Technically it's possible. The track exists, it's in use by freight trains, rolling stock capable to do this route also exists and is in use in all Baltic countries. The only thing that is lacking is a political agreement which just doesn't happen for some reason. This is an insanely absurd situation which just doesn't have any rational and reasonable explanation.
@@timectrl Yes, it could be done. Technically. When Vilnius-Daugavpils service existed. Anyway, the point is that direct tract Vilnius-Riga exists and it's in ok condition. And yet no trains run there which is utter bullshit. Same with Valga/Valka. Wtf is that? Why would a train not run at least between Riga and Tartu?
baltic states can travel more in the weekends to other countries now, for clubs and parties n festivals n shit , more easily ; ))) when RB is finished ofc
It's outrageous that direct (or any for that matter) passenger train service does not exist between Vilnius and Riga or Riga and Tartu/Tallinn. The outrageous part is that infrastructure and rails DO EXIST and they are in fairly good condition which would allow trains to run even tomorrow if there was political will. Freight trains are actually using those tracks without issues. Passenger trains used to run a daily service between Baltic capitals and as far as Kiev in the other direction but that stopped I think some time in the 90s. So WHY exactly trains aren't running if infrastructure is in place? Nobody really knows. It's some weird mix of political indifference and inability by Baltic governments to cooperate on such a basic level as to run a freakin train between capitals 300km apart. Rail Baltica project is great and I really hope it will fix a lot of things but, still, railway exists ALREADY and there are NO trains running on it and nobody can explain why exactly. Let's hope there will be some magic shift in political will and ability to cooperate regarding Rail Baltica.
Latvia (PV) simply has no trains to run - they don’t have enough to cover domestic demand, there are routes that should be having 3 trains a day that are running only on weekends. Also, cross border rail is ineligible for state subsidies. So there’s that for you
@@riilhiiro Trains can be bought (which is what Latvia is doing right now, in fact). It's not like anyone has been preventing Latvia from buying rolling stock for the past ~30 years. Also, what exactly is preventing Latvia from co-subsidizing international routes just like it is done everywhere else?
@@DS.J latvia’s bureaucracy is awful: - for PV (national carrier) to buy trains it needs to go through SM (ministry of transport); - for it to go through SM, they have to approve it with FM (ministry of finance); - ministry of finance won’t approve it because any purchase will go on national debt What we’re trying to buy rn are battery electric trains, that will be used to cover gaps in capacity that’s lacking (and let some DR1As be retired). They will (if they will, that is) be bought mainly using EU green transport subsidies. we’d need atleast 30 diesel trainsets to cover the domestic demand alone, which we aren’t in the process of buying at all The cosubsidization issue - i’m hopeful on that, it depends on the government. I hope that our government is gonna cosubsidize trains to lithuania, both governments had talks about this recently and i’m hoping something good comes out of them
@@DS.J I'm pretty sure that in Latvia it's like here in Estonia: politicians decide if money gets allocated for purchasing new trains. Over here the national carrier needed new trains already in 2015 to satisfy the demand, so we're getting them in 2024. Our only hope would be push for greener policies by the EU because our politicians lack the foresight. We're a lot like USA: this is car country. If you want to get me started on how we don't plan for any public transport when building new residential areas...
I am from Portugal but I live in Tallinn. I can tell you that it's even worse in Portugal. We have 1 direct train between Portugal and Spain... And it's between Porto (2nd Metropolitan Area) in Portugal and Vigo (15th Metropolitan Area) in Spain. I have gone by train from Tallinn to Riga before. I had to wait 3 or 4 hours in Valga... I wanted to visit the city so that was fine, but it was stupid. I just always travel by LuxExpress or FlixBus. However, RailBaltica is well underway :) I see the construction advancing fast.
Also, to those who are interested in cross-border train travel (including between Lithuania and its neighbors Poland and Latvia) I recommend to check out Jon Worth who did a massive project of train cross-border travel last summer and crossed every EU internal border by train. You can guess which country got the most criticism from him (very much deserved!) for having incredibly poor railway connections to neighboring countries. He was on Euronews, DW and other big channels last year and will come back to Lithuania this summer.
Just got your video suggested by RUclips (as a rail fan) and it's great. This is a great and important project but it is also important to invest now in the existing infrastructure and the different gauge does not have to interfere with good service and connectivity. I'm from Spain, where we mostly use the Iberian gauge (1,668 mm). We now use standard gauge for the high speed lines but, even before that, we solved the connectivity problem with gauge changing trains and all that is required is for the tain to pass through a small shed with a mechanism changes the gauge of each bogie on the fly while the train moves over it at a slow speed. We used it in the past on trains crossing the boarder to France and today inside the country to allow certain trains to use high speed lines, when possible. We've also started installing a third rail that allows usage of trains with both gauges. Those solutions are easier, faster and cheaper to implement and can provide you with better connectivity now. It should not replace the new, and important, line but good internal rail travel is just as, if not more, important and should not be neglected.
Thank you for making this video! History gave us the wrong kind of iron-road - I hope we can change that as painlessly and as soon as possible. Just narrow it down abit with a wrench and call it a day right? :D
Well, then Baltic cross-border traffic has improved since 2009 when I also had to take a bus between Valga and Tartu. But my impression was actually that domestic rail transport in Lithuania was clearly better than in Latvia and Estonia. I hope this is still the case.
Isn’t the rail transportation in Lithuania lacking. As far as I know Estonia is the only country in the world that has managed to pull off total level boarding across it’s netwrok. It seems as same amount of track is electrified in both countries, around 150 km, (tho in the next year the Tallinn-Tartu track will be finished being electrified, adding 150 km of electrified track. (If you are intrested the cost is expected to be around 900 million euros.)) Then there is also the matter of upkeep. Both Estonian state-owned railway companies have invested a lot of keeping stuff high quality, with wooden tracks beams being removed 10 years ago and replaced with concrete. And with automated rail-laying trains (track building, and repair). As much as I have traveled in Lithuania and Estonia, it seems as Estonia has a better system, much better kept in order.
I live in Poland. If it will be possible to get to Baltic states by high speed railway, I will take a trip there. This railway will change Lithuania even more than you think now. We are begining construction of ,,centralny port komunikacyjny,,. This project includes new high speed railway connections to huge airport conected with railway station. It means if you want to travel from Lithuania now, you have to take a flight to London, Paris or Istambul and take a direct flight from there to get to far away direction. When cpk will be finished, it will be possible to get airport with direct flight in less than 3 hours.
Same as DE (Eisenbahn) and FR (chemin de fer) "road of iron". When steam locomotives were first invented, they were called "the iron horse" in English.
Vilnus to Warszawa travel includes now using two trains: (1) using broad gauge railway from Vilnus to Kaunas, (2) using normal gauge railway from Kaunas to Warszawa
There was 3 passage ways from lithuania to latvia. Mažeikiai to Riga, Šiauliai To Riga, Vilnius to Riga via Daugavpils. All shutdown but cargo trains still roll with those railways...
Very exciting! That train line as well as the one being built between Denmark and Germany might become really interesting for tourism, imagine being able to travel from Germany to either Sweden through Denmark or to Finland through the Baltics? Even if one would have to switch trains twice that thought is incredible!
Do like everything (excepting delays), especially the standard gauge! I'm looking forward to taking a ride from 🇩🇪across all the Baltic states and back
as of 2023, the Tallinn-Riga train still exists. The 11 hour journey is from Riga to Tallinn. It is shorter the other direction, and almost worth it on weekends, with a ~6 hour travel time.
The border town of Valga/Valka is worth the couple of hours between the daily trains…if only to take a selfie on the border crossing…it’s a twin town in 2 countries.
Much cheaper and more effective remain 1520mm gauge left in Baltic States and link them with Helsinki via St-Petersburg, and construct special trains which would be able to change the gauge while on route.
I am so looking forward to the completion of the project, as I will soon be moving to the Berlin catchment area indefinitely and will probably live there beyond 2030. I will be the first one on the platform to take the premiere ride to Tallinn. I hope this trip won't be a night journey, as I want to look out of the window the whole way. About Latvia, I can say that a few years back, I think, a side project to expand end improve the entire rail network by changing to standard gauge was ratified/approved by the Latvian parliament. Unfortunately, it only applies nationwide. I can't say whether the other two Baltic states have something similar in mind.
As someone in finland, the helsinki-tallin tunnel will probably never be a reality. Nobody wants to fund it (except the chinese) and even if it was fully funded by the EU, someone would still find some reason as to why it can't happen, most likely due to the ferry lines.
There used to be Tallinn-Warsaw night train in 90's, with a change of trains on the Poland-Lithuania border.. Also, this December there should be a new service from Vilnius to Riga. I am also less than optimistic about Rail Baltica - in Latvian segment there are already increases in costs, and not a small ones.
Thanks for letting me know! I had to look it up… there’s not much info on the Balti Express/Ekpresas/Ekspress but there are a few photos. It’s cool history but also sad it’s no longer running.
@@LithuaniaExplained Even more: they installed the SUW-2000 boogie gauge change facility on the border. Trains with such boogies are not unlike Talgo. And they used such trains. There are such trains in ownership of both Polish and Ukrainian railway. Currently, AFAIK, rotting - pretty much like the brand-new (Swiss) Stadler-made trains in Baku. Eons ago one Ukrainian couch with SUW-2000 boogie de-railed, the investigation took an eternity. It turned out (surprise!) the reason was the "quality" track and maintenance. The SUW-2000 project was initiated by (than-east) German, Polish and (than) Soviet engineers in late 1980-s and the results were proven to be very good. AFAIK, today many freight cars crossing between Poland and Ukraine have these boogies. But the passenger service became the victim of bureaucracy and maybe even corruption.
Two things always bothered me. One is that there is no highway connecting LT and EE, also not PL (but this is changing a bit). And secondly also that there were no high speed trains connecting Baltics. So I am really looking forward to this, especially as there are better flights from Warsaw and Riga compared with Vilnius airport.
In 2024 (after finishing the last short fragment with a bridge in Lomza) you will be able to travel from Warsaw to Lithuanian border on the road type S, which is in fact motorway standard. The railway line between Warszawa and Bialystok is now under intense upgrading. The most problematic is the last part of the railway connection: between Bialystok and Lithuanian border. It was not a priority, taking into consideration the amount of traffic, however, currently the line is expected to be ready in 2027 and its parameters will be higher than it had been initially planned. As you see in Poland the road investment is great. The railway project accelerated between Warszawa and Bialystok but the rest of it still only negotiated.
Great video! I hope for modernisation of the entire railway system in LTU though, I would like better mobility for people living in the province. I was not surprised that the train station project with the most trees and greenspaces won in LTU though :D typical
It appears to me that Lithuanians are much more excited about Rail Baltic than Estonians. I guess it makes sense since Poland is so close to you. But I just don't see that there's any demand on the Estonian side to travel anywhere beyond Riga on this train, mainly because of Riga's airport. Do you Lithuanians really need a train that goes to Tallinn? Because last time I was in Vilnius was 5 years ago and don't really see myself heading that way in the near future. I think that it's really hard for Rail Baltic to compete with air travel. Why should I travel to Berlin (for example) by train, if going by plane is going to save me time and money especially. Rail travel is expensive and requires a lot of taxpayer subsidies. Low-cost airlines on the other hand save me loads and I'm not sure about Lithuanians but Estonians are really price-sensitive due to the high cost of living. Also the tunnel is just someone's fantasy. How would this tunnel ever become feasible if in comparison to the English Channel tunnel, it would be about 2x longer and would connect two countries whose population put together is about 20x smaller than the UK's and France's (also there's Belgium and the Netherlands).
Thanks for the video and for shaming the Baltics ha ha ha. It is a shame I agree. It's a national security and air polution issue. One of the viewers said Rail Baltica will never be used efficiently enough. I disagree. I'd say, built it and passengers will come.
I think you’re right in this case. A fast, comfortable, and hopefully affordable way to travel to Riga and Tallinn- I think people from Lithuania and other Baltic countries will take the opportunity to explore their own region more.
@@LithuaniaExplained I hope it will work. I have done the Tallinn - Riga by train route myself and it is pretty fun besides the wait in Valga. I am simply skeptical it will happen. Otherwise, people will have to be resorting to buses such as ecolines or flixbus.
The National security is a very important part of this project. If balts exept help during confrontation with russia they have to make it possible for Poles to move soldiers and supplies rapidly
I am from Riga (no longer reside there) and I have always loved trains. In the USSR times they were the way to go. However, knowing the history of corruption in Latvia, especially in construction projects (South Bridge, National Library, etc), I find the target date of 2030 hard to take seriously. A lot of palms to grease in order for this project to hit the tracks ;)
I am a Russian - American, living in Hungary (and Hungarian as well). The project looks like enormous money waste. Instead the current tracks should be upgraded and SUW-2000 boogies used. The link between Poland and Lithuania has SUW-2000 gauge change facility. Even worse: the Baku - Tbilisi - Ankara passenger train project is stalled because the eternal leader of Azerbaijan wants to support the Azeri airline. In pretension of COVID the inbound land-crossing of Azerbaijan is not possible. Not even for citizens of neighbor countries and Azeri citizens. Obviously because COVID is scared of airplanes but loves cars and trains. As a result the Stadler-made trains delivered to Azerbaijan are rotting in Baku, probably until the end of our Universe. So we have to either drive from Budapest to Tbilisi via... Baltics(!) or via Istanbul. It would be great if any involved railway (with a little bit more brain) would buy these trains. I see absolutely no technical roadblock preventing Warszawa - Vilnius - Riga - Tallin night trains which are using the Stadler rolling stock currently rotting in Baku. With somewhat better political environment the Warszawa - Marjampole - Kaliningrad should be possible (as part of Warszawa - Vilnius - Riga - Tallin train). The same time the entire main line should be electrified. There is plenty of AC/DC 1525mm combo e-locomotives to chose from... Of course, earlier or later the high speed is necessary. But Finland is an other "problem": they will never re-gauge their 1520mm system. And because of that: the planed 1435mm gauge tunnel will lead after Helsinki to nowhereland (and to waste of our money).
It's a good undertaking. But it's sad, that it goes mostly throught Riga neighbourhood and do not connect to other populations centers in Latvian regions.
The objective of RB is to connect countries, hence the more direct route. Otherwise it would not be competitive with buses or short flights. The job of connecting population centres inside a country falls to the national railway company.
Well, hello hello, don't know if it makes sense to comment after almost 2 weeks when the video was uploaded, but still. There are some comments, saying something like "why exactly trains aren't running if infrastructure is in place + nobody really knows". How nobody knows. There used to be those trains running between Vilnius and Riga (and further on both directions) but it became unprofitable, too unprofitable. Just that. Everybody knows that, at least anybody who had some minimal interest in this. Well, it was "back then", so things could change now, and i suspect that now it would be even more unprofitable. Country may decide to re-establish this train connection for the reputation purposes, and this would be political, of course. But genuine reasons are still same - it's unprofitable. When in many other countries it is profitable. So what? Countries are different.
There were literally independently verified studies done that actually analysed that it will be used a lot not only for passenger but also for trade. The economic benefits are literally stated in projects website.
What made them unprofitable? That's what people really are asking. Trains are more energy efficient than buses, right? Countries are different, and in some of them railroad infrastructure maintainers are less smart than in others, and that can _cause_ train lines to be unprofitable even when from first principles railroad has a competitive advantage. Do you get what I mean? Inefficient route planning (with pen and paper, in 2023), dumb subsidy allocation to favor buses, dumb infrastructure charges that distort the free market and send it in a downward spiral, etc etc. "Just that" turns out to be a long list of things that can be elucidated and fixed.
@@u1zha Are you addressing me? :) What bothers you about my comment? Transporting passengers by train has become unprofitable, I may not like it either, but that's how it happened. Freight trains are booming, nobody canceled them. Now, what about Rail Baltica - I don't question this project, everything is normal there. Also, this is a new railway line, not the old one. The old railway lines are now being reconstructed because they will be part of the Rail Baltic system, but the old lines are not suitable for the planned traffic of new passenger trains. Therefore, Rail Baltic will be a new railway line (at least in Lithuania), it is now published online as a 3D visualization. To this day, commentators confuse that new rail line with the old rail network. Rail Baltic will not be a renewal of the former passenger train service. Passenger transportation between the countries on the current railways is unprofitable. At least in Lithuania. Now what about your doubt whether I will be able to understand you? Well, I don't have a certificate from a psychiatrist :) . What else can I say? :) As for the fact that everything can be adjusted and corrected - yes, of course. Commentators speculated on the reasons for the cancellation of passenger train services between the countries, and this is a question about the past. That's what I commented on. I did not comment on the future and possibilities. Well, what did I say wrongly or misleadingly? :) I didn't study English, my vocabulary is poor, I don't hide it, but it can be a factor that makes the expression of my mind not quite clear. I have no intention of debating anything, I was just trying to answer the questions of some commenters while keeping the same scope of their questions.
The reason the connection between Baltic Capitals is bad is because of little interest of Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians to travel between their countries. Ir would not be commercially viable. There was a research in 2019 (a poll) and Lithuanians said they could not care less to go to Latvia and vice versa. Foreigners look at Baltic States as at one region and for them such connectivity is important. Not for actual Baltic people. Rail Baltica will fix this issue. But again it mostly will connect Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga and Kaunas with Poland and further with Germany - that's the main aim of it. Not the travel between Baltic capitals. And the buses between Vilnius and Riga today... Who is mainly using them? Have anyone ever took such buses? I did, few times. There are barely any Lithuanians or Latvians on those buses. 99% of pax are Russian-speaking people or Ukrainians who are just transiting Baltics for whatever reason (maybe flying thru Riga airport or sailing with a ferry from Klaipeda or Tallinn). But there are never real Latvians, Lithuanians or Estonians on those buses!
Buses are uncomfortable, I imagine with fast trains Baltic people will travel much more. Also the project analyses was done and calculated all the benefits.
Some of this is a chicken and egg factor. People who don't want to spend 4+ hours on a bus or deal with air travel might travel between Riga and Vilnius for a weekend on a 2-hour journey on a comfortable modern train.
This will be the end of the funky, different style of the Baltics unfortunately. It might be better if they stayed more isolated from the decline of France.
For freight this new connection makes sense, transiting goods by trains is usually cheaper than truck, and it simplifies logistics. For passengers this project never made much sense to me. The baltic capitals are tiny in terms of population. But hey, if EU is giving us money, why not dump it into white elephant projects.
If it didn't make sense then we wouldn't have all those buses and passenger cars clogging roads on this route. Sorry but what you're saying just doesn't make sense. Cities well over 500K in size just 300km apart are absolutely ideal for train travel.
@@DS.J you do realise that maintaining bus routes and roads is not comparable to railways? What makes sense for one does not for another. Anyway I do remember reading somewhere that the cost-benefit analysis the europeans made had some major mistakes, even before the delays and the budget overruns were realised. However I'm not against it. But if I were to bet money, I would say that in 2 - 3 years after completion there will be only a token passenger service running, with maybe 1 train per day. But the freight does make sense, we are a transit country after all. (or will be again once europeans welcome the russians back)
@@DS.J "Road building and maintenance consume far, FAAAAR more money than any railway ever will." Sorry, but I just cannot take you seriously after you said this... Gave me a good laugh though. You can just do a quick google and figure out that railway construction costs in europe tend to be somewhere between 3x to 15x the cost of highway. Depends on wether you need to build tunnels, bridges etc. Finding maitenance costs is much harder, but I imagine it being similar multiplicates.
@LithuaniaExplained Congrats on your web site! Just tried to contact you through the contact form there but got an error message (the form was unable to submit). Something’s wrong there...
Just imagining riding train from Vilnius to Tallinn sounds like a dream
Technically it's possible. The track exists, it's in use by freight trains, rolling stock capable to do this route also exists and is in use in all Baltic countries. The only thing that is lacking is a political agreement which just doesn't happen for some reason. This is an insanely absurd situation which just doesn't have any rational and reasonable explanation.
@@timectrl Yes, it could be done. Technically. When Vilnius-Daugavpils service existed. Anyway, the point is that direct tract Vilnius-Riga exists and it's in ok condition. And yet no trains run there which is utter bullshit. Same with Valga/Valka. Wtf is that? Why would a train not run at least between Riga and Tartu?
@@DS.J they are making a direct tartu-Riga train
@@timectrl Is there more info on that? Like a press release?
baltic states can travel more in the weekends to other countries now, for clubs and parties n festivals n shit , more easily ; )))
when RB is finished ofc
Riga-Vilnius is operating now!
This is a great project! I think people from the Baltic States, Poland and Finland will like it. 🇵🇱🇱🇹🇱🇻🇪🇪🇫🇮🚂❤️
Im from Lithuania
It's outrageous that direct (or any for that matter) passenger train service does not exist between Vilnius and Riga or Riga and Tartu/Tallinn. The outrageous part is that infrastructure and rails DO EXIST and they are in fairly good condition which would allow trains to run even tomorrow if there was political will. Freight trains are actually using those tracks without issues. Passenger trains used to run a daily service between Baltic capitals and as far as Kiev in the other direction but that stopped I think some time in the 90s. So WHY exactly trains aren't running if infrastructure is in place? Nobody really knows. It's some weird mix of political indifference and inability by Baltic governments to cooperate on such a basic level as to run a freakin train between capitals 300km apart. Rail Baltica project is great and I really hope it will fix a lot of things but, still, railway exists ALREADY and there are NO trains running on it and nobody can explain why exactly. Let's hope there will be some magic shift in political will and ability to cooperate regarding Rail Baltica.
Latvia (PV) simply has no trains to run - they don’t have enough to cover domestic demand, there are routes that should be having 3 trains a day that are running only on weekends.
Also, cross border rail is ineligible for state subsidies. So there’s that for you
All that said Rail Baltica is still needed desperately even just from a European integration standpoint
@@riilhiiro Trains can be bought (which is what Latvia is doing right now, in fact). It's not like anyone has been preventing Latvia from buying rolling stock for the past ~30 years. Also, what exactly is preventing Latvia from co-subsidizing international routes just like it is done everywhere else?
@@DS.J latvia’s bureaucracy is awful:
- for PV (national carrier) to buy trains it needs to go through SM (ministry of transport);
- for it to go through SM, they have to approve it with FM (ministry of finance);
- ministry of finance won’t approve it because any purchase will go on national debt
What we’re trying to buy rn are battery electric trains, that will be used to cover gaps in capacity that’s lacking (and let some DR1As be retired). They will (if they will, that is) be bought mainly using EU green transport subsidies. we’d need atleast 30 diesel trainsets to cover the domestic demand alone, which we aren’t in the process of buying at all
The cosubsidization issue - i’m hopeful on that, it depends on the government. I hope that our government is gonna cosubsidize trains to lithuania, both governments had talks about this recently and i’m hoping something good comes out of them
@@DS.J I'm pretty sure that in Latvia it's like here in Estonia: politicians decide if money gets allocated for purchasing new trains. Over here the national carrier needed new trains already in 2015 to satisfy the demand, so we're getting them in 2024. Our only hope would be push for greener policies by the EU because our politicians lack the foresight. We're a lot like USA: this is car country. If you want to get me started on how we don't plan for any public transport when building new residential areas...
I am from Portugal but I live in Tallinn. I can tell you that it's even worse in Portugal. We have 1 direct train between Portugal and Spain... And it's between Porto (2nd Metropolitan Area) in Portugal and Vigo (15th Metropolitan Area) in Spain.
I have gone by train from Tallinn to Riga before. I had to wait 3 or 4 hours in Valga... I wanted to visit the city so that was fine, but it was stupid.
I just always travel by LuxExpress or FlixBus.
However, RailBaltica is well underway :) I see the construction advancing fast.
Also, to those who are interested in cross-border train travel (including between Lithuania and its neighbors Poland and Latvia) I recommend to check out Jon Worth who did a massive project of train cross-border travel last summer and crossed every EU internal border by train. You can guess which country got the most criticism from him (very much deserved!) for having incredibly poor railway connections to neighboring countries. He was on Euronews, DW and other big channels last year and will come back to Lithuania this summer.
Just got your video suggested by RUclips (as a rail fan) and it's great.
This is a great and important project but it is also important to invest now in the existing infrastructure and the different gauge does not have to interfere with good service and connectivity. I'm from Spain, where we mostly use the Iberian gauge (1,668 mm). We now use standard gauge for the high speed lines but, even before that, we solved the connectivity problem with gauge changing trains and all that is required is for the tain to pass through a small shed with a mechanism changes the gauge of each bogie on the fly while the train moves over it at a slow speed. We used it in the past on trains crossing the boarder to France and today inside the country to allow certain trains to use high speed lines, when possible. We've also started installing a third rail that allows usage of trains with both gauges. Those solutions are easier, faster and cheaper to implement and can provide you with better connectivity now.
It should not replace the new, and important, line but good internal rail travel is just as, if not more, important and should not be neglected.
Oh very interesting! I’m not hugely knowledgeable about trains so it is very cool and interesting to hear that a gauge-converting facility exists!
fun fact in Japanese railway is also iron road tetsudou 鉄道
French too - chemin de fer
In Spanish it's ferrocarril (fierro/hierro - iron, carril - track/rail).
Thank you for making this video! History gave us the wrong kind of iron-road - I hope we can change that as painlessly and as soon as possible. Just narrow it down abit with a wrench and call it a day right? :D
Well, then Baltic cross-border traffic has improved since 2009 when I also had to take a bus between Valga and Tartu. But my impression was actually that domestic rail transport in Lithuania was clearly better than in Latvia and Estonia. I hope this is still the case.
Isn’t the rail transportation in Lithuania lacking. As far as I know Estonia is the only country in the world that has managed to pull off total level boarding across it’s netwrok. It seems as same amount of track is electrified in both countries, around 150 km, (tho in the next year the Tallinn-Tartu track will be finished being electrified, adding 150 km of electrified track. (If you are intrested the cost is expected to be around 900 million euros.)) Then there is also the matter of upkeep. Both Estonian state-owned railway companies have invested a lot of keeping stuff high quality, with wooden tracks beams being removed 10 years ago and replaced with concrete. And with automated rail-laying trains (track building, and repair).
As much as I have traveled in Lithuania and Estonia, it seems as Estonia has a better system, much better kept in order.
I live in Poland. If it will be possible to get to Baltic states by high speed railway, I will take a trip there. This railway will change Lithuania even more than you think now. We are begining construction of ,,centralny port komunikacyjny,,. This project includes new high speed railway connections to huge airport conected with railway station. It means if you want to travel from Lithuania now, you have to take a flight to London, Paris or Istambul and take a direct flight from there to get to far away direction. When cpk will be finished, it will be possible to get airport with direct flight in less than 3 hours.
There will be no CPK after 15th of November :)
Same as DE (Eisenbahn) and FR (chemin de fer) "road of iron". When steam locomotives were first invented, they were called "the iron horse" in English.
Vilnus to Warszawa travel includes now using two trains:
(1) using broad gauge railway from Vilnus to Kaunas,
(2) using normal gauge railway from Kaunas to Warszawa
There was 3 passage ways from lithuania to latvia. Mažeikiai to Riga, Šiauliai To Riga, Vilnius to Riga via Daugavpils. All shutdown but cargo trains still roll with those railways...
Very exciting! That train line as well as the one being built between Denmark and Germany might become really interesting for tourism, imagine being able to travel from Germany to either Sweden through Denmark or to Finland through the Baltics? Even if one would have to switch trains twice that thought is incredible!
Looks great!😊
Do like everything (excepting delays), especially the standard gauge!
I'm looking forward to taking a ride from 🇩🇪across all the Baltic states and back
now the costs of Rail Baltica only in the territory of Latvia are more than 8 billion euros. Total in the Baltic States from 5.8 to 20 billion
Great video, as always!
as of 2023, the Tallinn-Riga train still exists. The 11 hour journey is from Riga to Tallinn. It is shorter the other direction, and almost worth it on weekends, with a ~6 hour travel time.
The border town of Valga/Valka is worth the couple of hours between the daily trains…if only to take a selfie on the border crossing…it’s a twin town in 2 countries.
Much cheaper and more effective remain 1520mm gauge left in Baltic States and link them with Helsinki via St-Petersburg, and construct special trains which would be able to change the gauge while on route.
I am so looking forward to the completion of the project, as I will soon be moving to the Berlin catchment area indefinitely and will probably live there beyond 2030. I will be the first one on the platform to take the premiere ride to Tallinn. I hope this trip won't be a night journey, as I want to look out of the window the whole way.
About Latvia, I can say that a few years back, I think, a side project to expand end improve the entire rail network by changing to standard gauge was ratified/approved by the Latvian parliament. Unfortunately, it only applies nationwide. I can't say whether the other two Baltic states have something similar in mind.
As someone in finland, the helsinki-tallin tunnel will probably never be a reality. Nobody wants to fund it (except the chinese) and even if it was fully funded by the EU, someone would still find some reason as to why it can't happen, most likely due to the ferry lines.
There used to be Tallinn-Warsaw night train in 90's, with a change of trains on the Poland-Lithuania border..
Also, this December there should be a new service from Vilnius to Riga.
I am also less than optimistic about Rail Baltica - in Latvian segment there are already increases in costs, and not a small ones.
Thanks for letting me know! I had to look it up… there’s not much info on the Balti Express/Ekpresas/Ekspress but there are a few photos. It’s cool history but also sad it’s no longer running.
@@LithuaniaExplained Even more: they installed the SUW-2000 boogie gauge change facility on the border. Trains with such boogies are not unlike Talgo.
And they used such trains. There are such trains in ownership of both Polish and Ukrainian railway. Currently, AFAIK, rotting - pretty much like the brand-new (Swiss) Stadler-made trains in Baku. Eons ago one Ukrainian couch with SUW-2000 boogie de-railed, the investigation took an eternity. It turned out (surprise!) the reason was the "quality" track and maintenance. The SUW-2000 project was initiated by (than-east) German, Polish and (than) Soviet engineers in late 1980-s and the results were proven to be very good. AFAIK, today many freight cars crossing between Poland and Ukraine have these boogies. But the passenger service became the victim of bureaucracy and maybe even corruption.
Two things always bothered me. One is that there is no highway connecting LT and EE, also not PL (but this is changing a bit). And secondly also that there were no high speed trains connecting Baltics. So I am really looking forward to this, especially as there are better flights from Warsaw and Riga compared with Vilnius airport.
In 2024 (after finishing the last short fragment with a bridge in Lomza) you will be able to travel from Warsaw to Lithuanian border on the road type S, which is in fact motorway standard. The railway line between Warszawa and Bialystok is now under intense upgrading. The most problematic is the last part of the railway connection: between Bialystok and Lithuanian border. It was not a priority, taking into consideration the amount of traffic, however, currently the line is expected to be ready in 2027 and its parameters will be higher than it had been initially planned. As you see in Poland the road investment is great. The railway project accelerated between Warszawa and Bialystok but the rest of it still only negotiated.
@greycliffnative road condition and creation is crazy good in Poland now. I'm so jealous
Riding from Warsaw to Helsinki in few hours that would be awsome 🚄💪🇵🇱💪
Love it ❤
Great video! I hope for modernisation of the entire railway system in LTU though, I would like better mobility for people living in the province. I was not surprised that the train station project with the most trees and greenspaces won in LTU though :D typical
What's also outrageous is no direct train route or any direct flight to poland from lithuania what the heck, it's literally right beside you
I really appreciate and like this project. Only one question, why so slow? 234km/h while 300km/h should be easily possible.
The increased technical requirements would make it a lot more costlier to build.
Today, the main cities of Poland are linked by railway transport reaching 160 km/h (99 mph).
Too early. Poland first.
It appears to me that Lithuanians are much more excited about Rail Baltic than Estonians. I guess it makes sense since Poland is so close to you. But I just don't see that there's any demand on the Estonian side to travel anywhere beyond Riga on this train, mainly because of Riga's airport. Do you Lithuanians really need a train that goes to Tallinn? Because last time I was in Vilnius was 5 years ago and don't really see myself heading that way in the near future. I think that it's really hard for Rail Baltic to compete with air travel. Why should I travel to Berlin (for example) by train, if going by plane is going to save me time and money especially. Rail travel is expensive and requires a lot of taxpayer subsidies. Low-cost airlines on the other hand save me loads and I'm not sure about Lithuanians but Estonians are really price-sensitive due to the high cost of living.
Also the tunnel is just someone's fantasy. How would this tunnel ever become feasible if in comparison to the English Channel tunnel, it would be about 2x longer and would connect two countries whose population put together is about 20x smaller than the UK's and France's (also there's Belgium and the Netherlands).
Look on the bright side: Still better than Canada (Remember those BBC lads unable to go from Vancouver to Haida Gwaii)
Doesn't Canada have transcontinental railway connecting major population centres from west to east?
Thanks for the video and for shaming the Baltics ha ha ha. It is a shame I agree. It's a national security and air polution issue.
One of the viewers said Rail Baltica will never be used efficiently enough. I disagree. I'd say, built it and passengers will come.
I think you’re right in this case. A fast, comfortable, and hopefully affordable way to travel to Riga and Tallinn- I think people from Lithuania and other Baltic countries will take the opportunity to explore their own region more.
@@LithuaniaExplained I hope it will work. I have done the Tallinn - Riga by train route myself and it is pretty fun besides the wait in Valga. I am simply skeptical it will happen. Otherwise, people will have to be resorting to buses such as ecolines or flixbus.
The National security is a very important part of this project. If balts exept help during confrontation with russia they have to make it possible for Poles to move soldiers and supplies rapidly
Is the station building really Soviet? It looks much more classical
@@radikusmanov7574 Estonia was also building narrow gauge railways at that time. Also that has nothing to do with my comment so idk why you said that
@@radikusmanov7574 you are clearly not reading my comments
I am from Riga (no longer reside there) and I have always loved trains. In the USSR times they were the way to go. However, knowing the history of corruption in Latvia, especially in construction projects (South Bridge, National Library, etc), I find the target date of 2030 hard to take seriously. A lot of palms to grease in order for this project to hit the tracks ;)
Vismaz nav krievija
At 5:03 for a second I thought you said Gigi Hadid designed it. I keep forgetting their dad is an architect. Anyway, this sounds like a great project
I am a Russian - American, living in Hungary (and Hungarian as well).
The project looks like enormous money waste. Instead the current tracks should be upgraded and SUW-2000 boogies used. The link between Poland and Lithuania has SUW-2000 gauge change facility. Even worse: the Baku - Tbilisi - Ankara passenger train project is stalled because the eternal leader of Azerbaijan wants to support the Azeri airline. In pretension of COVID the inbound land-crossing of Azerbaijan is not possible. Not even for citizens of neighbor countries and Azeri citizens. Obviously because COVID is scared of airplanes but loves cars and trains.
As a result the Stadler-made trains delivered to Azerbaijan are rotting in Baku, probably until the end of our Universe. So we have to either drive from Budapest to Tbilisi via... Baltics(!) or via Istanbul.
It would be great if any involved railway (with a little bit more brain) would buy these trains. I see absolutely no technical roadblock preventing Warszawa - Vilnius - Riga - Tallin night trains which are using the Stadler rolling stock currently rotting in Baku. With somewhat better political environment the Warszawa - Marjampole - Kaliningrad should be possible (as part of Warszawa - Vilnius - Riga - Tallin train). The same time the entire main line should be electrified. There is plenty of AC/DC 1525mm combo e-locomotives to chose from...
Of course, earlier or later the high speed is necessary. But Finland is an other "problem": they will never re-gauge their 1520mm system. And because of that: the planed 1435mm gauge tunnel will lead after Helsinki to nowhereland (and to waste of our money).
very - labai
travel by bus is the perfect option
It's a good undertaking. But it's sad, that it goes mostly throught Riga neighbourhood and do not connect to other populations centers in Latvian regions.
True. If Vilnius wasn’t the capital and largest city then it probably would come here either- since it looks very indirect.
The objective of RB is to connect countries, hence the more direct route. Otherwise it would not be competitive with buses or short flights. The job of connecting population centres inside a country falls to the national railway company.
@@henrikmanitski1061 Sure You can check Lithuanian and Polish routes. Can You say that thous are more direct routes? 😅
🇵🇹👍🏻🇱🇹
Well, hello hello, don't know if it makes sense to comment after almost 2 weeks when the video was uploaded, but still. There are some comments, saying something like "why exactly trains aren't running if infrastructure is in place + nobody really knows". How nobody knows. There used to be those trains running between Vilnius and Riga (and further on both directions) but it became unprofitable, too unprofitable. Just that. Everybody knows that, at least anybody who had some minimal interest in this. Well, it was "back then", so things could change now, and i suspect that now it would be even more unprofitable. Country may decide to re-establish this train connection for the reputation purposes, and this would be political, of course. But genuine reasons are still same - it's unprofitable. When in many other countries it is profitable. So what? Countries are different.
There were literally independently verified studies done that actually analysed that it will be used a lot not only for passenger but also for trade. The economic benefits are literally stated in projects website.
What made them unprofitable? That's what people really are asking. Trains are more energy efficient than buses, right?
Countries are different, and in some of them railroad infrastructure maintainers are less smart than in others, and that can _cause_ train lines to be unprofitable even when from first principles railroad has a competitive advantage.
Do you get what I mean? Inefficient route planning (with pen and paper, in 2023), dumb subsidy allocation to favor buses, dumb infrastructure charges that distort the free market and send it in a downward spiral, etc etc. "Just that" turns out to be a long list of things that can be elucidated and fixed.
@@u1zha Are you addressing me? :)
What bothers you about my comment? Transporting passengers by train has become unprofitable, I may not like it either, but that's how it happened. Freight trains are booming, nobody canceled them.
Now, what about Rail Baltica - I don't question this project, everything is normal there. Also, this is a new railway line, not the old one. The old railway lines are now being reconstructed because they will be part of the Rail Baltic system, but the old lines are not suitable for the planned traffic of new passenger trains. Therefore, Rail Baltic will be a new railway line (at least in Lithuania), it is now published online as a 3D visualization.
To this day, commentators confuse that new rail line with the old rail network. Rail Baltic will not be a renewal of the former passenger train service. Passenger transportation between the countries on the current railways is unprofitable. At least in Lithuania.
Now what about your doubt whether I will be able to understand you? Well, I don't have a certificate from a psychiatrist :) . What else can I say? :)
As for the fact that everything can be adjusted and corrected - yes, of course.
Commentators speculated on the reasons for the cancellation of passenger train services between the countries, and this is a question about the past. That's what I commented on. I did not comment on the future and possibilities. Well, what did I say wrongly or misleadingly? :) I didn't study English, my vocabulary is poor, I don't hide it, but it can be a factor that makes the expression of my mind not quite clear. I have no intention of debating anything, I was just trying to answer the questions of some commenters while keeping the same scope of their questions.
The reason the connection between Baltic Capitals is bad is because of little interest of Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians to travel between their countries. Ir would not be commercially viable. There was a research in 2019 (a poll) and Lithuanians said they could not care less to go to Latvia and vice versa. Foreigners look at Baltic States as at one region and for them such connectivity is important. Not for actual Baltic people. Rail Baltica will fix this issue. But again it mostly will connect Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga and Kaunas with Poland and further with Germany - that's the main aim of it. Not the travel between Baltic capitals. And the buses between Vilnius and Riga today... Who is mainly using them? Have anyone ever took such buses? I did, few times. There are barely any Lithuanians or Latvians on those buses. 99% of pax are Russian-speaking people or Ukrainians who are just transiting Baltics for whatever reason (maybe flying thru Riga airport or sailing with a ferry from Klaipeda or Tallinn). But there are never real Latvians, Lithuanians or Estonians on those buses!
Buses are uncomfortable, I imagine with fast trains Baltic people will travel much more. Also the project analyses was done and calculated all the benefits.
Some of this is a chicken and egg factor. People who don't want to spend 4+ hours on a bus or deal with air travel might travel between Riga and Vilnius for a weekend on a 2-hour journey on a comfortable modern train.
😂
This will be the end of the funky, different style of the Baltics unfortunately. It might be better if they stayed more isolated from the decline of France.
Why is Soviet style building will be the new train station 😅? For me is personally is distasteful. What wrong with me 🤣
For freight this new connection makes sense, transiting goods by trains is usually cheaper than truck, and it simplifies logistics. For passengers this project never made much sense to me. The baltic capitals are tiny in terms of population. But hey, if EU is giving us money, why not dump it into white elephant projects.
If it didn't make sense then we wouldn't have all those buses and passenger cars clogging roads on this route. Sorry but what you're saying just doesn't make sense. Cities well over 500K in size just 300km apart are absolutely ideal for train travel.
@@DS.J you do realise that maintaining bus routes and roads is not comparable to railways? What makes sense for one does not for another. Anyway I do remember reading somewhere that the cost-benefit analysis the europeans made had some major mistakes, even before the delays and the budget overruns were realised. However I'm not against it. But if I were to bet money, I would say that in 2 - 3 years after completion there will be only a token passenger service running, with maybe 1 train per day. But the freight does make sense, we are a transit country after all. (or will be again once europeans welcome the russians back)
@@gairionysten3188Are roads getting maintained for free? Road building and maintenance consume far, FAAAAR more money than any railway ever will.
@@DS.J "Road building and maintenance consume far, FAAAAR more money than any railway ever will." Sorry, but I just cannot take you seriously after you said this... Gave me a good laugh though.
You can just do a quick google and figure out that railway construction costs in europe tend to be somewhere between 3x to 15x the cost of highway. Depends on wether you need to build tunnels, bridges etc. Finding maitenance costs is much harder, but I imagine it being similar multiplicates.
@@gairionysten3188 can I have what you're smoking? lmao
@LithuaniaExplained Congrats on your web site! Just tried to contact you through the contact form there but got an error message (the form was unable to submit). Something’s wrong there...
Hello! Thank you so much for letting me know! I think I fixed it. Feel free to send your inquiry again.
@@LithuaniaExplained Yep, seems it worked this time. Thanks!