Why would they randomly skip out Tornio Itainen on two services (one in each direction). It seems an odd choice especially as there are very few other services there (just the one a day in each direction Kolari service). Why not just make all trains call there. I would be interested to know what their logic is for that.
It probably has something to do with the 10-minute turnaround at Haparanda; if it stopped at Tornio-Itäinen as well, it'd have very little turnaround time. It can't return any later, either, because it runs just ahead of S 28 from Kemi to Oulu, allowing passengers to connect into that to continue to Helsinki.
PYO 262 also calls at Tornio-Itäinen about an hour after IC 406 would, so it's not that big of a problem, especially with both trains calling at Tornio as well. Tornio-Itäinen was the 25th least-used station in the country in 2024, with 5770 passengers, so I don't think it's going to be of particular loss to anyone.
Thanks, so my timing guesses weren't too far off
IC 37 connects with IC407 and IC408 connects with IC38, *or* IC37/38 change numbers and continue with the same stock which would be interesting as number changes like that aren't common (if at all IIRC) for a through service and IC37/38 usually run as 6 or 7 wagons - so that's a big train for that service after Oulu.
It might be that IC 407/408 will be formed off of IC 65, and that IC 401/402 will then go on to form IC 63. Or perhaps, with Oulu Nokela becoming a more and more important depot, they change the stock rotation to have a short(er) rake up there for an extra day (instead of it going straight back to Helsinki).
I imagine that they would like to use a
possujuna (3-car rake, no restaurant car), but getting that up to Oulu in passenger service would be virtually impossible, because all the Oulu trains need more capacity than that (and a restaurant!) and I don't think Nokela would want to start reforming trains up there.
Once the new train starts then i presume Tornio to Tornio Itainen will be a record for the closest Finnish railway stations.
The closest stations in the country are Huopalahti and Valimo, with a distance of 695 metres between them.
It is less than 1000 metres. It will probably only take one minute to travel between them.
The distance between Tornio and Tornio-Itäinen is 1349 metres, and considering that the speed limit is mostly 35 km/h, it will probably take 3 minutes to travel between them.
I doubt any passenger would make that journey but i wonder how much VR will charge.
VR's minimum ticket price for long-distance trains is 3 euro, so it will almost certainly cost 3 euro.
Source is the allocated track capacity, which was updated yesterday for the next timetable period starting 29th March 2026. Schedules for the service were not in the latest change. The next timetable period after that starts 15th Jun 2026. In Finland we generally have six timetable periods in a full timetable year.
Any changes for the bext timetable period must be submitted by 24 April (which is quite late compared to usual), but passenger train timetables are generally not changed in that way during the year. I expect that the services will only be properly retimed come December (which is when the new timetable year starts).
For the nailsplitters: yes, of course I do know FINland is very strcitly taken not Scandinavia. But swedish is much more accessible language as finnish for us. And I understand jpi is from there so might even know better!
Although Finland is not technically part of
Scandinavia, it is part of
the Nordics as well as
Fennoscandia. There's an excellent CGP Grey video on the matter
here.
raidepuolue-fi.translate.goog
