron Curtain fell and Czechoslovakia was still communist.
There's no doubt that's the worst track I've ever traveled on (it's one of those experience one never forgets). The train traveled so slowly that we passengers thought we could get out and walk faster, moreover the carriages rocked wildly from side to side and we had a constant feeling that the train was going to derail at any moment (had it gone any faster then I reckon it certainly would have derailed). I have no idea whether that track is still in such poor condition today or not (at the time I was on the understanding that the track had deliberately not been maintained since the War because of Iron Curtain politics).
Nevertheless, it was by far the exception in my experience.