Two competing rail companies plan to open St. Petersburg route

TALLINN - Two train operators to compete to launch traffic this spring in the Tallinn-St. Petersburg route, LETA/Eesti Päevaleht reports.

One of the companies is GoRail, which operates the Tallinn-Moscow route now and the other one Skinest Reisiveod, which belongs to railway businessman Oleg Ossinovski.

“We will earn from renting the train, Russians will conduct the operating business,” explained Ossinovski. “We plan the first trip in May, when spring national holidays start in Russia, to get clients used to travelling by our train,” said Skinest Reisiveod director Lauri Reinhold, adding that initially the train travels 6 hours and 20 minutes but it is possible to travel in 4 hours too.

GoRail intends to make a decision in a month on reopening the St. Petersburg route they operated in 2007-2008. “We have the train for this route but it cannot be ruled out that we start using a similar diesel train that travels between Tallinn and Tartu,” said GoRail board member Alar Pinsel, adding that they are considering now whether to operate the route themselves or find an outside partner.

Currently no regular passenger trains operate on the Tallinn-St. Petersburg route