[FI] West Railway construction start delayed beyond 2028

[jpl]

The proposed West Railway connecting Helsinki and Turku (eventually) has surfaced on the news in Finland suggesting a delay of at least two years. Some political parties have already suggested to scrap the project to save taxpayer's money. There is a railway connection between the two cities, but it follows the southern coast, hence called Rantarata (Coastal Railway). The new railway would serve regions such as Lohja which currently don't have a straight railway line to the capital.

Transport minister: Next government will handle West Railway construction. The prime minister has been a big supporter of the planned Helsinki-Turku line and previously suggested that its construction would start during his government's term.

Link to the article in English: https://yle.fi/a/74-20220768

 

[rf_ioliver]

I believe it will be scrapped to be honest. There's quite a few issues that no one wants to talk about, eg: Kirkkonummi and Karjaa losing any InterCity traffic and connections to Turku for one, and then the fate of Karjaa to Salo, if passenger services are lost - there's very little freight on Rantarata as it is - and even that sometimes daily service runs Salo-Riihimöku via Lohja.

There are so many other places where a fraction of that money could be spent - proper double tracking of Tampere-Seinäjoki would bring huge benefits to timings and resiliency of the network, and speed increases on Päärata, especially Riihimäki-Tampere and bringing that up to 200kmh too. There is of course on-going 4-tracking work north of Kerava and Ylivieskä-Oulu has been finally funded. Areas such as Orivesi-Jyväskylä could also be improved for big times savings as well.

If you want to see fantasy there's the the new *new* Itärata idea going around - saw the presentation of that in Sipoo a few weeks back...because what we really need is another high-speed line bypassing Lähti to Kouvola...and after that another to Lappenranta...and then....direct high speed lines to every city in Finland....