Rail Baltica update

[Magdalia]

I found this report on the BBC website:

In Russia's shadow: The Baltics wait for Europe's strategic new railway

Building the link to western Europe has become more urgent as the Baltics see Russia as a threat.

www.bbc.co.uk

The three Baltic states came up with the idea years ago for a high-speed railway spanning 870km (540 miles) across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Rail Baltica began as a grand project, but it has now become a strategic imperative: since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Baltics increasingly view their neighbour as an existential threat.

Currently, there is no direct link that crosses the Baltics and connects with Poland.

Rail Baltica will do that, cutting travel time and bringing economic and environmental benefits, but the costs of this ambitious scheme are mounting.

Meanwhile, Baltic states and their Nato allies need the railway in place fast.

Estonia's Infrastructure Minister Vladimir Svet said the rail link is vital amid the Russian war in Ukraine.

Moderators may be able to find an existing discussion to add this to.

 

[mad_rich]

I didn't realise they'd cut it back to open with a single track in Phase 1! And possibly cutting the link to Riga Airport. (Presumably the expensive Y at the Lithuanian end will come under some scrutiny too, at some point.)

I believe the design speed has already been cut.

“Rail Baltica will increase military mobility and allow trains to go directly from the Netherlands to Tallinn,” Cmdr Peter Nielsen, from Nato's Force Integration Unit, said

I'm not convinced crowing about the military benefit is going to be helpful for the relationship with the neighbours!

 

[edwin_m]

I'm not convinced crowing about the military benefit is going to be helpful for the relationship with the neighbours!

Not sure there's much of a relationship to help at the moment - although they were already talking about the strategic issue ten years ago.

Having said that, a single route, especially if single track, may be rather vulnerable in a time of increased tension.

 

[railfan99]

I was at Riga station yesterday. A lot of work seemed to be occurring.

 

[RailExplorer]

These Baltic countries have rails, yes at a wider guage but they connect Tallinn with the Polish border. There is just a total lack of any enthusiasm to make it work. If they really wanted a rail connection, they could upgrade a few sections of track that need updating and have a good rail link operational within 12 months. But nope, it's all about getting a the European standard guage track up to Tallinn leaving behind any investment in the domestic infrastructure of each country.

 

[The exile]

These Baltic countries have rails, yes at a wider guage but they connect Tallinn with the Polish border. There is just a total lack of any enthusiasm to make it work. If they really wanted a rail connection, they could upgrade a few sections of track that need updating and have a good rail link operational within 12 months. But nope, it's all about getting a the European standard guage track up to Tallinn leaving behind any investment in the domestic infrastructure of each country.

That’s presumably what will attract the external funding. S/he who pays the piper…

 

[nwales58]

That’s presumably what will attract the external funding. S/he who pays the piper…

Also the military logistics 'benefit' is a second possible funding stream alongside TEN-T. EU funding priorities may change substantially.

 

[Cloud Strife]

But nope, it's all about getting a the European standard guage track up to Tallinn leaving behind any investment in the domestic infrastructure of each country.

The long term plan is to switch over to European standard gauge track everywhere, but it's just not worth it in most cases. Routes such as Tallinn-Narva simply don't have that much traffic, while even Tallinn-Paldiski doesn't have enough traffic to support more than an hourly service. The real use will be between Riga and Tallinn/Vilnius.

 

[edwin_m]

The long term plan is to switch over to European standard gauge track everywhere, but it's just not worth it in most cases. Routes such as Tallinn-Narva simply don't have that much traffic, while even Tallinn-Paldiski doesn't have enough traffic to support more than an hourly service. The real use will be between Riga and Tallinn/Vilnius.

When I was a little involved in this project in 2015 they saw it as important to keep the east-west lines as Russian gauge* because of the amount of traffic they carried between Russia and either its enclave of Kaliningrad or the ice-free ports in the Baltic states. There were certainly a lot of very long freight trains trundling through Riga. That may all have changed since 2022 of course.

Is there much demand between Lithuania and Poland that would fall within the 3hr or so journey time where rail usually wins out?

*They were actually very insistent that it was a few mm different from Russian gauge, asserting their independence I guess.

 

[Gag Halfrunt]

In 1970 the Soviet government redefined the gauge as 1520 mm instead of 1524 mm (5 ft). I've read that after independence Estonia adopted Finnish standards for track construction, which meant that the gauge was officially defined as 1524 mm again.

5 ft and 1520 mm gauge railways - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[nwales58]

Is there much demand between Lithuania and Poland that would fall within the 3hr or so journey time where rail usually wins out?

There is not much population anywhere between Vilnius+Kaunus and Warsaw, as I see it, which is a lot more than 3h without massive upgrading on the Polish side. Warsaw-Bialystock is 2h, supports a 2-hourly fast service. Suwalki is another 2h and so on.

About 8 Flix + 3 Lux coaches per day Vilnius-Warsaw taking 7-8 hours, there might be another operator. So if you got the rail journey time down to 5 hours you might just be able to run a couple more trains per day on top of the current one (at which point the coach prices would drop to keep their traffic and their frequency still wins). No way does that justify the investment on its own.

I see the main demand south of Kaunus as esentially freight plus a nicer 1-2 passenger trains per day needing operating subsidy.

Much better value for money would be the obvious Bialystock-Grodno-Vilnius route for passenger+freight (with serious border upgrading) ... which is out of the question of course.

 

[Cloud Strife]

Is there much demand between Lithuania and Poland that would fall within the 3hr or so journey time where rail usually wins out?

Generally speaking, not really. The current solution of having PKP Intercity run Kraków-Warsaw-Białystok-Mockava and then LTG run Mockava-Vilnius via Marijampolje and Kaunas seems to work well, with through tickets available, but the trains are mostly operating as domestic trains with not many people riding across the border. Culturally, although there's a large Polish minority in the Vilnius Region, they don't really have many contacts with Poland proper.

Having said that, the estimation is that Warsaw-Vilnius will be reduced to 4 hours from the current 7.5 hours. If that 4 hours includes stops in Kaunas and Białystok, then it may well open up journeys such as Kaunas-Warsaw that are currently a huge pain.

which is a lot more than 3h without massive upgrading on the Polish side.

The Polish side is being upgraded to 200km/h and dualled for the most part, so this isn't much of a problem. The real issue is the Lithuanian side, which plans to build an entirely new line between Kaunas and Marijampolje. They've only just approved the project, although it should get built due to the amount of freight that it will handle.

The latest information is that while the EU is funding 85% of the cost of Rail Baltica in the Baltics, it's still not enough as they simply can't afford the massive cost increases of the project. There's a very good article here about the problems: https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacj...il-delays-implementation-rail-baltica-project

The general issue, IMO, is that Rail Baltica is just too big and too difficult for the very small Baltic States to handle by themselves. It's ended up with massive investments in infrastructure that weren't needed, such as the rebuilding of Riga Central and the massively overengineered Ulemiste terminal in Tallinn. There's no reason why the existing Riga Central and Tallinn Baltijaam couldn't have been used with dual gauge track. In particular, it seems absurd that both Riga and Tallinn are building these big new stations without having the infrastructure in place first. Estonia in particular is known for strange megalomaniac decisions, such as their operation of Estonian Air and now Nordica, despite neither making any sense whatsoever economically.