Governments edge towardsconsensus on Rail Baltica

摘要

Look at a railway map of the Baltic countries and it's immediately clear that the network is configured for traffic heading east towards St Petersburg, a reflection of the the system's origins in the 19th century, when the region was under Russian rule. With the break-up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia gained independence, and in 2004 the three states joined the European Union (EU). With their 1520mm gauge and the lack of direct links between their capitals, the region's railways continue to look eastwards for most of their business, but they remain relatively isolated from the markets of the west. This is an issue that has concerned governments in the region ever since they gained independence. In 1994 discussions began on converting the existing route between the Polish-Lithuanian border, Lithuania's second city Kaunas, the Latvian capital Riga, and the Estonian capital Tallinn to dual-gauge. With the indirect nature of the route, these proposals were aimed primarily at freight traffic but Rail Baltica, as it became known, subsequently developed into two projects-the dual-gauge conversion, known as Rail Baltica 1, and Rail Baltica 2, a new-build mixed-traffic railway providing a direct link from Poland to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.