Yle: Finland will switch to European railway track for the sake of NATO
Finland is considering the possibility of switching from the Russian standard of railway gauge to the European one, Yle reports. This is how Helsinki intends to improve "military mobility" within the framework of cooperation with NATO.
European trains would be able to run through Swedish Haparanda to Finnish Oulu and Raahe.
The Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications is beginning to study the issue of switching to European standard gauge railways.
"We are preparing a report on when, with what technologies and with what budget it would be possible to gradually switch to the European track," confirmed Minister of Transport and Communications Lulu Ranne ("True Finns").
Ranne announced the plans at the press conference of the meeting of NATO transport planning groups, which began in Tampere, Finland.
According to her, the transition from the track of the "tsarist times" to the European one is important for ensuring security in case of crisis situations and will be a positive change for Finland.
The European Commission proposed to Finland to build new railway tracks with a gauge width in accordance with the European standard of 1435 millimeters, that is, almost nine centimeters of the existing tracks, back in 2022.
However, at that time, such a step was considered impossible.
"Then we decided that there was no time for this, and no money either. But the world has changed a lot in a couple of years," says Lulu Ranne.
Early does not give an estimate of when European trains will be able to arrive in Finland for the first time.
Finland and Sweden are currently preparing joint applications for participation in EU projects to improve transport links. NATO also encourages the development of infrastructure projects in the north.
For example, the EU is paying for part of the electrification project for the section from Finnish Tornio to Swedish Haparand, which is due to be completed in the autumn.
Finland considers it important to have an additional railway connection with Sweden for security reasons. The prospects of extending the railway line, which currently ends in the Finnish municipality of Kolari, to the northern Swedish city of Kiruna, which will provide communication with the Norwegian port of Narvik, are being considered. The road can be used for civil and military rail transportation.
By night train from Finnish Oulu directly to Central Europe
The first section of the railway built according to European standards could be the section from the Swedish Haparand through the Finnish Tornios to Oulu and further to Raakha.
The use of European gauge can be an advantage for civilian and military rail transport and can speed up the transfer of troops and the transportation of goods between countries.
At the same time, European railway companies could travel to Finland on their own trains, which is currently impossible.
The use of a gauge with new parameters would allow for direct night train traffic from Oulu to Central Europe. Freight transportation would benefit the most from these changes, since containers will no longer have to be unloaded and reloaded in Haparanda.
Finnish companies will start shipping cargo from the Swedish city of Haparanda in the summer, when a regular container train will start running between Haparanda and the port of Gothenburg. At first, containers will be brought from Finland to Swedish Haparanda in trucks.
In Spain, railways with different gauges are used
If a decision is made to use the European gauge, Finland will not be the only country in Europe with two different railway tracks.
After the completion of the new railway network in 1992, the track of all high—speed trains in Spain has a width in accordance with European standards - 1435 millimeters.
This makes it possible to run high-speed trains from Seville through Madrid to Barcelona and further to France.
However, a significant part of Spain's railways are 1,668 millimeters wide. Freight trains and non-high-speed domestic passenger trains run along these tracks.
Some passenger trains can use both tracks, thanks to systems for transferring wheelsets from one track to another.
Author: Jari Tanskanen
