The Baltic countries are raising the middle finger to Putin and switching their railway from the old Russian width to European width, and building an enormous railway all the way from Helsinki in Finland to Warsaw in Poland, where it connects to the existing European railway system.
249 kph means 3½ hour rides between European capitals — using clean electrical energy thereby helping our climate too.
@randahl despite the long history of trying now Baltics have a strong incentive - this railway is now not only for tourists and businesses, but for army logistics including Finland, Baltics and Poland too. This might help to finally reach agreement between parties.
I am waiting for Polish section of Rail Baltica to be finally decided.
The town I was born and lived for first 20 years of my life waits to see how it will go. The last train there was about 20 years ago and it looks like Rail Baltica will miss it by something like 20 km.
No wonder young people do not want to live there anymore.
@randahl they are not. Rail Baltica is a single, newly built line while the rest of the grid stays the same and well-connected to Putin's rail. There is not even a discussion that it might be changed (at least in Latvia) as the railway experts suppose that East is the only viable direction for Latvian rail
@randahl yes, 1435 quite a lot narrower and the difference is noticeable. I ride trains almost weekly. And these days preferred when traveling. You can go to your local trainstation and listen up. Then maybe watch a video or goto Estonia or Finland to see and hear 1520 and 1524 in action.
@randahl Only to think that 100y ago one could get on Nord Express train in Riga and get to Berlin or Paris. All this was shattered by occupation, 100y later we are not there yet.
This is payback for history like WWI and WWII. Stalin made a pact with Germany, which paved the way to its invasion of Poland in 1939. Hitler intended to wipe Poland from existence.
@randahl
Helsinki: the public tunnel project is effectively dead. The private project was to be funded by Chinese money. Not much going on there, either. Ferries between Tallinn and Helsinki, single track 80kph rail to the cargo port only.
Rest of Finland: russian gauge. Just being locally compatible with European rolling stock would make it worthwhile to convert, IMO, but no funds for that investment exist.
@randahl
Yes, and there have been a couple of successful initiatives, but rail investment budgetary considerations are class of their own. There's a project for upgrading Helsinki-Turku, but that's legacy gauge etc.
NATO likely to have bigger impact - starting north. A logistics route Norway-Sweden-Finland sounds like something that could have a chance of happening..
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@randahl using a standard gauge rail has many other benefits insomuch as many different vendors build trains to such standards.
BART, which is, arguably, the "best" mass transit system in the San Francisco Bay Area, uses a proprietary gauge rail.
It's so problematic as a result. The trains and passenger cars themselves, are manufactured out of state and imported, specifically to BART's specifications. The rails themselves, are notoriously noisy even with maintenance to try to reduce the wear and tear.
Meanwhile, Japan and China are full steam ahead with highspeed maglev rail systems, and Japan's already extant shinkansen is amazingly reliable and safe.
Californians did vote for highspeed rail with Prop 1A in 2008 which even mentioned maglev and was supposed to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles.
It's 2024 and not a single mile of track has been laid. The budget has basically been spent and it's far less ambitious than SF <-> LA and no mention of maglev anymore either. ;(