Rail Baltica waiting at the station

TALLINN - Estonia says it is ready to open the Tallinn-Riga railway route in 2012, but that it will be up to the Latvians to get this accomplished, says Estonia’s economy ministry transport deputy chancellor Eero Pargmae, reports news agency LETA. “We have talked about it with our Latvian colleagues and have confirmed every time that we would go with [the project],” Parrgmae said.

Estonia will make investments both this and next summer on the Tallinn-Tartu route that should result in trains covering the distance in two hours, and from Tartu to Valga in one hour. “And then it is up to the Latvians. Today the train from Valga to Riga also takes three hours, but in order for it to compete with cars, buses and, why not, planes since the train goes to the center of Riga, the time should be 4.5 hours, and not more,” said Pargmae.

He said that the case of the Tallinn-Berlin rail connection is being discussed right now, with the possibility for switching trains en route. “We are talking about restoring rail traffic to Riga, even with the need to switch trains, and from there to Lithuania. From there people could switch to trains to [continue to] Poland and Germany.”
The Rail Baltica project has stalled because currently Estonia is the only one of the three Baltic States that actively invests in the project; Latvia and Lithuania have postponed investments due to the economic crisis, he said. Pargmae pointed out that Rail Baltica development consists of three stages: first, to bring the capacity on the current route to Tartu up to speeds of 120 km/h; then, investments are needed to raise the speed on the same route to 160 km/h; lastly, to make the switch to the standard European rail width.

Estonia’s Euro-commissioner Siim Kallas, who is hoping for the post of European Transport Commissioner, said that one of the reasons why the Rail Baltica project is lagging is that “it isn’t ambitious enough.” Kallas said during a hearing at the European Parliament, when asked about the future of Rail Baltica, that railway transport is one of his priorities and that the train traffic of the Baltic States has to be linked with the rest of the European rail network.

“The Rail Baltica project reflects the ambitions of member states connected to it. I will try to put pressure on [the other states] to move forward with the project and raise the ambition level of Rail Baltica,” said Kallas.
Kallas acknowledged that many people consider the project as too expensive, since it would mean that railway tracks in the Baltic States would have to be replaced, as they currently don’t fit with the gauge-width used in the rest of Europe.