Finland

[CarrotPie]

in 2019 we used a bus to get to Kemijärvi and then an evening train back to Rovaniemi, where we stayed. We only needed to kill 3 hours and that was long enough...

Sounds like a much better idea!

Planning to get the train to both at some point, but taking an inflatable kayak to keep me amused. In the case of Kemijärvi, just a long, long day and return, whereas I'd kayak from Nurmes to Joensuu (or Savonlinna if I felt really ambitious) and get the train home to Oulu from there.

That is an exceedingly long day. That's about as long as the time I did Helsinki-Rovaniemi-Helsinki in a day, but at least I didn't have 11 hours in a tiny Finnish town.

I wish the Nurmes and Pieksämäki trains were timed better at Joensuu, because it makes it so annoying to go from Nurmes to basically anywhere else except the line to Helsinki (ok, Savonlinna, but that's not much better). Unfortunately the Nurmes timetables haven't changed by more than a half an hour in over 20 years and the Pieksämäki line has just got worse ans much less frequent. Oh, how I long for the Dm12s to be replaced with something fit-for-purpose (and less flammable)...

 

[rf_ioliver]

Rumour has it that Pieksämäki-Varkaus-Joensuu was only saved because someone important lived in Varkaus and had a yearly ticket...the line is now really just running the absolute minimal service.

Savonlinna to Parikkala has improved but absolutely no chance of seeing a Savonlinna-Helsinki train again; would be fun to see an Sr3 on diesel mode run up that line, or better still a Dm9!

 

[CarrotPie]

Rumour has it that Pieksämäki-Varkaus-Joensuu was only saved because someone important lived in Varkaus and had a yearly ticket...the line is now really just running the absolute minimal service.

Huh. Although, to be fair, a lot of the railcar lines were only barely saved — and still are only barely saved every time someone in the ministry sees the price of the subsidy...

The through service on that line has been dismal since they stopped the sleeper trains; even in the 2010s, when Varkaus got four trains a day to Pieksämäki, the only through trains were something like a 6am from Joensuu and an 11pm arrival in Joensuu. At least there's now a decently-timed afternoon train pair (albeit with terrible connections at Joensuu), although Varkaus has lost its more-frequent service to Pieksämäki. Given that the Dm12 graveyard depot is at Pieksämäki, surely it would fairly be easy to run some extra services to Varkaus and back...if they have any working Dm12s, that is.

Incidentally, my 2004 timetable (so pre-Dm12s) shows two buses each way on the Joensuu-Nurmes line:

Joensuu	0715	1430	2240	2310
Lieksa	0900	|	2105	0040
Nurmes	0955	1235	2010

There used to be lots of these buses on rural lines, because it was cheaper than running extra trains, especially when there were no "extra" trains. They were also used to keep avoid officially closing some stations (e.g. Inkoo, Ylistaro, Isokyrö, etc.), but they're all gone now.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Jan 2026 ==

VR's Ilmala depot have done yet another stellar job with the sleeper trains tonight. /s Train 265, which is one of their busiest sleeper trains, was supposed to have 9 sleeper carriages (342 berths) tonight, but now it's only going to have 3 sleeper carriages (-228 berths) and an extra 3 seated carriages (+339 seats). I say "going to" because it hasn't even left the depot yet, even though it should've left Helsinki two and a half hours ago (edit: now estimated 5 hours late and another train estimated two hours late).

That train has already been late (30+ minutes) out of the depot six times this month, including one night where every sleeper train from Helsinki left more than four hours late. I don't know what's going on at Ilmala (nothing, it seems!) but its ability to deliver all its sleeper trains on time each night has been rather non-existent this month. It's a shame, because sleeper trains are becoming ever more popular in Finland, but when your train leaves at 3am instead of 11pm, or most of the sleeper carriages are gone, it severely undermines the reliability and reputation of the service.

Last time I took a VR sleeper train, it took just under 16 hours to get from Tampere to Oulu (495 km), a distance that normslly takes less than 4 hours. At least that delay was due to a storm and not VR's incompetence...

 

[stadler]

The issue is that HSL get the revenue for their "purple trains" and pay VR to operate them. So if they accepted the rover ticket, HSL wouldn't get any revenue unless they made some sort of contract, which I guess they can't be bothered to do. With Interrail I think it's just a case of it's such little revenue that nobody cares (or maybe there has been some sort of new agreement made with HSL?)


Hillosensalmi is open April-October (I don't remember the exact dates for 2026).


Joensuu-Nurmes could be done in two or three days, although accomadation would be an issue. This sounds like the Finnish equivalent of the Heart of Wales Challenge!


Yes, there are a number of stations that have very low wooden platforms, mostly in central and eastern Finland, and a lot of our trains are still high-floor (although Pendolinos and Dm12 railcars have wheelchair lifts).


The station was called Lipinlahti until 1925. "Kohtavaara" is a big rock nearby, apparently.


That whole line is very rural indeed and I believe the least-used line in the country. Certainly in the summer, when other railcar lines often need road coaches for extra capacity, only the Nurmes line never seems to need them.

Despite having 16 railcars built in the mid-2000s, VR are unable to operate the five lines (each requiring one railcar each!) consistently every day, because four railcars have been written off after fires or crashes...and the remaining 12 are jealous of the four's early retirement and keep trying to join them!


Väylävirasto says (in Finnish only) that of the 2,300 level crossings, around 70% are so-called "unguarded" (= open) crossings. They're obviously rare in the dense(r) south and on the high(er)-speed lines, but in the north and the east, they're everywhere. Very occasionally we even manage a year without any deaths on them.


The 2019 statistics are publicly available through an old FOI request. When I asked Väylävirasto for the 2024 stats, they emailed them to me but told me I should ask VR in the future as it wasn't really their job to be emailing them out. So I asked VR, who in turn said that the data was, confusingly, not public! If they say that when I ask them next time I shall email them last year's statistics and see what they do about it!

Edit: I have just asked VR for the 2025 statistics and I shall try and remember to report back here.


Vainikkala was an official stop, but it was pick-up only on services towards Russia.

I have to say that these branches seem to have very poor frequency and usage of rolling stock. Especially the three Joensuu Nurmes and Joensuu Pieksamaki and Iisalmi Ylivieska branches. These three branches all get two trains a day in each direction and use one DM12 unit each. So the unit just sits around all day in between services. Often a more than three hour gap of the unit just sitting around doing nothing. They could easily manage three a day in each direction (or even four a day in each direction) and still use just one unit per branch. They might get in increase in passengers if the service was more frequent.

I think there are actually currently 6x DM12 diagrams rather than 5x but that is still half of the 12x units they have left:

06:35 Nurmes - Joensuu 08:50
11:54 Joensuu - Nurmes 14:00
15:40 Nurmes - Joensuu 17:45
18:00 Joensuu - Nurmes 20:06

06:00 Joensuu - Pieksamaki 08:10
11:45 Pieksamaki - Joensuu 13:56
15:40 Joensuu - Pieksamaki 17:52
18:07 Pieksamaki - Joensuu 20:18

08:30 Iisalmi - Ylivieska 10:13
13:37 Ylivieska - Iisalmi 15:18
16:45 Iisalmi - Ylivieska 18:24
19:12 Ylivieska - Iisalmi 20:55

05:05 Jyvaskyla - Tampere 07:40
08:06 Tampere - Keruu 09:47
09:57 Keruu - Tampere 11:40
12:11 Tampere - Keruu 13:52
14:00 Keruu - Tampere 15:43
16:16 Tampere - Keruu 17:57
18:09 Keruu - Tampere 19:55
22:06 Tampere - Jyvaskyla 00:38

05:25 Seinajoki - Ahtari 06:19
06:35 Ahtari - Seinajoki 07:29
07:40 Seinajoki - Alavus 08:10
08:18 Alavus - Seinajoki 08:50
09:30 Seinajoki - Jyvaskyla 12:08
12:28 Jyvaskyla - Seinajoki 15:05
16:52 Seinajoki - Jyvaskyla 19:32
19:47 Jyvaskyla - Seinajoki 22:27

06:19 Savonlinna - Parikkala 07:12
07:30 Parikkala - Savonlinna 08:23
09:19 Savonlinna - Parikkala 10:12
10:26 Parikkala - Savonlinna 11:19
12:30 Savonlinna - Parikkala 13:23
13:37 Parikkala - Savonlinna 14:30
15:30 Savonlinna - Parikkala 16:23
16:37 Parikkala - Savonlinna 17:30
18:35 Savonlinna - Parikkala 19:28
19:42 Parikkala - Savonlinna 20:35
20:56 Savonlinna - Parikkala 21:49
22:00 Parikkala - Savonlinna 22:53

They must have very poor reliability if they still fail to run 6x diagrams with 12x units! They have exactly double the amount of units that are required!

Finland does not seem to have had much luck with their DMUs they buy. I remember those DM11 units which only lasted two years and then they were sold off. I think they were sold to Cuba if i recall correctly. Now these DM12 units that seem to keep catching on fire. Hopefully their next batch (whenever they decide to order DM13 units) is more reliable.

Has there been any talk of new DM13 units being ordered at any point in the near future? Or even electrification of these rural branch lines?

Thank you for that 2019 usage statiatics link. Some of the stations around the Lahti area (Henna / Herrala / Hikkia / Lappila) seem to have very low usage too with less than 1,000 passengers. But i am quite surprised at how many passengers that Heinavesi and Kerimaki got. They are very rural stations in the middle of nowhere but got over 2,000 passengers.

Any chance you could send me the 2024 station usage statistics that they gave you too? I would be very interested to compare the 2024 statistics to the 2019 statistics if you still have them?

 

[CarrotPie]

I have to say that these branches seem to have very poor frequency and usage of rolling stock. Especially the three Joensuu Nurmes and Joensuu Pieksamaki and Iisalmi Ylivieska branches. These three branches all get two trains a day in each direction and use one DM12 unit each. So the unit just sits around all day in between services. Often a more than three hour gap of the unit just sitting around doing nothing. They could easily manage three a day in each direction (or even four a day in each direction) and still use just one unit per branch. They might get in increase in passengers if the service was more frequent.

The issue with running more services is a) the number of drivers, but more importantly b) money. The ministry buys train services from them until 2030 (and then it goes to competitive tender), but they only pay what the pay and it will never be profitable to run extra services on those routes, so VR don't bother.

I think there are actually currently 6x DM12 diagrams rather than 5x but that is still half of the 12x units they have left:

They must have very poor reliability if they still fail to run 6x diagrams with 12x units! They have exactly double the amount of units that are required!

Iisalmi-Ylivieska has used Sr1 + Eil + Eilf since its electrification in 2024, releasing another Dm12 diagram. I believe there's also one on standby at Joensuu to change out with the Savonlinna unit several times a week, so there probably are 6 diagrams in reality, even though there are only 5 in service at once.

Finland does not seem to have had much luck with their DMUs they buy. I remember those DM11 units which only lasted two years and then they were sold off. I think they were sold to Cuba if i recall correctly. Now these DM12 units that seem to keep catching on fire. Hopefully their next batch (whenever they decide to order DM13 units) is more reliable.

Has there been any talk of new DM13 units being ordered at any point in the near future? Or even electrification of these rural branch lines?

Electrification of the Haapamäki lines (Tampere-Keuruu, Seinäjoki-Jyväskylä) was proposed a few years back but shot down on cost grounds. Considering virtually all the network is now electrified, though, it'd make sense to start electrifying some of these lines. Joensuu-Nurmes-Kontiomäki carries a lot of freight, so you could actually get some good use out of any electrification, as well as saving a railcar.

With the Sm7s now arriving, there has already been talk about ordering long-distance versions, so hopefully the powers that be considering ordering little bi-mode FLIRTs - that would be the ideal solution and it would support future electrification (and the reopening of other lines). Unfortunately, with the profitability of the lines being what it is, I doubt any major investment is gonna happen for a while yet.

Thank you for that 2019 usage statiatics link. Some of the stations around the Lahti area (Henna / Herrala / Hikkia / Lappila) seem to have very low usage too with less than 1,000 passengers. But i am quite surprised at how many passengers that Heinavesi and Kerimaki got. They are very rural stations in the middle of nowhere but got over 2,000 passengers.

That file is slightly misleading. It has three sheets: one showing long-distance ticket purchases, one showing commuter ticket purchases, and one showing HSL's estimates. Henna, Herrala, Hikiä and Lappila are all only served by VR commuter trains, so the total would be long-distance + commuter, which is about 37,000 for Henna.

Kerimäki gets a semi-regular service because it's on the line to Savonlinna and Heinävesi is a sizable village; both of them got around 5,000 passengers in 2024.

I've attached the 2024 statistics for VR (number of long-distance+commuter tickets sold) and 2019-2024 statistics by month for HSL (which are estimates). Again, for stations served by both types of train, you need to add them together to get the full picture. The VR sheet also has a percentage change to 2019.

Finally, there were some serious track works in 2019 (no service Kupittaa-Turku until December, no service Leppävaara-Siuntio and buses Helsinki-Turku for five weeks in June-July and no day trains north of Oulu Monday-Thursday during the summer) which changed the statistics.

 

[rvdborgt]

The issue is that HSL get the revenue for their "purple trains" and pay VR to operate them. So if they accepted the rover ticket, HSL wouldn't get any revenue unless they made some sort of contract, which I guess they can't be bothered to do. With Interrail I think it's just a case of it's such little revenue that nobody cares (or maybe there has been some sort of new agreement made with HSL?)

It's entirely possible that there's now an agreement between Eurail and HSL. Until recently, I wasn't even aware that passes would not be valid anymore on HSL trains. I don't think this Eurail ever published that, so for pass users there was never an interruption. The operator is still VR indeed, so a normal user wouldn't have suspected anything. Eurail did recently add "HSL (Operated by VR)" to the list of participating companies.

 

[Gag Halfrunt]

Finland does not seem to have had much luck with their DMUs they buy. I remember those DM11 units which only lasted two years and then they were sold off. I think they were sold to Cuba if i recall correctly.

VR never accepted the Dm11 units into service, because they were overweight and excessively noisy and the windows froze up during the winter.

VR Class Dm11 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

They were indeed sold to Cuba, where they were eventually converted into locomotive-hauled carriages using bogies salvaged from scrapped stock. IIRC Ferrocarriles de Cuba did manage to convert a few to standard gauge and operate them as diesel railcars for a few years.

ETA: Here's a video showing a Dm11 operating as a diesel railcar in Cuba.

Dm11 railcar 2408 departing Santa Clara station enroute to Havana

And here's a vdeo showing Dm11s converted into locomotive-hauled stock.

Loc 312030 with the 6 Dm11 railcar coach conversions on a college students extra Hav-Bayamo!Dec2021!

 

[stadler]

The issue with running more services is a) the number of drivers, but more importantly b) money. The ministry buys train services from them until 2030 (and then it goes to competitive tender), but they only pay what the pay and it will never be profitable to run extra services on those routes, so VR don't bother.


Iisalmi-Ylivieska has used Sr1 + Eil + Eilf since its electrification in 2024, releasing another Dm12 diagram. I believe there's also one on standby at Joensuu to change out with the Savonlinna unit several times a week, so there probably are 6 diagrams in reality, even though there are only 5 in service at once.


Electrification of the Haapamäki lines (Tampere-Keuruu, Seinäjoki-Jyväskylä) was proposed a few years back but shot down on cost grounds. Considering virtually all the network is now electrified, though, it'd make sense to start electrifying some of these lines. Joensuu-Nurmes-Kontiomäki carries a lot of freight, so you could actually get some good use out of any electrification, as well as saving a railcar.

With the Sm7s now arriving, there has already been talk about ordering long-distance versions, so hopefully the powers that be considering ordering little bi-mode FLIRTs - that would be the ideal solution and it would support future electrification (and the reopening of other lines). Unfortunately, with the profitability of the lines being what it is, I doubt any major investment is gonna happen for a while yet.


That file is slightly misleading. It has three sheets: one showing long-distance ticket purchases, one showing commuter ticket purchases, and one showing HSL's estimates. Henna, Herrala, Hikiä and Lappila are all only served by VR commuter trains, so the total would be long-distance + commuter, which is about 37,000 for Henna.

Kerimäki gets a semi-regular service because it's on the line to Savonlinna and Heinävesi is a sizable village; both of them got around 5,000 passengers in 2024.

I've attached the 2024 statistics for VR (number of long-distance+commuter tickets sold) and 2019-2024 statistics by month for HSL (which are estimates). Again, for stations served by both types of train, you need to add them together to get the full picture. The VR sheet also has a percentage change to 2019.

Finally, there were some serious track works in 2019 (no service Kupittaa-Turku until December, no service Leppävaara-Siuntio and buses Helsinki-Turku for five weeks in June-July and no day trains north of Oulu Monday-Thursday during the summer) which changed the statistics.

Ah i forgot Iisalmi to Ylivieska was electrified. It was still a DM12 last time i did that route. I am surprised they have gone for a locomotive plus two carriages rather than just an SM4 unit.

Getting bi mode units could be a good idea. They are getting very popular all over Europe these days. It would be great to see more lines in Finland reopened to passenger services. If they reopened the Nurmes to Kontiomaki section to passenger trains then it would enable direct Joensuu to Oulu trains which could give the branch a better service and increase passengers.

I was thinking that Henna / Herrala / Hikia / Lappila had far too low passengers for decent sized villages close to the Helsinki area! That makes sense now i have read the other spreadsheet pages!

Thank you very much for attaching those 2024 statistics. It is interesting to compare it between years.

If i understand correctly it seems like the 2024 station usage statistics are one simgle combined figure for boarding / alighting / changing passengers. But the 2019 statistics gave three separate figures for boarding / alighting / changing passengers.

So it seems that the top ten least used stations in Finland according to the 2024 statistics are:

1 - Kohtavaara
2 - Misi
3 - Runni
4 - Holjakka
5 - Kylanlahti
6 - Pihlajavesi
7 - Vihtari
8 - Myllymaki
9 - Vuonislahti
10 - Santala

I forgot just how rural that branch line to Hanko in the South West is. Santala does not have a single house or building anywhere near the station. I am amazed that station still has some passengers. I am guessing it is used mostly people going for walks. Kohtavaara at least has about five houses near the station despite being extremely rural.

Thank you for all your information and the usage statistics! It is much appreciated!

 

[CarrotPie]

Ah i forgot Iisalmi to Ylivieska was electrified. It was still a DM12 last time i did that route. I am surprised they have gone for a locomotive plus two carriages rather than just an SM4 unit.

I was told that the main reason for sending the Eil carriages there is that their toilets empty onto the track. As a result, they only need to go to Oulu Nokela depot once a week for cleaning, which saves a lot of dead mileage. They also have a lot of Sr1s spare, because they are impossible to kill off. There also aren't any spare EMUs at the moment, although once all the Sm7s are in service, there is a chance that they send a pair of Sm4s to Oulu to operate the line, and scrap the last carriages...which would be a shame. However, that is unlikely to happen before 2030, which is when the current contract for all subsidised rail traffic runs out. What happens after that is currently anyone's guess, but new stock is unlikely to be ready in time, unless they take up some of the Sm7 options pronto.

Getting bi mode units could be a good idea. They are getting very popular all over Europe these days. It would be great to see more lines in Finland reopened to passenger services. If they reopened the Nurmes to Kontiomaki section to passenger trains then it would enable direct Joensuu to Oulu trains which could give the branch a better service and increase passengers.

New rolling stock would be great, but the Dm12s have only been around for a shade over 20 years and nobody wants to shell out to replace them.

Reopening Nurmes-Kontiomäki to passenger services would start to be competetive with buses (yay!), but it would probably require infrastructure and timetable changes.

This report from 2024 (in Finnish) has 69 pages of excruciating detail about the railcar routes and what it likely to happen to them. Among other things, it says that electrifying Joensuu-Nurmes would cost €71 million (about six new Sm7s) and that replacement of the Dm12 would likely need just eight trains. It also has the graph below, showing railcar passengers (in thousands) per year on each section of line; it's pretty obvious why Savonlinna gets the best service. The first grey block translates to "service cuts and moving to driver-only operation", by the way.

I was thinking that Henna / Herrala / Hikia / Lappila had far too low passengers for decent sized villages close to the Helsinki area! That makes sense now i have read the other spreadsheet pages!

Thank you very much for attaching those 2024 statistics. It is interesting to compare it between years.

If i understand correctly it seems like the 2024 station usage statistics are one simgle combined figure for boarding / alighting / changing passengers. But the 2019 statistics gave three separate figures for boarding / alighting / changing passengers.

Yes, the methodology is a bit, um, "interesting". According to the 2024 statistics, the 157th-most-used station in Finland has the station code ZXY, and in 161st place comes YXZ. Oh, and apparently 2 people somehow bought tickets to/from Ilmala depot...hmm, not sure about that...

So it seems that the top ten least used stations in Finland according to the 2024 statistics are:

1 - Kohtavaara
2 - Misi
3 - Runni
4 - Holjakka
5 - Kylanlahti
6 - Pihlajavesi
7 - Vihtari
8 - Myllymaki
9 - Vuonislahti
10 - Santala

I forgot just how rural that branch line to Hanko in the South West is. Santala does not have a single house or building anywhere near the station. I am amazed that station still has some passengers. I am guessing it is used mostly people going for walks. Kohtavaara at least has about five houses near the station despite being extremely rural.

Technically Inkoo is in second place (with 219 passengers), although it only opened at the start of April 2024. It is also by far the least-served station in the country, so it makes sense. Rauma would then be in third place with 251 (followed by Misi), but Rauma only got two trains, as part of a Midsummer festival, so it doesn't really count. But it is quite telling that four of the top 10 (Kohtavaara, Höljäkkä, Kylänlahti and Vuonislahti) are on the Joensuu-Nurmes line, and four others (Runni, Pihlajavesi, Vihtari and Myllymäki) are on other railcar (or ex-railcar) lines.

 

[rf_ioliver]

That report makes for some pessimistic reading. Even if Sm4s are released to work Ylivieskä-Iisalmi, you still have the Dm12 problem, and I honestly think that once the Dm12s are done, that's it - no Dm13.

Tampere-Orivesi could do with some reopenings, eg: Kangasala, and maybe betwen Petäjävesi and Jyväskylä there's a small possibility of more commuter traffic, but that's about it I think.

 

[CarrotPie]

That report makes for some pessimistic reading. Even if Sm4s are released to work Ylivieskä-Iisalmi, you still have the Dm12 problem, and I honestly think that once the Dm12s are done, that's it - no Dm13.

It's been the case for years now that all the railcar lines are deeply unprofitable, uncompetetive, unreliable and various other adjectives beginning with un. The lines have managed to struggle on with the stats quo and the occasional cutting of services, but in the next ten to twenty years, most of the lines are going to need new platforms, new rolling stock and new track, and I think those will tip the lines into "nobody wants to pay" territory. I think that if the Dm12s were good units, the lines might be saved for longer, but the cost of replacing them is simply going to make the lines' financial situation look worse. I wouldn't be suprised if lines and services start getting cut already in 2030.

Although electrification might help the business case Iisalmi-Ylivieska and possibly even Savonlinna-Parikkala, the Sm4s aren't getting any younger or nicer to travel on, and so the same issue of aging, unfit rolling stock will roll around in another 10-15 years. Back in 2015, they actually got as far as announcing the closure of the Haapamäki lines, but strong public opposition and the lack of any additional costs managed to keep the lines limping on. But if that was when the rolling stock and stations were in good condition, what will happen now that the trains need replacing and certain platforms need rebuilding?

Tampere-Orivesi could do with some reopenings, eg: Kangasala, and maybe betwen Petäjävesi and Jyväskylä there's a small possibility of more commuter traffic, but that's about it I think.

Tampere would like to run commuter trains to Orivesi and Kangasala in the future, maybe using options from the Sm7 order, but it won't save the railcar line. Petäjävesi was only used by 16 people a day in 2024, so I highly doubt that it alone will save any kind of passenger service

Perhaps the only saving grace is that most of the railcar lines will stay open for freight after the last railcars have rattled along them, making them easier to reopen in the future. If anyone even wants to reopen them in the future...

 

[rf_ioliver]

They'll remain for freight, that's all. I remember the proposed cuts in 2015...which also included Kotka-Kouvola (for passenger traffic) and other severe cuts to InterCity services - a lot of that was the usual political games.

To be honest, 16 pax/day is pretty good for a terrible service - some areas have been asking for more services and there is good evidence to suggest that doubling the service (at proper times!!!) would result in 3 times the passengers, *but*, this requires, as always, money and risk taking. Politicians don't like spending money nor taking risks. But VR in the past were very good at not providing services, eg: Oulu-Kuopio-Helsinki sleeper ran at the end with a fully stocked restaurant car but no service, and they made it impossible to buy tickets for that service (was very useful...earlier departure from Oulu and the chance to get 8 hours sleep too).

Then again, the proposed budget for the Turku High Speed Line would practically pay for the rest of the Finnish network to be electrified, 300kmh operation and plated in gold...

 

[CarrotPie]

They'll remain for freight, that's all. I remember the proposed cuts in 2015...which also included Kotka-Kouvola (for passenger traffic) and other severe cuts to InterCity services - a lot of that was the usual political games.

To be honest, 16 pax/day is pretty good for a terrible service - some areas have been asking for more services and there is good evidence to suggest that doubling the service (at proper times!!!) would result in 3 times the passengers, *but*, this requires, as always, money and risk taking. Politicians don't like spending money nor taking risks. But VR in the past were very good at not providing services, eg: Oulu-Kuopio-Helsinki sleeper ran at the end with a fully stocked restaurant car but no service, and they made it impossible to buy tickets for that service (was very useful...earlier departure from Oulu and the chance to get 8 hours sleep too).

Then again, the proposed budget for the Turku High Speed Line would practically pay for the rest of the Finnish network to be electrified, 300kmh operation and plated in gold...

Using the numbers from the report, if every railcar line:
* is electrified
* has all its platforms (24 in total) rebuilt to 120m long
* has all necessary stations rebuilt to remove level crossings (e.g. Haapamäki, which would need lifts)
* had its own Sm7 bought (plus 2 spare units),
that would cost €406 million. Running costs for the current services are estimated at €40 million/year with electric trains. If the trains were used more intensively, then it might cost €50 million/year.

The Helsinki-Turku high speed line's ("Länsirata") budget is currently around €3 billion, which is enough money to do all the upgrades and then run all the railcar routes with Sm7s all day every day for another 52 years. Alternatively, you could definitely electrify the entirety of the rail network and fit ETCS to most of it for les than €3 billion.

Politicians don't like spending money nor taking risk, but they are willing to do it for Länsirata, which is a 250 km/h double-track railway that will replace a 160-200 km/h single-track railway, but will still use the same trains, which are 20-30 years old and can only achieve 220 km/h. And that €3 billion doesn't include any new trains, so the stations along the old line would presumably get a much worse service or just be closed altogether. Brilliant.

I feel like I'm in an Adam Something video, and that's never a good sign...

It's a shame to hear there's nothing to do at Kolari or Kemijärvi as I was planning to go up there at some point just for the hell of it. The furthest north I've gone by rail was Rovaniemi (not even on night trains!) but I don't know if I can be bothered to wait 11 hours in Kemijärvi.

in 2019 we used a bus to get to Kemijärvi and then an evening train back to Rovaniemi, where we stayed. We only needed to kill 3 hours and that was long enough...

There is, perhaps, one other solution to the Kemijärvi boredom... Now that day trains also run to Kemijärvi*, it's possible to go up on InterCity 25, stay the night, then leave in the morning and be back in Helsinki for dinner. This train pair is therefore also the current longest day train in Finland by both time (IC 24 takes just under 10 hours and 987.3 km). Incidentally, the time between arrival and departure in Kemijärvi is actually slightly shorter than with the night trains (9:55<10:11, although it is overnight), but the ability to spend most of it sleeping makes it a lot shorter - and probably cheaper than two night train tickets.

	Friday	Saturday
	IC 25	IC 24
Helsinki	12:20	17:39
Oulu	17:53	11:40
Rovaniemi	20:30	8:55
Misi	21:08	|
Kemijärvi	21:45	7:40

* but only 18 Fridays a year