Baltic states to procure up to 20 trains for own regional Rail Baltica use
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are purchasing up to 20 regional trains for the Rail Baltica route.
The locos will operate on the Rail Baltica line, solely within their home country and stopping at local stations.
The joint procurement was announced in March and will see Lithuania ordering up to eight trains, Estonia between five and seven, and Latvia up to five. In the latter case, route construction has been hindered, mostly due to funding issues.
A joint session of the Estonian and Latvian government commissions held in Pärnu Friday saw the decision made to extend the tender deadline to mid-June. Originally the joint procurement for the three countries' trains was scheduled to be over by the start of this month.
Estonia's planned regional line would run from Tallinn to Häädemeeste, close to the Latvian border, stopping at over a dozen stations.
"Domestic travel within Estonia, including the international stations in Tallinn and Pärnu, will involve 14 stops altogether. These are intermediate-type trains — they are not high-speed trains, but nor are they like the trains we are used to today, with a maximum speed of 200 kilometers per hour. They will have around 200 seats and are designed for different categories of passenger, including families and people traveling with pets. There will also be a catering zone, which is significant, and certainly more toilet facilities than we have today. At present we have just one [per train], and that is definitely too few," said Elron management board member Märt Ehrenpreis.
The cost of the trains will become clear during the procurement process, Ehrenpreis added. The first regional trains are expected to arrive in Estonia in the second half of 2029 and begin operations at the end of 2030.
Regional and Agriculture Minister Hendrik Johannes Terras said ultimately Estonia's regional train might extend south of the border as far as the Latvian capital.
"What is certainly important regarding the regional trains is that at the moment the Tallinn–Pärnu–Ikla line is planned, but we would like people in the future to be able to travel to Riga using this Estonian regional train as well. We will certainly be discussing this among ourselves," Terras told "Aktuaalne kaamera."
Juris Krastinš, deputy director of the Rail Baltica project department at Latvia's Ministry of Transport, said so far as his country is concerned, train procurement cannot be delayed further and must proceed in parallel with infrastructure construction, with the final number of trains to be determined based on future needs.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Johanna Alvin
Source: 'Akutaalne kaamera'
